OT: A POLL How many pagans do we have on this Board?

[lilymaid]

I got a real laugh out of those jokers in Georgia defending the Ten Commandments monument. So many times, they referred to "the founding fathers" of our country. I wonder if any of them realise that some of the most influential of those founding fathers were not christian? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Thomas Paine were all deists.

I thought Paine was an atheist, Washington never talked much about his beliefs, Franklin contradicted himself, and Jefferson was a deist. Anyone know?

[Ridseard]

For certain, most of them were Freemasons. Not an organization heavily encouraged by the Church.

Washington and Franklin were Masons. Jefferson was not. I'm not sure about Paine, but he certainly may have been. At that time Freemasonry represented the principles of the Enlightenment and attracted a lot of intellectuals. I do not think, however, that Masonry played a particularly significant role in the American Revolution, at least not the major role which it had in the French Revolution.

Today, of course, most Masonic lodges are mainly social/charitable organizations. It's hard to understand why they encounter so much opposition from various Christian denominations. Might as well oppose the Moose, Elks, Boy Scouts, and Loyal Order of Water Buffalo (or whatever it was that Fred Flintstone belonged to).

[Ridseard]

I thought Paine was an atheist, Washington never talked much about his beliefs, Franklin contradicted himself, and Jefferson was a deist. Anyone know?

Washington was a nominal Anglican (Episcopalian?). He believed in God.

I know for sure that Paine was at least a Deist (or he was at one time), but I can't find the reference right now. However, he, like Jefferson, was very skeptical about the supernatural aspects of religion.

Franklin goofed off so much that you can't tell much about what he believed. However, as a Freemason, he was probably required to affirm a belief in God.

[johnz]

From what I've read, the Picts are believed to be pre-celtic.They were obliterated?, assimilated? relatively recently, during the Irish invasion of Scotland. Was Kennith McAlpin involved? I remember that name from somewhere. The written language they used I believe was called ogham(sp?). This was a series of hash lines used to denote something, I didn't pay that close attention when I was reading this, but it seemed like a complicated way to convey thoughts.
Anyway, that's the very little bit I know about the Picts.
Take care, Johnz

[waitingame]

I thought Paine was an atheist, .

Thomas Paine lived for some time in Lewes in the UK, just a few miles from where I live and there is evidence that he regularly attended Unitarian services in that town so I guess he may well have been either an atheist or a deist

Before I'm savaged for that statement perhaps I should state that I am a practicing Unitarian.

[waitingame]

Sorry Ridseard got my quotes wrong should have been lilymaid

[claudine]

Waitingame, your avatar looks scary. What is that green thing above your head?

[Cyfiawnder]

Linguistic evidence indicates that the Celtic languages all seem to stem from the same Indo-European parent language, and share some commonalities with that of Sanskrit. Decorated artifacts from 600 BCE and earlier have symbolic commonality with Hinduism, such as the use of the solar symbols like the swastika; many myths also contain amazing similarities. Something else from Celtic culture that is remarkably similar to Hindu society is the caste system. Peter Berresford Ellis, in his book The Ancient World of the Celts, talks of the “menials and producers [that were] equivalent to the sudra and the vaishya in Hindu society.” Then there were the warrior caste (the Hindu kshatriya), and the intellectual caste (the Celtic Druids, the Hindu Brahmin).

I too have that Book. Informative read but rather Dry like a text book. I believe you are refering to page 17 from Elis's book.
He gives a List of synskrit words and their Old irish cousins. But it was actually Professor Myles Dillon who among other scholars argued this fact.

Sanskrit\ Old Irish
arya(freeman)\ aire(noble)
naib(good)\ noeib(holy)
badhira(deaf)\ bodhar(deaf)
minda(physical defect)\ menda(a stammerer)

Peace in the Light /|\
Cyfiawnder

[Wombat]

I feel like there has been a long tradition of calling the Picts Celtic that has little to do with fact other than that they seem to have influenced the later Celtic peoples; I could be wrong. I remember there having been a very small uproar after Braveheart came out, since some were saying that there was no evidence that any Celtic peoples ever painted themselves blue like the Picts did.

There is another theory. According to this view it was a common practice amongst Brish celts that died out during the period of the Roman occupation but persisted only in the far north.

But who knows! Doesn't really matter a heck of a lot, I don't think. They probably were assimilated, in any event!

Stuarrt

Well, first, nobody knows with any certainty. Second, assimilation is all it takes to be celtic or none of the peoples now regarded as celtic would count. It's primarily about culture and language, not about blood or genes.

The precise details don't matter much, I agree, except that it is intrinsically interesting to study origins. The general question about how ethnic groups formed and changed does matter a great deal I think. Too much blood has been spilt in the name of racial purity for us to be complacent about understanding what that really means. Even though we know it isn't true, people can't quite shake free of the old racist myth that there were once pure races that are 'contaminated' by miscegenation. Actually recent genetic studies suggest that genetic similarity and difference varies directly with geographical proximity and not with ethnic affiliation. I know this fact would not in itself prevent ethnic conflict but it would remove one of the most persistent pseudo justifications for it.

[waitingame]

Waitingame, your avatar looks scary. What is that green thing above your head?

Claudine
It's just a passing shop blind (awning) but it's not me!! I'm far less conventional looking than that young man.
Just for you here's the whole pictue. Now I'm much more scary!!!

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Are members of the Church of the Subgenius pagans?

[Ridseard]

Here is a selection from Chapter 1 of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason."

****************************************

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

[TonyHiggins]

Are members of the Church of the Subgenius pagans?

What counts is whether you're cutting everyone slack or not.
Tony
Hail to Bob Dobbs!

[msheldon]

Washington was a nominal Anglican (Episcopalian?). He believed in God.

True. But remember that the Anglican church and the English government were one and the same. The only way to aspire in politics was to be active in the church. Jefferson was also active in the Anglican church before the revolution, even though he vocally stated his beliefs in contradiction to the church.

It's no coincidence that Jefferson's writings are used as the basis for "separation of church and state". These were folk who did not believe in the Anglican church's teaching, but were still essentially forced to participate in order to participate in government.

Paine's writings are often taken to be athiestic, but in truth they are deistic. The problem for modern folk is that the concept of deism is unknown for the most part, and thus seems to defy categorization.

As in interesting aside...

The more time I spend in the countryside and wilderness, the more inclined I am to believe in a supreme being(s). The more time I spend in urban environments, the more inclined I am to believe there is no such thing. I really need to get out of the city...

[The Weekenders]

Paine's father was a Quaker, his mother an Anglican. He attended services of both faiths in his boyhood. From my viewpoint, his opinions had the skepticism and radicalism of a Quaker and I think he had the expected sense of social rejection and persecution that many Quakers experienced in those days, multiplied by his own iconoclasm and misfortunes. There are multiple pages on this subject in the book quoted below but I am giving the summary by the author which he follows by examples:

"Trapped in the field of tension between state and nonstate religions, each convinced of its own Truth, Paine eventually doubted both Anglicanism and Quakerism and opted for neither, all the while absorbing some of their moral teachings and pleading for toleration of all religions and the secularization of state institutions."
From Tom Paine, A Political Life by John Keane