Clipmarks | boniface's 'pagan' clips

Near stadium, Cowboys have a new rival: Satan

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:37:26 GMT

clipped by: boniface

ARLINGTON — A wee bit o’ Scotland has come to the outskirts of Cowboys Stadium, and with it a foggy auld controversy over whether a Scottish sculpture park is also a pagan shrine that might hex the Dallas Cowboys.

City leaders and the family of late philanthropist Jane Mathes Kelton gathered Thursday to rededicate Caelum Moor, a former $3 million corporate sculpture park now relocated as public art along the bonny banks of Johnson Creek.

The letter was headlined, "No Witchcraft Park in Arlington."

In a Thursday phone interview, Tummillo called Caelum Moor "a mockery of Christianity" and said those near the park — including the Cowboys — are "in a dance with the devil."

Tummillo was a youth pastor with the now-disbanded Redeeming Love Covenant Church when the Rev. Danny Smith and his wife, Dena, took their witchcraft warnings nationwide on CNN and even to the syndicated TV entertainment show Strange Universe.

Odin is the ancient ancestor of Santa Claus

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:02:32 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.socyberty.com

The Norse god Odin is considered to be the chief god in Norse paganism. Also known as Wotan in Old High German and Woden in Anglo-Saxon. In Pagan Germany, the god Odin led a great hunting party astride an eight-legged horse during the Yule holiday. Santa’s reindeer may be derived from the horse Sleipnir. It is believed that children would place their boots near the chimney filled with straw, carrots or sugar for Odin’s horse. Odin would then repay the children’s kindness by replacing the horse food with gifts or sweets.

Santa Claus: an absorbed pagan deity

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:01:02 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.suite101.com

Our modern version of this personage is an amalagation of many old personifications of a very old elf. Yes, elf. In ancient times, it was believed that an elf came and delivered gifts to those who left him porridge. Ahh...see the connection between the milk and cookie offerings left by generations of children? Indeed, the popular figure of Santa Claus actually owes more to the god Odin than he does the Christian saint called Nicholas. Take a look. Good old Saint Nick is a very germanic fellow.

He dresses in red, a colour symbolic of the Teutonic Alfs, or elves. He has one eye with which he can give knowledge with a single wink. He has a long white beard and hails from the ancient lands of the frozen north. The the twelve days of Yule are special to him. Nick is one of his many names.

So when your children cry for Santa Claus

Tell them about Odin being also called Nick and how he flies through the skies hunting with his dogs for the twelve days of Yule.

Pagans and Homosexuality

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:27:46 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: paganwiccan.about.com

Pagans rarely have an official stance on much of anything (other than "be sure to bring food") simply because there are so many different branches of Paganism. However, one reason you find so many openly gay, bisexual and transgendered people within the Pagan and Wiccan community is because, frankly, we don't really care what people do in the bedroom. In fact, there are a few deities out there who were pretty sexually adventurous in their escapades, so who are we mortals to say, "You can't sleep with this person, and you're only allowed to love THAT person over there"? Generally, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, we figure it's your business, and no one else's.

You'll also find that Pagans and Wiccans tend to be, as a group, extremely supportive of equality and fairness under the law as set down by the Constitution.

The Annual Phallus Festival in Greece

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:50:12 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

Each year on the first Monday of Lent, the people of the tiny Greek town of Tyrnavos go crazy about penises, singing lewd songs and urging passersby to kiss their model phallusses. The pagan fertility festival is one of the most famous parties in Greece.

The one-day pagan fertility festival in this town of 15,000 people near the central Greek city of Larissa marks the beginning of Lent, the fasting period before Easter, and is one of the most famous carnivals in Greece.

The festival is in honor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, madness and ecstasy. While the men, women and children of Tyrnavos celebrate the penis, the rest of Greece marks the beginning of the pre-Easter fast more modestly by flying kites and eating octopus, olives and unleavened bread.

Tags: annual, phallus, festival, greece

Christianity=Good, Everyone Else=Bad?

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:32:36 GMT

clipped by: boniface
clipper's remarks: Pain-in-the-ass Christians can't stand it when anyone else follows their traditions. No, only X-tianity should be allowed, according to them.

(I am not referring here to "non-pain-in-the-ass Christians.")

