Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Owlswing on September 01, 2015, 02:08:52 PM
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http://www.marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk/news/all-the-news/4667-concern-among-villagers-about-the-future-of-avebury-s-chapel?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Quite apart from any other consideration it should be noted that a large part of the stone structure of the chapel was made by smashing up stones from the (Pagan) stone circles.
This desecration resulted in at least one death when a stone fell on one of the wporkers. The stone was considered to be cursed and was left for many years before the man's remains were recovered and given a Christian burial.
Any ideas, other than those in the article, as to what the chapel might be used for.
This being posted on E and F as it will be seen by more posters than just the three resident pagans!
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Quite apart from any other consideration it should be noted that a large part of the stone structure of the chapel was made by smashing up stones from the (Pagan) stone circles.
Were you there at the time of the smashing of the stones or are you relying on anedote and hearsay? Is there archeological evidence, for instance?
Any ideas, other than those in the article, as to what the chapel might be used for.
A lot of places like this are now being used as community centres; craft/heritage centres; retreat centres (as suggested in the article); I also know of some that have become shops, accommodation, even temples/mosques.
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Quite apart from any other consideration it should be noted that a large part of the stone structure of the chapel was made by smashing up stones from the (Pagan) stone circles.
Were you there at the time of the smashing of the stones or are you relying on anedote and hearsay? Is there archeological evidence, for instance?
Go to Avebury and take a look in any of the more than a dozen books on the history of the Avebury stone circles - there are seven of them - and they quote records from the original engineers working on both the destruction of the stones and of the building of the chapel and some even include drawings of the work in progress made at the time.
This should be enough evidence even for a sceptic Christian trying to score points off people who are not Christian for their keeping on asking you for evidence that you cannot provide.
If you keep quiet about being a militant Christian - there are only pagans living in Avebury these days - someone might actually point oiut to you which stones came from the circles. I say keep your Christianity quiet as, even after all these years, some Pagans are still pissed off at the desecration of a Pagan religious site.
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Well the pagans destroyed the environment and habitat when they chiseled out those stones and dragged them to Avebury to build their pretty circles. And since the residents of the area had long ago dumped that paganism, they we right to use that rock to build their homes. No crime, no foul.
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Well the pagans destroyed the environment and habitat when they chiseled out those stones and dragged them to Avebury to build their pretty circles. And since the residents of the area had long ago dumped that paganism, they we right to use that rock to build their homes. No crime, no foul.
YAWN!
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It seems that the URC won't allow it to be used by 'other faiths' ie pagans. My bet is that it gets sold for conversion to a house or, at best, some kind of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.
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It seems that the URC won't allow it to be used by 'other faiths' ie pagans. My bet is that it gets sold for conversion to a house or, at best, some kind of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.
It is very probable that, before the URC decide what to do, the place will fall down or be condemned as unsafe and allowed to fall down or be condemned and demolished.
If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
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Yes, I have no problem with it falling down and returning to nature. I don't know much about the pagan groups in the area and how organised they are but presumably the land will still belong to the URC? Would they be willing to sell?
Probably the best solution would be for the church to gift it to the local people. IIRC from my visits there (a long time ago) they would be happy for the local pagans to put up an information point of some kind.
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Yes, I have no problem with it falling down and returning to nature. I don't know much about the pagan groups in the area and how organised they are but presumably the land will still belong to the URC? Would they be willing to sell?
Probably the best solution would be for the church to gift it to the local people. IIRC from my visits there (a long time ago) they would be happy for the local pagans to put up an information point of some kind.
Actually the ownership of the land, as opposed to the ownership of the building, may be the salvation of the site. I believe that the building is the property of the URC, but the land is "owned" by the National Trust, as is the whole Avebury area. Even the local farmers are tenents of the National Trust and have to abide by its decisions, which is why more stones have not been removed to allow for bigger pieces of farm equipment to be used.
So, if the URC, ultimately, refuse to repair/renovate the building to meet the relevant safety standards, it might well be that NT could Compulsory Purchase it and do with it as it wishes.
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?
In a word - yes!
Just as I would expect you to have a greater knowledge of the history of places like Iona and Lindisfarne - and other Christian holy places.
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Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?
In a word - yes!
The reason I ask is that several pagans I know quite well, tell me that no modern pagan really understands what ancient paganism is all about, and have - when I have mentioned Stonehange and Avebury - have said that 'we' know precious little more than your average archeologist. Whilst I accept that modern paganism is probably closer to ancient paganism than modern druidism is to ancient druidism (not that difficult a task!!), it is still a largely different animal.
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Which is?
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Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?
In a word - yes!
The reason I ask is that several pagans I know quite well, tell me that no modern pagan really understands what ancient paganism is all about, and have - when I have mentioned Stonehange and Avebury - have said that 'we' know precious little more than your average archeologist. Whilst I accept that modern paganism is probably closer to ancient paganism than modern druidism is to ancient druidism (not that difficult a task!!), it is still a largely different animal.
I would have thought that it was blindingly obvious, considering the age of the two monuments, that nobody on this Earth will know anything other than what archaeologists have discoveered or worked out or guessed. I have never claimed otherwise.
As to "the reason you ask", it is also obvious that "the reason you ask" so that you can claim to already know the answer, from "several pagans [you] know quite well", and have a bit of a laugh at the expense of the stupid pagan!
It must really piss you off that both these constructions predate your religion by several thousand years.
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Which is?
If you are referring to the Christian version, I haven't got a clue, but I doubt that it will be the same as the archaeologist's (pagan) version.
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Which is?
If you are referring to the Christian version, I haven't got a clue, but I doubt that it will be the same as the archaeologist's (pagan) version.
No - why would I ask you what the Christian version was? I was asking you for the real history which you referred to. A bit odd though that you seem to be making a point that there is a difference between the real and the Christian histories but then say you haven't a clue about the Christian version. How do you know there is a difference then? Also why do you link archaeologists and pagans together?
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I would have thought that it was blindingly obvious, considering the age of the two monuments, that nobody on this Earth will know anything other than what archaeologists have discoveered or worked out or guessed. I have never claimed otherwise.
Sorry Matt, but in an earlier post you referred to the pagan understanding of Avebury, but now you're referring to the rcheological understanding. Are you saying that they are one and the same, or perhaps that archeologists are, by nature, pagans? ;)
It must really piss you off that both these constructions predate your religion by several thousand years.
Why should it? After all, I marvel at the Pyramids (c.2-3K before Christ), at Stonehenge and Avebury (about the same time frame), Gobekli Tepe (which predates Stonehenge by about 6K years), etc. etc. If we take your argument to its conclusion, you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years.
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Which is?
If you are referring to the Christian version, I haven't got a clue, but I doubt that it will be the same as the archaeologist's (pagan) version.
No - why would I ask you what the Christian version was? I was asking you for the real history which you referred to. A bit odd though that you seem to be making a point that there is a difference between the real and the Christian histories but then say you haven't a clue about the Christian version. How do you know there is a difference then? Also why do you link archaeologists and pagans together?
I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
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I would have thought that it was blindingly obvious, considering the age of the two monuments, that nobody on this Earth will know anything other than what archaeologists have discoveered or worked out or guessed. I have never claimed otherwise.
Sorry Matt, but in an earlier post you referred to the pagan understanding of Avebury, but now you're referring to the rcheological understanding. Are you saying that they are one and the same, or perhaps that archeologists are, by nature, pagans? ;)
It must really piss you off that both these constructions predate your religion by several thousand years.
Why should it? After all, I marvel at the Pyramids (c.2-3K before Christ), at Stonehenge and Avebury (about the same time frame), Gobekli Tepe (which predates Stonehenge by about 6K years), etc. etc. If we take your argument to its conclusion, you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years.
Once agin Hope posts a load of bollocks!
Quote - you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years. - Unquote
The oldest religious artefact ever found is a statuette of the Goddess (a fertility figure) that is called the Venus of Willendorf - from 23,000 BC!
It is Pagan - it is THE oldest!
Actually I'm quite chuffed about that!
23,000 years before your Johnny-come-lately!
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I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
As has been said, no one knows what went on at Avebury, Stonehenge and the like so I can't really see any connection between them and modern Paganism. Avebury is my favourite place to visit and I find the whole area fascinating and am very interested in archaeology but am not a pagan. I don't see that Avebury is a sacred site - it is a very important site in world history, but don't understand why people who have no knowledge of what went on there can claim it as sacred to them. It may have been sacred to the people who lived there at the time but they are long gone.
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I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
As has been said, no one knows what went on at Avebury, Stonehenge and the like so I can't really see any connection between them and modern Paganism. Avebury is my favourite place to visit and I find the whole area fascinating and am very interested in archaeology but am not a pagan. I don't see that Avebury is a sacred site - it is a very important site in world history, but don't understand why people who have no knowledge of what went on there can claim it as sacred to them. It may have been sacred to the people who lived there at the time but they are long gone.
