HELLENISTIC VISION

By Bruce Nelson, Eleusis Publishing

"The first thing we ought to preach is reverence toward the gods. For it is fitting that we should perform our service to the gods as though they were themselves present with us and beheld us, and though not seen by us could direct their gaze, which is more powerful than any light, even as far as our hidden thoughts."
~Julian

One of the most remarkable events in the history of the Classical world was the ascension to the throne in 360 CE of Flavius Claudius Julianus, known as the Emperor Julian. In his brief reign he sought to strengthen the Roman empire, which had suffered under almost fifty years of Christian dominance, by restoring the ancient spiritual foundations that had nourished it for over a thousand years. His legacy and vision as a true spiritual and temporal ruler is still an inspiring testament to the strength and brilliance of the Hellenic religious tradition.

Julian is of special significance because he was one of the first and most enthusiastic *converts* to Hellenism. For someone in his position, a potential heir to the Emperor, to pursue the ancient religion at that time was quite dangerous and required a great amount of courage. It was also a stunning refutation to the Christian myth that their ascent to power was based on a higher morality and a deeper spiritual vision rather than on an aggressive willingness to use religion and spirituality as a means to achieve political control.

Christian leaders took quick advantage of their official status as decreed by Constantine in 313 CE to expand their influence. By Julian's time, they had become the state cult, and were using their powers to destroy with equal fervor both traditional religious rites and dissenting Christian practices. Akin to the Bolsheviks of our own era, the Christians at that time were a small but well organized radical elite who exploited the anxiety of a country in transition to seize power for themselves. And like other revolutionary movements would do after them, the Christians ruthlessly sought the elimination of opposition, both within and outside their ranks, while imposing on the populace an unprecedented spiritual conformity whose tenets were carefully crafted to ensure that political and spiritual authority remained concentrated.

As a child, Julian experienced in an immediate and visceral way the essential evil present in the new order when his family was murdered on the order of Constantine II. His discovery of the ancient religious traditions became for him a stunning counter vision to the atheism and fanaticism that had come to pass for spirituality. At that time, the principle school of ancient philosophy was what scholars have come to call Neoplatonism - a synthesis of Platonic wisdom with strong devotional and ritual practice. Julian was able to learn deeply both the philosophical teachings and ritual practices. He participated in the Mysteries and his love and devotion to the ancient gods was unparalleled. As the Greek rhetorician Libanius described Julian's conversion,

"He met with people who were steeped with the learning of Plato, and he learned of gods and spirits and the real creators and saviors of the whole universe; he gained knowledge of the nature of the soul, its origin and destination, the causes of its glory and elevation, and of its ruin and debasement: he discovered its bondage and its freedom, and the means to avoid the one and attain the other, and he washed a sour story clean with sweet discourse, casting out all that earlier nonsense and in in it's place introducing into his soul the beauty of truth."

This vision of a restored Hellenism and a true love of the gods guided Julian through numerous dangers and challenges. When he became Emperor of Rome he immediately sought to bring to life this vision of spiritual renewal, a restoration of the balance between Hellenism and Romanitas that would bring peace and prosperity both to the state and to it's Citizens. As Plymnia Athanassiadi expressed it in her book, "Julian an Intellectual Biography",

"For him true paideia (learning) means an understanding of the Graeco-Roman cultural tradition in all its aspects and implications; only through this knowledge can man hope to begin to know himself, and thus ultimately be led to union with the divine. Like all truly great human achievements, Graeco-Roman culture is for Julian the product of divine revelation...Thanks to the revelation of Apollo-Helios the Greeks developed an admirable religious, philosophical and artistic tradition which their kinsmen, the Romans, were to perfect by enriching it with the best political constitution the world had known... For Julian, the sanctity of Greek culture was ensured by the fact that Apollo-Helios, the patron of culture and the god of truth, acted as the teacher of humanity and, in special cases, could also bestow his divine grace through instant illumination."

Julian himself had experienced this illumination. He discovered not only that the Classical tradition was a continuous and living spiritual force, but that the gods *are* eternal and even if forgotten by a confused and disgraced populace, are still present and willing to share their blessings with those who recognize and honor them. Julian's vision was one of renewal - he worked to train priests, to rebuild temples, to reinstitute ancient rites. He did not shy away from debate, discussion and teaching, and his two most spiritually profound works, "Hymn to Helios" and "Hymn to the Mother of the Gods" are still unsurpassed as theurgic expositions reflecting the highest spirit of devitional Neoplatonism. In Libanius words,

"He divided his life into care for the state and devotion to the altars, associating with the gods in countless initiations, mourning for our desecrated temples, when mourning was all that he could do, but then, when the opportunity came, taking up arms for them. He restored the ruined temples to their places, and he restored their ritual back to them and all others: he brought back, as it were from exile, sacrifice and libation, and renewed the festivals that had fallen into abeyance. He did away with the danger that was attached to the worship of higher powers, never allowed his intellect to be diverted from his consideration of the gods, dispersed the mist that enveloped so many, and would have done the same for us all, had he not been untimely taken from us."

In 363 CE Julian was killed while leading the Roman army against it's longtime enemy, Persia. Christian leaders rejoiced at this turn of events and renewed their assault on the ancient faith with increased fervor and intensity. Yet this destruction was not without consequence. Scarcely fifteen years later, the demoralized Roman army would suffer its greatest defeat ever at the battle of Adrianople. Thirty years later Rome itself was sacked and Western civilization was plunged into a spiritual dark age from which we are only now beginning to emerge. In it's wake not only did we lose our ancient spiritual traditions, but Christianity, a religion ostensibly born in love of the divine, would make martyrs of millions of men, women and children in Europe and the new world, even forcing it's hatred against the earth itself.

And yet it didn't have to be that way. Julian through his life and teachings presented a compelling alternative, one with respect for the past and hope for the future, a path not of persecution and destruction. His conversion is the one our society still needs to make, perhaps now more than ever. For the way to harmony is the same as always - reference for the gods. With their grace, the West having neared the end of history, may yet remember what it knew at it's beginning. http://www.juliansociety.org/JuliansLegacy.htm

Julian the Apostate was one big time Jew-lover. Just to piss off the Christian leadership he stopped many of the persecutions against Jews, punished Christians who advocated measures to be taken against the Jews. He even admitted to Jewish rabbis not to fear, for he ignored any and all pleas by Christians to punish the Jews.

Julian took money from the Imperial treasury to fund the building of synagouges around the Empire, the training of Jewish scholars, and so on. The real kicker is when Julian was so desperate to rebuild the temple in Jersualem, as if to defy the Christian God's commandment that it will never be rebuilt. Unfortunately for Julian, bad weather kept getting in the way for the planned construction so the temple remained destroyed.

