MADUMEELI

Average Archaeologist: Higgins Armory Museum

averagearchaeologist:

Hey Guys, at the end of the year the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA will be closing because of financial reasons. This museum is a wonderful place for adults and children to learn about arms and armor of the past. The museum also teaches medieval combat classes and courses on medieval…

Posted 1 month ago — 30 notes

The Green Wolf: soloontherocks: Any other fluffy neopagans want to say stupid...

dewognatos:

artichokecoke:

dewognatos:

artichokecoke:

gram-volsung:

soloontherocks:

gram-volsung:

soloontherocks:

gram-volsung:

ceryneian-hind:

soloontherocks:

ceryneian-hind:

soloontherocks:

gram-volsung:

ceryneian-hind:

spiritscraft:

dewognatos:

ceryneian-hind:

thegreenwolf:

ceryneian-hind:

thegreenwolf:

soloontherocks:

Any other fluffy neopagans want to say stupid presumptuous shit about Gods without having any idea what they’re talking about?

Sure, we can talk inaccurate historical factoids, like someone saying “OMG HECATE IS THE BEST HERMAPHRODITIC NORSE LOVE DEITY EVAR!” But I…

Wait, who said that deities will smite others, or that the Gods themselves were mad? Did I miss this somewhere?

Presumptuous things about the gods + pretty unhappy looking Poseidon. And in general a lot of the conflicts over “correct practice” tend to, at their core, boil down to “do this/don’t do this or you’ll anger such and such deity”.  Just wanted to mention that it seems the humans are the ones who get more apparently upset over this than anyone else.

Well, no one was really saying that a deity was angry. xD I think Solo was using a photo of Poseidon because they’re a Hellenic Polytheist, so they could have Hellenic-themed meme for this purpose. People tend to snatch a lot up out of history and apply new things to them that were never there in the first place, like you mentioned with the Hekate thing, and also like we mentioned with whole Horned God thing a moment ago. We’re standing at this at an academic point, because our religion is based on pre-Roman practices in ancient Greece, and how they went about things.

So with things being passed around earlier, that Cernunnos = Pan = Faunus = The Horned God. This, to a hard polytheists and especially recon-minded people or people that follow recon-orientated religions, that doesn’t really sit well with us, they are all respectfully separate entities. Cernunnos is Gaulish, Pan is Greek, Faunus is Roman, etc etc. So, really, mixing them all up feels problematic to me, especially when people are trying to find appropriate information on them via historical text and a lot of new age-y stuff pops up all over and says they’re the same things. I don’t mind UPG and eclecticism, at all, but mashing them together when they have nothing in common, not even the same cultures… I find that rather annoying. 

If someone told a Greek their god was the same as a Gaulish one, they’d probably pitch a fit. 

So, that’s all, on my end here. I don’t like people cherry-picking things from history and smashing it all together into one big thing, it just ruffles my fur. xD

^^^^^

Huh strange thing, the Romans did say their gods were the same as Gaulish gods. Will wonders never cease.

Romans =/= Greeks

Please try again.

Allow me to take a swing at this.  You seem to think that the ancient world existed in a state of pristine isolation, and that there was no cultural exchange at all.  Rather than simply tell you that you’re suffering from premature enlightenment, and that you’re just wrong I’m going to actually explain why your whinging and complaining about “appropriation” (as though you actually own the gods, what arrogance btw) is incorrect using actual evidence.

There is this artifact called the Gundestrup Cauldron, it is a large kettle made of silver sheets that have various scenes depicted on the outside.  One scene in particular is the very famous image of The Horned God sitting cross-legged holding some armlet-thingy in one hand and a snake in the other, I’m sure someone knows what I’m talking about.  You see, the object was created using minerals that scientists have determined came from some part of Celtic-controlled northern France or western Germany.  What is really interesting, though, is that the craftsmanship is distinctly THRACIAN (Thrace being between Greece and Asia Minor) even though the images themselves are only slightly influenced by Thracian culture.  Dating the object places it within the time of the La Tene culture.  The La Tene are arguably Celts/Gauls whose culture rose out of a previous Celtic culture after an influx of Greek and Etruscan influences, and they controlled territory from Ireland all the way to Galatia in Asia Minor (they sacked Rome on their way East).  It was found in a bog in Denmark.