Please Maeght, please do not make out that you are that ignorant, because I, for one, do not, for one second, believe it.
So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
You are entitled to poo-poo the idea that it is a sacred site, pagans do not. Modern pagans follow the old pagan ways as closely as we are able. The deities we follow are responsible for various aspects of life, nature, death - it did not matter whether the people were Celts, Norse, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman, each had its own pantheon.
Modern pagans, some, not all, Rhiannon, for instance follows an entirely different pagan path to my own, try to worship their deities in a manner that seems to fit the particular deity.
OK - I am the first to admit that we may well have got it entirely wrong in the way that we do things. The Christians left us SFA in the way of written records to follow, so we do our best.
We do not ask you to agree with what we do, we do not ask you to consider what we do to be "the right thing" - but it works for us! We do not ask for your (or anyone else's) support, all we ask is that you leave us to do our thing our way!
Regardless of the opinions of others, Stonehenge, Avebury and various other neolithic monuments, stone circles, henges, are held to be sacred sites by pagans.
Pagans do not, and will not, stop you visiting them, we just ask that you treat them with the same respect as Pagans would show visting Westminster Abbey. Have you ever heard of a bunch of drunken pagans entering a Christian church and pissing all over the altar? NO! So why should pagans tolerate drunken Christians and atheists pissing over the stones at Stonehenge and Avebury that pagans regard as just as sacred as the altar in St Pauls?
I really and truly do not give a tuppeny f**k what you think Stonehenge and Avebury are or are not, but until you can prove beyoind a shadow of a doubt that they are NOT what we think they are and treat them as such, we ask you show our sacred sites the same respect as you expect us to show to yours.
It is 0130, I am having one of my insomniac periods, three nights now, and I am a bit tetchy and the above is probably not as coherent as it might but heck, I am only a stupidly misguided pagan so what does it matter.
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I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
As has been said, no one knows what went on at Avebury, Stonehenge and the like so I can't really see any connection between them and modern Paganism. Avebury is my favourite place to visit and I find the whole area fascinating and am very interested in archaeology but am not a pagan. I don't see that Avebury is a sacred site - it is a very important site in world history, but don't understand why people who have no knowledge of what went on there can claim it as sacred to them. It may have been sacred to the people who lived there at the time but they are long gone.
Please Maeght, please do not make out that you are that ignorant, because I, for one, do not, for one second, believe it.
I wasn't trying to make out I was ignorant and I can't see how that conclusion could have been reached from what I posted. Clearly lack of sleep has made you tetchy and I'm sorry about your insomnia - I know that can be difficult.
So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
I didn't say it wasn't a sacred site to those who constructed it but that we cannot be sure of its purpose and that the people to whom it may well have been a sacred site have long gone.
You are entitled to poo-poo the idea that it is a sacred site, pagans do not.
I think you are confusing 'was' with 'is'.
Modern pagans follow the old pagan ways as closely as we are able.
But we know nothing about what happened at Avebury so whatever modern Pagans try to do how has this any relevance to Avebury?
The deities we follow are responsible for various aspects of life, nature, death - it did not matter whether the people were Celts, Norse, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman, each had its own pantheon.
I know that's what you believe but not sure what relevance it has to Avebury.
Modern pagans, some, not all, Rhiannon, for instance follows an entirely different pagan path to my own, try to worship their deities in a manner that seems to fit the particular deity.
Fine.
OK - I am the first to admit that we may well have got it entirely wrong in the way that we do things. The Christians left us SFA in the way of written records to follow, so we do our best.
There never were any written records regardng the original purpose of Avebury.
We do not ask you to agree with what we do, we do not ask you to consider what we do to be "the right thing" - but it works for us! We do not ask for your (or anyone else's) support, all we ask is that you leave us to do our thing our way!
I have no problem with that.
Regardless of the opinions of others, Stonehenge, Avebury and various other neolithic monuments, stone circles, henges, are held to be sacred sites by pagans.
They may have chosen to consider them as such but there is no basis to consider any actual link to the original builders and just because they consider the sites sacred doesn't give them any greater say or ownership of these sites than anyone else.
Pagans do not, and will not, stop you visiting them, we just ask that you treat them with the same respect as Pagans would show visting Westminster Abbey.
They should be shown the same respect as any historic site or building. Just because modern pagans have chosen to consider them sacred, when there is no actual link between modern pagan practices and beliefs and those of the people who constructed the site, does not mean anyone else should do so.
Have you ever heard of a bunch of drunken pagans entering a Christian church and pissing all over the altar? NO! So why should pagans tolerate drunken Christians and atheists pissing over the stones at Stonehenge and Avebury that pagans regard as just as sacred as the altar in St Pauls?
Nobody should behave like this anywhere. On one of my visits to Avebury I saw a group of young foreign visitors gathering around one of the larger stones and starting to climb it. I went over and told them to get down and to show more respect for an ancient historical site. They did so and apologised. people should show respect but not because a group considers the site sacred but because of its age, significance and just through common decency.
I really and truly do not give a tuppeny f**k what you think Stonehenge and Avebury are or are not,
Hence your reply ...
but until you can prove beyoind a shadow of a doubt that they are NOT what we think they are and treat them as such, we ask you show our sacred sites the same respect as you expect us to show to yours.
I don't have to prove anything. Pagans are perfectly entitled to consider Avebury sacred or anywhere else but since there is no reason to consider that this site has any connection to modern Pagans beyond there wish to be associated with it there is no reason for modern Pagans to be given any special rights to the site. I don't have any sacred sites if you are referring to sites associated with religious beliefs as I have no such beliefs but I respect all ancient sites and respect people's rights to hold their beliefs. Claims of special association to sites which cannot be supported by evidence shouldn't be given any great credence though in my view. Remember - you suggested that Avebury Chapel could be used to tell the 'real' history of Avebury and I asked what that was but you seem to have agreed that no one knows so was confused about what you meant and being someone who really likes Avebury I was interested to know what you meant. If you meant that it would show what modern pagans choose to believe about Avebury then that isn't the 'real' history now is it?
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So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
Rome took generations to build, Matt. Was it built as a 'sacred site'? Whilst I would agree that many sacred sites took many years/generations to build, length of construction isn't a prerequisite for sacredness.
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So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
Rome took generations to build, Matt. Was it built as a 'sacred site'? Whilst I would agree that many sacred sites took many years/generations to build, length of construction isn't a prerequisite for sacredness.
Rome was built as a CITY! NOT a stone circle!
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I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
As has been said, no one knows what went on at Avebury, Stonehenge and the like so I can't really see any connection between them and modern Paganism. Avebury is my favourite place to visit and I find the whole area fascinating and am very interested in archaeology but am not a pagan. I don't see that Avebury is a sacred site - it is a very important site in world history, but don't understand why people who have no knowledge of what went on there can claim it as sacred to them. It may have been sacred to the people who lived there at the time but they are long gone.
Please Maeght, please do not make out that you are that ignorant, because I, for one, do not, for one second, believe it.
I wasn't trying to make out I was ignorant and I can't see how that conclusion could have been reached from what I posted. Clearly lack of sleep has made you tetchy and I'm sorry about your insomnia - I know that can be difficult.
So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
I didn't say it wasn't a sacred site to those who constructed it but that we cannot be sure of its purpose and that the people to whom it may well have been a sacred site have long gone.
You are entitled to poo-poo the idea that it is a sacred site, pagans do not.
I think you are confusing 'was' with 'is'.
Modern pagans follow the old pagan ways as closely as we are able.
But we know nothing about what happened at Avebury so whatever modern Pagans try to do how has this any relevance to Avebury?
The deities we follow are responsible for various aspects of life, nature, death - it did not matter whether the people were Celts, Norse, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman, each had its own pantheon.
I know that's what you believe but not sure what relevance it has to Avebury.
Modern pagans, some, not all, Rhiannon, for instance follows an entirely different pagan path to my own, try to worship their deities in a manner that seems to fit the particular deity.
Fine.
OK - I am the first to admit that we may well have got it entirely wrong in the way that we do things. The Christians left us SFA in the way of written records to follow, so we do our best.
There never were any written records regardng the original purpose of Avebury.
We do not ask you to agree with what we do, we do not ask you to consider what we do to be "the right thing" - but it works for us! We do not ask for your (or anyone else's) support, all we ask is that you leave us to do our thing our way!
I have no problem with that.
Regardless of the opinions of others, Stonehenge, Avebury and various other neolithic monuments, stone circles, henges, are held to be sacred sites by pagans.
They may have chosen to consider them as such but there is no basis to consider any actual link to the original builders and just because they consider the sites sacred doesn't give them any greater say or ownership of these sites than anyone else.
Pagans do not, and will not, stop you visiting them, we just ask that you treat them with the same respect as Pagans would show visting Westminster Abbey.