A very good source on this is Jonathan Kirsch's recent book God Against the Gods, which details the battle between paganism and Christianity. ironically its supposed to be an apologetics for paganism, but I've found much that does damage to paganism. Especially concerning the Jewish question, since according to Kirsch pagans were more than willing to "forgive and forget" all the BS Jews did while Christians on the other hand screamed for their blood.

As Kirsch further explains about Julian in this interview concerning his book:

http://jesus.beliefnet.com/story/146/story_14661_1.html

Julian insisted on seeing a resemblance between paganism and Judaism. He says, “We’re alike in all of our religious practices, except you worship one God and we worship many gods. In all other ways we’re alike.”

Hmmm........and to think many pagan nationalists want us to admire this man. Is this exactly somebody we want Europeans to admire?

Julian the Apostate was one big time Jew-lover.

Julian the Apostate was not a "Jew-Lover" (that is something ironic label coming from someone that worship a Jew God in the Sky). He as a pagan just tolerated the Jewish religion (to tolerate doesn't mean to accept, something that it was impossible because he was Roman and Judaism is a non Roman religion).

Inside the teachings of the pagan religions are the tolerance toward other religions, because the pagans don't believe in the universally of a religion or that one religion possesses the truth, but rather all the religions are valid as different paths towards the divinity and the sacred. Pagans recognize the plurality: there are many peoples, as there are many religions and gods, none of them is universal but culturally relative and contingent. Contrary to the followers of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Pre-Christhian Judaism and Islam) that believe that there is one valid religion all that all the other religions except theirs are "false" and that all should convert to it and to adore their Semitic god.


Just to piss off the Christian leadership he stopped many of the persecutions against Jews, punished Christians who advocated measures to be taken against the Jews. He even admitted to Jewish rabbis not to fear, for he ignored any and all pleas by Christians to punish the Jews.

Many pagans hated (and hate) to Christianity by its intolerance toward the pagan religions and its tendency to the proselytism and the conversion. Much of the violence and those "persecutions" against christians were in defense against the attack from the christians against the pagan temples and religions, etc. That violence was deserved.


Julian took money from the Imperial treasury to fund the building of synagouges around the Empire, the training of Jewish scholars, and so on.

Like Constantin who took money from the Imperial treasury to to build Christian (or Gentile Judaic) churches, to maintain to the Christian clergy, etc. So, the actions of Julian were in vengeance against the abuses of the Christians toward his religion, their destruction of the pagan temples and culture.




The real kicker is when Julian was so desperate to rebuild the temple in Jersualem, as if to defy the Christian God's commandment that it will never be rebuilt. Unfortunately for Julian, bad weather kept getting in the way for the planned construction so the temple remained destroyed.

A very good source on this is Jonathan Kirsch's recent book God Against the Gods, which details the battle between paganism and Christianity. ironically its supposed to be an apologetics for paganism, but I've found much that does damage to paganism.

Why that "damage" paganism?

In case the actions of Julian were mistaken, Julian it doesn't represent to all the paganism because the pagan religions are so plural and varied among to be represented by a single person. Remember that inside the category of paganism they are included most of the religions of the world except the Abrahamic and some as the Taoism, Confusianism, etc.



Especially concerning the Jewish question, since according to Kirsch pagans were more than willing to "forgive and forget" all the BS Jews did while Christians on the other hand screamed for their blood.

And what is so bad in that? The pagans just apply the Judeo-Christianl lex talionis: eye for eye, tooth for tooth and they put in practic the idea that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

On the other hand, What you mean with the "Jewish question?" Why the pagans would have to have the same conception on the "Jewish question" that the Christians (if the pagans were polytheistic and christians were monotheistic and members of a cult born from Judaism and rival to it)?

Were not the problems of christians with Jews essentially theological and not political ? While the problems of the pagans with the Jews were of political and not of a theological kind (pagans dont care it if the Jewish religion was true or false or if they should convert to pagan religions)?

Julian the Apostate is like the strange pharoah Akhenaten in that both have been dead for centuries but still have active fan clubs and vicious detractors.

In religious terms neither one can mean much in our era because both kings were enmeshed in power rivalries that might have had a spiritual veneer but were really political. We'll see what we want to see regardless of the historical record.

Julian wrote a great deal and random quotes from his corpus can make him look like Saint Francis if you want him to. In the same way people can still quote from Akhenaten's Hymn to Aten and think of him as a joyful proto-psalmist and ignore his spectacularly arrogant edicts.

Where Julian specifically is concerned, neither the variety of paganism he practiced nor the variety of Christianity he opposed exists today. He lived during the period Christianity was still defining itself and ancient paganism had fragmented down to ineffective cultism. While he was admirable and apparently sincere, anything moderns say about him is usually out of context.

Not that that is always a bad thing. Julian's life tells us a lot about how a failing political system will attract failures in other institutions, in this case religions. As heirs to the Fifth Century's flops both religious and political, we cannot be entirely indifferent to the protagonists of them.

So now we twist things around to make Julian's acceptance and tolerance for the Jews a good thing? Yes those poor little Jews were persecuted by the bad ol'Christians. Where have I heard this kind of talk before? Hmmmnnnn.........................




"Paradoxically, the very same Rome that was now bent on crushing the Jews was largely responsible for their survival. However Christian the empire may have become, it never quite eradicated many of the legacies of its Latin past. Paramount among these was the Roman reference for law and precedent, which dictated the right of the Jews to live as Jews with their own judges, teachers, and institutions."
--John A. Garraty, Peter Gay The Columbia History of the World pg.432

So yes we can thank the pagan legacy for the Jewish plague upon Europe. Considering the fact that Jews were given full citizenship under paganism, which included the right to own slaves(who were often white, usually Celts or Germans). Not to mention Roman politicans sought support from the Jewish community.

"The settlement of the Jews at Rome probably dates from that time. Under Pompey they came in numbers, and as early as 58 B.C., they had quite a settlement. Turbulent and formidable, they were an important factor in politics. Caesar availed himself of their support during the civil wars and lavished favours upon them; he even granted them exemption from military service. Under Augustus the distribution of free bread was postponed for them whenever it fell due on Saturday. The Emperor gave them permission to collect the didrachm which was sent to Palestine, and he ordered the sacrifice of one or two lambs to be offered in his behalf at the Temple of Jerusalem for all time to come. When Tiberius became emperor, there were at Rome 20,000 Jews, who were organized in colleges and sodalitates."
--Bernard Lazare, AntiSemitism: Its History and Causes pg.24


All this came to an abrupt end when Christianity came to power. How about that, Christianity comes to power and Jewish influences stops and goes into steep decline.