Clip Source: wnd.com

Pagan 'blessing' sought for new building

'Good fortune and fertility' sought from 'the gods on the structure'

A former employee of a Tennessee insurance company is objecting to a "ceremony" held at the construction site of a new building because it called on "the gods on the structure" for "good fortune and fertility."

BCBS then blamed the situation on Skanska, the construction company, saying it was a contractor's tradition.

Jessica Murray, a spokeswoman for the builder, said it's "common practice" for builders to have such a ceremony.

"Centuries ago … when people first started doing it in Scandinavia, there had been some religious connotations. Nowadays all that is doing is signifying the project has been completed to its highest point. Lifting the tree up is symbolizing teamwork … and wishing luck on the building," she said.

Pagan Mythology and C.S. Lewis

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:48:22 GMT

clipped by: boniface
clipper's remarks: Rather, he was genuinely enamored of mythology and believed the "Story" to take precedence over any preconceived moral. In Lewis's own words:

"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord" (Of Other Worlds, p. 36).

Clip Source: www.rapidnet.com

At the age of twenty-seven, after having been elected Fellow and Tutor in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, C.S. Lewis met John Ronald Reuel Tolkien at a meeting of the English faculty at Menton College (5/11/26). J.R.R. Tolkien, though wary of Lewis at first, enrolled him in the "Coalbiters," a club founded by Tolkien for the study and propagation of Norse mythology. The two became close friends, sharing their common interest in occult fantasy. Tolkien argued that there is an inherent truth of mythology: that all pagan religions point in the direction of God. Through this faulty argument, Lewis reasoned the story of Christ to be a "true myth" -- a myth much the same as others, but a myth that really happened.

It is argued that in presenting a blend of fantasy with analogy to Christian truth, Lewis hoped to encourage his readers to search out the truth further.* This, however, was not Lewis's intention in writing his fantasies.

Narnia owes more to Pagan mythology than christian

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:36:06 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.time.com

How to Tell if The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a Christian Film

Lewis always insisted that his seven Narnia books were not a point-by-point Christian allegory. Much of The Lion, the Witch owes more to English folktales or Norse and classical myth than to the New Testament. The passage of the four Pevensie children through the magic closet into a world laboring under a spell of eternal winter is not Christian, nor are the cruel white witch, talking animals, centaurs, and even a duo of Roman gods who inhabit it. True, the description of the redeeming figure of the lion Aslan as "the Son the Great Emperor-Beyond-the- Sea" is a big hint. But even Aslan's sacrifice on a huge stone table (not a cross; and performed with a stone knife, Aztec-style), and his subsequent miraculous recovery could have been borrowed from any number of world religions.

What the Lion's filmmakers do with the charming storytelling that surrounds them is—theologically—optional.

Goths and Pagans are reinventing morris dancing

Sun, 11 May 2008 16:29:26 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Morris dancing is a joke, isn't it, with a hey nonny no? Beardy men with beer bellies prancing about in white stockings, waving hankies? Very twee. But try telling that to the men and women of Hunters Moon, here by the Sussex coast looking like the devilish spawn of Hell's Angels and medieval mummers. They are part of a secret revolution in morris dancing, transforming the most easily lampooned of English eccentricities.

You don't have to be a pagan to join Hunters Moon, but their symbol is a combination of the moon and the horned man. "A lot of people within the wider morris don't like or accept its connection with the pagan," says Ranger – but for him it is a spiritual experience. "You are grounding yourself, partaking of yourself as a member of the human race, and partaking of the ground you're dancing on."

One reason for the recent growth of Border morris is that it is easier to learn (while more spectacular) than other forms.

In Defense of the CS Lewis's Pagan Prince Caspian

Wed, 07 May 2008 16:23:55 GMT

clipped by: boniface
clipper's remarks: CS Lewis professed to be a Christian, but if you really want to see how Pagan he actually was, read the chapter "The Inklings and the Gods" in the book by Ronald Hutton "Witches, Druids and King Arthur."

Clip Source: www.christianpost.com

When they appeared in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it was easy to look the other way in the face of the undeniable Christian imagery of Aslan dying and rising and conquering the White Witch. Bacchus and Silenus, ancient pagan gods, dance with nymphs and dryads. With Jesus so clearly figured, it was easy to ignore such things, but what to do when Bacchus and Silenus appear not once, but twice, in Prince Caspian, where such Christological imagery is not so obvious?

Is it possible that the writings of the “apostle to the atheists” actually smuggles in pantheism and Paganism? There are some who believe exactly that.