They should be shown the same respect as any historic site or building. Just because modern pagans have chosen to consider them sacred, when there is no actual link between modern pagan practices and beliefs and those of the people who constructed the site, does not mean anyone else should do so.
Have you ever heard of a bunch of drunken pagans entering a Christian church and pissing all over the altar? NO! So why should pagans tolerate drunken Christians and atheists pissing over the stones at Stonehenge and Avebury that pagans regard as just as sacred as the altar in St Pauls?
Nobody should behave like this anywhere. On one of my visits to Avebury I saw a group of young foreign visitors gathering around one of the larger stones and starting to climb it. I went over and told them to get down and to show more respect for an ancient historical site. They did so and apologised. people should show respect but not because a group considers the site sacred but because of its age, significance and just through common decency.
I really and truly do not give a tuppeny f**k what you think Stonehenge and Avebury are or are not,
Hence your reply ...
but until you can prove beyoind a shadow of a doubt that they are NOT what we think they are and treat them as such, we ask you show our sacred sites the same respect as you expect us to show to yours.
I don't have to prove anything. Pagans are perfectly entitled to consider Avebury sacred or anywhere else but since there is no reason to consider that this site has any connection to modern Pagans beyond there wish to be associated with it there is no reason for modern Pagans to be given any special rights to the site. I don't have any sacred sites if you are referring to sites associated with religious beliefs as I have no such beliefs but I respect all ancient sites and respect people's rights to hold their beliefs. Claims of special association to sites which cannot be supported by evidence shouldn't be given any great credence though in my view. Remember - you suggested that Avebury Chapel could be used to tell the 'real' history of Avebury and I asked what that was but you seem to have agreed that no one knows so was confused about what you meant and being someone who really likes Avebury I was interested to know what you meant. If you meant that it would show what modern pagans choose to believe about Avebury then that isn't the 'real' history now is it?
Whatever!
You go on thinking what you think, it will not change what modern pagans believe, it is like all religions a matter of faith!
And I do not, tectchy or not, sleepless or not, have to justify my beliefs to you or anyone else.
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Whatever!
You go on thinking what you think, it will not change what modern pagans believe, it is like all religions a matter of faith!
And I do not, tectchy or not, sleepless or not, have to justify my beliefs to you or anyone else.
I have never asked you to justify your beliefs, nor attempted to change what modern pagans believe, but have pointed out that nobody knows what went on at Avebury (which I think you said you agreed with) and that there is no evidence for any link between Avebury and modern pagans so modern pagans have no more claim or significance regarding Avebury than anyone else. Believe what you want - makes no difference to me - but you suggested there was a real history of Avebury that modern pagans could show in the former chapel but have not been able to back this comment up.
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I can't speak for Matt but because there is so little written history of paganism within the British Isles we rely on archaeology to understand our past, our sacred sites and also, in a way, ourselves. That doesn't mean to say we don't move forward or claim a lineage that doesn't exist. And archaeology moves forward too. For example, it's now thought that Stonehenge was probably a Winter Solstice site, but the modern pagan drumming up the sun gathering at the Summer Solstice is something modern paganism has well established.
In my experience most pagans are interested in archaeology, reading the landscape, and folklore. We look to these for clues to a past that we feel but don't always know how to express.
As has been said, no one knows what went on at Avebury, Stonehenge and the like so I can't really see any connection between them and modern Paganism. Avebury is my favourite place to visit and I find the whole area fascinating and am very interested in archaeology but am not a pagan. I don't see that Avebury is a sacred site - it is a very important site in world history, but don't understand why people who have no knowledge of what went on there can claim it as sacred to them. It may have been sacred to the people who lived there at the time but they are long gone.
Again I can't speak for Matt but many neopagans value our ancestors, regard them as wise and seek to learn from them. We know that in the past pagans venerated their ancestors; whilst we don't go in for ancestor worship as such most pagans try to understand the pagans of the past.
At the same time we seek to make our own paths with what we have available to us now - I know I am not alone in feeling somewhat robbed of a part of my heritage - and neopagans find the ancient sites speaking to them now, both of the pagan past and people and of the energies and texture of stone and circle now. It's not play acting to go to these sites, but a sacred act seeking connection and understanding to something that is taken for granted by Christians with their buildings and written history, and dismissed as worthless by those who think we are just a bunch of 'losers' into 'hippy shit' (both terms used on this for to describe pagans).
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Hi Rhiannon,
Thanks for that and I do understand what you are saying. As I say I enjoy visiting Avebury and usually try to do so in the week between Christmas and New Year and think it is a special place. One year I walked over the top of a ridge to look down on Silbury hill with a mist surrounding it's base which was lit by the setting sun for just a few seconds and this was very special. However, as has been said many times, there is no evidence about what went on at Avebury, so I really don't see what it has to do with Avebury. Neopagans may feel a connection and association with the place but just because they feel it doesn't make it so nor does it mean that the place should be considered as a sacred pagan site by anyone else. Sure, respect people's rights to visit the site the same as anyone else and to do whatever at the site so long as it doesn't damage it and is legal but just because a group claims a site as being sacred to them, if there is no evidence of an actual connection then this claim shouldn't have any weight to it surely.
I am quite interested in the use of pagan though - if the people who built Avebury did use it for worship but of totally different gods than modern pagans would you still feel they are fellow pagans and feel some assocaition with them?
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I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for pagans in the past, although we have no idea what. Personally speaking I think modern pagans approach these sites in two ways. One is to feel a connection with our pagan ancestors. The other is to feel a connection with the site itself - the stones, the landscape and how the circle (in this case) connects and reflects both the landscape and the seasons. The more sites are used now the more that connection builds up. Not far from me the Catholic Church have taken over a house - that is now their scared building even though that isn't what it was built for. There's also a 'sacred site' of trees in a village that has only become used by pagans in the past twenty years or so.
I feel connected to the past full stop. I don't feel disconnected to my blood ancestors because they were Christian. So I guess when I visit a sacred site I try to feel connected to the people there through our common humanity - I feel a connection to the people who have worshipped in our village church for the past eight hundred years or so. My own understanding of what my gods are is so personal - and doesn't involve worship, but connection - I don't seek to find a matching belief in anyone past or present.
I don't know if that helps?
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So you do not see it as a sacred site, your choice. It is a site that took generations, like Stonehenge, to build. What other use would there be for such an expenditure of labour?
Rome took generations to build, Matt. Was it built as a 'sacred site'? Whilst I would agree that many sacred sites took many years/generations to build, length of construction isn't a prerequisite for sacredness.
1 - Avebury was not built without any of the kind of machinery that was used to build Rome;
2 - Avebury was built without the use, and deaths, of thousands of slaves;
3 - So far as we are aware, from archeological experts and not from religious philistines, Avebury was built as a sacred site, Rome was built as a city to hold a population!
4 - You really ought to learn how to answer like with like.
5 - If you knew half what you like to think you know and twice what you actually know - you would still be a pretentious religious nit-wit.
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I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for pagans in the past, although we have no idea what. Personally speaking I think modern pagans approach these sites in two ways. One is to feel a connection with our pagan ancestors. The other is to feel a connection with the site itself - the stones, the landscape and how the circle (in this case) connects and reflects both the landscape and the seasons. The more sites are used now the more that connection builds up. Not far from me the Catholic Church have taken over a house - that is now their scared building even though that isn't what it was built for. There's also a 'sacred site' of trees in a village that has only become used by pagans in the past twenty years or so.
I feel connected to the past full stop. I don't feel disconnected to my blood ancestors because they were Christian. So I guess when I visit a sacred site I try to feel connected to the people there through our common humanity - I feel a connection to the people who have worshipped in our village church for the past eight hundred years or so. My own understanding of what my gods are is so personal - and doesn't involve worship, but connection - I don't seek to find a matching belief in anyone past or present.
I don't know if that helps?
Thanks for that Rhiannon and I would agree with almost all of it. I guess I have difficulty with the idea of calling peoplefrom the past pagan and then linking them to modern pagans. If you had said 'I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for people in the past, although we have no idea what.' I would 100% agree. It just seems that some people call the people who built Avebury pagan, then say I'm a pagan so I have a special connection to AVebury, when in reality they have no more connection in my view than I do.
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I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for pagans in the past, although we have no idea what. Personally speaking I think modern pagans approach these sites in two ways. One is to feel a connection with our pagan ancestors. The other is to feel a connection with the site itself - the stones, the landscape and how the circle (in this case) connects and reflects both the landscape and the seasons. The more sites are used now the more that connection builds up. Not far from me the Catholic Church have taken over a house - that is now their scared building even though that isn't what it was built for. There's also a 'sacred site' of trees in a village that has only become used by pagans in the past twenty years or so.
I feel connected to the past full stop. I don't feel disconnected to my blood ancestors because they were Christian. So I guess when I visit a sacred site I try to feel connected to the people there through our common humanity - I feel a connection to the people who have worshipped in our village church for the past eight hundred years or so. My own understanding of what my gods are is so personal - and doesn't involve worship, but connection - I don't seek to find a matching belief in anyone past or present.