This is why I find it so ****ing ironic when pagans moan about Jews and their supposed relations with Christianity, when pagans were the ones who tolerated their BS and were willing to "forgive and forget". Ironic as Christianity is in decline and paganism is returning, all of a sudden the Jews and their influence is rising to epidemic proportions.

:rolleyes:

So now we twist things around to make Julian's acceptance and tolerance for the Jews a good thing? Yes those poor little Jews were persecuted by the bad ol'Christians. Where have I heard this kind of talk before? Hmmmnnnn.........................


Well, Christianity until now (except in very particular moments as the expulsions from Spain in 1492) tolerate the presence of Jews and Judaism in Europe to the point that during a lot of time the only religion different from the Christianity that was tolerated by the Church (and practiced) in Europe was Judaism, while all the pagan, Gnostics, manicheists, islamic religions, etc were repressed and eliminated from Europe.


All this came to an abrupt end when Christianity came to power. How about that, Christianity comes to power and Jewish influences stops and goes into steep decline.

True, slavery end for a while, but the Jews didn't leave Europe and until today's day, they remain there, all with the help of the christians.



This is why I find it so ****ing ironic when pagans moan about Jews and their supposed relations with Christianity,

I find more ironic to observe to individuals that worship a Jewish God to accuse other people of being "Jew-lovers."



when pagans were the ones who tolerated their BS and were willing to "forgive and forget". Ironic as Christianity is in decline and paganism is returning, all of a sudden the Jews and their influence is rising to epidemic proportions.

Your argument doesn't have support as long as many of the concepts that compose the ideologies and philosophies that have the cultural hegemony and that they have also been pernicious for Europe they have their origin in the ethics and the Christian religion. In this forum there are many threads that talks how as many Christian beliefs have been secularized and become into secular ideologies.

Well, Christianity until now (except in very particular moments as the expulsions from Spain in 1492) tolerate the presence of Jews and Judaism in Europe to the point that during a lot of time the only religion different from the Christianity that was tolerated by the Church (and practiced) in Europe was Judaism, while all the pagan, Gnostics, manicheists, islamic religions, etc were repressed and eliminated from Europe.

Thats quite ironic considering I just read a book about the Cathars and how they tolerated the Jews. In fact it was only untill the Inquisition imposed itself on Southern France did massive persecutions of the Jews begin. According Stephen O'Shea, author of the Perfect Heresy(mind you this is different from the book above, whose title I forgot for the time being) even stated that Cathars taught that God didnt care if you banged a Jew or an Arab. How about that! And again many pagans and other so-called "nationalists" love to defend the Cathars, who tolerated the Jews and even promoted race mixing. Shea also states their theology was very much "proto-feminist".

Islam eliminated from Europe? Up untill 1492 Muslims had a presence in at least Spain. Also Bosnia and the Balkans had/have a muslim presence.

As for the Gnostics, I'll let this seep into the debate Im currently carrying on about how Gnsoticism has strong ties(if not origins) in Jewish mysticism.

Its interesting that these other religions were far more tolerant towards the Jews than Christians. Jews enjoyed more status under Islamic rule than under Christian rule.


True, slavery end for a while, but the Jews didn't leave Europe and until today's day, they remain there.

Yeah and who brought them here? Cant blame this one on Christians, for Roman politicians relied on the Jewish population of Rome in 58 BC, before Jesus was "a twinkle in Joseph's eyes" as St. Augustine put it.


I find more ironic to observe to individuals that worship a Jewish God to accuse other people of being "Jew-lovers."

Survey saids.........XXX

The Christian concept of God(based on the trinity) is totally alien and incompatible with the Jewish concept of God.

Thats quite ironic considering I just read a book about the Cathars and how they tolerated the Jews.

I am not a defender of the Cathars, in fact I consider that their religion is life-denying and it contains the most negative aspects (dualism, other worldism, etc) of the Abrahamic religions. However, I don't consider that the Cathars should be repressed and converted, I think was enough with expelling them from Europe just because politically they were dangerous.


In fact it was only untill the Inquisition imposed itself on Southern France did massive persecutions of the Jews begin. According Stephen O'Shea, author of the Perfect Heresy(mind you this is different from the book above, whose title I forgot for the time being) even stated that Cathars taught that God didnt care if you banged a Jew or an Arab.

Christianity neither said anything on you ****ed to Arab or a Jew if He/She was a Christian. In fact, in Europe and America there are half-Jewish-gentile christians and in South America there are millions of Christian of mixed origins (i.e. mestizos).

One of the most more different aspects that separated Christianity from the pagan religions was its devaluation and its disregard of the ethnic, racial differences, the idea that the soul was more important than the matter (and the racial differences, because they are material) and its individual salvation, and the idea that all the souls were same before God, its universalism and moral objetivism, its desacralisation of the State and autority, its espiritual individualism, etc. All those concepts were unaware to the differentialist pagan ethos.

How about that! And again many pagans and other so-called "nationalists" love to defend the Cathars, who tolerated the Jews and even promoted race mixing.

I don't defend the Cathars, although I point out what happened them as example of Christian intolerance. And I don't understand why do you place "nationalist" among quotation marks considering that you adore and follow a foreign and universalist religion.


Islam eliminated from Europe? Up untill 1492 Muslims had a presence in at least Spain.

One of the most important reasons behind the reconquista it was the religion (To convert or to expel the infidels, to reconquer the lands usurped by the Muslim infidels, etc) besides the desire of unifying the Peninsula politically.


Yeah and who brought them here? Cant blame this one on Christians, for Roman politicians relied on the Jewish population of Rome in 58 BC, before Jesus was "a twinkle in Joseph's eyes" as St. Augustine put it.

According to you, Christians were extremely intolerant of the Jews, but the history says the opposite, the only Christian intolerance toward the Jews it was religious, but they were totally tolerated as individuals and they were even allowed to practice their religion (the only non-Christian religion that it was allowed in Europe).


Survey saids.........XXX

I am no talking of surveys, is a fact that Jesus/Yavhev is a Jewish God. Were Jesus, Mary, Peter, St. Paul, etc Ukrainians?

The Torah/Old Testament is a book autored by Europeans?

Perun,

If your Christians were as jew-hating as you seem to suggest, there would be no jews in Europe today -- they would have been exterminated by the said jew-hating Christians long ago.

As a matter of fact, Christians have always followed St-Augustine’s advice to tolerate the jewish presence among them, albeit in a state of political and social marginalization (i.e., Ghettoes), so that Christians could see the jews as an accursed and abandoned people.

Christianity neither said anything on you ****ed to Arab or a Jew if He/She was a Christian.

