Is neo-paganism just LARPing or is there more to it...

Prove what?

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>neo nazi metalheads
kekd so hard

yes, new atheism is a religion.

Looks like the pagans didn't learn their lesson the first time around.

All religions are just LARPing.

honestly
lack of religion will probably win in the end. i don't see any new religion gaining any ground in current year

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>i don't see any new religion gaining any ground in current year
Chinese Christianity m8.
>But user, that is just Christianity-
It is extremely loaded with Chinese syncretism, it might as well be something else. And we're talking syncretism that is beyond Catholic Missionary levels like Jesus being in a pantheon of gods or him having mortal demigod descendants on earth.

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>Chinese Christianity
Christianity is gaining ground everywhere in the world, outside of the west. Although here atheists are dying out because of their low birth rates and Christians still have the birth rates.

>post yfw Christians will be the only native westerners left in 100 years because of natural selection

Right, because births are the only way to distribute ideas.

Makes you wonder how atheists emerged out of a Christian society in the first place. It's almost like being born a Christian isn't a guarantee someone will forever remain Christian or something

>Although here atheists are dying out because of their low birth rates and Christians still have the birth rates.

The percentage of atheists increases every year.

>Is neo-paganism just LARPing?
youtube.com/watch?v=5LgCuvb79eQ
to 99% yes.
The more genuine groups are from the furthest fucking right and might make it little ethnoreligious cults in 50 years if they manage to pass to their cildren.

>COuld these religions take over
No, not a chance.
They are based on victim complexes or hippiedom, bad understanding of history, zero theology whatsoever and would never hold a spine should Ahmed decide to take their mushrikin heads as a trophy.

>Is neo-paganism just LARPing
Is it really much worse than the Catholics on here?
>We put gold and pretty stones everywhere, that means our churches are better!
>Lmao, stupid proddies, actually believe the bible
>I am a proud reactionary and believe that all Europe's egalitarian movements was a disaster. That don't include Catholicism, because of reasons.

>Not reading everything I said.
What I was saying is Christfaggotry in China is fast turning into something else.

When the Chinese are basically violating meme Christian doctrine (i.e. the fact that there is only one god) you know that you're somewhere else entirely, a fanfiction of Jesus / Jade Emperor.

The world is going to end soon then don't say that

So you expect something crazy like cao dai coming from it?

>Expect
IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.
>Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
AND HAS ALREADY BEGUN
>New Chinese Christian Movements.
>Church of the Eastern Lightning
>Denominationless Churches of Casual Christians casually throwing in Christian dogma to Chinese traditional folk religion & or Buddhism. Called "House Churches" and is thought of as to make the other half of China's Christian population because they are underground and not part of the approved Churches.

He thinks atheism/religion is hereditary
Every atheist I know including myself was raised Christian
Book filled with mistakes and contradictions + freedom of information is a deadly combo for Christianity
The only way you could have an all-Christian nation was if it were a theocracy modelled after Iran or Saudi Arabia or if evryone had the iq of a sub-saharan African

*Desire to know more intensifies*
Inb4 Pope Francis comes in and tell them that they true Christianity means open borders and giving your daughters in marriage to Mahmoud.

>Church of the Eastern Lightning
>The denomination was founded by Zhao Weishan who later went to the United States from where he continues to lead the church.
>went to the united states

Into the trash it goes, sounds more like a CIA asset to destabilise them as they see the chinese government as the great dragon to overcome.

Bishops of Chinese Catholicism are chosen by the party.

Just look at what the Han managed to twist Islam into. I have no idea why any Christian would want that done to his religion.

Nope.jpg.

Catholicism in China is handled by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church. Because the last thing China wants is to have foreign appointed entities (i.e. Rome appointed Cardinals) sitting in positions of influence in China.

So consistently the Chinese has pissed off the Roman Catholic church for a long time now, telling them that Chink Catholics are the responsibility of a Chinese appointed cardinal, not Rome.

