How important is community?

oblivion - Last Tuesday at 8:07 PM
what would you say if i said one of the problems of polytheism is that if you are in communion with the gods then other practitioners don't matter a huge amount, and if you aren't then all the community on earth is no replacement

hrafnblod - Last Tuesday at 8:08 PM
Oh this is serapeum not r/pagan
okay I'll tackle this after I've slept them
instead of now

December 29, 2017
oblivion - Today at 5:17 PM
anyone have any opinion

hrafnblod - Today at 5:17 PM
Derp. I forgot to come back to this.
I would say "I think that's dumb."
It's two different things.
Interacting with the gods isn't a full replacement for being part of a community with people.
Being in a community isn't a replacement for interacting with the gods.
Neither invalidates the other and none of it has anything to do with polytheism specifically

oblivion - Today at 5:22 PM
i'd say the former is pretty much the entire spiritual raison d'etre for polytheism(edited)

hrafnblod - Today at 5:23 PM
Explain.

oblivion - Today at 5:23 PM
if you aren't attempting to have some kind of relationship with the gods, why would you even polytheism?

hrafnblod - Today at 5:24 PM
That doesn't in any way address what I said.
I didn't say either is inessential, I said neither replaces the other.
It's not an either-or situation.

oblivion - Today at 5:26 PM
why does community matter other than just a cultural accretion from a time when the community in which you existed was inescapable

hrafnblod - Today at 5:26 PM
A lot of polytheistic traditions are about reinforcing community/society. Communion with the gods doesn't just invalidate community somehow.

oblivion - Today at 5:26 PM
i never said it did

hrafnblod - Today at 5:26 PM
Society is necessary. Especially in the context of mediterranean religions

oblivion - Today at 5:26 PM
it just seems kind of
tangental
inessental

hrafnblod - Today at 5:27 PM
Not really.
The preservation of social systems is like
A major crux of Kemetic religion rofl
Roman too
They were state religions
They're civic by their very nature

Fritz the Daimon🌞 - Today at 5:27 PM
Egyptian religion would be very different if the Egyptian society's circumstances were different. Plus keep in mind religion is pretty fluid.
It can and will change due to societal circumstances.

hrafnblod - Today at 5:28 PM
Describing communion as tangential betrays a complete misunderstanding of these religions from the ground up.
community*

Fritz the Daimon🌞 - Today at 5:28 PM
Society is basically necessary
Since it basically is a driving force for religion

oblivion - Today at 5:28 PM
sure... but in their primordial arising, they hinged on people recognising the gods , before they were martialed to the service of maintaining the state(edited)

hrafnblod - Today at 5:29 PM
It's still about society.

Fritz the Daimon🌞 - Today at 5:29 PM
Your point just proves it's about society, Oblivion

hrafnblod - Today at 5:29 PM
Society is meant to be maintained in Kemeticism, that is a central aspect of ma'at
Like, it's hard to actually quantify how wrong you are rofl. You have climbed out onto the hood of your mad max contraption that runs on wrong and are spitting NOS into the intake

Fritz the Daimon🌞 - Today at 5:31 PM
with a guitarist hitting all the wrong notes?

oblivion - Today at 5:32 PM
if the gods exist, and an individual can recognise them, i think the emphasis on community is a reconstructionist mistep

hrafnblod - Today at 5:33 PM
If the religions were focused on society and we are reconstructionists then ignoring that aspect of them is a misstep
It is no a "reconstructionist misstep" to pay mind to a central aspect of the religion
not*
That argument is literally "It is a reconstructionist misstep to reconstruct"
Again, it bears repeating

oblivion - Today at 5:34 PM
i think in absense of a compelling agruement for it's necessity, it's hauling a boulder that will crush you