Ironically the ban on inter-religious marriages very quickly translated to bans on inter-ethnic/racial marriages. Adrian Hastings explains this to some length in his book the Construction of Nationhood


In fact, in Europe and America there are half-Jewish-gentile christians

So?


and in South America there are millions of Christian of mixed origins (i.e. mestizos).


That happens whenever you have a major conquest of native population by a foreign power. This was just as common with pagan conquerers as it was with Christian ones. Sad fact of life.



One of the most more different aspects that separated Christianity from the pagan religions was its devaluation and its disregard of the ethnic, racial differences, the idea that the soul was more important than the matter (and the racial differences, because they are material) and its individual salvation, and the idea that all the souls were same before God, its universalism and moral objetivism, its desacralisation of the State and autority, its espiritual individualism, etc. All those concepts were unaware to the differentialist pagan ethos.

LOL! I have two MAINSTREAM SOURCES to refute this nonsense. Anthony D. Smith's Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity and Adrian Hastings' The Construction of Nationhood. Both speak of the strong influence Christianity had on the development of nationalism and of the forging of national identities. In fact as Smith's research showed, Herder's theories concerning the nature of nations(which many consider the basis for modern nationalism) was influenced by the doctrines of Christian Pietism.

Hastings also makes this point. Just a few quotes from his book:

"Nationalism owes much to religion, to Christianity in particular."
--pg. 205

"The nation and nationalism are both, I wish to claim, characteristically Christian things....."
--pg.186

Hastings notes that the very nature of Christianity makes nationalism possible(especially concerning its attitude towards vernacular language, since linguistics is closely related to national identity). In fact he goes to length showing that the Christian church often took the very existance of nations for granted. He notes the strong influence the clergy had on forging nationalist feelings among the populace.

“Our third religious factor in the affirmation of nationhood is the clergy…What a clergy with some education and status did in most medieval and early modern societies was to mediate indentity between rulers and ruled…It was the lower clergy who, living in their parishes throughout Europe, relatively poor, literate, educated in cathedral schools or from the thirteenth century on increasingly in universities, in regular contact with both the landed and the peasentry, fostered a sense of shared local, provincial or national identity…..The requirements of their work and of the church forced the clergy to think in local, vernacular and, increasingly, national terms…This is most evident from the sixteenth century on, not only with the Protestant clergy publicly committed to vernacular scriptures and services, but also with the Catholic clergy, French, Spanish or Irish.”
-- Adrian Hastings The Construction of Nationhood pg.191-192

Hastings also quotes several religious scholars concerning this question. Possibly my favorite is the quote from the 1910 World Missionary Conference which declared; "Christ never by teaching or example resisted or withstood the spirit of true nationalism."

Hastings notes that this it certainly true. Before ascending into heaven, Christ commands the apostles to "make disciples of all the nations." So right here we see Christ acknowledging the existance of nations. Also the event of Pentecost also notes the Christian attitude towards nationality; where Christ gives the Apostles the ability to speak in all the languages of the world. Christ is acknowledging the legitimacy of the world's tongues; unlike Islam which declares there can only be ONE sacred language. With Christianity, there is no sacred language.

Concerning Islam, Hastings shows that Islam is far more anti-nationalist than Christianity. In fact as Hastings notes, the strongest points of nationalism in the Arab world are in nations with a significant Christian population. In fact I debated this at length here (http://www.thephora.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1121) .

And I quoted Hastings:

"Christianity has of its nature been a shaper of nations, even nationalisms; Islam has not, being on the contrary quite profoundly anti-national.....Nations are not constructed by Islam but deconstructed. That is a fact of history but it is a fact dependent upon theology. Recognition of it should make it all the clearer that the construction of nations within the Christian world was not something independent of Christianity but, rather, something stimulated by the Christian attitude to both language and the state......Arab 'nationalism', like Turkish or Egyptian 'nationalism', dates only from the twenty years or so before the First World War, a time when the impact of European thinking was at its highest and most uncriticised point in the Middle East. It was essentially a western, Christian-rooted, concept quite foreign to Islam, one closely linked with secularisation - as also with the presence of a considerable native Arab-speaking Christian population, notably in Egypt and Palestine."
--Adrian Hastings the Construction of Nationhood pg. 187; 201;202

As I even argued against Sarah in this thread:

Race is important in Christianity. Need we forget that the foundation myth of the Church is built on the event of Pentecost, where God fully acknowledges the full ethnic and cultural diversity of mankind. Islam does not have this attitude. And Adrian Hastings further explains this as resulting from the different attitudes towards sacred languages of Christianity and Islam. Christianity has no sacred language, hence why it could easily adopt itself to local cultures. And indeed the 1540 Muslim apologetics Anqasa Amin denounces Christianity for this very fact. Islam on the other hand has Arabic as its sacred language and as a result often played the role of Arabising the people that fell under Islam's sway.

This certainly happened in Egypt, where Islam helped sweep away much of the old Egyptian culture and replace it with the culture of the Arabs. It also replaced the traditional Egyptian language with Arabic. Only the Egyptian Christians church, the Copts, preserved the old ways in their cermonies(they still practice mummification of the dead) and in their liturgy(the old language from Pharonic times is recited during services). So just from the Egyptian example we can see the different attitudes towards national traditions of Christianity(which accomodated and often preserved national traditions) and Islam(which sought to replace national traditions with Arab traditions, so as to create a single Muslim culture).

So yes, in Egypt we see the difference between the Christian and Islamic attitudes towards national identities. The Coptic Christians preserved the pre-Islamic traditions of the Pharoahs, while Islam destroyed them.

So this notion that Christianity is anti-nationalist simply cannot be based on historical or even theological grounds.

"Old Testament beliefs in chosen peoples and sacred territories were a continual source of inspiration and language for a dynamic providential history among so many Christian peoples in Europe and America; that it in turn was vital for their growing sense of national identity in the early modern epoch. The religious aspect, rooted in the Hebrew Bible, appeared therefore to complement and reinforce their sense of common ethnicity.

That in turn had implications for nationalism. As a European ideology and movement, it owed much to biblical and religious motifs and assumptions; in many ways these have been more important than their secular forms and doctrines."
--Anthony D. Smith Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity pg. viii

And I don't understand why do you place "nationalist" among quotation marks considering that you adore and follow a foreign and universalist religion.

Universalist does not mean uniform. This is an argument made clear by Peter Brown in his book The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200-1000 in which he describes Christianity literally as a "folk religion". Within the framework of the one united Christendom, there were "micro-Christendoms"(as Brown put it) that conformed to their local folk traditions.