I don't know if that helps?
Thanks for that Rhiannon and I would agree with almost all of it. I guess I have difficulty with the idea of calling peoplefrom the past pagan and then linking them to modern pagans. If you had said 'I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for people in the past, although we have no idea what.' I would 100% agree. It just seems that some people call the people who built Avebury pagan, then say I'm a pagan so I have a special connection to AVebury, when in reality they have no more connection in my view than I do.
Avebury was built 5,000 years ago.
Just what religion do you think they followed if not what is now condsidered "pagan"?
Modern pagans do waht they can to relate to thise pagans who built the circles. Just what do you think is so wrong woith that?
You can, I suppose, get your head round people relating to the premise of a man being killed and coming to life again being a deity, but you cannot relate to pagans relating to what we consider to be what the old pagans believed!
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I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for pagans in the past, although we have no idea what. Personally speaking I think modern pagans approach these sites in two ways. One is to feel a connection with our pagan ancestors. The other is to feel a connection with the site itself - the stones, the landscape and how the circle (in this case) connects and reflects both the landscape and the seasons. The more sites are used now the more that connection builds up. Not far from me the Catholic Church have taken over a house - that is now their scared building even though that isn't what it was built for. There's also a 'sacred site' of trees in a village that has only become used by pagans in the past twenty years or so.
I feel connected to the past full stop. I don't feel disconnected to my blood ancestors because they were Christian. So I guess when I visit a sacred site I try to feel connected to the people there through our common humanity - I feel a connection to the people who have worshipped in our village church for the past eight hundred years or so. My own understanding of what my gods are is so personal - and doesn't involve worship, but connection - I don't seek to find a matching belief in anyone past or present.
I don't know if that helps?
Thanks for that Rhiannon and I would agree with almost all of it. I guess I have difficulty with the idea of calling peoplefrom the past pagan and then linking them to modern pagans. If you had said 'I think there is a general consensus that stone circles had a ritual use for people in the past, although we have no idea what.' I would 100% agree. It just seems that some people call the people who built Avebury pagan, then say I'm a pagan so I have a special connection to AVebury, when in reality they have no more connection in my view than I do.
I don't think it quite works like that. If you go to a cathedral you can appreciate the architecture as a non-believer, but you will also respect the beliefs and practices of those who worship there. In claiming a connection to ancient sacred sites modern pagans are trying to rekindle the respect for the spirituality of pagan sites. Now, I will be the first to say that there are too many pagans who don't know how to respect sites either and it is a problem recognised within paganism. But I don't think pagans claim a 'special' connection; the sites are for all, but we'd just like it to be remembered that they were sacred to our ancestors, and modern pagans are forging our own sacred relationships with ancient places.
Of course the irony from my point of view I s that I live in East Anglia, where there are no stone circles. Ours is a very different sacred landscape, little survives apart from Flag Fen and Grimes Graves. I have to look for old byways and ancient churches for clues, but my sacred sites are the land that I walk, the hedgerows and trees, and my own back garden, and of course the beaches I visit in summer.
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Interesting. Unfortunately I think that if that is what modern pagans are trying to achieve it is more likely to have the opposite effect on many people.
Its interesting also that you say you don't think pagans are claiming any special connection to these sites but then talk about the spirituality of these sites. To me these sites themselves are not spiritual - and the view that they are does, to me, suggest the idea of a special connection. If a church closes and becomes a domestic dwelling I wouldn't consider that building to be spiritual or have any associated respect for it because of its former use, beyond, as I have said before, the normal respect for old buildings.
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Just what religion do you think they followed if not what is now condsidered "pagan"?
Animism, ancestor worship, sun worship, ... there are loads of historical religions which don't fit under the term 'pagan'
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Avebury was built 5,000 years ago.
Yes thanks - I know.
Just what religion do you think they followed if not what is now condsidered "pagan"?
We don't know what their religious beliefs were. Clearly they were not Christian or Jewish so do come under the general definition of pagan but there is no reason to think that the beliefs of modern pagans and their beliefs were the same or similar.
Modern pagans do waht they can to relate to thise pagans who built the circles. Just what do you think is so wrong woith that?
Nothing wrong with it, as I have said, believe what you want - but when you talk about the 'real history' of Avebury on a discussion forum you ought to expect that comment to be challenged. I'm still waiting to hear what the real history is.
You can, I suppose, get your head round people relating to the premise of a man being killed and coming to life again being a deity,
What on earth makes you think that?
.. but you cannot relate to pagans relating to what we consider to be what the old pagans believed!
Like I say - believe what you want but if you claim some special understanding or to know the real history then you should expect to be challenged.
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Just what religion do you think they followed if not what is now condsidered "pagan"?
Animism, ancestor worship, sun worship, ... there are loads of historical religions which don't fit under the term 'pagan'
What total rubbish - the Christian church's definition of pagan is "not christian" - or at its greatest stretch - non-Abrahamic.
I have never known anyone, on the Beeb forum or on here, that can squirm like you when someone points out an errorin you thinking. You can twist langiuage like a double-helix - but the end point is, on religion, Hope is nerver, ever wrong!
Here is an answer for you - Hope is frequently wrong, in some cases totally so - but it would kill him to ever admit it!
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Interesting. Unfortunately I think that if that is what modern pagans are trying to achieve it is more likely to have the opposite effect on many people.
Its interesting also that you say you don't think pagans are claiming any special connection to these sites but then talk about the spirituality of these sites. To me these sites themselves are not spiritual - and the view that they are does, to me, suggest the idea of a special connection. If a church closes and becomes a domestic dwelling I wouldn't consider that building to be spiritual or have any associated respect for it because of its former use, beyond, as I have said before, the normal respect for old buildings.
I don't know - put it this way, I don't think pagans claim any kind of exclusivity over sacred sites. When it comes to the idea of connection, that is down to the individual. But pagans are forging a sacred relationship to sacred sites based in part from a desire to reconnect with the past, but also to ask for respect for pagan spirituality.
I suppose a problem is that you have to have a concept of sacredness to see and respect it. If it doesn't feature in your personal experience on regard to places then it can't have any meaning when others describe somewhere in such terms.
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Rhiannon
I think that Maeght is on a wind-up here; trying to say, or to get us to say, that modern paganism has no history and no spirituality - pagans and paganism are fiction.
As I have said before, Maeght can think whatever he/she likes - I do not have to take any notrice of his/her views and I certainly do not give a tinkers cuss what he/she, or anyone else, thinks about my beliefs.
My beliefs work for me and I will continue to hold them until something come along to change my view of them, but, as sure as eggs are eggs, it will not be anything that Maeght, Hope, Sassy, Johnny C, Alien et al have to say on the subject!
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Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.
I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.
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Rhiannon
I think that Maeght is on a wind-up here; trying to say, or to get us to say, that modern paganism has no history and no spirituality - pagans and paganism are fiction.
As I have said before, Maeght can think whatever he/she likes - I do not have to take any notrice of his/her views and I certainly do not give a tinkers cuss what he/she, or anyone else, thinks about my beliefs.
My beliefs work for me and I will continue to hold them until something come along to change my view of them, but, as sure as eggs are eggs, it will not be anything that Maeght, Hope, Sassy, Johnny C, Alien et al have to say on the subject!
I don't go in for winding people up - and I think I have had enough conversations with Rhiannon for her to appreciate that (I hope). I have specifically talked about Avebury and your claim that you could present the real history of the site - nothing beyond that - yet you have not focused on that but have talked in wider more general terms. Is this because you realise that your real history comment was in error? I have not questioned your beliefs and have said throughout you can believe what you like as far as I'm concerned. As I say, you made a claim on a discussion forum which you ought to be able to accept being challenged. If not why come on a discussion forum? Rhiannon has attempted to explain how some modern pagan see things and I appreciate that. Perhaps if you attempted something similar or actually addressed what I was challenging you on instead of getting all tetchy things miht go a bit better.
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Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.
I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.
No problem with any of that Rhiannon. Thanks.
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Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.
I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.
I could not agree more!
Sorry, but I found Maeght's comments about modern pagans anything but repectful!
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I think the problem is, Maeght, that Matt is old enough to remember when being out as a pagan was dangerous. We are routinely misrepresented in the media - anything on Satanism will inevitably feature pentagrams and chalices, as though Dennis Wheatley wrote fact rather than potboilers. Or, we are dismissed as 'sad acts getting their kit off in the woods' (quote from Silent Witness). And the major faith in this country teaches its adherents that whilst multi faith meetings are good, paganism is at best outside that, and at worst, to be feared - I know, because even as a liberal Christian that is what I was taught.