Also, I can’t help but laugh about your insistence about the separation of Greece and Rome.  You clearly haven’t studied much Roman history.  Have you ever looked at the busts of the emperors?  Ya ever notice how, aside from Nero, they’re all clean-shaven until Hadrian?  That’s because around the time Hadrian became emperor Greek culture was THE PINNACLE of what educated society valued.  Learning Greek was something that all the nobles did, read about Marcus Aurelius some time.  Emperors wear Greek-influenced beards for a hundred years.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that your arguments are empty (you literally say nothing of value, you just shout and say “DO THIS OR I’M GONNA GET MAD RAWR!”), and you all sound like a bunch of infants once someone who actually has studied the history of the ancient world shows up to set the record straight.  You cannot say that you’re okay with syncretic/eclectic belief in one breath and then proceed to condemn appropriation in the next - it does not make you sound like a reasonable or sane human being.  Alexander the Great was declared the son of Zeus-Amun because to the Egyptians Zeus and Amun (who was Amun-Re, another ghestalt deity) occupied enough of the same domains of influence to be one deity with different names/guises.  The list goes on and on.  SHUT UP YOU ARE STUPID AND YOU MAKE MY BRAIN HURT.

Let me stop you right there. The Gundestrup Cauldron depicts CERNUNNOS, not the Horned God.

Oh, and you want to mention Alexander?

Sweetie, it’s cute that you think Hellenic culture and Hellenistic culture are the same thing.

What the fuq did I just read? Did he miss the point in that were are Hellenic polytheists, or something? You realize Hellenic religion is a study of pre-Roman practices, right? Pre-Roman history? Have fun yelling. It totally proves you know so much and understand what is being talked about.

Please try again.

Also, Alexander was declared the son of Zeus-Ammon because he was fucking Alexander the Great and nobody wanted to argue with him. Let’s be realistic. Immediately after he died there was a lovely outpouring of “lol fuck that guy.”

Lolol. Clearly we’re idiots because someone is being presumptuous in assuming we don’t know Rome popped up later. I don’t have to worship in a Greco-Roman style, because that’s not what Hellenic polytheism is, that’s not the point of a revival of an old religion. Y’know, one that’s Greek, not Roman. I don’t see what any of that shit had to do with Hellenic Greece. I know plenty of eclectics that worship separate pantheons and don’t combine them, also there’s a limit onto how I view syncretism, and it depends on if that’s how the original culture depicted their gods.

Not new age shit.

More wine, please.

You all missed the point of what I was saying because your heads are so firmly planted up your rears that you cannot read properly.  You argue that these cultures are all distinct, unrelated, and that they cannot have deities which overlap.  My argument was designed to clearly express that the ancient world existed in a state of fairly constant cultural exchange, and the Alexander point was to emphasize that even the ancients practiced their religions in a way that allowed for one god to be identified using more than one name or appearance.

Yeah, but don’t mind my argument that has actual evidence.  Just go on ahead, yuck up your usual no-value tumblr bullshit and congratulate yourselves on how hopelessly ignorant and obsessively obnoxious you are.  The fact that the ancients often identified one of their gods with one of the gods of another culture, that’s not important at all.  Nope, just go on yelling about “fluffy” pagans even though you all clearly don’t know anything, and don’t possess the capacity to even debate someone.  Isn’t the internet wonderful?  You can pretend to be a hardass that knows something, and ignore people who have university degrees in this shit.

You have university degrees in Hellenic study?

Show me.

Why?  Because then you’ll actually take the time to calmly read what I’ve put forward?  As if you would have any reason to believe me if I showed you anyway.  My degree is a red herring, you don’t have any intention of changing your mind.  You still don’t even understand what I’m trying to tell you.  You are sitting there blowing up my dash with your supposedly superior form of hard polytheist worship, and you are condemning people who have the ability to see beyond your pointless specifics.

Good for you, you believe that Pan has to be this half-goat dude and that Cernnunos has to be part deer.  Odin can’t be involved because he doesn’t grow horns, he’s just depicted wearing a helmet with them sometimes.  Everyone knows that the gods always appear the same way, right?  The Horned God cannot possibly be any of the above because he’s just an invention of Gardner, right?  All the Pagan gods have to come from Pre-Christian times because we all know the gods aren’t really active now, and new ones can’t come around because those are just crazy people who want to think they’re special.  Gods can’t reveal themselves in places, at different times, in different ways to different people, right?

For crying out loud, deities are not possessions that you can monopolize.  Are syncretic practitioners coming into your places of worship and forcing you to embrace Pan-Cernnunos-Faunus-Horned God-Odin?  No?  THEN SHUT UP.  You hard polytheists are so obnoxious sometimes, you remind of freaking Christians with how bossy and obsessive you are with controlling people.  Get over the immature kids that don’t know what they’re talking about, and practice your religion without having to be offended that someone chose a different path that included a god in your pantheon.

Pay the fuck attention. How many times have I said there’s nothing wrong with syncretism? Nothing at all.

