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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by mvarennes (U2373372) on Tuesday, 20th December 2005
Do you know if there is still some places in Europe still practising the old religion ? I am refering to the Egyptian religion as well as the Greek, Roman and Aztec and Hittites ones ...
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Message 2
Posted by maraudingsaxon (U3567176) on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
There are people in India who follow the Greek orthodox religion. This is a direct result of Alexander the Great's campaign between 323and 330AD. Many greek soldiers took indian brides and started families.
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Message 3
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) ** on Tuesday, 25th April 2006
Some loopy 'white witch' types purport to base their religion on the worship of Osiris (and a few other anglicised Egyptian deities), though from what I can see the form of this worship owes more to Dennis Wheatley than anything an ancient Egyptian would understand.
On a more serious level there is a strong case for suggesting that many very ancient beliefs prevalent in 'celtic' religious thinking exist still as superstitious vestiges within the modern christianised culture, especially in areas that came late to being included in the industrialised Europe of today due to remoteness or poverty. -
Message 4
Posted by heuvel (U1763810) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
There are people in India who follow the Greek orthodox religion. This is a direct result of Alexander the Great's campaign between 323and 330AD. Many greek soldiers took indian brides and started families.
Μύ
I think you mean BC not AD, that is several centuries before Christianity let alone Greek Orthodoxy, or do you mean some classical Greek religion? -
Message 5
Posted by petes (U3344676) on Wednesday, 26th April 2006
What about Zoroastrianism? This is partly a multi-god religion (well two anyway - good/evil)and is still practiced around the world including Europe. see .
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Message 6
Posted by Zeiltje1thehague (U3193096) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
Do some research about Wicca, the new revival of celtic nature believes and (as they say) the 'goog' or 'white' witchcraft.
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Message 7
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
Technically Isis and Osiris haven't been Anglicised, Wheatly was hardly a visionary. They were adopted in Europe from the Hellenicised versions of the Egyptian deities mentioned as it was the Greeks who believed they were reconstructing the original Egyptian pantheon that has influenced occultists and such like since antiquity.
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Message 8
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
Zorosterism's spiritual pantheon does have a dualistic role for good and evil, but then so do many versions of Christianity. Not sure I'd describe them as worshipping God and the Devil simply because they believe in both manifestations however. Moreover as fire used as as means of purifying sacred spaces I suspect they were worshiping Ahura Mazda above all.
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Message 9
Posted by hobbledog (U3871987) on Saturday, 29th April 2006
Zorosterism's spiritual pantheon does have a dualistic role for good and evil, but then so do many versions of Christianity. Not sure I'd describe them as worshipping God and the Devil simply because they believe in both manifestations however. Moreover as fire used as as means of purifying sacred spaces I suspect they were worshiping Ahura Mazda above all.Μύ
certainly were. ahriman, the "devil" in zoroastrian theology, came into the world, after it was created in perfect stillness by ahura mazda, and set it into motion. ahriman, which translaets, folks say, from zarathustra's indo-european dialect into "the lie."
he's not worshiped.
but, not only is it being practiced today, it is the foundation for pretty much any escatological, monotheistic religion. some propose that these tenets came into judaism as a result of cyrus's tolerance in persia- jews could worship how they wished, so the state religion just kind of worked its way into their faith. when alexander came charging into persepolis, raping and murdering all the way, the people living there thought it was the end of the world.
www.w-z-o.org for current institutional organization.
-annie -
Message 10
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Yeah, well as it stands we have a slight problem in that many of the later groups that preached spiritual and material unity, above as it is below and all that were brandished heretics by Catholic theologians and we tended to say they were dualists worshipping God and the Devil. The fact that this was allied to the belief that as all were equal in the underworld when it came to judgement of their actions in this life did rather compete with the highly gredated structure put forward by the idea of earth as it is in heaven.
I suspect that pastoralists like the Cannanite sheep and goat herders would have been influenced by ideas they heard as they moved between the various urban centres of Mesopotamia where they would come into contact with horse based pastoralist groups from the Iranian plateau. Certainly the Jewish prophets seem to be drawing from a similar well as Zarathrusata, note Amos' statement that everyone's word is valid when they speak the truth. It was not simply the result of Cyrus' liberation and toleration of Judaism and sponsorship of Jerusalem as a religious centre within the Persian Empire that brought about these similarities. -
Message 11
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Maurading Saxon was referring to tribes like the Kalash in Pakistan called by Pakistanese 'cafrr' (non-believer, but usually expressed in an insulting way). Yes tribes like Kalash show considerable differentiation with neighbouring populations even in facial characteristics. They are perhaps the only asian tribe to have always used chairs and tables (a habit that obsiously had started in mediterranean) decorated their things often with a star visibly similar to the sign of the Bergina sun (a typical greek symbol found from Akropolis to ... the Kalash chairs), they have 12 gods (or so...), and some God names resemble the Greek ones, they have also words here and there that relate them to Greek language (funnily they do not know anything about macedonian language cos it never existed as a language... yet another lesson to some naive that want to establish the opposite) and still today when Greeks visit them they consider them as 'brothers'.
