The conceit of monotheistic religion is that reality is this uniform substance of consciousness rather than a diverse array of different experiences. Everything has to fit into one paradigm of how you should view the world and live your life.

On the other hand you have atheism that tends to neglect the spiritual. The world just turns into resources to manipulate rather than something full of life.

>but where is your evidence?
This question itself indicates a deep forgetting of Being. The gods aren't simply a bunch of facts or propositions, they are manifest in religious experiences, rituals, etc. It isn't just about the literal existence of an entity, but about harbouring a certain energy or relation to the world. What was important to the ancients after doing their rituals was that something happened. Maybe this could have just been psychological or an emergent effect, but they could observe that something did happen; an internal transformation or a real world effect.

I believe that even if you don't literally believe in the gods or just think they are some sort of emergent phenomenon, you can still serve them and get something out of it. At the very least it gives community unity and shared purpose beyond floating about and worrying all the time.

I also like the idea of forming a religious organization that could try and protect our ability to get hrt. Join here if you are interested:
https://discord.gg/V37WwRmhY3

I'll say this, monodeism is supremely retarded

>>40325641 (OP)
Tribalism is deeply rooted in human mind, after industrialization it just became ideological. Spirituality replaced with psychology. There is no unity and never will be. And AI will manipulate people to lose their will and mind.

i beat my moids

>>40325641 (OP)
Just follow an eastern religion, like buddhism for example, and there are some hindu sects that aren't complete ass cancer too.

>>40326312
Buddhism is a suicide cult.

>>40326352
It's not, where did you get that from???

>>40326380
The goal of Buddhism is Enlightenment, which is the compete destruction of the ego and dissolution of the self. That is, you completely cease existing as a discrete being. Thus, suicide.

>>40326312
I take some practices from buddhism (e.g. tantra, meditation), but achieving nirvana isn't my only goal in life. Hinduism is also cool, but I wouldn't discount a full pagan revival either. For the record I have little interest for new age kumbaya crap. Too much of it tries to escape rather than connect.

>>40326401
Enlightenment is not about the destruction of the self. You can't destroy what was never real in the first place. Still, I am not interested in just buddhism. I feel like it still has life denying strains to it that would have people escape desire instead of transitioning

>>40326401
That's not all buddhism, there's pure land buddhism which there's a conception of a kind of heaven free from the suffering of Samsara, manifested by buddhas, where people who practice buddhism can go to, and there's the bodhisattva ideal, which is attaining enlightenment but remaining in existence for the benefit of all beings, the Lotus Sutra for example gives a more eternal conception of the Buddha, he did not cease to exist, but continues existing on a whole different level.

>>40326444
Hinduism is a pagan religion though, I think the wellspring of paganism and spirituality in the west has mostly dried up for good, trying to revive western paganism is like creating a simulacrum of something, it's fake at its core.

>>40326468
There are different conceptions of enlightenment in buddhism, and I'd say that asceticism depends a lot on which school and tradition you adhere to, buddhism I think can bring more mental stability to people and encourage people to do good, the concept of karma is much more palatable than the concept of sin.

>>40326502
The issue is that paganism is intensely cultural/ethnic in character. Hindu religion is thus heavily wrapped around the culture of South and parts of Southeast Asia and reflect their values and way of looking at the world, with gods devoted to geographic features and cultural practices and the like. You can't really pick that up as someone with a different culture and background without there being serious incongruities.

>>40326560
Yeah, I agree in part, religion can and has been imported and exported throughout history, successfully reviving dead religions is much harder though, I don't think there's a big example of it happening in history, I think today, the religion that has more potential to challenge monotheism, specifically abrahamism, is buddhism, hinduism maybe.

>>40325641 (OP)
I think faith is the death of reason

>>40326686
What is cause of reason?