What there is a problem with is corrupting the accounts of the gods (like claiming Hekate is really a maiden/mother/crone goddess) and openly lying about what is historically accurate (like claiming Wicca is an ancient religion).

Learn to fucking read.

Look, I’m not gonna argue that there is fuckery going on with people still talking about Wicca as some ancient religion.  People need to read Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down the Moon” or something that sets that record straight.  What is contradictory in your argumentation is that you don’t mind syncretism, but follow up immediately with the Hekate triple goddess example.  Some syncretic practitioners model Hekate as a triple goddess in their spiritual practice, so what is it that activates the knee-jerk reaction of so many people to get up in arms about appropriation?  I see posts and arguments like the one we’re knee-deep in right now almost every day on my dash or the tags, and when I talk with these people on your side I am always surprised to hear them say they have no problem with eclectic/syncretic practices.  Do these people not have the right to express their beliefs about deity because they don’t comport with your own?  I mean, seriously, explain to me where the distinction kicks in so I can stop having to deal with this headache.

PS to whoever complains about my font - Some people have a consistent posting style.  Deal.

Soooo, this is me just sort of putting my two-cents in here.

Religion, especially ancient religion, grows and changes over time. From a scholarly standpoint, Odin and Dagda are very similar in their aspects (Allfathers, Magic, Mystery, Law, Perfect Knowledge etc.) They represent archetypes. Then again, I’m a strange fusion of transcendentalist and Druid. Having studied for a long while on this stuff, I’d have to be a complete moron to say that cultures never traded off ideas, including Gods. Hell, there are carvings of Roman and Gaulish Gods sitting together, and there were indeeed fusion Gods. Logically, I am forced to view Gods by their aspects rather than their culture, because I believe that the archetype transcends the culture that used it. To me, Odin/Dagda may very well be the same energy/person and so might Morrigan/Hecate. I would never claim to know the exact mechanics of the cosmos or its energies—I feel I would be presuming far more than I could claim to know. As a human, all I can do is look at the facts presented by history and archeology and conclude that there was WAY too much exchange going on for it to be so segregated. Also, someone said that the Gaulish and the Romans/Greeks Gods weren’t the same or similar …

WAT

Yes, you’re referrring to the interpretatio romana. Let’s talk about that for a bit.

Any and all deity carvings and and the vast majority of deity inscriptions from Gaul come from the Gallo-Roman period. This was the period of time after Gaul was conquered and significantly Romanized. We are talking about a century after the Gallic War. Latin had become a common language throughout Gaul by this point, and Roman culture had more or less overtaken Gaulish culture. While this syncretization was initially forced by the conquering Romans, it took a very lively native character.

HOWEVER. Examination of Gallo-Roman religion shows a very interesting case of syncretism. Syncretism in Gaul seems to have been both literal syncretism—where aspects of two gods and faiths were combined to make something distinct and unique to the syncretic culture and religion—and a form of syncretism where native gods were referred to by Roman names with no actual intention of them BEING Roman gods. A good example of this can be seen in the Jupiter Columns where a seemingly Roman image of Iuppiter reveals, on closer inspection, a thoroughly native myth, where “Iuppiter” rides a horse, crushes giants and snakes beneath his hooves, and wields the wheel of Taranis, native Gaulish god of thunder and military. It seems fairly clear that the god intended here is NOT a primal sky-father, nor is he the Roman Iuppiter, but a Gallo-Roman syncretic Taranis Iuppiter or simply Taranis himself under a non-native epithet. When viewing Gallo-Roman religious art, this cultural context must be kept in mind.

That is exactly what I was referring to, and I am quite glad to hear you are so learned on these things. I think something you have said hits the nail on the head, for any discussion that focuses on cultures past. ” … cultural context must be kept in mind.” I’ve seen this when studying the differences in folk tales of the Irish and the Welsh. Many of their Gods were similar, but were very distinct based on the culture of the area and times, as were the situations in the stories they told. I think the worst thing for us lot is Christianity. I hate to say this, as I know many a very kind Christian, but the bias of their literature has not been good to the preservation of ancient cultures, and the pool of information (I feel) was further tainted by the British Antiquarians of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Thank you! Yes! Cultural context is the most important thing in discussion of historical religions, and the problem with many discussions in neopaganism stems from completely throwing context out the window. :D

I have to say that I really like seeing things like this on my dash. Not the name calling, but I suppose most people have a strong emotional connection to their gods, so it’s hard not to. I just like the debate. I don’t think a religion is worth following if you can’t stand it being challenged.

(via dewognatos-deactivated20130511)

Posted 4 months ago — 90 notes