Neo-pagan and Atheist Hostility in Britain and Other Countries

[Pravoslavbob]

stoke on trent!
that's awesome!

when i lived near there, i met lots of pagans, so may God bless His work and give u courage.

for those of u who are not well acquainted with central england, it's an area with plenty of pre Christian religious activity.
when i was there many years ago, Christians were particularly unwelcome in some places.

Are you sure of that? While many have pretenses of following "the Old Religion" paganism in England and throughout Western Europe is a modern revival. The average "pagan" is a recovering Christian.

yes, i lived there over 20 years ago. even our next door neighbour did the tarot cards and similar stuff.
it was really widespread.

I have heard that hostility to Christianity in Britain has recently become very alarming at times.  Some prominent people have apparently equated raising children as Christians as being tantamount to child abuse!   I don't think this was with reference to a (fringe?) Christian parenting book, either, although I could be wrong.  I don't remember the reference:  if I am mistaken, please feel free to set me straight.



I'm interested in knowing what members of OC.net, British and otherwise, think of how widespread this phenomenon (of hostility to Christianity) and its repercussions might be.  I wonder, as well, how it might compare to attitudes in other Western countries.  (I think that Canada is, on the whole, more aggressively secular than the U.S., but an overarching Canadian live-and-let-live attitude often seems to obscure this.)

 

[orthonorm]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

 

[Pravoslavbob]

stoke on trent!
that's awesome!

when i lived near there, i met lots of pagans, so may God bless His work and give u courage.

for those of u who are not well acquainted with central england, it's an area with plenty of pre Christian religious activity.
when i was there many years ago, Christians were particularly unwelcome in some places.

Would you include parts of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, as well as the Midlands?  It's okay if you are not sure, I know that these counties are not that close to each other or parts of the Midlands.  I was just wondering.

 

[Ansgar]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

 

[Asteriktos]

Regarding the one bit, Dawkins (most prominently) has said that raising a child a Christian, labeling a child a Christian, etc. is a form of child abuse. He means in an intellectual way, that coercion=abuse or that indoctrination=abuse or whatever. He usually leaves it vague so as to let it seem raw and have the most pronounced impact. Or he just has a dislike for nuance, that's possible as well. He says the same thing would also be so for other religions like Judaism, Islam, etc.

 

[orthonorm]

Tarot cards usage is also hardly pre-Christian. It is very Christian in the sense it came to be within a Christian cultural context and reflects the same general prejudices Christianity of the time needed.

It's been a long time since I cared about his subject, but when I did for reasons other than the occult, I was in close contact with on the world's foremost researchers on the subject, Jess Karlin. May he rest in peace.

 

[orthonorm]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

 

[orthonorm]

Some prominent people have apparently equated raising children as Christians as being tantamount to child abuse!   I don't think this was with reference to a (fringe?) Christian parenting book, either, although I could be wrong.  I don't remember the reference:  if I am mistaken, please feel free to set me straight.

^-------This

 

[Pravoslavbob]

Regarding the one bit, Dawkins (most prominently) has said that raising a child a Christian, labeling a child a Christian, etc. is a form of child abuse. He means in an intellectual way, that coercion=abuse or that indoctrination=abuse or whatever. He usually leaves it vague so as to let it seem raw and have the most pronounced impact. Or he just has a dislike for nuance, that's possible as well. He says the same thing would also be so for other religions like Judaism, Islam, etc.

Ah yes, I remember this now.  Thanks for bringing this to light.

 

[Ansgar]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

 

[DeniseDenise]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

Quite a lot of the hostility currently being pushed and publicized is in relation to the issue of child-rearing.

 

[Ansgar]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

Quite a lot of the hostility currently being pushed and publicized is in relation to the issue of child-rearing.

Really? I mean, I know there has been some cases in Britain and Germany but I have never really considered it a major issue.

 

[Arachne]

There's a thriving neopagan population in Essex, judging by the shops and events around, and my contact with them has never been anything but cordial. Atheists can be a whole different kettle of fish.

Anti-witchcraft laws in Britain were repealed in the mid-1950s. The average neopagan in the 70s or 80s was likely to be a disgruntled Christian, but today they tend to be more children of atheists who are trying to get some sort of spirituality into their lives, or second- and third-generation pagans who never knew any other form of religion.