That said, the weirdest is the Church of the Eastern Lightning. It got its name from a Mathew passage: "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

The group believes that the child of god is reborn as a young Chinese woman somewhere in China (THE EAST) and it is their mission to find her, topple the Peoples Republic of China, and recreate China into a Heavenly Kingdom (Taiping rebellion flashbacks) which will then cleanse the world of unbelief (including other Christian groups who refuse to acknowledge the seocnd messiah).

They are- rightly so- classified as a terrorist group, and China has hunted them down like rats after a series of serial killings done by the group so they're probably gone by now. Many of the group have gone into death sentences and life in prison by this point.

Religion is indicative of the culture it comes from; conversely, it also can determine what a society becomes.

Old world religions focused on nature rather than progression. To the old world, man himself was perfect as he was. The gods of the old world were as perfect as the humans; and in a modern sense, neither were perfect, because the gods were just as gluttonous and lustful as the humans who worshiped them. The old world religions reflected a society that was built ground-up, and reflected the family, honour morality, etc. Honour (as it is today) has no meaning, or a changed meaning; the only word that could best describe what the world called "Honour" would be "Mania", or (in terms of Dishonour) "Depression". Manic people suffer delusions of grandeur, they're elevated in mood, and they are more energetic and outgoing; such is the symptom of someone with grandiose honour (like a king). Honour isn't functioning well in modern society, because our system of law has replaced the biological urge for honour and loyalty. When you're cramped together in a city full of multi-racial and multi-ethnic people, the only person that matters is yourself, and you have to follow the law of the city to protect yourself; what this does is conflates your moral senses with the law, and it changes how you feel towards other people. I'm from a small island off the east of Canada; Up until the 70s, the only way to get to the island was by boat; we still have the old smalltown-English hospitality and sense of loyalty. That loyalty (that exists outside of the rule of law), creates an honour system, and we live honourably. For me personally, it's easy to understand the old world religions, because they were intuned with the sense of honour that is forgotten by most people.

This goes to show that a religion can be anything you want it to be, regardless of what the so-called sacred texts say.

>Look at me! I am special and spiritually deep!
>I am a real life version of Gandalf with my staff and beard, the green wizard :DDDDDDDDDD
>If I raise my hands it will look like I am doing religious stuff, I perform Celtic rituals, 2deep4u
>I haz the most white hairs, therefore I iz leader of this mob, also dont overlook how much in a trance-like state I am, guys
>Dam bad hair day, oh fug diz, I will just wear my black cowboy hat, nobody will mind, lalala I evoke goddesses
>Oh goddam, was the dresscode white?

You sure you wanna play this game son?

Neo-paganism is a type of new age spirituality and thus only accessible/relatable to only a tiny minority of counter-culture practitioners. As a mystery cult its sermons are short on practical application and long on ritual and esoteria which are designed to impress and retain the already faithful, but is totally lacking in any kind of galvanizing mechanism that presents a canonically unified ethical narrative for its followers to strive towards. Often times it becomes some variant of "be nice" or some other watered down and bastardized version of the golden rule.

It is a continuation of the western mystic tradition, having been relegated to the fringe of society thanks to the mainstream domination of secular thought and methodologies in the western tradition, as most westerners were raised in an environment of scientific skepticism and are quick to dismiss mysticism as obsolete to modern sensibilities.

>Look at me! I judge others for stuff I don't do myself!

>Is neo-paganism just LARPing
Depends on what you mean. In that pic there are probably a few there who are pagans or occultists at home.

A lot of this is a problem of terminology. There are plenty of neopagans who only read from the new age section of Barnes and Noble, or get their praxes from odinsfury.info.

There are also a number of reconstructionists. These guys occasionally get flak for filling blanks to the best of their ability to ascertain. Provided it's not just ahistorical garbage I have little problem with this.

Then you've got folks like Jake Stratton Kent who are practicing out of the Greek Magickal Papyri. I've got copies of the Pyramid Texts and Coming Forth by Day I lift rituals from. There's a HUGE movement to publish old texts like the Galdrabok or the svartkonstbockers.

What is 'genuine' in this context? Define it and give a metric of determination.