A child saying it is a pagan in school risks being ostracised by Christian families or even an investigation from social services (this has happened) and the Pagan Federation have noted that pagan victims of domestic violence are less likely to be believed - they even have reported a case where the victim was arrested. You have seen the way we get spoken to on here. Some Christians go on about 'Baal worship'; others have quoted that they should not 'suffer a witch to live' (a quote from the Book of Daniel). I worry about what my kids' friends' families would think if they knew - should I hide my books and my stuff when people visit? Even now Pagan Dawn still has to be delivered in plain envelopes because people don't feel safe about their neighbours knowing.
I've never found you less than fair, although I know we come from differing viewpoints. But Matt has been around longer to pick up far more bruises than I have. I also ignore the insults from some of the posters here (well, most of the time) which means poor old Matt gets the brunt of them. It gets to the best of us from time to time.
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I certainly sensed a bit of defensiveness Rhiannon :) and I can understand that given what you say. Some of the posts on here about pagans are ridiculous indeed. Very sad that you have to think about hiding your books and stuff if your kids friends come over. I sort of wonder though whether the seeming desire to show/claim that modern paganism has this long tradition going back millennia is counter productive. Perhaps going for the modern would distance neopagans from the old associations? Is it really important to neopagans that there should be this association with the old religions? What do you think?
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I certainly sensed a bit of defensiveness Rhiannon :) and I can understand that given what you say. Some of the posts on here about pagans are ridiculous indeed. Very sad that you have to think about hiding your books and stuff if your kids friends come over. I sort of wonder though whether the seeming desire to show/claim that modern paganism has this long tradition going back millennia is counter productive. Perhaps going for the modern would distance neopagans from the old associations? Is it really important to neopagans that there should be this association with the old religions? What do you think?
Maeght
Just an example to, I hope, explain some of my tetchyness.
Some years ago my daughter, then aged 8, accompanied me and my older daughter, aged 16, to a gathering at the Conway Halls in Holborn; a gathering called the Beltaine Bash. It is a celbration of May Day, one of the eight major Sabbats of the Pagan Calendar.
It was, it is no longer held, a chance to meet pagan friends who we only saw once every six months, to stock up on incenses, to maybe get a new robe or cloak for ritual and to consume copious quantities of mead (alcoholic honey, in case you don't already know, and, reputedly, the oldest alcoholic drink know to man).
There were dozens of other kids of the same or similar ages and 8 year-old had a great time.
As she and her sister were under 18 they were exluded from the opening and closing rituals. This was a necessary precaution due to the "pagans take young girls and do nasty things to them against their will" that was prevalent then - still is in the minds of some.
At school on the following Monday her class were asked what they had done at the week-end and she answered honestly and in some detail, especially when the teacher asked her a lot of questions.
I arrived at school to pick her up and was met by the teacher and two police officers. I was told that I was to be arrested for exposing my daughter to the disgusting sexual excesses of a witch's orgy.
I was lucky that the cops asked me for my version of what had happened, let me go, and told me that they would submit their report to their superiors.
The police contacted me a week later and stated that there was a possibility that I would be charged with exposing a minor to moral danger. As a result of this the officer suggested that I contact the Pagan Federation who had lawyers who would help me.
The upshot was that, thanks to Pagan Fed and the lawyer they supplied, no action was taken and the teacher wound up being reprimanded for the way she had interrogated my daughter, for falsely reporting her as having said things that she did not, confirmed by classmates who now seemed to think that she was " someone of interest" and for passing a confidential report to the local priest.
It was not all good news. She was spat at, slapped, pushed around, sworn at by some of the children. My ex-wife attempted to get a Court Order to prevent me having access to my daughters. The school stamped down hard on the bullying at school and the Pagan Fed lawyer helped me keep my access to my children.
Some on here, as Rhiannon has stated, still feel that pagans, especially pagans who are witches (all witches are pagan but not all pagans are witches), are not really acceptable.
One, you may have noticed, insists on mentioning the fact that I am a witch with monotonous regularity, using it always in a negative manner.
Maeght, please accept my apologies for the manner in which I have addressed you, many, even in this day and age, still consider that Exodus 22:18 should be acted upon, and it does rankle.
Please understand that most of the history of all pagan "sacred sites" comes from archaeology and archaeologists and most of our (pagans) knowledge of the beliefs of our pagan ancestors comes from fragmentary records that escaped the flames that destroyed most of the written records and from pagans of non-British origin, Gaelic, Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman and Egyptian.
Thus, I am afraid, your comments and criricsm of modern pagans and their attachment to our ancestors hit a seriosly raw nerve.
I sort of wonder though whether the seeming desire to show/claim that modern paganism has this long tradition going back millennia is counter productive. Perhaps going for the modern would distance neopagans from the old associations? Is it really important to neopagans that there should be this association with the old religions? What do you think?
What we are trying to do is to revive the Old Religion. We do not claim to be continuing it.
Despite what Margaret A Murray and Gerald Gardner would have it, paganism as it is practised today is NOT a continuation of the old, pre-Christian, paganism.
It is an attempt to revive that religion, a religion that was ruthlessly destroyed by Christianity (that won't go down well with some here), to recreate it if you will. It is not the fact that it is history that is important to us, it is important for what it stood for, what it thought was important, like the all things natural; natrual things the fed and clothed them, animals and plants and birds. A lot of pagans joined the various Green Partys, until, for the most part, their policies began to head for the lunatic fringes - many pagans are still active members of Greenpeace.
Yes, the historical paganism is important, the more we find out about it the more we can bring back to life - a second case of a resurrection connected to religion?
We do not claim that our rituals are the same as those practised by the people who, we feel sure, used places like Stonehenge and Avebury, we cannot know what they did or said.
Gerald B did modern pagans a serious disservice when he claimed that the Wiccan religion that he invented was a continuation of pre-Christian paganism; a disservive that we are still trying to reverse. It is a shame that there are still Gardnerian Wiccans who will not accept the truth about Gardner.
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There have been many superb posts on this forum; that one is in the premier league in my book.
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There have been many superb posts on this forum; that one is in the premier league in my book.
Thanks Shaker.
I was. lloking back on it, far too rude to Meaght who deserved a more reasoned response, I just hope it has given one.
I am just waiting for the Christian backlash.
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Thank you for taking the time CMG KCMG GCMG to put together what, as Shaker said, was a superb post. Sorry if I gave the impression of attacking you in any way. As I mentioned, Avebury is a particularly special place to me and initially I was interested in your comment about its history but, being in a rush, didn't put that across properly. I do find some of the apparent claims of some modern pagans regarding links to ancient sites a little irritating though and think these do need to be challenged and discussed - on the basis of the archaeological evidence though not due to any religious views - and this certainly also influenced my postings. Perhaps my perception that modern pagans make such claims is wrong. The comments of yourself and Rhiannon have certainly helped clarify things for me regarding how at least some modern pagans view the site.
There is clearly in my view an 'image' problem regarding modern paganism which in its most extreme form has resulted in the issues you have faced and which to a lesser extent is probably shared by many. In the past when I have mentioned how much I enjoy visiting Avebury people have made comments such as 'What are you a tree hugger?' or have joked about me 'communing with the stones' and running around naked. It is because of this image problem that I wondered if it was better to focus on the modern and not on the old - but there will always be people who hold a strong anti view to anything outside of their own faith and who will attack pagans based on their own religious views regardless of any efforts to 're brand' so I can understand why pagans may just say 'why should we'.
Thanks again for your post. I am sure there will be 'comments' from some of the Christians but I should just ignore them (hard I know).
Cheers
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1 - Avebury was not built without any of the kind of machinery that was used to build Rome;
How do you know?
2 - Avebury was built without the use, and deaths, of thousands of slaves;
How do you know?
3 - So far as we are aware, from archeological experts and not from religious philistines, Avebury was built as a sacred site, Rome was built as a city to hold a population!
Clearly Avebury is not a city, but the idea that it must have been a sacred site is speculation based on the fact that it has no obvious purpose and, in our experience, large apparently pointless construction projects are always sacred to the people that built them.
5 - If you knew half what you like to think you know and twice what you actually know - you would still be a pretentious religious nit-wit.
So. in your opinion, Hope actually knows a quarter of what he thinks he knows.
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In claiming a connection to ancient sacred sites modern pagans are trying to rekindle the respect for the spirituality of pagan sites. Now, I will be the first to say that there are too many pagans who don't know how to respect sites either and it is a problem recognised within paganism. But I don't think pagans claim a 'special' connection; the sites are for all, but we'd just like it to be remembered that they were sacred to our ancestors, and modern pagans are forging our own sacred relationships with ancient places.
The problem is that we don't know that these places were sacred or if they were, what form the sacredness took. Perhaps the things that modern pagans and druids do at ancient sites would be considered as desecration by the ancients that built them. Perhaps the things that the ancients did at these sites would be considered as evil by us now.
Of course the irony from my point of view I s that I live in East Anglia, where there are no stone circles.
But there was Sea Henge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahenge
which shows the stupidity of a few of the modern "druids" in all its glory.
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1 - Avebury was not built without any of the kind of machinery that was used to build Rome;
How do you know?