>>40326444
> but I wouldn't discount a full pagan revival either
That can’t really happen because we have very little info on what exactly most pagans believed since most surviving info is from christians who were mega biased against it. Neo-pagan stuff tends to be people pretending they are from a long line of secret pagans but there is no evidence and it’s just some dude who made it up with some historical flavor.
I’m not particularly convinced any spirituality is true. To me if something is that fundamental it should be readily apparent but it very clearly isn’t and even people with the same religion rarely agree with each other. Buddhism out of any of them makes the most sense to me because it proposes that we are in an endless cycle of pain, which if you look at the world is pretty true. So Buddhism just takes it a step further and assumes that’s also true of the supernatural world. Which to me kinda makes more sense than the idea there is a god or gods that created a world that literally functions as a cycle of life and death where the only way to preserve life is death. I also think the Hindu/buddhist belief that our perception of the world is false to be proven more as science progresses. What we perceive is only ever what our sense organs are telling us, what you see isn’t “reality” it’s your brain’s interpretation of the information the senses feed it. Those senses can be wrong and we also know sometimes the brain will make things up in order for us to be able to function.

>>40326502
>Hinduism is a pagan religion though
Never claimed it wasn't.
>trying to revive western paganism is like creating a simulacrum of something, it's fake at its core.
Personally, I think that authenticity isn't just about an unbroken chain of historical practice, but personal spiritual connection as well. Even if a tradition of old is dead, you can always just slowly build a new tradition by discovering what rituals appease the gods the most.

>>40326723
wat

>>40326735
I think western paganism can be revived, it's just really really hard for that to happen realistically, you'd need organic practitioners and scholars, the best bet for western paganism would be to syncretise itself with other more modern, more "alive" religions, christian liturgies and rituals go back to the times of Rome, and there are pagan influences in it, there's also other living forms of paganism, like Hinduism, and Shinto, which can serve as inspiration.

>>40326782
Hinduism shares a root with other Indo-European religion, but it's highly modified. If you want to bring back Odin with inspiration from Hinduism, you'll be looking at Vedic scriptures for parts from multiple gods.

>>40326740
god

Here is a quote from Chumbley regarding authenticity and tradition:
>To comprehend the forms of inner continuity one must not however equate dntiquity with authenticity; the source of the Sabbatic Craft is of the Moment, beyond past and future. The linear perspective of' time' assumed by historical analysis must be recognised as having limited value when considering and representing the manifestations of a-temporal contexts of experience.

>>40326730
>To me if something is that fundamental it should be readily apparent
To the ancients it very much was readily apparent. No one questioned the gods because they had theurgic practices through which they revealed themselves. Nowadays we are completely disconnected from nature and the world around us so that Being hides from us. It should be said that when we start asking about whether a spirituality is "true" we are already missing the point. Theophany is something more primordial than metaphysics or epistemology. Think of Heidegger's distinction between "aletheia" and "veritas".

>>40326833
?

>>40326831
I'm not talking about scriptures or texts, I'm talking more about form, function, practice, devotional practice, ritual, aesthetics...

>>40326782
These are good ideas. I definitely agree that we likely need to incorporate new stuff in. Hell, some people could practice some theurgy to get some divine inspiration and work it into practice. I think a larger issue too might be community building. We don't have temples, and I feel like online gathering might be a bit lacking when it comes to building a sense of a community.

This guy seems to be doing some interesting work and may serve as good inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-jNujWlv2M

>>40325641 (OP)
Where do those diverse experiences happen? What supports their existence? Which is more 'real,' your thoughts or the objects in your vision? They both exist in the same place, consciousness.

What does this have to do with either homosexuality or transsexuality

>>40327018
Religion is the biggest source of condemnation for both of those duh.

>>40327004
Let me give you this. It still isn't a uniform substance that's identical to Yahweh or whatever. Even if we start looking for some general thing, it would be more like the Monad or apeiron, rather than some personal creator deity. At such a level of resolution, we have something lifeless. This is why many of the ancients still worked with the gods even when they believed in some deeper underlying source of creation. It is also why catholics have intercessions, because a unitary God is too abstract and distant to be interfaced with directly (at least, if you are capable of actually appreciating the abstraction rather than injecting baseless anthropomorphisms).

