"Keeping it Real" – Old School Heathen Style
“You cannot untangle the truth from the lie without exposing the lie.” – Hrafnkell Haraldsson
I’m quite often told that I shouldn’t be so hard on monotheism, or particularly on Christianity. “You should not talk like that,” one said. “Pagans don’t attack Christians.” The perception is that I attack Christians here. I don’t see it that way. I am not attacking Christians. I am seeking the historical facts about polytheism.
Where and how does monotheism come into play?
From the 7th century BCE onward, the Yahwists (or “Yahweh alone” movement) attacked polytheism. They attacked it not only by banning it, by “overturning the high places” but more perniciously by lying about it in their Bible. This work, the Hebrew Bible, written by a very small group of elitists (less than 1% of the population, the vast majority of which was polytheist) is a work of pious fiction; it is not about the world as it was, but the world as it should have been. The traditional cults become an aberration, and monotheism, which is in fact new, is made to be the original religion of the Jewish people. It is the facts turned on their head. Suddenly, the Jews remaining true to their original Canaanite gods are “whoring after foreign gods” when in truth, it was the Yahwists who were “whoring after foreign gods” – because Yahweh is himself a foreign god, a god of NW Arabia (Sinai) – a Midianite god, and not ethnic Jewish/Canaanite at all (see for example William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel 2005).
Now it’s no secret that any scholar – or anyone else – attempting to point to these facts is seen as attacking the Bible, or as being anti-Semitic or even anti-Christian. Look at what one modern Jewish scholar still says of Paganism:
idolatry manifests itself in every age, in one form or another. The essence of idolatry is setting up spiritual authorities in competition with, or to the negation of, God. Today, we might identify it with a strain of secularism, which has all the elements of a religion but one, a deity. The other pagan hallmarks are there: relativism, nature worship, sexual corruption, and a willingness to sacrifice children to the cause (David Klinghoffer, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus 2005:15).
Here is a clear attack on polytheism, and it’s right out of the Hebrew Bible. And its being repeated in the 21st century. Now obviously it will be necessary to examine the historical facts in order to expose these ancient Hebrew claims as what they are: lies. Why?
Here is why. Let’s look at Jane. Jane wants to become a polytheist. If Jane wants to practice a polytheistic religion, she has a right to know about it as it really was, not as monotheists see it. But guess what? Many polytheists consign themselves to seeing their religion through the distorting lens of the monotheistic thought world. If this is allowed to stand it goes without saying that the polytheism which comes into shape today will be tainted by this corrupted viewpoint. The only alternative is for people to brave hostility and condemnation in order to wade through the scholarship and expose the historical facts. That polytheism, the polytheism of history and not of propaganda is our birthright. It was stolen from us, and we have a right to it; we should not have to settle for a pious history that turns the facts on their head and makes our ancestors – and ourselves, a despised “other.”
And there is another reason. As I said above, those lies are being repeated today. The debate, if it was ever over, has begun again with the revival of polytheistic religions. The lies have always been there, enshrined as sacred scripture. They are uttered from pulpits across the world every Sunday, denunciations of Paganism. The same lies as were told by the Yahwists who wrote the Bible, the same lies as were told by early Christian apologists, are being repeated today (consult Tertullian, Apologeticum 32; I have had Christians say these exact things to me). About us. And if we let the other side control the terms of the debate, we will also let them control its outcome. That, for reasons I shall explain below, we cannot allow.
I like this in German better: Die Wahrheit ist irgendwo da draussen – The truth is somewhere out there. It is, and if we let the lies continue to fly and if we do not stand up for the facts…let me put it this way: Trying to be a “tame Indian” doesn’t work, as America’s Native peoples found out the hard way. We owe it not only to ourselves, not only to our children who will follow us in the customs and traditions of our ancestors, but to those ancestors and to our gods, to embrace the truth. It will do untold harm to allow those lies to remain, let alone propagate. We need to educate not only other Pagans as to the true nature of polytheism’s history, but we need to educate Christians and other monotheists. As Edmund Burke is often quoted as saying (and really it’s more a paraphrase of his ideas and not a direct quote), “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
And here we come to the crux of it. We live today on the tip of a historical cusp. The threat of theocracy in the United States is a very real one. If you doubt it, go to TheocracyWatch.org, and witness how close Christian dominionism came to taking over our government under the Bush Administration. Look at the favoritism being shown Christianity by even the Obama Administration. What I’m trying to say is, even if you’re a “good Pagan” and mind your P’s and Q’s, it won’t save you when Christian dominionism reaches your doorstep. Better to stand up now and be heard, while you still can, than to lament later, in misery. People failed to stand up to the National Socialists when they began their march to power. Failed to stand up against their lies – retread Christian lies about Judaism – and for 12 years the lies became the truth. I said we live on a cusp, but history doesn’t drive itself. People drive it. And we can drive events one way through action or another through inaction. We have only to look at Germany in the 30′s to see the results of inaction: good men did nothing.