The push for a 'new' Paganism happened well before the "New Age" movement started.

If you can direct me to Neo-Paganism's mystery cult, I'd appreciate it. In reality, it appears that just like in the past, some are initiatory and some are not. Some seek to simulate old initiations, others do not.

>but is totally lacking in any kind of galvanizing mechanism that presents a canonically unified ethical narrative for its followers to strive towards
Only because we're using the blanket term 'neopaganism' rather than stratifying who and what we're talking about.

That whatever you believe is the word of god.

>Could these religions take over in the face of declining Christianity?
let me laugh at you
hah
HAH

Western Christians have the exact same abysmal birthrates atheists do.

All religion is LARPing. Some neopagans actually believe what they claim to believe, same as some religious people do, but for most of them the appeal is more in the theatre and community they find, same as most religious people.

I imagine the future of western/ northern Europe will see atheists, people who convert to dharmic religions, neopagans, christians and muslims mixed each in roughly similar proportions
Neopaganism isn't as stupid a meme as Veeky Forums believes, it can be spiritually deep and is growing quickly.
But Islam is also growing quickly, atheism is growing quickly (but will then decline due to low birth rates), and people often overlook this now but Buddhism is still gaining white converts. In fact a third of British Buddhists are now white.

>Right, because births are the only way to distribute ideas.

Some people convert, but the vast majority are indoctrinated from birth.

I don't think so, not on any large scale or widespread use in any one perosns life.

The act of communion can be replaced by neo-pagan practices though, just like hobbies can act as a communion replacement for people.

youtube.com/watch?v=bpKachYTr-4

the most LARPingest of LARPers. I had this Greek history professor in college who said that most of their religion was incorrect, baseless speculation and it made no sense

Why is Wicca still considered a meme religion again?

It's ideas and practices aren't that odd compared to older traditions and certainly make as much or as little sense as any other faith.
In fact it's much more logical and scientific than Catholicism for example.

I think the stereotype of its demographics is probably the only thing putting people of learning about Wicca properly as they would learn of other religions.

In short, its beliefs are:
>An unknowable deist God split into interactive Male and Female Polarities, each with their own manifestations which are known as the old pagan Gods and Goddesses
>Gods aren't seen as good or evil, but capable of and responsible for things we interpret as such
>Believes in reincarnation with a pause to rest and reflect between incarnations
>Believes in karma
>Celebrate the Eight Seasonal Sabbats and 12/13 Esbats
>Embraces sex and sexuality
>Has rules against harming any living things
>Practices magick, which is simply just doing rituals, acts, prayer and meditation for trying to cause good physical changes in the world through willpower alone and isn't at all considered supernatural
>Accepts science 100% and claims all things that appear supernatural are natural but just haven't been investigated by proper respectable science in depth yet so to understand it

>unknowable god
>claim to know about it

if your not living through it, if its not a material process, and it's just a theoretical category one's amorphous identity ascribes to [once and a while], its all role-play

How many Christians role play out their ideal? All of them. Even the popes change the rules or break them viciously.

Religious belief is just an emotive critique of other's faith, unless youre living as the faith.

According to /pol/ Italian-American Catholics under age 70 who to mass are LARPers

>unknowable deist God
Bullshit, BTW is Gnostic, hence the initiations.

>Gods aren't seen as good or evil
Gardner set out a more or less coherent morality (implying at least good and bad) with harm as the limiting factor, we quote him:
>witches are inclined to the morality of the legendary Good King Pausol, 'Do what you like so long as you harm none'
>Karma
Really depends on what you mean by this. Karma is not always a force of retributive return in Eastern systems and is often conceptualized in terms of obscuring dust.
>Practices magick, which is simply just doing rituals, acts, prayer and meditation for trying to cause good physical changes in the world through willpower alone and isn't at all considered supernatural
Gardner was a direct student of Crowley who absolutely believed in the powers of the supernatural.
>Accepts science 100% and claims all things that appear supernatural are natural but just haven't been investigated by proper respectable science in depth yet so to understand it
You're thinking of Crowley, see Magick in Theory and Practice, 'Definitions and Theorems'.