One of the most important reasons behind the reconquista it was the religion (To convert or to expel the infidels, to reconquer the lands usurped by the Muslim infidels, etc) besides the desire of unifying the Peninsula politically.


Yes and as Hastings noted, this militant Catholicism played an important role in the development of Spain's national identity and Spanish nationalism. Hastings also notes how this actually contributed to a more racial form of nationalism in Spain, especially when concerning the Jews.


According to you, Christians were extremely intolerant of the Jews, but the history says the opposite,

Really? Is that so? :rolleyes:


the only Christian intolerance toward the Jews it was religious, but they were totally tolerated as individuals and they were even allowed to practice their religion (the only non-Christian religion that it was allowed in Europe).

They were tolerated, believe it or not, because secular authorities ignored the calls of the Church for their expulsion, confinement, etc. And again this stems back for their reverance for the Latin legacy of allowing Jews to live as they please.


I am no talking of surveys, is a fact that Jesus/Yavhev is a Jewish God.

Really?

"...you will notice the great difference between the Jewish and Christian religions. But these are not all. We consider the two religions so different that one excludes the other. ...we emphasized that there is no such thing as a Judeo-Christian religion. There is not any similarity between the two concepts."
--Rabbi Maggal (President, National Jewish Information Service) letter, 21 August 1961


Were Jesus, Mary, Peter, St. Paul, etc Ukrainians?

:rolleyes: No need to get smart here. They were Israelites. Although I actually did find one traditional Catholic site that admits he was white:

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/c001ht.htm



The Torah/Old Testament is a book autored by Europeans?

It was written by the Israelites/Hebrew nation.

"Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a "Jew" or to call a contemporary Jew an "Israelite" or a "Hebrew." The first Hebrews may not have been Jews at all...."
--1980 Jewish Almanac

Now were the Israelites white? I dunno, Im dont follow Christian identity. However Christianity, even if we assume for a second its a "Jewish religion" has ties to Europe.

"It is precisely these Jewish origins of Christianity that draw our attention toward Hellenism in the larger sense, in its cultural and intellectual dimensions. The mindsets, the way of thinking, the literary products of the first Christian centuries bear witness to the meeting that had already taken place between Hellenism and Judaism. A process of Hellenization began with the Greek translation of the Torah, the Pentateuch, and continued with the works written directly in Greek, like the Book of Wisdom. It grew more vigorous in Alexandrian Judaism, owning to contributions by authors such as Aristobulus and especially Philon; the latter consciously adapted Greek philosophical concepts to his understanding of the Bible by means of allegory, producing a theology, a cosmology, and an anthropology that profoundly influenced the first church fathers."
--"Hellenism and Christianity" from Greek thought : a guide to classical knowledge edited by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd, with the collaboration of Pierre Pellegrin ; translated under the direction of Catherine Porter. page 859

Even mainstream scholars who insist christianity derived from Judaism note that without the heavy Hellenization of Judaism, Christianity would not have been possible. According to them, Christianity came from Hellenic Judaism, which was more influenced by Greek thinking than by anything Talmudic.

A very good source on the relationship between Christianity and Greek philosophy is Plato and Paul by J.W. Mendenhau. Indeed on page 340 he explains:
"Thus the old philosophy[aka traditional Greek thinking] sustained an intimate relation to Christianity. It reflected its teachings and prepared the way for the apostolic proclamations to such an extent that Prof. Draper says: 'Christianity was essentially a Greek religion.'"

Of course Mendenhau rejects this claim of Christianity being purely a Greek religion, but nevertheless admits its plausible because of the strong relation between Christianity and Greek philosophy.

So at the end of the day:

"Still, one fact must be stressed. Christianity has had a strong tie to Hellenism from the beginning, in that it was spread by means of Greek. The oldest Christian writings, including the authentic letters of Paul, were written in Greek. Whatever may have been the linguistic form of oral tradition and underlying sources of the canonical Gospels, these, too, were composed in Greek. The choice is not limited to the mission of the "Apostle to the Gentiles". It is inherent in the usage of communities that produced the texts that were later canonized as a cherent set, the New Testament. The Jews of the Diaspora were speakers of Greek. They adopted the koine, the language of communication throughout the Orient from the time of Alexander's conquests. Galilee was strongly marked by Hellenistic civilization, and even in Judea, Greek was widespread.
--"Hellenism and Christianity" from Greek thought : a guide to classical knowledge edited by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd, with the collaboration of Pierre Pellegrin ; translated under the direction of Catherine Porter. page 858

So Christianity has ties to Europe, even if it is Jewish in origins.

Perun,

If your Christians were as jew-hating as you seem to suggest, there would be no jews in Europe today -- they would have been exterminated by the said jew-hating Christians long ago.

If the NS were as jew-hating as many try to suggest(including the Jews themselves) wouldnt have they killed off all the Jews, or at least the 6 million?

In fact whats interesting is that Hastings noted that the model for the ideal nation came from the Bible in the example of the Israelites. So European national identities were often forged on the belief that they were the true successors to Israel(this included Germany btw, in fact Herder, Fitche, and Arndt noted that strong relationship between Germaness and Christianity). Hastings also noted that this strong desire to be like the Israelite nation in Europe actually boosted rather than diminished hatred of the Jews in Europe. In fact he notes that the whole notion of wiping the Jews off the face of the planet originated from this desire to imitate the Israelites.

So even if Christianity did not eliminate the Jews, it certainly brought the very notion of eliminating them into the picture. In fact Hastings even notes the Biblical origins of National Socialism(yes national socialism as that practiced by Hitler's regime from 1933-1945).


As a matter of fact, Christians have always followed St-Augustine’s advice to tolerate the jewish presence among them, albeit in a state of political and social marginalization (i.e., Ghettoes), so that Christians could see the jews as an accursed and abandoned people.

Segregating them from the rest of the population. Oh and they say Christianity is for multi-culturalism. :rolleyes:

Adrian Hastings further on the Bible and its influence on nationalism.


http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/hastings.htm

Religion is an integral element of many cultures, most ethnicities and some states. The Bible provided, for the Christian world at least, the original model of the nation. Without it and its Christian interpretation and implementation, it is arguable that nations and nationalism, as we know them, could never have existed. Moreover, religion has produced the dominant character of some state-shaped nations and of some nationalisms. Biblical Christianity both undergirds the cultural and political world out of which the phenomena of nationhood and nationalism as a whole developed and in a number of important cases provided a crucial ingredient for the particular history of both nations and nationalisms.