But the Third Reich’s genocide wasn’t a first, folks. The original genocide was that of polytheistic peoples, and it lasted, with interruptions, from the 7th century BCE to the European Enlightenment (for the repressive Theodosian Code, which remained in force even in Jefferson’s Virginia, see The Genocide of Polytheism), and even in its early days Thinkers had to beware Church authorities. Renee Descartes, himself a Christian but the Father of the Enlightenment, didn’t stay in France for a reason. What history before the Enlightenment reveals to us is a cataclysmic wave of genocide such as the world had never seen, one which has consumed “at least a million people per century” over the past two millennia (Gerd Ludemann, The Acts of the Apostles: What Really Happened in the Earliest Days of the Church 2005:383). That is more than the Nazis killed; more than the “godless” Communists killed.
Or, as George Carlin so brilliantly put it: “Millions of dead people. All because they gave the wrong answer to the god Question.”
People are afraid of what they don’t understand. That’s simple human nature. So yes, we must educate the public about what polytheism really is. But in order to do that, we need to expose twenty-six centuries of Jewish and Christian lies about polytheism. Exposing that truth will by definition mean exposing monotheistic lies, the normative inversion that has taken place – you cannot have one without the other. And that will bring claims of attacking monotheism and feelings will be hurt. So be it. Simply because historical facts bring unhappiness does not mean we should ignore them to avoid hurting peoples feelings. We must, as a corollary, be willing to learn unpalatable facts about our own religions. Again, so be it. Facts are facts. We literally cannot afford to pretend that twenty-six centuries of history never took place. If we do not know history, we cannot learn from it.
Tell me: How often have you heard the term “anti-Gentilism” or “anti-Paganism.” Never. Probably never. As Ramsay MacMullen points out, the idea that Christians persecuted Pagans is new even to scholarship (Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries 1997). But we’re all familiar with anti-Semitism and Christianity’s pretense of being a persecuted religion. What you’re not aware of is that the entire Hebrew Bible is an attack on polytheism. The story of Moses is an attack on polytheism. Literally, the very air that monotheists breath is steeped in anti-Paganism.
A necessary corrective is offered by scholar Jan Assmann (Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism 1997). Here monotheism is seen for what it is: counter-religion – which “rejects and repudiates everything that went before and what is outside itself…” The Religious Right in the United States still rejects and repudiates.
“I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, … the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this [terrorist attack] happen.” Jerry Falwell, 700 Club, 2001-SEP-13
These are the same people who point the finger at us and accuse us of making war on Christmas – Christmas! Our original holiday, a Pagan holiday, honored by many polytheistic cultures. And we’re making war on it? There you see again what happens when you expose the historical facts. It hurts their feelings, but this is a battle that must be waged. We have a right to exist, and if we don’t educate the public about the lies that have been told about us, about the lies that continue to be told about us, we will never win for our children and their children the legitimacy they deserve as polytheists. The truth is somewhere out there, and we must find it and expose it to the clear light of day, without regard for who’s feelings might be hurt. I am one father who will not allow my son to be thought of as “sexually corrupt” or that he “worships demons” or “dumb idols” when he says that he is a polytheist. Not while I have breath left to draw.
What I’m working for a world in which I could stand up and say, “I”m a polytheist” and nobody would so much as blink anymore than as if I had stood up to say “I’m a Christian.” We won’t get there by hiding our heads in the sand. It didn’t work for the Native Americans; it didn’t work for the Jews in the Third Reich; it didn’t work for our ancestors; and it won’t work for us. Intolerance doesn’t care if its opponents stand up to it or lay down in hiding or pretend to be something they’re not. But then I’m alheithinn - utterly heathen – just a surly old son of Odin who believes its better to fight the good fight than to turn the other cheek.