2 - Avebury was built without the use, and deaths, of thousands of slaves;
How do you know?
3 - So far as we are aware, from archeological experts and not from religious philistines, Avebury was built as a sacred site, Rome was built as a city to hold a population!
Clearly Avebury is not a city, but the idea that it must have been a sacred site is speculation based on the fact that it has no obvious purpose and, in our experience, large apparently pointless construction projects are always sacred to the people that built them.
5 - If you knew half what you like to think you know and twice what you actually know - you would still be a pretentious religious nit-wit.
So. in your opinion, Hope actually knows a quarter of what he thinks he knows.
5 - If that!
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In claiming a connection to ancient sacred sites modern pagans are trying to rekindle the respect for the spirituality of pagan sites. Now, I will be the first to say that there are too many pagans who don't know how to respect sites either and it is a problem recognised within paganism. But I don't think pagans claim a 'special' connection; the sites are for all, but we'd just like it to be remembered that they were sacred to our ancestors, and modern pagans are forging our own sacred relationships with ancient places.
The problem is that we don't know that these places were sacred or if they were, what form the sacredness took. Perhaps the things that modern pagans and druids do at ancient sites would be considered as desecration by the ancients that built them. Perhaps the things that the ancients did at these sites would be considered as evil by us now.
Of course the irony from my point of view I s that I live in East Anglia, where there are no stone circles.
But there was Sea Henge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahenge
which shows the stupidity of a few of the modern "druids" in all its glory.
The problem is that we don't know that these places were sacred . . .
Who are we? Almost always non-pagans who hate anyything that pre-dates Christianity!
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In claiming a connection to ancient sacred sites modern pagans are trying to rekindle the respect for the spirituality of pagan sites. Now, I will be the first to say that there are too many pagans who don't know how to respect sites either and it is a problem recognised within paganism. But I don't think pagans claim a 'special' connection; the sites are for all, but we'd just like it to be remembered that they were sacred to our ancestors, and modern pagans are forging our own sacred relationships with ancient places.
The problem is that we don't know that these places were sacred or if they were, what form the sacredness took. Perhaps the things that modern pagans and druids do at ancient sites would be considered as desecration by the ancients that built them. Perhaps the things that the ancients did at these sites would be considered as evil by us now.
Of course the irony from my point of view I s that I live in East Anglia, where there are no stone circles.
But there was Sea Henge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahenge
which shows the stupidity of a few of the modern "druids" in all its glory.
As Wiki makes clear, Seahenge was a henge. It isn't any more. The timbers have an academic interest in the way that looking at anything prehistoric in a museum has, but out of context they are robbed of much of their meaning. It's as though someone dismantled Ely Cathedral brick by brick and then put various bits together in a museum to 'educate' people about it. I might roll my eyes at the self-appointed 'archdruids' as much as you but it's telling that Holme11 is going to be allowed to go in whatever course nature intends, which is probably what its creators intended - they would have known they were making an impermanent structure. As for me personally, I don't live anywhere near Holme, I never got to visit it and it has no particular significance for me in or out of situ.
The same goes for the stone circles - I don't come from somewhere with large stones and I haven't spent time with them to form my own relationship. I'm glad they are there and I think they should be respected by pagans as much as pagan beliefs about them should be respected, but they don't form much of a part of my own personal experience. As for modern and past pagan practices, we can only do what we can and forge our own relationships with the sites now.
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I certainly sensed a bit of defensiveness Rhiannon :) and I can understand that given what you say. Some of the posts on here about pagans are ridiculous indeed. Very sad that you have to think about hiding your books and stuff if your kids friends come over. I sort of wonder though whether the seeming desire to show/claim that modern paganism has this long tradition going back millennia is counter productive. Perhaps going for the modern would distance neopagans from the old associations? Is it really important to neopagans that there should be this association with the old religions? What do you think?
As Matt has said, with a few exceptions most pagans don't claim to have an ancient lineage within our spirituality. We know we are making something new with our different paths.
Again I can't speak for others, but I've always been interested in folk religion, folk magic, call it what you will. As a child I would buy books on folklore wherever we went on holiday. As I got older I started to grow my own herbs and explore hedgerows and woods, and I learned as much about the myths and folklore about them as their natural history and uses. I taught myself to make jams and chutneys, herbal oils and dried produce. And inevitably this made me live very much in tune with the seasons. And getting out and about, I'd find old paths, old places, and feel a connection. It's really hard to explain but this connection to past and places is a part of me. I'm moving and will need to forge a new relationship somewhere and it is unnerving not knowing where or how. I suspect that my bookshelves are typical of many pagans with their mix of natural history, archaeology, folklore, and various titles on herbs and hedgerow; my spirituality owes more to Geoff Hamilton and Richard Mabey than Crowley and Gardner.
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I would have thought that it was blindingly obvious, considering the age of the two monuments, that nobody on this Earth will know anything other than what archaeologists have discoveered or worked out or guessed. I have never claimed otherwise.
Sorry Matt, but in an earlier post you referred to the pagan understanding of Avebury, but now you're referring to the rcheological understanding. Are you saying that they are one and the same, or perhaps that archeologists are, by nature, pagans? ;)
It must really piss you off that both these constructions predate your religion by several thousand years.
Why should it? After all, I marvel at the Pyramids (c.2-3K before Christ), at Stonehenge and Avebury (about the same time frame), Gobekli Tepe (which predates Stonehenge by about 6K years), etc. etc. If we take your argument to its conclusion, you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years.
Once agin Hope posts a load of bollocks!
Quote - you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years. - Unquote
The oldest religious artefact ever found is a statuette of the Goddess (a fertility figure) that is called the Venus of Willendorf - from 23,000 BC!
It is Pagan - it is THE oldest!
Actually I'm quite chuffed about that!
23,000 years before your Johnny-come-lately!
Your paganism seems to be based on everything but Christianity.
Brobat toilet cleaner has no obvious Christian connotation at all. Is it pagan?
I would be interested in your answer because I think the atheists have claimed it for themselves.
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Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).
I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar
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As Wiki makes clear, Seahenge was a henge. It isn't any more. The timbers have an academic interest in the way that looking at anything prehistoric in a museum has, but out of context they are robbed of much of their meaning.
How do you know? Nobody has any idea what Seahenge meant for its builders or how that meaning would be affected by it being preserved for posterity.
It's as though someone dismantled Ely Cathedral brick by brick and then put various bits together in a museum to 'educate' people about it.
Which even many Christians might consider better than an alternative fate that involved it being destroyed by the elements.
I might roll my eyes at the self-appointed 'archdruids' as much as you but it's telling that Holme11 is going to be allowed to go in whatever course nature intends,
Yes it is telling that, what might have been an important piece of archaeology, will instead be destroyed.
which is probably what its creators intended
Is it? How do you know that?
they would have known they were making an impermanent structure.
which could easily argue that they would have no problem with people taking it away from that spot.
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Again I can't speak for others, but I've always been interested in folk religion, folk magic, call it what you will. As a child I would buy books on folklore wherever we went on holiday. As I got older I started to grow my own herbs and explore hedgerows and woods, and I learned as much about the myths and folklore about them as their natural history and uses. I taught myself to make jams and chutneys, herbal oils and dried produce. And inevitably this made me live very much in tune with the seasons. And getting out and about, I'd find old paths, old places, and feel a connection. It's really hard to explain but this connection to past and places is a part of me. I'm moving and will need to forge a new relationship somewhere and it is unnerving not knowing where or how. I suspect that my bookshelves are typical of many pagans with their mix of natural history, archaeology, folklore, and various titles on herbs and hedgerow; my spirituality owes more to Geoff Hamilton and Richard Mabey than Crowley and Gardner.
Lovely post. This sounds so much like me it's uncanny (not so much the jam and chutney bit, I admit), though growing up in the countryside made it easy. Natural, in fact.
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I would have thought that it was blindingly obvious, considering the age of the two monuments, that nobody on this Earth will know anything other than what archaeologists have discoveered or worked out or guessed. I have never claimed otherwise.
Sorry Matt, but in an earlier post you referred to the pagan understanding of Avebury, but now you're referring to the rcheological understanding. Are you saying that they are one and the same, or perhaps that archeologists are, by nature, pagans? ;)
It must really piss you off that both these constructions predate your religion by several thousand years.
Why should it? After all, I marvel at the Pyramids (c.2-3K before Christ), at Stonehenge and Avebury (about the same time frame), Gobekli Tepe (which predates Stonehenge by about 6K years), etc. etc. If we take your argument to its conclusion, you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years.
Once agin Hope posts a load of bollocks!
Quote - you must be pissed off that there are a number of constructions and religions that pre-date your religion by several thousand years. - Unquote
The oldest religious artefact ever found is a statuette of the Goddess (a fertility figure) that is called the Venus of Willendorf - from 23,000 BC!
It is Pagan - it is THE oldest!
