Certain types of paganism might be culturally and historically associated with specific regions of the world, but there is no single possible form of paganism. Not every individual form of paganism is logically possible as far as it being true is concerned. I mean that there is no one ideological type of paganism that could be believed in. Paganism refers to either all non-Christian religious and/or spiritual philosophies (they are not always the same [1]) or more particularly to the nature or polytheistic religions that flourished before the promotion of Christianity. For Islam, the same would be true according to that religion's tenets except for the substitution of Islam for Christianity.
Hellenism, the philosophy of Greek mythology that features the Olympian pseudo-deities (for they are not uncaused causes) like Poseidon, also features elements of animism, as with the dryads, spirits that supposedly reside in trees. This is different from a more pantheistic form of paganism, and also distinct from the likes of Norse mythology in certain ways when it comes to its metaphysics. Norse mythology has the Nine Realms and the Aesir and Vanir, while Greek mythology has the likes of Mount Olympus, the Titans, and Hades. Though the game franchise God of War portrays both pantheons as coexisting, this is not what is presented in the source material and aspects of each philosophy are contradictory in some forms, as with the creation stories.
Among the Native American worldviews (not that anyone believes in them because they are Native American, that being a matter of mental ascent and rationality), likewise, there are also disparities or even different versions of what is otherwise the same concepts, as with the Great Spirit and animism. With animism, independent of all concrete ideological/cultural examples, there could be many different manifestations. One type might hold that only a handful of seemingly inanimate objects in the material world have spirits bound to them, like stones or trees--though some types of plants act as if they are conscious [2], others are rooted in place and show no direct hints of mental awareness above the surface of the ground. Another kind might hold that every unit of matter has a spirit, much like what modern scientific panpsychism ultimately reduces down to [3].
Now, at least animism properly differentiates between mind and matter. The variants of paganism that regard matter and spirit as the exact same or all of nature as of it is connected beyond its entirety being made of matter (and governed by logical necessities like axioms that dictate all truths and possibilities, as unacknowledged by pagans as they are) have their own metaphysical errors. I live in nature, my body being part of the external world of matter and yet separate from my consciousness, any physical environment I could walk in, or any object I grasp. I am not the same as some external tree even if we are both biologically alive. I am not the same as someone else's hypothetical mind even if we both have bodies of matter.
Some forms of paganism, however, are logically possible. They just are neither true by logical necessity in themselves nor supported by any sort of fallible evidences. It is just that one form of paganism could diverge wildly from another, and this is not always recognized by Christians. The kind of paganism that Romans 1:20-25 addresses is more animistic or pantheistic, having to do with the worship of the natural world instead of the uncaused cause. The paganism described in examples within Mosaic Law, such as in Leviticus 20:2-5, is more like the most popular parts of ancient Greek paganism: it is centered on supposed superhuman beings that can interact with the material world. They are not necessarily inside it as a dryad could be in its tree, although the likes of Zeus are still supernatural beings residing within physical bodies. All of such worldviews are nonetheless false if Christianity is true and all are equally pagan, as unique from others as some forms are.
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-possibility-of-plant-consciousness.html
No comments:
Post a Comment