Turning the other cheek hasn’t worked for twenty-six centuries, my friends. The definition of madness is repeatedly trying the same thing and expecting different results. Well, I may be surly and I may be an iconoclast, but I’m not afflicted with madness. I’m just brutally honest and I don’t care if the facts hurt your feelings. In the vernacular, I’m just “keeping it real.”
I began this piece by saying that we can’t untangle the truth without exposing the lie. I’d like to close it now by adding, “And how many of us are going to lose sleep if the liar’s feelings are hurt when he’s caught?”
Hrafnkell Haraldsson is the author of A Heathen’s Day, which since 2005 has addressed the life and thoughts of a modern day Heathen. He is also the founder of the Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) which is dedicated to the study and support of Paganism as ethnic religion and writes for PoliticusUSA (www.politicususa.com) 
Hard words, well-spoken.
This reminds me of a sermon my catholic parents once made me sit through at Church which specifically referred to the Norse Gods as "the False Idols."
I would really like to see Asatru gain legal recognition as a religion in the US. If anything, that would make a stronger statement than anything else. But really, there's no such thing as "educating a Christian." They're Christians. That word is practically synonymous with "ignorant" and "self-righteous" and a two-syllable code word for "I'm better than you." I don't think we want to educate the Christians. I think we want to educate the people the Christians are trying to sway and convert. As far as open minds go, I'd say we have a much better chance with them.
The constitution, specifically, prohibits the establishment of religion by the government. So the USA can not officially recognize any religion. Even Christianity. This is a very good thing or we would not be permitted to practice our religion.
By the way, I really liked this post and whole heartedly agree.
Kullervo, thank you.
Ærinndís, my point of departure is the idea that there are many people out there who are nominally Christian, who are not involved in Church and who are, in fact, open to other ideas and other approaches. Some drift to atheism, some to Eastern religions, and some to Paganism or elsewhere. I even saw a report once about a Church that was formed but which has no object of worship. The members needed the socializing aspects but had lost interest in the Christian god.
I agree with you that some Christians cannot be reasoned with. Conservative Catholics, Conservative Protestants, etc, but they're not the ones I'm trying to reach. As you say, they're outside the bounds of Reason. Another group I'd like to reach are either Pagans themselves or are "nearly" Pagans – in fact if not in name. We all know some of these people, I think. My message is, if we're going to revive or reconstruct polytheistic religions, let's at least have as sound a point of origin as we can, and not base our efforts on the twisted machinations of the early monotheistic chroniclers.
Mike, thanks, and I'm with you there, that the Constitution does prohibit an official state religion, but we've seen recently how far that amendment can be bent – and as it turns out, it can be bent pretty far when the people controlling said state are themselves conservative Christians. And there is no doubt that some of these people would be perfectly willing to change that amendment, and some would simply ignore it.
Hrafnkell
There are many criminals in government, unfortunately, they protect each other. They willfully ignore laws and the will of the people. The two parties in power give us the choice of crazy religious loons or corrupt self serving individuals.
I see that a new (or newly translated) book by Jan Assmann is scheduled for release next month. The title is The Price of Monotheism. It's availabale for pre-order at Amazon.
Re. polytheism and the Jewish people–you probably have read it, but, for the benefit of readers who may not have, The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai, canvasses the ditheism of the Hebrews that has never been fully extirpated from Jewish consciousness and practice, despite millennia of effort.
I applaud your efforts to bring to light the truths that you mention. Part of the overall problem, I believe, is that much of this content appears mainly in academic or para-academic literature that is not directed to, or appreciated by, the broader public. Have you ever considered writing a book–or possibly a series of booklets–that would cover this material in a way that would be accessible to "Joe/Jane Average?" You clearly have the knowledge, language skills, and motivation.
Side note, re. the perennial "war on Christmas" (which, I suspect, is a great get-penny for the wowsers)–Hecate Demetersdatter has pointed out that the people who can be exptected to make the greatest to-do about this are the selfsame gits who are now engaged in making war on Samhain.
Makarios, I am already geared up for Assmann's new book – I look forward to seeing what he has to say to his critics and I hope in particular to find he has answered Pope Benedict's objections (Truth and Tolerance, written as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger). Assmann's language is never the easiest to plow through and I suspect being worked over by a translator doesn't help matters much, but it is always well worth the read.