babble about meaning

Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:36 PM
something the angel of chokmah told me
is that you(we) are all created in the image of the ALMIGHTY FATHER and nothing is separate AND everything is light
so if everyone is like god they only do what they think is good or beneficial for them
oblivion - Today at 9:38 PM
(we) are all created in the image of the chaos, everything is distinct and everything is darkness
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:38 PM
same difference
Arstris - Today at 9:38 PM
We are nothing, and meaning gives us form
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:38 PM
shit is shit
and a cow is a cow
oblivion - Today at 9:38 PM
form gives us meaning
form comes first
Arstris - Today at 9:39 PM
Maybe
oblivion - Today at 9:39 PM
then we try to squeeze meaning into it
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:39 PM
meaning is before form(edited)
meaning and form are the same time
Arstris - Today at 9:39 PM
I have an interesting thought
If we stopped thinking at all, somehow ceased all activity, we would lose all meaning, and feel no form
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:40 PM
there would be no experience of time(edited)
and thus no movement
oblivion - Today at 9:41 PM
why would meaning preceed the seeking of meaning?
Arstris - Today at 9:41 PM
No form is congruent to no meaning
oblivion - Today at 9:41 PM
meaning only exists to satisfy the seeker
Arstris - Today at 9:41 PM
Well, what are you if you have no meaning?
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:42 PM
the meaning itself
Arstris - Today at 9:42 PM
I mean, sure your body is still there, but are you?
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:42 PM
and thus god
amen\
Arstris - Today at 9:43 PM
Is it your body anymore?
Well, it wasn't at all in the first place, but humour me
oblivion - Today at 9:43 PM
does a frog have meaning?
does it have meaning to itself?
it has impulses
they aren't the same as meaning
you don't need meaning to exist
meaning comes last, if it comes at all
Arstris - Today at 9:44 PM
The frog can feel stimuli(edited)
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:44 PM
you need to give meaning to be god
Arstris - Today at 9:44 PM
it gives meaning to those
its internal cognitive processes as well
oblivion - Today at 9:45 PM
i think we need to define meaning
Arstris - Today at 9:46 PM
Without those, where is the frog?
Is the frog the body, or the soul?
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:46 PM
siri, whats the meaning of meaning?
QualityKontrol - Today at 9:46 PM
@oblivion does a blonde have meaning?? Or do they miss the meaning over 500000 times?
🙏1
oblivion - Today at 9:46 PM
is there meaningful meaning and meaningless meaning?
🤔1
Arstris - Today at 9:46 PM
Yeah
QualityKontrol - Today at 9:47 PM
Does memeing have meaning¿¿¿
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:47 PM
trivial convolution
QualityKontrol - Today at 9:47 PM
Is being mean, meaningful?
oblivion - Today at 9:47 PM
if a god destroys you and everyone you know in a cataclysmic event, just because it is in the gods character, not because of any particular animus... that could be called meaning, but is it meaningful to those destroyed?(edited)
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:47 PM
:saturn:
oblivion - Today at 9:48 PM
or is it arbitary?
Arstris - Today at 9:48 PM
Language is too simple to define meaning
Aesza's Impregnable Donger - Today at 9:48 PM
thats impossible in my delusion
oblivion

academics and paganism

I find modern academics are increasingly doing a better job of looking at ancient religions as they were rather than trying to fit them into a christian framework.

There are plenty of "unlikey" theories that provide useful understandings. Depends if we are using the academics view of "unlikely" or actually unlikely. Academics tend to class things as unlikely if they can't be proven or there isn't a mass of material supporting them -and- they personally don't want to support it, either due to their own prejudices or to safeguard their academic standing

I view the existence of the gods as central, and where academic sources help us understand how the gods were apprehended and interacted with (at whatever point in history) then they are useful
by ' looking at ancient religions as they were rather than trying to fit them into a christian framework'

I mean understanding that there was never an inflexible orthodoxy that the dream/goal of the scholar is to uncover... the final perfect pagan "bible"

at least in regard to what can broadly be classed as 'western' pre-christian religions

2 exercises

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quick asshole, zap weak sauce xenomorphs every day. cut russian flags, vote tory, grab big yam hashbrowns. now understand just magistrates invoke koala operatives largely passively.

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put onions in upper yorkshire terraces reliably each week. queen lynda kills jihadi hooligans gracefully for dionysus. some are men, nightly burnt visiting crumbling xeric ziggurats.

John of inverkeithing

During Easter in 1282 in Scotland, the parish priest of Inverkeithing led young women in a dance in honor of Dionysus. He danced and sang at the front, carrying a representation of the phallus on a pole. He was killed by a Christian mob later that year.

Maxwell, Herbert (1913). The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346. Glasgow, Scotland: Glasgow : J. Maclehose. p. 29-30.