Actually I'm quite chuffed about that!
23,000 years before your Johnny-come-lately!
Your paganism seems to be based on everything but Christianity.
Brobat toilet cleaner has no obvious Christian connotation at all. Is it pagan?
I would be interested in your answer because I think the atheists have claimed it for themselves.
Surprise; Surprise; - your line would have some semblence of accuracy if it read "Your paganism seems to be based on everything existing prior to Christianity".
When you stop taking cheap shots (they do NOT make you look clever) and talking out of your arse I might answer you! Until then . . .
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Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).
I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar
Gordon
If I could get my pension to stretch that far, or if I could find A SugarMother I would take you up on your suggest like a shot!
It would be a memorable experience - the fact that the place comes recommended by one such as you guarantees it!
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As Wiki makes clear, Seahenge was a henge. It isn't any more. The timbers have an academic interest in the way that looking at anything prehistoric in a museum has, but out of context they are robbed of much of their meaning.
How do you know? Nobody has any idea what Seahenge meant for its builders or how that meaning would be affected by it being preserved for posterity.
It's as though someone dismantled Ely Cathedral brick by brick and then put various bits together in a museum to 'educate' people about it.
Which even many Christians might consider better than an alternative fate that involved it being destroyed by the elements.
I might roll my eyes at the self-appointed 'archdruids' as much as you but it's telling that Holme11 is going to be allowed to go in whatever course nature intends,
Yes it is telling that, what might have been an important piece of archaeology, will instead be destroyed.
which is probably what its creators intended
Is it? How do you know that?
they would have known they were making an impermanent structure.
which could easily argue that they would have no problem with people taking it away from that spot.
OK - you are trying to turn the atheist "prove it" about various tenets of Christianity against Pagans because Atheists have nothing to prove!
To yo - neither do I - I believe what I believe and your trying to take ther piss worries me not one iota as I have had the piss taken out oif me by the Religion and Ethics No 1 pisstaking expert - The Recondite Revenant - so your pathetic efforts are wothless!
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OK - you are trying to turn the atheist "prove it" about various tenets of Christianity against Pagans because Atheists have nothing to prove!
Nope.
I'm just pointing out that we really don't know much about these ancient monuments and how the people that built them thought about them.
To yo - neither do I - I believe what I believe and your trying to take there piss
I'm not taking the piss. I am saying nothing about what modern pagans believe, I am merely pointing out that everything people are saying about these ancient monuments is speculation, nothing more.
It does disturb me that you are trying to close me down by acting all indignant about some imagined "piss take". I guess, at bottom all you religionists do have something in common.
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OK - you are trying to turn the atheist "prove it" about various tenets of Christianity against Pagans because Atheists have nothing to prove!
Nope.
I'm just pointing out that we really don't know much about these ancient monuments and how the people that built them thought about them.
To yo - neither do I - I believe what I believe and your trying to take there piss
I'm not taking the piss. I am saying nothing about what modern pagans believe, I am merely pointing out that everything people are saying about these ancient monuments is speculation, nothing more.
It does disturb me that you are trying to close me down by acting all indignant about some imagined "piss take". I guess, at bottom all you religionists do have something in common.
Read my posts to Maeght - then you will not make any more stupid comments that have already been reresponded to!
You are taking the piss becuase you haven't bothered to do so already!
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Read my posts to Maeght - then you will not make any more stupid comments that have already been reresponded to!
What about your responses to Maeght? How are they relevant to my responses to Rhiannon? How is it wrong for me to explain the truth of the situation just because you have been on the wrong end of ignorant prejudice in the past?
You are taking the piss becuase you haven't bothered to do so already!
Why do I need to read your responses in order to answer a post by Rhiannon. I think it is you that is taking the piss.
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JeremyP
As has been stated before, by both Rhiannon and myself, we base our belief that these are sacred sites upon the works and words of archaeologists.
These are men and women of education whose job, vocation, is to investigate and evaluate all the evidence relating to any historical structures still extant or to the areas where there is evidence that they once stood.
These men and women have stated that all the evidence available leads to the conclusion that Stonehenge and Avebury were of sacred significance to Neolithic tribesmen.
Now, unless you are far more erudite than all the archaeologists who have reached these conclusions, and it is more than one, which I seriously doubt, as I also seriously doubt that you have ever taken one lesson in archaeology, never mind achieveing a Doctorate in the subject, I suggest that you shut up, go out and attain these qualifications, spend the next twenty or thirty years of your life on your hands and knees going over the sites with a fine tooth comb and PROVE that Stonehenge and Avebury were NOT sacred sites and leave us Pagans in peace to follow our religious beliefs, including the belief that Stonehenge and Avebury, and various other similar sites, are sacred sites and have been sacred sites for between 5,000 and 7,000 years.
Reference my last post addressed to you, I would have to comment that I really must NOT post to this forum on matters Pagan when I should be wrapped in the arms of Hypnos.
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As has been stated before, by both Rhiannon and myself, we base our belief that these are sacred sites upon the works and words of archaeologists.
'Sacred' sites, yes; 'pagan' sites, who knows? Do archeologists always specify what type of sacredness a site is?
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As has been stated before, by both Rhiannon and myself, we base our belief that these are sacred sites upon the works and words of archaeologists.
'Sacred' sites, yes; 'pagan' sites, who knows? Do archeologists always specify what type of sacredness a site is?
I REPEAT - YET AGAIN
These sites were built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Would you care to tell us just how many religions that were NOT pagan existed between these dates.
Please Hope, do not try to make yourself look, in matters religious, any more stupid than you already do. In matters Pagan it is abundantly clear that what you know is two-thirds of three-fifths of absolutely fuck-all!
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I REPEAT - YET AGAIN
These sites were built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Would you care to tell us just how many religions that were NOT pagan existed between these dates.
Perhaps the 2 most obvious are animism and ancestor-worship. I realise that paganism can include elements of both but they are, to my knowledge - having spoken to anthropologists and other experts in the field, separate to Paganism. I remember one likening the issue to Judaism and Christianity; there are concepts in the latter that come from the former, but they are two distinct belief systems.
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JeremyP
As has been stated before, by both Rhiannon and myself, we base our belief that these are sacred sites upon the works and words of archaeologists.
These are men and women of education whose job, vocation, is to investigate and evaluate all the evidence relating to any historical structures still extant or to the areas where there is evidence that they once stood.
These men and women have stated that all the evidence available leads to the conclusion that Stonehenge and Avebury were of sacred significance to Neolithic tribesmen.
No. They have stated that in their opinion these sites were sacred to the people that built them, but they will also tell you they don't know for sure.
I suggest that you shut up, go out and attain these qualifications
Are you a qualified archaeologist? Why aren't you shutting up if not.
, spend the next twenty or thirty years of your life on your hands and knees going over the sites with a fine tooth comb and PROVE that Stonehenge and Avebury were NOT sacred sites and leave us Pagans in peace to follow our religious beliefs, including the belief that Stonehenge and Avebury, and various other similar sites, are sacred sites and have been sacred sites for between 5,000 and 7,000 years.
I have not said that I don't think these sites were sacred to the people that built them. You accused me of not reading your posts, but it seems you are guilty of not reading my posts. At least I wasn't directly replying to you.
You have no idea about the religions of these people, nor does anybody else. They might have found your re-imagining of their religion to be extremely offensive for all you know.
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Hang on, Jeremy. You aren't stating truth. You are stating hypotheses and opinion. You suggest things that the people in the past may or may not have thought - such as them not objecting to Seahenge being moved - but you gave no evidence for this. I can counter that with the archaeological evidence that people in the past left things to be reclaimed by the elements and suggest that they would have expected the same to happen there. Neither of us knows. I can also claim that Holme11 has been left because it has been realised moving the original was bad archaeology - the two rings relate to each other and can no longer be studied in that context. Equally I can argue moving the original has taught us a great deal about the early Bronze Age, but whether it was worth destroying the site as a whole in order to do that is a matter of opinion, not fact.
You could also try to find some understanding within you as to why Matt gets defensive, given what he went through. In particular you might want to to consider how offensive it is to him for you to liken him to 'all religios' when it was religious intolerance and prejudice that nearly cost him his children and his liberty.
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Again I can't speak for others, but I've always been interested in folk religion, folk magic, call it what you will. As a child I would buy books on folklore wherever we went on holiday. As I got older I started to grow my own herbs and explore hedgerows and woods, and I learned as much about the myths and folklore about them as their natural history and uses. I taught myself to make jams and chutneys, herbal oils and dried produce. And inevitably this made me live very much in tune with the seasons. And getting out and about, I'd find old paths, old places, and feel a connection. It's really hard to explain but this connection to past and places is a part of me. I'm moving and will need to forge a new relationship somewhere and it is unnerving not knowing where or how. I suspect that my bookshelves are typical of many pagans with their mix of natural history, archaeology, folklore, and various titles on herbs and hedgerow; my spirituality owes more to Geoff Hamilton and Richard Mabey than Crowley and Gardner.