Patai's book is mentioned by William Dever in Did God Have a Wife? so I have recently become aware of his book:
Dever: "Over 30 years ago, I happened upon a curious book, Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess (1967). When visiting Harvard later, I remember discussing his ideas with my teachers, who thought it heresy, but I never forgot it. Then in the 1980s and 1990s, Patai began to visit Tucson to see his physician daughter, a friend and colleague of mine, and I came to know him personally. Patai was a charming, cultured Old World Jewish intellectual,a polymath who worked in anthropology, sociology, Oriental studies and Judaica. His book (one of more than 35), while rarely cited by biblical scholars, went through a second and a third edition (1978; 1990). Even the first editions turns out to have been brilliant perceptive – 30 years ahead of anything else on our subject.
Dever credits Patai's access "to the rich lore of medieval Rabbinical scholars."
I have written a book and am trying to pair it down to manageable size. Publication will likely be problematic unless I want to self-publish (and I've looked into that).
I've also begun two smaller projects, one a booklet about teaching kids about Heathenism and Heathen concepts, called "Little Ragnar" and another for Pagan parents wanting to "teach" their children about Christianity – so Christianity for non-Christians, I guess! And I do have in mind to put out pamphlets at some point under the auspices of the Mos Maiorum Foundation. I've a few subject titles jotted down someplace.
Hraf – would you be looking for an illustrator for your chidrens books and pamphlets? I would be glad to turn my talents towards that end, should you be interested (and I need funds enough to have to say I will charge some, but trust me – I would cut you a major break, so that getting artwork would not cost you more than you could put into it!)
Thank you so much! I have battled emotions inside me – animosity towards christianity for a long time for all the things they have done and still do….but the teachings scoff on that and I have been trying to be understanding and accepting of everything. I would love to see the Old Religion come back in my old country – Macedonia, for Orthodox Christianity almost washed their brains and is even now on a good way of exterminating our old pagan traditions (even though they are masked as christian)
Mea Culpa, thanks for commenting. Macedonia! When my son was in the hospital with problems that led to his diagnosis of Gaucher Disease, the only nurse I could get to listen to me was from Macedonia. I don't remember her name but I'll always remember her.
I know that the Greek authorities are repressive. You don't say if you're from the Macedonia inside of or outside of Greece but I don't doubt things are as bad outside as inside.
I think that animosity is perfectly understandable. I certainly went through enough of it when I renounced Christianity and embraced the gods of my people. I admit to still feeling it on occasions when I'm exposed to something particularly intolerant or hateful but I try not to dwell on it (not always easy – I sometimes withdraw for days at a time from the news and researching this stuff can be very hard on me, as others around me have noticed from time to time!).
wow Hraf…so sorry to hear that about your son
I am from Macedonia outside of the greek borders – but you are right, its the same no matter what. I really avoid dwelling on that, because its very bothersome for me.
You know…I do try not to think about it, but I am a person that when I get involved in something – I do it with my whole heart and soul and yes – it hurts. I usually push all that in the back of my mind and concentrate on the beautiful future that we, as Pagan community around the world, might have. I think of all the young kids I met online from back home that discovered paganism all over again and are not being immature about it. That makes me go on and try to open the mind of the ones around me (here in the States) and the ones I know back home.
Cameron, sorry to ignore your comment for so long. It got lost there, along with a few other things! I appreciate your offer. I'm not ready to push a children's book to publication yet (or even to find a publisher!) but I'll keep your offer in mind. I'm not sure how all that works. I'd probably have to send you the manuscript so you can have a look at it.
I'm not entirely sure what form the brochures will take either. It's yet another one of those projects that I'm hoping to find the time for.
I'm in the process of trimming and narrowing the focus of the literally hundreds of pages of research I ended up with in order to make a salable book out of the whole and I hope I can complete that task this winter.
Great post. Just one note: "the idea that Christians persecuted Pagans is new even to scholarship" is only true for about the last 50 years or so. J.B. Bury wrote extensively about the Christian persecution of Paganism in his "The Later History of the Roman Empire". And Edward Gibbon was even more thorough in his treatment of the subject two centuries ago.
By an interesting coicidence, Bury died the year before MacMullen was born. Here is a direct link to his sub-chapter on "The Persecution of Paganism":
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/BURLAT/11*.html#3
Apuleius, thanks for commenting. The history of ideas themselves are interesting and it's fascinating how sometimes they flit through history, appearing and reappearing before being paid attention to. I think that's what we have here.