I guess just for the record, Adrian Hastings should be the last person on earth making these kinds of arguments. As this article explains, he was an extreme liberal Catholic and a big time n*gger lover. Now if I can find arguments to support my thesis from somebody like this, I really dont know what to say about the arguments from the opposing side.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0%2C3858%2C4204475-103684%2C00.html

Adrian Hastings
Radical Catholic theologian who fought colonialism and oppression from Africa to the Balkans

Paul Gifford
Friday June 15, 2001
The Guardian

In 1973, the Catholic Inst-itute of International Relations (CIIR) decided to hold a public meeting during the visit to Britain of Portugal's prime minister, Marcelo Caetano. The then Conservative government was planning to celebrate the sixth centenary of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance with a great show of friendship, at a time when the Portuguese were waging a brutal colonial war in Africa.

The theologian Adrian Hastings, who has died aged 71, was to speak at the CIIR meeting, and came into possession of a Spanish report, by the Burgos Fathers, of a 1972 massacre by the Portuguese army of around 400 peasants in a remote Mozambican village called Wiryamu. He had the report published in the Times just before Caetano's arrival.

The disclosure became world news; within days, Hastings had spoken at the United Nations, and the Labour opposition leader Harold Wilson, called for a Commons debate. Caetano's visit became a fiasco. In his turn, Hastings used the storm for an assessment of the Portuguese government, the wars of liberation in Portuguese Africa, and the church's role in countenancing - rarely criticising - colonial oppression.

The repercussions were profound. Indeed, it has been seriously claimed that the exposure - his book Wiryamu (1974) was translated into seven languages - played a part in triggering Portugal's 1974 "carnation revolution".

The keys to Hastings's life and thought were the liberal tradition, Oxford University, the church in Africa, the reforming Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and ecumenism. History was his passion, focused on Africa and Britain. His African history stemmed from his missionary involvement, and was sharpened academically during a fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), at London University, in the 1970s.

A lawyer's son, born in Kuala Lumpur, he was raised, from the age of two, in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, where his family originated. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he determined, at the age of eight, to become a priest. Educated at Douai Abbey Benedictine school, Reading, he graduated in history from Worcester College, Oxford in 1949.

In his third year, he joined the White Fathers, the main Catholic missionary society in Africa. Then, with characteristic independence and mastery of the grand gesture, he decided that the missionary life was not enough; he wanted to be a priest working under an African bishop. At that time, the only black bishop of the Latin rite was Kiwanuka, at Masaka, Uganda. Against all advice, Hastings applied - and was accepted.

Meanwhile, he trained at the College of Propaganda Fide, in Rome, from which he benefited enormously - perhaps surprising for someone who gained an anti-Rome reputation. The programme was ultramontane (favouring the centralised authority of the Pope), but it was here that Hastings steeped himself in radical Catholic theology. Living with Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Africans and other students, he experienced catholicity at firsthand.

Ordained a priest in 1955, he said his first mass at the altar where John Henry Newman had said his. This was something of great significance to someone so English, who was proud of being the first Oxford man since the 19th century cardinal to attend Propaganda.

Three years later, after completing his doctorate, Hastings left for Uganda. But he was very different from the person who had made his deliberately anti-academic decision to go to Africa. He had returned with vigour to intellectual life, and had published some books already, including White Domination Or Racial Peace? (1954).

His six years teaching in a Ugandan seminary, ran into the years of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Once it was over, the bishops of the five East African countries entrusted him with educating the region's clergy about it. From 1966-68, based in Tanzania, he steeped himself in the 16 constitutions, decrees and declarations of the council, breaking them down, explaining their major ideas.

But, from the start, Hastings was anomalous in Africa. He had gone there because he was a radical; the local clergy, trained by conservative missionaries, were not. He forged his own links with the wider church. In 1963, his thesis on Anglican ecclesiology was published, and, probably as a result, he was invited to join the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Preparatory Commission, whose meetings deepened his ecumenical commitment. The commission led to the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. He might well have joined it, but, in 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, banning artificial contraception. Hastings's unbudging dissent ended his usability within official Catholicism.

Hastings became the Catholic presence in Zambia's pioneering Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (1968-70). There, friendship with the Anglican archbishop of Central Africa led to him surveying the relationship in Africa between customary and church marriage. The result, completed in 1972, was an official report of one church - written by a member of another.

Yet, it was clear that there was no job for Hastings in the Catholic church in Africa, and, reluctantly, he returned to Britain. In 1972, he taught at the ecumenical campus of Selly Oak College, Birmingham. In 1973, he joined Soas, researching Christianity in independent Africa, and then became a religious studies lecturer, later reader, at Aberdeen University (1976-82).

He was professor of religious studies at the University of Zimbabwe, before taking up the professorship of theology at the University of Leeds, from 1985 to 1994, the year he concluded his research with his wide-ranging, elegant, yet racy, magnum opus, A History Of The Church In Africa 1450-1950.

Hastings's focus on the Christian history of Britain is best illustrated by his History Of English Christianity 1920-2000 (latest revised edition). There were also co-operative projects like Modern Catholicism, Vatican II And After (1991), and the equally ambitious A World History Of Christianity (1998), which attempted to be less church-centred and Eurocentric than some other histories. His 1996 Wiles Lectures at Queen's University, Belfast, became The Construction Of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (1997), a spirited rebuttal of accepted wisdom about nationalism, with examples from Africa to Yugoslavia.

Over 50 years, there was a remarkable consistency in Hastings's theological work, even if emphases shifted. His mature theology is best seen in The Theology Of A Protestant Catholic (1990), which grappled with the very survival of Christianity, or religious faith, the meaningful- ness of God and Christ's relevance.

His reservations about the Papacy's authoritarianism had been with him from the beginning, long before the centralising shown by Pope John Paul II, who, in his History Of English Christianity, he accused of "an absolutism just a little reminiscent of the Stalinism he had fought so hard against". For such expressions, as for much else, the Catholic Church marginalised him.

Besides the advocacy in Hastings's theology - arguing for lay ministry, married clergy, intercommunion, the forwarding of Vatican II - there was that campaigning work. Twenty years after the Wiryamu controversy, appalled by the ethnic cleansing in collapsing Yugoslavia and the apathy of the television audience, he became a founder member of the Alliance To Defend Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a trustee of the Bosnian Institute.

In his interventions, he was ready to denounce individuals. In 1993, in the Guardian, he accused the then foreign secretary Douglas Hurd of "complicity in genocide".

Hastings raised the Journal Of Religion In Africa to the highest standing. His willingness to help colleagues and students was exemplary. In retirement, he edited the Oxford Companion To Christian Thought (2000), a huge enterprise, for which he wrote more than 70 articles. A few days before he died, he heard that it was proposed to elect him to fellowship of the British Academy, news which gave him pleasure.

He is survived by his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1979. Amidst considerable publicity, he had renounced the obligation of celibacy, having convinced himself that the theological justification was simply wrong.