Of course such tribes survived only because they were isolated in mountainous areas. Today, "having lost their isolation" they have to deal with the traditional Pakistano-muslim tolerance towards any "cafrr" (not that they tolerated much Bungladeshi muslims... well you can imagine) so they have either to turn into muslims and leave the mountains or stay there and see their lands being stolen and their children being kidnapped (often ending in S.Arabia for the same reason that so many 1000s of kids from Pakistan and India end up there). Today for example the most well known tribe of Kalash is not more than a 3000 people village bound to finish off within one generation. -
Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Some interesting notes from Lolbeeble on Persian religion.
I am also of the same opinion that from the most important ancient polytheistic religions of Europe and Middle East the most important survival has been that of Zoroastrianism. There are still Zoroastrians in Iran - and to recognise the Iranians, they have in general been quite tolerant even during the revolution (though they keep them a bit apart from society, for example Zoroastrians are not allowed to serve in the army - better for them!). Zoroastrians are also surviving in India where they had found refuge after the muslim assault in Persia. In India they are known as Parsis (Persians) and again there they have been kept aside as a different caste. Of course in India things were better as Indian society has been the major 'polytheistic' society to survive in our days (though down to the basics their religion is also monotheistic as down to the basics we have hints that even Egyptian and Greeks and others had monotheistic rather than polytheistic religions which was the image rather than the core of the religion).
Polytheistic religions in europe had survived much more than people today believe and much much more than christians would like to believe. Only in Greece we know that in the time of Justinianus half the Greek world was just continuing to be polytheistic and 100% happy and proud about it despite the persecutions and it took another huge persecution from Justinianus to end their presence. It is known that many polytheists continues practicing secretly replacing only the names of Zeus with Christ and Hera or Athena with Virgin Mary, it is known that even patriarchs like Fotius studied along with other sciences and at least tested (not to mention practiced) paganistic customs like astrology (thus they had learnt it from somebody else). It is also characteristic that after the 6th century and the last persecutions, in the 7th century there was a revival of the Greek letters (and one has to imagine that crypto-religious purposes could be behind that in many places) and that the 8th century iconoclasm (that non-surprisingly) came from the east was the answer to a probably 'too-greek' current within the christian religion that could eventually change too much that religion of jewish (thus eastern) origins. It is not accidental that iconoclasts were chasing icono-supporters and calling them 'nationalists' and 'Greeks' (obviously referring to the fact that these "dared" to self-proclaim themselves Greeks) and those 'nationalists' were calling iconoclasts as "ioudaizontes" (i.e. people that are influenced too much by jewish). Such details are not at all accidental as it is not at all accidental that beyond the polytheistic christianism (that is orthodox christianism with all those saints adored in exactly the same sense any ancient god was adored), there were still hardcore paganists in Greece in certain areas and it took another wave of persecution as late as the 11th century to make them christians with missionaries arriving from eastern Minor Asia.
Now if these things happened in the east I cannot but imagine that similar things happened in the west and all that 14th century witch hunting really is only so suspicious (i.e. paganist practices remaining throughout europe and recognised by the church as satanism). -
Message 13
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Sunday, 30th April 2006
Well as I understand it the more isolated communities of the Kalash live in what can best be described as protected reserves enforced by the Pakistani government, though as such whether they have much influence on the ground is another matter but 3000 is more than enough to sustain a continuous population. If they fall below the ability to sustain 400 people or were opened up to the wider world then maybe, but getting there is a bit of a hassle. Mind you do they really need us westerners coming over there looking for a bit of spiritual purity away from the hurley burley of the material world?
Incidentall why am I not surprised the Greeks want to appropriate the Kalash as part of the diasporah, well the Bulgarians make the same claim, citing similarities in dress and all that. Indo European language Nick, they are not just the survivors of Alexander's Afghan colonies, at he other end of the Hindu Kush you've got all those ginger budhists in the Takla Makan that predate any large scale Greek settlement.
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