For the idea that Christians persecuting Pagans I relied on MacMullen (1997) where he dates the idea's inception to 1986 with Noethlichs, and says that “Christian readiness for action carried to no matter what extremes has not always received the acknowledgment it deserves in modern accounts of the period” and that “prior to the 1980s, readers will be hard put to find Firmicus’ word ‘persecution’ describing the conduct of the Christian empire toward its non-Christian subjects.” He notes that R.M. Price in 1993 attributes the “’absence of continuous religious strife’ to ‘a general determination in Late Roman society to minimize the diviseness of religious differences’ (yes, by extermination)."
I'm aware of Gibbons views and I think MacMullen shows he is as well by pointing out that "Whatever might have been said back in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, by the twentieth it had become clear and agreed on all hands that nothing counted after Constantine save the newly triumphant faith." I can only conclude he is talking there about Gibbon.
I can't explain the absence of Bury in his account. He does say "hard-pressed" and not "impossible" so I suspect here too he has Bury in mind when he speaks, even if he does not mention him by name. He includes Bury' work in his bibliography but perhaps it is because Bury wrote early in the 20th century and his account did not gain wide acceptance; people went on believing what they had always believed: the Pagans persecuted the Christians. The idea didn't begin to gain traction until the '80s.
I think perhaps MacMullen is oversimplifying a bit, and he may have any number of reasons for doing so.
Another very interesting source is Charles W. Hedrick, Jr.'s "History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity". In Chapter 3, "Unspeakable Paganism", he goes into some detail describing a now very deeply entrenched revisionist (his word) movement among classical scholars that was spearheaded by Alan Cameron way back in 1966. Cameron attacked the idea that there had been a Pagan resurgence in the late 390's, and insisted that already by then Graeco-Roman Paganism was essentially dead, and that it had never really put up any fight against Christianization in the first place: "reaction of any kind is conspicuous by its absence." Cameron says that the primary reaction of Pagans to Christianization was "apathy".
These two ideas are very closely related (1) Paganism was never persecuted by Christians, and (2) Pagans did not resist Christianization. In fact the two ideas are essentially joined at the hip: either Paganism was suppressed or it wasn't.
Alan Cameron's revisionist position is now very widely and uncritically subscribed to by people who are not specialists. Ronald Hutton's name comes to mind.
Yes ,the idea that Paganism died a natural death and therefore was not around to protest is an ancient one, still subscribed to by Christian apologists and scholars, including Frend. It's easily disproved and MacMullen has done an admirable job in that regard. According to some of these scholars, Paganism was dead already by the time of Augustus and welcomed Christianity with open arms – also easily disproved.
Yes, Frend is another one of the "usual suspects". The one that distresses me the most is G.W. Bowersock, who alternates between being an excellent scholar and being some kind of agent for Opus Dei. It's kind of spooky.
Oh how I agree with you about Bowerstock! He strikes me as a very capable scholar who has put his arts at the service of the Dark Side.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only Pagan out there with a deep affinity for the unfortunately-named Dr. Assman!
And F— Bowersock. F— him in the head. (Hey, this is one of the few places where someone might actually know who I'm talking about, so I have to get that one in somewhere…)
Bowersock can be quite useful. Precisely because of his visceral hostility to Paganism. I especially appreciate the fact that he provides a modern scholarly source for the continued existence of clandestine Paganism in the mid-sixth century, and right under Justinian's nose in the city founded by Constantine!
But he has worked hard to earn our contempt. Let us not deny him what he so justly deserves.
I agree. Bowerstock has done some good scholarly work (I particularly liked his book on Roman Arabia), but one of his books (Martyrdom and Rome) I found to have an apologetic taste to it.
He's not alone in demonstrating that Paganism continued to thrive during Justinian's reign and even beyond and scholars have become more and more aware of Pagan survivals and these survivals demonstrate beyond all shadow of a doubt that Pagans loved their gods and loved their religion – which destroys the underpinnings of the "conversion" entirely.
* meant to say "Bowersock" not "Bowerstock" in my previous comment.
Bryon, thanks for commenting! Apparently Bowersock has a few "fans" in the Pagan community! And likewise, glad to meet others who appreciate Jan Assmann's scholarship. Anyone the Pope goes out of his way to argue would be my hero if he were not already.