This is a stumbling block for many people, including Christians themselves. Christianity may be true but does it satisfy?

What is so appealing about heaven if it just means sitting in a pew for eternity? Many people in church are bored out of their minds right now. Who wants that experience forever? “No thanks,” many say.

Pagan Weddings on the Rise

Sun, 04 May 2008 14:00:36 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.modbee.com

Pagan weddings attract more than a cult following

A 2001 survey by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that the number of followers of Wicca, one of the many religions that fall beneath the pagan umbrella, increased from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, making it the fastest-growing religion in America in terms of percentage increase.

Marty Laubach, a sociology professor at Marshall University, says the number of followers of pagan religions is even higher now, citing a 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that put the estimate at 1.2 million.

My suspicion is that the first number was way too low due to people not responding," Laubach said. "The 1990 study was conducted at the height of the 'satanic panic,' which kept many neopagans in the closet."

While some subsets don't believe in gods, others, like Wiccans, worship many gods and goddesses. Women, in fact, are revered as the bearers of life in Wicca.

7th century Anglo-Saxon burial suggests pagan cult

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 14:27:28 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.dailyindia.com

Washington, April 12: Archaeologists have excavated a seventh century grave from the center of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in England, which has revealed a woman's jewelry-draped body, leading scientists to believe that she might have lead a pagan cult.

According to a report in Discovery News, the jewelry, which was found in a grave in Yorkshire, included a large shield-shaped pendant, the layout and location of the cemetery as well as excavated weaponry, such as knives and a fine langseax (a single-edged Anglo-Saxon sword).

These findings have lead scientists to believe that the woman found in the grave might have been a member of royalty, who led a pagan cult at a time when Christianity was just starting to take root in the region.

"Her bed burial is stridently pagan, a sort of rare, female equivalent of ship burials, as she is laid out on a vehicle to deliver her to the afterworld," said archaeologist Mike Pitts.

Aryan ideals, not ancient Greece, were the inspiration behind flame tradition

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:15:04 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

There is a two-word answer to those who think the Olympic torch is a symbol of harmony between nations that should be kept apart from politics – Adolf Hitler.

The ceremony played out on the streets of Paris yesterday did not originate in ancient Greece, nor even in the 19th century, when the Olympic movement was revived. The entire ritual, with its pagan overtones, was devised by a German named Dr Carl Diem, who ran the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

It was his idea that the flame should be lit under the supervision of a High Priestess, using mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays, and passed from torch to torch along the way, so that when it arrived in the Berlin stadium it would have a quasi-sacred purity.

The concept could hardly fail to appeal to the Nazis, who loved pagan mythology, and saw ancient Greece as an Aryan forerunner of the Third Reich. The ancient Greeks believed that fire was of divine origin, and kept perpetual flames burning in their temples.

Starhawk deported from Israel

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:53:10 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.indybay.org

Starhawk, well known American anarchist activist was deported by the Israeli government on Thursday. Altho she practices the Pagan religion, she is very proud of her Jewish heritage.

She was in Palestine to help teach a permaculture course in the northern West Bank as well as working with earth activists to develop a project in the Bethlehem area.

Dr. Joanne Taylor, a British psychologist commented on the deportation "clearly the Israeli authorities are paranoid even about letting people grow crops and conserve rainwater on their own land."

Certainly survival of the Palestinian people depends on being able to feed themselves; whilst even access to water is under threat from the Israeli military occupation, learning ways to recycle and store this is an urgent priority.

Is Nothing Sacred?

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:49:48 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.russia-ic.com

This year tourists and Moscow citizens will not witness the tradition of putting the Maslenitsa effigy of fire at the main Maslenitsa celebration of Moscow at Vasilyevsky Slope near Red Square. Maslenitsa (Pancake Week) is the only purely Russian holiday dating back to pagan times. On the last day of Maslenitsa people burn the effigy symbolizing winter to mark the beginning of spring.

However, this year the Moscow Tourism Committee says no to the longstanding tradition considering it to be not politically correct. “It is not humanist in the 21st century”, - as the chairman of the committee Grigory Antyufeev explains. Instead of burning, it is planned to repaint the Maslenitsa effigy to give it a “springy” look.

At the same time, all other Maslenitsa celebrations in different Russian cities and districts of Moscow will follow the tradition of the effigy burning as the state organs have nothing to do with organization of such celebrations.