At the end of the day, even if experiences occur in our personal consciousness, it is a leap to assume this means reality itself is some uniform reality in the first place.

>>40327018
>I also like the idea of forming a religious organization that could try and protect our ability to get hrt. Join here if you are interested:
>https://discord.gg/V37WwRmhY3

>>40325641 (OP)
Yes
Its why im trying to start a polytheistic cult based off of Roman syncretism, the hellenic gods specifically and other indo European polytheism generally.

>>40327127
>uniform reality
*uniform substance

Alse see:
https://youtu.be/FaydQkRT6VE?si=DQe1WzCQXvVvnzbN&t=385

>>40327137
Cool, have you developed any practices anon?

Btw join the server if you are comfortable

>>40327127
How can the many varieties of form exist simultaneously and interact with each other if they weren't all parts of the same foundation of reality? Even the polytheistic models of the vedic religions have the concept of a fundamental uniform base for reality.

It is a leap to say anything exists independent of consciousness since we have never found anything outside of it

>>40327290
They share the same reality but this does not necessarily imply some nomological uniformity. Just because something is true in one domain doesn't mean it is true in every domain. Sure you could try and say that everything is a "thing" but what exactly does such a statement really say? Meaning is acquired by contrast with something a thing is not. If there is no other to contrast something, it is an empty concept.

By the time you reach a certain layer of abstraction you really don't have much explanatory power at all. It becomes "anything whatever" which isn't much of anything at all. You can cling to such notions but it is hardly substantial and I wouldn't form a religion out of something like that. Monotheist religions want to pretend that this idea is much deeper than it actually is, and is also somehow "loving" (what does that even mean?).

>Even the polytheistic models of the vedic religions have the concept of a fundamental uniform base for reality
The buddhists do not

>It is a leap to say anything exists independent of consciousness since we have never found anything outside of it
You have never even experienced anything outside your own consciousness. Are you a solipsist? We posit more things outside of our immediate experience because it helps to explain how the world changes. However, this explanation only works in restricted domains. It makes no sense to try and explain complex social dynamics with atoms for instance.

>>40327176
Funny thing about that server lmao
>>40325641 (OP)
I think the best thing we can do is get enough polytheists to go big tent and enough atheists, agnostics and deists to boost our numbers and make ourselves a problem.

Why the latter?
I hate to admit it but I think we need the people that would normally join groups like the Temple of Satan or the Pastafarians. The reason is that we need people that will walk into a school board meeting and say
>Don't Say Gay or Trans impedes my ability to practice my religion since the gods could change genders and change people's genders and sex.
>Calling it mythology while abrahamists get to call it theology is insulting
>people that will show up to court, get involved in lawsuits and push our message

Long term goals
For our temple to be able to cover all "pagan" polytheists with rulings
To be able to guarantee marriage, surgery and HRT for queer people
To guarantee religion neutral/secular school
To help push back against Christian dominance of our institutions

You can discuss the nature of reality all you want but the main appeal is a more spiritually vivid world to participate in, as you said. The question is how you would revive folk religions when the communities they sprung from don't exist in much of the western world.

>>40325641 (OP)
this is true but I don't need some missionary for this. if you wanna believe in multiple gods just do it and don't tell anyone else ffs.

>>40328495
All the information is there
We already know who the gods are its just a matter of starting to worship them again.
Christians and jews dont worship the same way now as they did in the 4th century why are we especially obligated to go back in time as opposed to starting with fresh worship ideas built on top of what we can glean

>>40328555
Oh the reason is that as of the recent Supreme Court rulings freedom of religion trumps all and if you dont have a religion you dont have a seat at the table. I would urge agnostics, atheists, deists, polytheists and LGBT people to join a "church, temple or religious group" even if its a secular one for the sake of constitutional protections and lawsuits.