It may have many prophets but at least it has no gods.

I'm an First Degree Alexandrian and pretty much everything that I've read or been taught from our perspective has been to say that all magick is entirely natural and not supernatural, and that the prime mover is like a deistic non interventionist God, not like the Gnostics' God.
Also of course Wicca has a clear moral code in the Rede but in the Alexandrian view we also recognise the God and Goddess can be misused for forbidden Black / left hand purposes.
Also Crowley was never a Witch, and was very specifically told he wasn't suitable to become a member of the Craft.
And Gardner wasn't right about everything and he took more information and ideas from Crowley than most of his contemporary Wiccans were happy about.

Seeing as your views are so clearly different from mine, I'd be interested to hear which branch in BTW you're coming from exactly.

Also if magick works it works. If solitary eclectics can get results, while discussing our theological differences may be interesting it is of little real value.

>>Is neo-paganism just LARPing
No, there is genuine belief among at least some of the adherents of these faiths.

>>Could these religions take over in the face of declining Christianity?
No, because science killed supernatural explanations for day to day events. This is the self same reason you will not see a revival of christian belief in the first world any time soon.

>just looks like a bunch of people playing pretend
if anyone said this concerning the monotheistic religions they would get blasted with fedora memes

when the larping gets to the big leagues they call it faith

>In the future there might be more white Buddhists than Asian Buddhists, and Christianity will be a Chinese religion.

Still Mormon tier

There aren't any actual Neopagans. Not a single one of them actually believes in the things they claim to. There's no genuine belief in it.

How do you know this user?

>Chinese ''''''''''Christianity'''''''''''

thats just not true

any genuine neopagans on Veeky Forums want to chip in?

>based on victim complexes or hippiedom

That's rich coming from a judeo-christian, lel. Pot meet the kettle

>The Jewish Tanakh (acronym for Torah-Neviim-Khetuvim, "Law, Prophets, Writings") is the same as what Christians call the "Old Testament."

There is a slightly different arrangement of the books, but they are the same books, e.g., the Christian "Old Testament" ends with Malachi, the Tanakh ends with 2 Chronicles. But there are not more or less books; they are just arranged differently.

So in content, there is no difference.

Q: What is the difference between the Tanakh and the Old Testament?

A: THERE IS NOT A SINGLE FUCKING DIFFERENCE BETWEEEN THE JEWISH TANAKH AND THE CHRISTIAN OLD TESTAMENT! THEY'RE ONE AND THE SAME THING!

>judeo-christians
>white

JESUS WAS NOT A REAL PERSON

There is no historical reference to Jesus' life, death or the crucifixion―nothing at all. The only information of the life of Jesus comes from Judeo-Christian believers.

jdstone.org/cr/files/nohistoricalevidenceofjesus.html

Christians have said to Jews who reject Jesus, 'OK…let's see you provide historical evidence for the existence of characters in the Hebrew bible. i.e. Moses or Noah. However, in this line of reasoning, Christians forget that they have already accepted the Hebrew bible; that the episodes told therein actually happened. That is why a version of the Old Testament is located at the front of the Christian bible for reference and authority.

Those 21 great writers of the Greco-Roman world, whose combined work would fill a library did not write or allude to any thesis that god became man, walked the earth, died, was resurrected, and is now the Invisible Man in the Sky. There is not a single third party historical witness for confirmation, and not one single mention of a god walking the earth in any of the volumes of the combined work from the great writers of the period.

>Also Crowley was never a Witch
Not according to Crowley.

>was very specifically told he wasn't suitable to become a member of the Craft.
But suitable enough to devise rituals with Gardner after he was elevated to the 7th Degree OTO and given a charter to form a camp of Minervals?

I'm coming from a slightly more 'orthodox' Gardnerian position, there's decent overlap between the OTO and Gardnerians.

Are you guys LARPing about religion or are you serious about it?
It is hard for me to understand how educated and intelligent people can genuinly believe in god

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Again, define your terms.