Adrian Christopher Hastings, theologian, born June 23 1929; died May 30 2001

Perun,

Since I grew up in France I identify to a considerable degree with the so-called "Nouvelle Droite" (or New Right), which has traditionally been anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, Germanophile, and Pagan. (See for example the writings of Christian Bouchet.) Is it not rather telling that the most anti-Semitic faction of the so-called European New Right is Pagan? I just do not believe that one can take the necessary measures against the Traditional Enemy while remaining wedded to a universalistic offshoot of Judaism.

What has this paganistic "New Right" exactly accomplished, except alienating Christian conservatives?


Petr

Some pagans argue that Christians must be necessarily pro-Jews since they venerate the Old Testament.

Great church father John Chrysostom had a different opinion - according to him, Christians should be all the more outraged because of the way Talmudic commentators mutilate the holy word of OT:


http://www.ferrum.edu/dhowell/rel113/antijudaism/chrysostom_supersession.htm

...

Some of the most virulent anti-Jewish language that we find in the early church is found in a series of eight sermons delivered by John Chrysostom in 386 CE to his church in Antioch. The city of Antioch in western Syria was one of the centers of Christianity in the early church. According to Acts 11:26, it was in this city that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. And it was from the church in Antioch, according to Acts, that Paul launched his mission to Gentiles. Antioch was a city with not only a large Jewish population, but according to Josephus, a city with frequent contact between Jews and Gentiles.

Josephus reports that Jews "were constantly attracting to their religious ceremonies multitudes of Greeks, and these they had in some measure incorporated with themselves" (War, 7.45).


Our Judeo-Paganistic tradition! :D

...

V.

(2) Since there are some who think of the synagogue as a holy place, I must say a few words to them. Why do you reverence that place? Must you not despise it, hold it in abomination, run away from it? They answer that the Law and the books of the prophets are kept there. What is this? Will any place where these books are be a holy place? By no means! This is the reason above all others why I hate the synagogue and abhor it. They have the prophets but not believe them; they read the sacred writings but reject their witness-and this is a mark of men guilty of the greatest outrage.

(3) Tell me this. If you were to see a venerable man, illustrious and renowned, dragged off into a tavern or den of robbers; if you were to see him outraged, beaten, and subjected there to the worst violence, would you have held that tavern or den in high esteem because that great and esteemed man had been inside it while undergoing that violent treatment? I think not. Rather, for this very reason you would have hated and abhorred the place.

(4) Let that be your judgment about the synagogue, too. For they brought the books of Moses and the prophets along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more because of their offensive treatment of those holy men.

(5) Why do I speak about the books and the synagogues? In time of persecution, the public executioners lay hold of the bodies of the martyrs, they scourge them, and tear them to pieces. Does it make the executioners' hands holy because they lay hold of the body of holy men? Heaven forbid! The hands which grasped and held the bodies of the holy ones still stay unholy. Why? Because those executioners did a wicked thing when they laid their hands upon the holy. And will those who handle and outrage the writings of the holy ones be any more venerable for this than those who executed the martyrs? Would that not be the ultimate foolishness? If the maltreated bodies of the martyrs do not sanctify those who maltreated them but even add to their blood-guilt, much less could the Scriptures, if read without belief, ever help those who read without believing. The very act of deliberately choosing to maltreat the Scriptures convicts them of greater godlessness.

(6) If they did not have the prophets, they would not deserve such punishment; if they had not read the sacred books, they would not be so unclean and so unholy. But, as it is, they have been stripped of all excuse. They do have the heralds of the truth but, with hostile heart, they set themselves against the prophets and the truth they speak. So it is for this reason that they would be all the more profane and blood-guilty: they have the prophets, but they treat them with hostile hearts.



Petr

What has this paganistic "New Right" exactly accomplished, except alienating Christian conservatives?

Since Christian conservatives are the strongest supporters of Jews in the modern world, exactly why is this a bad thing?

Wintermute

We Christian fundies are an unpredictable people, Winnie. Things may change awfully fast.

Then again, you pagans live in a static world, and may have problems comprehending that everything doesn't work out according to Eternal Forms (a la Plato)


Petr

What has this paganistic "New Right" exactly accomplished, except alienating Christian conservatives?
I would recommend to you to read the interview with Alain de Benoist that I posted in other thread:

http://www.thephora.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1640


Adler: They are not very Catholic, as are many of the FN’s older generation.

Benoist: They are not very Catholic for the good reason that today in France no one is very Catholic any longer, except for a very active small minority. You must not forget that all the polls showed that Catholics as a group did not vote for the FN, except for some integralists or traditionalists, and that most of the people adhering to the FN were more secular than the average French person.

What Christian "conservatives" the New Right would alineate if there is not much "Christian Conservatives" in France (neither in the rest of Europe)?

Do you know that the most of French nationalist voters and militants are secular or non religious?

Do You know that the Catholic Church is one of the most anti-French institutions in France (and full of pro-immigration, pro-race mixing and universalist priests) ?

I am not Roman Catholic, so I'm not terribly emotional about this issue.

They made their bed when they slaughtered the Huguenots.


Petr

Here is a warning from an American Christian, Michael A. Hoffman II to French atheist Jean Raspail, that secularism is the dead-end road for any kind of nationalism:

(excerpt)


Roots, Not Symptoms: A Reply to Jean Raspail by Michael Hoffman

...

"And the current "Crusade"? It was only forty years ago that Jacqueline Kennedy wore a black veil at the funeral of her assassinated husband, and Christian women throughout Europe and America--sophisticated women of the middle and upper classes--wore head coverings in church. Now crusader George W. Bush is on a campaign to "free Muslim women" from standards of propriety and modesty not so different--at least in spirit-- from what prevailed universally in the West as recently as four decades ago.

France has banned girls from wearing head scarves in its public schools, lest the girls appear too modest, and this in a France where rectums and genitals are on display on every street-corner kiosk, yet there is a morbid fear of the least display of chastity.

The Muslims rightly despise us because we have lost all self-respect; because we are not the people of the West any longer, but the people of the alchemical crucible of constant, ruinous transvaluation.

The West cannot turn its back on God and retain any territory anywhere, and when I say God I am not speaking of the god of the rabbis.

Roots, not symptoms, Monsieur Raspail.


http://www.hoffman-info.com/essay24.html


Petr

Petr -

Of Protestants who take the Old Testament seriously, more will become Jews than will ever fight them. We are seeing this in America now with the rise of the Hebrew Roots movement, Messianism, and Sacred Name theology.

Your Jew-worship has produced a predictable fruit.