>>40328609
To be more direct, the religions were often tied to specific locations and ethnic groups. Can someone of mixed descent in an American suburb be a greco-roman or asatru?

>>40328737
Why not all lol there are different interpretations of syncretism and the gods. Personally I've always seen the gods as a reflection of the people that worship them. Think about it when an Ethiopian Christian worships Jesus and Yahweh they have a very different mental image than say a northern European white evangelical.

Basically when "we" look at the gods we are seeing them through a human shaped hole (our understanding as human). That hole looks a little different depending on how how we are shaped. Then you add on things like being a performer and suddenly you are looking through a human performer shaped hole at the gods.
The Roman's grouped gods together like when they saw Dionysus and Bacchus they went oh shit its the same stuff even if we have different names and slightly different rituals.

You can't square a circle so dont try to make the legends/myths/folklore all fit together when they can't. Its clear from the fact that stories could change from one city to the other (hades abduction or the rape of persephone?) And we are under no obligation to make it all fit together as opposed to understanding why those stories were passed down.

>>40325641 (OP)
I absolutely agree. I think almost all cultures had like 3 goddesses, but then when those 3 start to get forgotten stuff tends to go to shit, curious! Curious indeed!!

>>40325641 (OP)
Ellaphae will always support hrt access for those who need it

>>40325641 (OP)
Eh, I don't think it necessarily has to be polytheism, but I do think that the rejection of religion that's become common these days has left a void in modern life that spiritualism can fill.
>>40330117
lol i scrolled down the second i saw the op wasn't you bc i knew I'd see you in this thread. How're things these days? Out of curiosity, have people been joining Ellaphae? And did your wife finish making that website for it?

>>40330089
wow you're actually pretty smart for an orc city faggot!!

>>40330117
That's cool

>>40330183
My problem with monotheism is that it can tend to become something rather intolerant. See even this for example:
https://archived.moe/lgbt/thread/38711718/#38712165
If this was an exchange between polytheistic faiths you would more likely have people say "oh crap we are worshipping the same deity that's awesome". Something recently I've even seen happen is christians argue amongst themselves whether they actually worship the same god as the jews or muslims just because those guys dont believe in the trinity. There is a deep hubris to it all. In contrast polytheists tended to understand that their understanding of the gods was flawed since they are just humans after all. I'm never going to be like no one should be a monotheist ever but it is honestly a waste that the two options in the west has been monotheism or atheism

>>40328690
This. I am just generally encouraging the vibe shift too.

>>40328737
It's not like the vast majority of these religions had gods that were like "you have to be X to be worship me". That would go against the whole motto of 'Do ut des'

>>40325641 (OP)
Christianity isn’t monotheist btw

>>40325641 (OP)
the thing that people don't realize about polytheistic societies of antiquity, like ancient greece, is that they didn't all worship every god. it was more like an MCU-style crossover between various gods worshipped by various peoples.

in other words, we DO have modern day polytheism, if we just treat god, yahweh, and allah as 3 separate but equal entities, like the big 3 olympian gods

>>40330183
i think i see polytheism as religious tolerance+, where people start writing homeric fanfics and embrace all religions, whereas spirituality can just be any old practice like meditation

>>40330117
thank goodness you're here ! i read the last line of OP and immediately thought of ellaphae! like >>40328690 said, people need her now more than ever

>>40326401
if suicide is looking in the mirror, then yes

>>40330749
>is that they didn't all worship every god. it was more like an MCU-style crossover between various gods worshipped by various peoples.
Yeah, it was much more free flowing in that regard
>if we just treat god, yahweh, and allah as 3 separate but equal entities, like the big 3 olympian gods
Why would anyone do that? They all have the pretension of having creating the entire universe and being responsible for anything. By the time you've inflated a god to that level, there'd be no reason to worship other gods, or even include other gods in your canon (except as angels or demons, but how do you incorporate that?)

>>40330616
I can see the arguments to be made, but the pretensions are still there.