Militant atheists may say that religious indoctrination of children is tantamount to abuse, but the only person who ever told me that anything was better than a nation of atheists was an old self-identified witch. Considering there's still a good probability for pagan parents to have their children taken away under allegations of abuse just for not belonging to a mainstream religion, there could be a lot more hostility against Christians.

 

[orthonorm]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

Quite a lot of the hostility currently being pushed and publicized is in relation to the issue of child-rearing.

Really? I mean, I know there has been some cases in Britain and Germany but I have never really considered it a major issue.

You don't know what is like living in a Byebull believing area. Everywhere isn't Europe.

 

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Neo-pagan and Atheist Hostility in Britain and Other Countries

« on: Today at 02:16:33 PM »
Reply with quoteQuote 



Quote from: mabsoota on February 02, 2014, 02:32:04 PM

stoke on trent!
that's awesome!
Smiley
when i lived near there, i met lots of pagans, so may God bless His work and give u courage.

for those of u who are not well acquainted with central england, it's an area with plenty of pre Christian religious activity.
when i was there many years ago, Christians were particularly unwelcome in some places.


Quote from: mabsoota on Today at 01:41:02 PM










Quote from: Iconodule on Today at 09:31:13 AM

Are you sure of that? While many have pretenses of following "the Old Religion" paganism in England and throughout Western Europe is a modern revival. The average "pagan" is a recovering Christian.

yes, i lived there over 20 years ago. even our next door neighbour did the tarot cards and similar stuff.
it was really widespread.



I have heard that hostility to Christianity in Britain has recently become very alarming at times.  Some prominent people have apparently equated raising children as Christians as being tantamount to child abuse!  I don't think this was with reference to a (fringe?) Christian parenting book, either, although I could be wrong.  I don't remember the reference:  if I am mistaken, please feel free to set me straight.



I'm interested in knowing what members of OC.net, British and otherwise, think of how widespread this phenomenon (of hostility to Christianity) and its repercussions might be.  I wonder, as well, how it might compare to attitudes in other Western countries.  (I think that Canada is, on the whole, more aggressively secular than the U.S., but an overarching Canadian live-and-let-live attitude often seems to obscure this.)

I only know of a single friend of mine who is pagan, and they're a bizarre mixture of Buddhism, druidism, generic Celtic Paganism, a bit of Esotericism, and a sprinkly of neo-Gnosticism. Granted, the circles I run in are usually either Catholic, Orthodox, or Traditional Anglican.

 

[Ansgar]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

Quite a lot of the hostility currently being pushed and publicized is in relation to the issue of child-rearing.

Really? I mean, I know there has been some cases in Britain and Germany but I have never really considered it a major issue.

You don't know what is like living in a Byebull believing area. Everywhere isn't Europe.

And everywhere isn't a Byebull believe area.

 

[Ansgar]

I watch Daystar, a global Christian TV network. And when it comes to parenting, I think most of their programming is about why it is Christian to hit kids. I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this, but in a world where general sanity and goodness exists, if this is the one thing Christians bring to the table when talking about raising children, then you could see how it would be seen as abuse.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.


*Arachne this proper use of scare quotes. I am mocking the claim the children can be kept pure or are pure to begin with or that people who need to get on soapboxes about hitting their kids are Christians.

I don't support the practice of using physical punishment on children, but what exactly does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

You are kidding?

No, I really don't see how your post relates to the topic. The OP was about the supposed hostility against christians, not about hitting children. Or have I missed something?

Quite a lot of the hostility currently being pushed and publicized is in relation to the issue of child-rearing.

Really? I mean, I know there has been some cases in Britain and Germany but I have never really considered it a major issue.

You don't know what is like living in a Byebull believing area. Everywhere isn't Europe.

And everywhere isn't a Byebull believe area.

You know orthonorm, I think I get what you were saying now. Just forget everything I just wrote.

 

[mabsoota]

thanks for the new thread, i'll try to stay on topic here!

i have worked with a colleague who was a witch. it was her religion. she did spells and 'helped people to fall in love'.
this was in south england.
there was another colleague in the midlands who was a spiritualist, she contacted (so she thought) people's dead relatives for them and spoke to 'spirits' often in her meetings.
both these were ladies in their 40s working in health care.

i heard from various neighbours that there were at least 10 witches covens in the northern part of the midlands in the 1980s, and they had a habit of putting spells / curses on cassette tape and then unravelling the tape aroung the property / along the street of the person being prayed for / against.

i saw a lot of unravelled tape growing up, about once a week. i used to think it was some kind of accident that people kept dropping their cassettes out of the car and accidently driving over them!
i don't know how they do it these days in the digital era...