Hence it is especially amusing to hear you tout "Christian fundies" as unpredictable. Your kind is utterly, even tediously, predicable, though it is typically self-flattering behavior for you to suppose that might someday surprise somebody.

You were predictable enough to live out, in vast numbers (like bison, I am almost tempted to say) the script written for you by Untermeyer and other Jews with the dawn of Dispensationalism, though your mouth has watered for the taste of Jewish cock since the days of Cromwell.

Plus ca change . . .


Then again, you pagans live in a static world, and may have problems comprehending that everything doesn't work out according to Eternal Forms (a la Plato)

Everything shares the nature of the Form it participates in. You are assuredly no exception. For grins, you should do some Googling on the topic 'Typhon', if you're curious about the destiny that you now serve.

As to 'working out', well, neither pagan nor Galilean lives in a static universe. Since you seem so fond of Plato, perhaps it is time for you to re-examine his distinction between Being and Becoming. Nothing here can hold the image of its Form properly (if at all), and even when it does, this realm is so unstable that the reflection can't be held for very long. Hence Tragedy.

At the same time, all souls are destined to eventually return to their source. Thus comedy.

You might not know that every tragedic trilogy in ancient Greece was followed by a satyr play, an obscene burlesque. I think their wisdom exceeds your crude caricatures of it.

Indeed, even their crude caricatures somehow exceed your wisdom. How could that have come about, I wonder?

Wintermute

The West cannot turn its back on God and retain any territory anywhere, and when I say God I am not speaking of the god of the rabbis.

Hoffman's a Platonist? That's a shocker.

Wintermute

Like Francis Bacon said of your beloved Greeks, paraphrasing:

"Assuredly you have that which is characteristic of boys: you are prompt to prattle, but cannot generate; your wisdom abounds in words but is barren of works."


I've had enough of you for this day.


Petr

Here is a warning from an American Christian, Michael A. Hoffman II to French atheist Jean Raspail, that secularism is the dead-end road for any kind of nationalism:

Yeah, tell that to Mussolini (an atheist) or the most of the people that to people that votes for the FN and other nationalist parties in Europe.

I don't see any relationship between "secualism" and the fall of the racialist feeling, at contrary, America shows us that there is an inverse relationship between Christian fundamentalism and anti-racism, pro-Zionism, etc. It seems that while more Christian it is a country more decadent it is.

Petr -

Seeing that you have no response save name calling, I repeat my argument for the gallery. You may repond to the points raised at your leisure.


Of Protestants who take the Old Testament seriously, more will become Jews than will ever fight them. We are seeing this in America now with the rise of the Hebrew Roots movement, Messianism, and Sacred Name theology.

Your Jew-worship has produced a predictable fruit.

Hence it is especially amusing to hear you tout "Christian fundies" as unpredictable. Your kind is utterly, even tediously, predicable, though it is typically self-flattering behavior for you to suppose that might someday surprise somebody.

You were predictable enough to live out, in vast numbers (like bison, I am almost tempted to say) the script written for you by Untermeyer and other Jews with the dawn of Dispensationalism, though your mouth has watered for the taste of Jewish cock since the days of Cromwell.

Plus ca change . . .



Then again, you pagans live in a static world, and may have problems comprehending that everything doesn't work out according to Eternal Forms (a la Plato)


Everything shares the nature of the Form it participates in. You are assuredly no exception. For grins, you should do some Googling on the topic 'Typhon', if you're curious about the destiny that you now serve.

As to 'working out', well, neither pagan nor Galilean lives in a static universe. Since you seem so fond of Plato, perhaps it is time for you to re-examine his distinction between Being and Becoming. Nothing here can hold the image of its Form properly (if at all), and even when it does, this realm is so unstable that the reflection can't be held for very long. Hence Tragedy.

At the same time, all souls are destined to eventually return to their source. Thus comedy.

You might not know that every tragedic trilogy in ancient Greece was followed by a satyr play, an obscene burlesque. I think their wisdom exceeds your crude caricatures of it.

Indeed, even their crude caricatures somehow exceed your wisdom. How could that have come about, I wonder?

Wintermute

The roots of our civilization are still productive. They await only our careful attention to start putting forth new shoots.

Like servants of YHVH throughout all time, you seek to spread deceit and destruction wherever Aryan creativity and beauty are found.

You will always be thwarted in this quest.

Wintermute

Originally posted by Marlaud
America shows us that there is an inverse relationship between Christian fundamentalism and anti-racism

Indeed, Original Dissent, the board Petr followed us here from, became increasingly oriented towards Christ, until finally it expelled all of its racists.

Wintermute

Thanks, I'll read it. I find de Benoist problematic but his critique of capitalism and Judaeo-American hegemony is right on the money.


I would recommend to you to read the interview with Alain de Benoist that I posted in other thread:

http://www.thephora.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1640



What Christian "conservatives" the New Right would alineate if there is not much "Christian Conservatives" in France (neither in the rest of Europe)?

Do you know that the most of French nationalist voters and militants are secular or non religious?

Do You know that the Catholic Church is one of the most anti-French institutions in France (and full of pro-immigration, pro-race mixing and universalist priests) ?

*sigh* This debate has gone sour. At the earliest I'll be able to deal with this sunday, when Im off from work.

I will say this will be a work in progress from my perspective. Im going to enjoy this! :D

- "Indeed, Original Dissent, the board Petr followed us here from, became increasingly oriented towards Christ, until finally it expelled all of its racists."


My my, my dear Christ-hating Winnie.

You sure seem to know lot of untrue truisms about Christianity and Christians.


1) There are some evidently non- and even anti-Christian racists like Faust and Bardamu still posting on the Original Dissent.

Like here:

http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14834


2) You seem to self-righteously assert that only people who agree with you can be classified as "real" racists.

You apparently wouldn't allow anyone to this hallowed category except those who not only love their own people and wish to promote its interests against alien invaders, but who also are filled with Talmudesque hatred and ill-will againts all other races.


Petr

- "America shows us that there is an inverse relationship between Christian fundamentalism and anti-racism."


Tell us about the connections of fundamentalist Calvinism and anti-racism among Boers in South Africa.


Petr

A good argument for nationalism and christianity being more than compatible is the philosophy of Hegel. Unfortunately I've failed to notice any mention of him in this debate.

Christianity is also used in several contexts in this debate. It's good to establish in your debate to which denomination of Christianity is being referenced. Christianity itself cannot be applied universally as Christianity because there is no 'one Christianity'. The influences influencing the particular Christianity in its usage are also very important to mention as well.

Good point Caesar. Another point that FB touched actually corresponds to the history of the church/faith that I have been working on for some time, which reflects an amazing new perspective on its position today and its possible future.