Some folks here would classify what I do as 'neopaganism', others as 'reconstructionism' and still others as 'synchretism'.

>Practices magick

Most people, even believers find religious practices a little absurd. When you use a buzzword like that, it gets cranked to 11.

Is Christianity just LARPing or is there more to it?

>beliefs that draw from ancient paganism didn't care about postmodernism or LGBalphabetsoup people

Holy shit I never would have guessed that

While it's not explicit in some exegesis, there's a fair amount of material on nonduality in gender and nonessentialism, particularly in things like Cultus Sabbati and the works of Kenneth Grant, not to mention the Tantrik practices integrated by the former and its cousin systems from Kalachakra Tantra, Kaulajnananirnaya and Matrikabheda Tantra.

I can imagine in some scenarios, especially with immigration, that well established eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Islam, Baha'ism and Sikhism could grow significantly among westerners (people are already converting to these faiths to a limited extent)
But I just can't imagine neopaganism becoming a major force. It's just too irrelevant and small too make a major impact at this point.

>ancient paganism
>Wicca
Pick one and only one

>prophets with out gods
How scary is that

All religion is glorified role playing games.

No, it is the one true religion, all of them and people genuinely believe in Wodin, the god of boulders and the rest.

I've been a Germanic heathen for almost 7 years. I don't wear goofy clothes or hold autistic ceremonies in parks, I'm of a normal weight, and have a girlfriend who is also of a normal weight and is agnostic.

It's true there Internet is overrun with faggots who just want to be in a year round renaissance festival, but there are those of us who prefer to practice an actual belief system. Actually the worst one are the wiccans/goofy new age people, it's packed with radfems and numales and become insufferable because they think we're somehow "allies".

>it's packed with radfems and numales

Neo-"""pagans""" are either this or neo-Nazis canting about Thule and muh Aryan masterrace

I'm neither though

Well aren't you a special snowflake

>Chinese Christianity m8.
>Christianity can't even win against Islam spreading by word of mouth
>Christians have missionaries, government support and ton of propaganda money
>Still outmeme'd by Islam

If being a normies in all other respects makes you a snowflake, then I guess so. I'm more of a reconstructionist anyhow, ritual has its place but being a pageant fag is lame and frankly, just insulting.

everything is LARPing
everything is a spook

>pagans
>mostly white

Mostly Japanese and Indian surely?

>neo nazi metalheads

>Also Crowley was never a Witch,

Neither was Gardner who repackaged crowley`s thelema with an OFFENSIVE pseudo-celtic glaze to legitimize his affair. The rede is literally copy pasted from crowley.

euphoric

great

what kind of theology to you subscribe to if you don't mind sharing?

Yeah no problem. First off, heathenry is an orthopraxic system, meaning what matters is right action, as opposed to an orthodoxy, which is a focus on right belief. I think that's a big sticking point for many people trying to understand the theology in this, they approach it in the mindset of Islam vs Christianity vs Judaism and whatnot. Anyhow, we're similiar to Shinto as far as ancestor reverence goes, a lot of folks tend to think we're all about Thor and Valhalla and such but really the gods are normally only worshipped in a group or community setting. We don't really have a concept as sin, really, instead of things being "what's good for me and mine?" being good, and "what's bad for me and mine" being the "sin" as it were.

I feel like I'm just rambling, Is there anything specific you'd like to know?

>Neither was Gardner
Spare might be if we put stock into the older reports of Craft practice.

They just said it was rising. Rising numbers of X in China always means a million people.

Esoteric Kekism has managed to make it past the LARP phase and has true believers now.

It's only LARPing when they're pulling shit out thin air. Pagan is an umbrella term for non Abrahamic. If someone is practicing a European religion like the Roman one (I've been for years) then it's based entirely in recorded history, story and fact. Neopagans are fucking cancer and make based reconstructionists look bad.

>Roman one
Civic or initiatory?

The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

unlikely; It amazes me that no one seems able to take a step back and question why the "craft" has more in common with the golden dawn than folk magick aka witchcraft .