 

[Alpo]

I don't think there is anything sillier in the World than resurrecting long-dead Pagan religions.

 

[Arachne]

I don't think there is anything sillier in the World than resurrecting long-dead Pagan religions.

Neopaganism (as an umbrella term) is about 60 years old. ;D There were several quite ridiculous claims of ancient roots at first. By now, the chill pills have kicked in nicely.

 

[Maria]

thanks for the new thread, i'll try to stay on topic here!

i have worked with a colleague who was a witch. it was her religion. she did spells and 'helped people to fall in love'.
this was in south england.
there was another colleague in the midlands who was a spiritualist, she contacted (so she thought) people's dead relatives for them and spoke to 'spirits' often in her meetings.
both these were ladies in their 40s working in health care.

i heard from various neighbours that there were at least 10 witches covens in the northern part of the midlands in the 1980s, and they had a habit of putting spells / curses on cassette tape and then unravelling the tape aroung the property / along the street of the person being prayed for / against.

i saw a lot of unravelled tape growing up, about once a week. i used to think it was some kind of accident that people kept dropping their cassettes out of the car and accidently driving over them!
i don't know how they do it these days in the digital era...

Here in Southern California, there are quite a few witches' covens, and about ten years ago, cassettes were being unwound all over the place. People just thought it was a prank much like toilet papering a house. We have not seen any unraveled cassettes lately.

 

[Nephi]

There's a thriving neopagan population in Essex, judging by the shops and events around, and my contact with them has never been anything but cordial. Atheists can be a whole different kettle of fish.

Anti-witchcraft laws in Britain were repealed in the mid-1950s. The average neopagan in the 70s or 80s was likely to be a disgruntled Christian, but today they tend to be more children of atheists who are trying to get some sort of spirituality into their lives, or second- and third-generation pagans who never knew any other form of religion.

Militant atheists may say that religious indoctrination of children is tantamount to abuse, but the only person who ever told me that anything was better than a nation of atheists was an old self-identified witch. Considering there's still a good probability for pagan parents to have their children taken away under allegations of abuse just for not belonging to a mainstream religion, there could be a lot more hostility against Christians.

I've had a deal of exposure to American neo-pagans, at least one being second-generation. They've varied from teens to 40's. The second-generation is my age, and we were teenagers when we became friends. Unfortunately, every one of them was hostile, to some degree or other, to Christianity. I remember at least one of them urinating on church buildings whenever they were inebriated in some fashion.

I remember when I was a teenage militant atheist, the second-gen pagan girl and I were hanging out with friends at a park when we were approached by a couple proselytizing Evangelicals. She almost immediately became rude and hostile, while I, the militant atheist of all people, actually had a cordial conversation with them. She never changed from that attitude that I'm aware of.

I also remember two of my other neopagan friends, mid-20's and early-30's, were really insulting Christianity, and Christians in particular, one day. Once they found out I was Christian (although I was some sort of eclectic Gnostic-Mormon mix at the time), they weren't rude to me and in fact changed their tone when I was around. We actually had some nice conversations about religion after that, I think they were mostly just reacting to their personal experiences of Christians/Christianity growing up. The early-30's one eventually went so far as to say he was "a kind of Christian too," because he thought "Jesus is one of many gods like the angel Michael."

That said, I'm not sure at all how their religious views would compare to European neo-pagans, as they were all very eclectic in my experience. Not one of them aligned with a set community, pantheon, etc., and they all varied when it came to magic and ritual. The one outright denied the average use of magic as fake, only conceding its legitimacy in rare exceptions. The only major consensus I can think of was their unified dislike of Christianity to some degree or other.

 

[Pravoslavbob]

I know a lot of oc.netters liked getting hit as kids by adults and they in turn like hitting kids themselves and believe God has told them to do this....

I was not aware of this; perhaps I do not read the family forum often enough.

Granted some hitting of kids is likely a wash psychologically speaking, but really when hitting children is what seems to be the most important subject (and how to keep your children "pure"*) to "Christians"*, you gotta rethink things. But Christians are known for nothing if not their reactionary views on nearly everything.

I can see your point when it comes to how Christians with rather extreme views get all the media attention and then people tar all Christians with the same brush.  In any event, it is unfortunately also fair (and very sad) to say that many Christians of all kinds have done things through the ages that fall short of how Christ said we should behave.