Lovely post. This sounds so much like me it's uncanny (not so much the jam and chutney bit, I admit), though growing up in the countryside made it easy. Natural, in fact.
:)
I didn't grow up in the country and felt a bit fish out of water until I was lucky enough to move. I can remember always wanting to know the names of flowers, trees, birds and insects; I'd ask for books so I could learn, pre-Internet of course.
I prefer chutney making to jam as it's easier, but this is also the time of year for making my (in)famous spiced blackberry brandy. If I can beat the squirrels to them I'm going to plant up some hazelnuts from this garden to take to the next this week.
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I didn't grow up in the country and felt a bit fish out of water until I was lucky enough to move. I can remember always wanting to know the names of flowers, trees, birds and insects; I'd ask for books so I could learn, pre-Internet of course.
I prefer chutney making to jam as it's easier, but this is also the time of year for making my (in)famous spiced blackberry brandy. If I can beat the squirrels to them I'm going to plant up some hazelnuts from this garden to take to the next this week.
I'm having some of that!
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I REPEAT - YET AGAIN
These sites were built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Would you care to tell us just how many religions that were NOT pagan existed between these dates.
Perhaps the 2 most obvious are animism and ancestor-worship. I realise that paganism can include elements of both but they are, to my knowledge - having spoken to anthropologists and other experts in the field, separate to Paganism. I remember one likening the issue to Judaism and Christianity; there are concepts in the latter that come from the former, but they are two distinct belief systems.
Bloody Hell Hope!
Is there no expert on any field that you don't know or haven't spoken to?
You just will NOT be wrong on or in absolutely anything that you say or think, will you! Your superiority complex is monumental with regard to your knowledge of every conceivable subject under the Sun, the extent of your travels, your circle of expert friends and aquaintrences and your experiences of life and, in your mind, places you exponentially above all normal mortals, and probably, most deities as well.
This seems, in my eyes, that you are saying that you are God or the Pope, the only(?) other people who have claimed or claim total infallibility!
You're not totally infallible! You are not even minimally infallible! Your ignorance is demonstrated time after time and post after post on subject after subject, particularly when you are arguing the total supremacy of your God, his son and your religion - you will say that white is black and vice versa if it fits your argument.
Actually, of course, you could be Christ - you, well your arguments could, as they have been crucified on this forum more often than I can count.
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I REPEAT - YET AGAIN
These sites were built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Would you care to tell us just how many religions that were NOT pagan existed between these dates.
Perhaps the 2 most obvious are animism and ancestor-worship. I realise that paganism can include elements of both but they are, to my knowledge - having spoken to anthropologists and other experts in the field, separate to Paganism. I remember one likening the issue to Judaism and Christianity; there are concepts in the latter that come from the former, but they are two distinct belief systems.
Both disciplines that are pagan in toto! Thery were never Christian!
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Hang on, Jeremy. You aren't stating truth. You are stating hypotheses and opinion.
If I say "nobody knows for sure about the religions of these people, I am stating the truth.
You suggest things that the people in the past may or may not have thought - such as them not objecting to Seahenge being moved - but you gave no evidence for this.
I did not claim that the builders of Seahenge would want it to be moved, I said it is a possibility.
I can counter that with the archaeological evidence that people in the past left things to be reclaimed by the elements and suggest that they would have expected the same to happen there.
Do you have any evidence at all to support that? I would suggest that, generally, people in the past did not leave things to be reclaimed by the elements and what we see now are the exceptions for whatever reason e.g. they were inundated or lost or people just moved away or they genuinely were put there for "all time". Have you noticed how many of the monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII have been reduced to not much more than foundations? A primary reason for this is people nicking the masonry for other building projects.
Neither of us knows. I can also claim that Holme11 has been left because it has been realised moving the original was bad archaeology - the two rings relate to each other and can no longer be studied in that context.
Holme 1 would no longer exist at all if it hadn't been moved. Holme II will likely go the same way.
Equally I can argue moving the original has taught us a great deal about the early Bronze Age, but whether it was worth destroying the site as a whole in order to do that is a matter of opinion, not fact.
The site would be gone anyway. The sea was seeing to that.
You could also try to find some understanding within you as to why Matt gets defensive, given what he went through.
What he went through is totally unrelated to this argument. Yes, I agree his story is shocking and I have nothing but sympathy for him in that respect. However, I do not appreciate him (and you) using it as emotional blackmail to try to shut me up on this completely separate point.
In particular you might want to to consider how offensive it is to him for you to liken him to 'all religios' when it was religious intolerance and prejudice that nearly cost him his children and his liberty.
If he found me calling him out on his typical-of-religious-people tactic offensive, perhaps he would have done better not to use it.
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It's not what you are saying that I am objecting to, but the way you are saying it, so cut out the 'emotional blackmail' shit. If you felt sympathy you'd have done well to express it sooner, but actually in relation to a situation like Matt described empathy is much more useful.
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Both disciplines that are pagan in toto! Thery were never Christian!
OK, so in that case, I'll include Buddhism and Hinduism. If your definition of Paganism is 'not-Christian', then there are hundreds of belief-systems that these sites could have been related to.
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Perhaps at the time the people needing homes were not wealthy and it made a lot of sense to take those stones, that had been sitting there as useless as the day they were set there, and build their houses. Good for them, no crime no foul. Finally putting those rocks to some real and beneficial use. And the truth is nobody gave a damned until the invention of neo paganism.
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Both disciplines that are pagan in toto! Thery were never Christian!
OK, so in that case, I'll include Buddhism and Hinduism. If your definition of Paganism is 'not-Christian', then there are hundreds of belief-systems that these sites could have been related to.
Don't be a bloody fool, Hope!
It is you, A chriustian, making the commentrs not a Buddhist or a Hindu!
Buddhists or Hindus building stone circles in the UK 4,000 yars ago?
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Well the pagans destroyed the environment and habitat when they chiseled out those stones and dragged them to Avebury to build their pretty circles. And since the residents of the area had long ago dumped that paganism, they we right to use that rock to build their homes. No crime, no foul.
Oh, dear.......
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If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.
Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?
- Valid point!
There have been many revisions of Mesolithic and Neolithic Britain recently, and the Avebury and Stonehenge constructions are no exception.
Given the incredible finds on Orkney in the last two decades, the religious map of pre-Roman Britain is being turned on its; head.
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Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.
I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.
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Not just pagans, Rhi.
Anyone who has a sense of 'place' needs to respect the monuments in that place.
Take Brodger on Orkney, or Calanais on Lewis, for example.
We don't know what gods those who erected Calanais worshipped, or the two (or possibly three) religious upheavals at the Ring of Brodgar, but we can marvel at the sense of spirituality such places invoke.
I know I do.
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It's not what you are saying that I am objecting to, but the way you are saying it, so cut out the 'emotional blackmail' shit. If you felt sympathy you'd have done well to express it sooner, but actually in relation to a situation like Matt described empathy is much more useful.
Give it up Rhi. You are wasting your breath and, truthfully I've got used to it, of the lack of it.
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Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).
I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar
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Get back up there!
They've discovered a whole series of temples, storage areas, ritual burning pits, etc, in that area recently.
Archaeologists now consider it the finest neolithic site in Europe!
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Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.
I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.
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Not just pagans, Rhi.
Anyone who has a sense of 'place' needs to respect the monuments in that place.
Take Brodger on Orkney, or Calanais on Lewis, for example.
We don't know what gods those who erected Calanais worshipped, or the two (or possibly three) religious upheavals at the Ring of Brodgar, but we can marvel at the sense of spirituality such places invoke.
I know I do.
I have admitted this point on so many occasions!
We vcannot know, we can only read what those who can make the best judgement say.
We do, by the dates the sites were created that they were Pagan - and no, I do not mean neo-pagan.
And it is the spirituality of these palces that we, neo-Pagans, find so important!
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Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).
I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar
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Get back up there!
They've discovered a whole series of temples, storage areas, ritual burning pits, etc, in that area recently.
Archaeologists now consider it the finest neolithic site in Europe!
Thinking of going back up next spring, Jim - from here it can be done in a day (albeit a long one)!
There are places there, apart from the archaeological sites, that are simply wonderful,
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I've a friend who works up at the excavations, Gordon.
I get constant updates from him, raving at the latest finds and measurements.
The whole area seems to have been linked with causeways, temples, three stone circles (and a possible fourth as well - they're still plotting that), massive roofed stone structures - the biggest in the northern hemisphere from c 2500 BB till the Greeks and Romans got their ideas from looking at Egyptian structures).
They've found a few human-type images as well, and many symbols which seem to be the forerunners of thos enigmatic Pictish symbol stone carvings.
This site will keep the archaeologists busy for decades to come.
The beauty of the site is, of course, that, since there was little or no wood, those who erected these unique structures had no option but to build in stione.