The Return of the Gods

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2008/09/13/i-believe-that-the-only-place-for-religion-is-in-the-home/

Just been reading the letter in the JEP by Michael de Petrovsky about Advocate Falle's actions, in which he comments that:

Having just returned from a refreshing two-week tour of Western Europe, I read that a Jersey magistrate had threatened to incarcerate a fellow human being for refusing to stand up for morning prayers. One shudders.

He then goes on to give an example of how bad things can be by citing an example of taking the book of Jonah literally:

In one school, where the head was a highly qualified scientist, some way-out crank was permitted to perform a ridiculous interpretation of Jonah and the Whale. There, these young primary age children were subjected to an account so absurd that I failed to understand why the staff did not challenge it.

In fact, the story of Jonah - and the large fish - which is unidentified - has in Judaism, and in many strands of Christianity, long been taken as a fable. In the New Testament, Jesus is presented as taking the story not literally but as a "type" or "symbol" of what he is talking about.

In 409 AD, Augustine (who also took the genesis stories as myths or fables) wrote of Jonah:

The thing is utterly improbable and incredible, that a man swallowed with his clothes on should have existed in the inside of a fish. If, however, the story is figurative, be pleased to explain it. Again, what is meant by the story that a gourd sprang up above the head of Jonah after he was vomited by the fish? What was the cause of this gourd's growth?" Questions such as these I have seen discussed by Pagans amidst loud laughter, and with great scorn.

Augustine's approach was to see the story as an allegory, and not as literal history.

It was only the rise of fundamentalism, with its emphasis on literal truth, that the story became - as de Petrovsky points out so clearly - an absurdity. But Augustine had already said that.

De Petrovsky uses this to make his argument:

In this day and age, I firmly believe that the only place for religion is in the home. It has no place in the law, nor in education (except in a purely academic sense), nor government

But does this follow? Insofar as a religious belief - as much as the ideology of an atheist - informs their morality, then to completely exclude religious belief would be to exclude the ethical reasoning which may derive from religious roots. Theocracy - such as in the Middle Ages, or in Nations where Sharia law is practiced - is clearly a bad thing, as it makes the ultimate court of appeal beyond criticism. But an informed conscience whose reasoning may derive from or have roots in religious belief is another matter, as long as what Richard Dawkins calls "the God Card" is not played as a trump to say "I am right, you are wrong".

If religious people had kept their religious beliefs in the home, the war against slavery might not have been fought, to give just one example. It was the slave owners who kept their beliefs compartmentalised, and saw no contradictions between the private piety and the public business practice.

Finally De Petrovsky comments that:

There is no doubt that in years to come the current religions of the world will be viewed by future generations as we now view those of the pre-Christian era. Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and the thousands of other current deities will one day take their place alongside Zeus, Thor and all those other gods who now appear but figments of an uninformed imagination.

I don't know where he has been the past twenty years, but his understanding of history seems to have a lot of the 1970s about it, when science and the white hot heat of the technological revolution was going to do away with any kind of religious belief. He should spend some time in the bookshops, where the science section has sadly been fading away, down to a single book case, and the new age books, all full of colourful items - channeling, tarot, wicca, paganism, druidry, angels etc etc - have expanded to take up four or five book cases.

Conventional religious belief - often a matter of form as much as conviction - has been steadily (and in some cases rapidly) vanishing as those who went along with it as a matter of custom (or were blungeoned into it by school assemblies) have ceased, and only the committed remain. But New Age beliefs have exploded in the last twenty years, as can be seen by any visit to a Mind, Body and Spirit Fair, where some of the beliefs on offer would give Mr De Petrovsky even more of a fit than the Jonah story - and gave Richard Dawkins such apoplexy he devoted two programmes - The Enemies of Reason - to it.

And if he thinks Thor and Odin have gone away, he should really read the volume of "The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The 20th Century", which deals among other matters with the rise and popularity of Odinism, a revival of the Norse pantheon, and which certainly have members (not me I hasten to add!) over in Jersey who meet outside on "sacred times" to chant and beat their drums, and other ritualistic matters.

http://www.odinic-rite.org/

Here you will find information about the Odinic Rite, about Odinism, our Gods & Goddesses and our Folk. You will also find many articles from previous issues of OR Briefing, our members publication, audio & video and news of interest to Odinists.

In Greece, some New Agers are reviving the Greek Pantheon. So far from "being figments of an unformed imagination", they are now emerging again as part of a post-modern reformed imagination, which finds scientific reductionism too arid and dry to provide enough emotional sustenance.

http://hellenismos.us/?tag=modern-worship-of-zeus

Today, several groups and solitary practitioners around the world attempt to revive the worship of the ancient Greek pantheon, including Zeus. These people are involved in revivalist religions that operate under various names including: Hellenic Reconstructionism, Hellenic Polytheism, Hellenic Paganism, Hellenismos and Dodekatheism.

I'm not saying whether this modern revival is a good thing or not, I'm simply noting that it is a fact, and will not go away, however much wishful thinking De Petrovsky would like to indugle in.


Books of the Post

"New Age Movement. The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity, Paul Heelas
The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality, Paul Heelas

(These are academic studies of the phenomena from a sociologist)