@ Paul Kruger

I agree with your comments.  Mr. Trevino's contempt for "chrypto-nazis" and "antisemites" is laudable and deserves immitation, but his calls for arbitrary censureship are equally contemptible.    

@ Joshua Trevino

I support and share your "moral compulsion" to "actively shun" chryptonazis and antisemites in PRIVATE LIFE.  However,  you have no 'moral right' to attempt to narrow the access of others to information and opinions, simply because you (and I) find them reprehensible.  While the TBJ is clearly a private initiative (and I certainly don't question the legalistic 'property rights' of its creator), it operates in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.  It's great attraction is that it 'serves up' interesting (and often 'onorthodox') articles which provide an excellent focus for potentially-interesting debates.   Any attempt to narrow debate and to introduce arbitrary censureship would surely lead to a devaluation of the TBJ-'product', and this website would quickly revert to an 'amen-choir' of likeminded people.    

On the Dutch side of TBJ one can currently find an interesting article by Koenraad Elst on the intellectual dishonesty of those who criticise the intolerance of islam while at the same time accepting laws that violate freedom of political speech.  While we are not concerned here with 'the law', the 'moral point' of intellectual honesty (or dishonesty) remains the same in any public discussion (including on a private forum or website).  

Actually, I mostly agree with you. Many young people who adopt paganism (Wicca, mostly, thanks to movies like The Craft or TV shows like, Charmed and Buffy) have no real understanding of what it is about. They buy a $5 pentagram necklace on eBay, dye their hair purple, and then threaten school-mates with “curses.”

If you think Cafeteria Christians are bad, imagine how I feel watching the News around Halloween when they interview “a real pagan Goddess-Priestess, Lady TwinkleElf DragonLance.” Ug.

However, the thing you need to understand about these people is that they don’t last long in the pagan community. They may wonder in full of wonder and amusement, probably thinking that they are going to get all these ‘cool powers’ and a cosmic license to do whatever they want. “Ha! Take that mom and dad!” But when they realize that real paganism is about Faith, honoring the Divine, finding inner and outer balance, and actual work… they dry up and leave, looking for the next “shocking thing.”

Unfortunately there is an ever-replenishing crop of these people, and they fuel a pitifully money-driven economy of pseudo-Occult books and feel-good “New Age” hoopla. Sadly, these “fluff bunnies” (as they are known in the pagan community) get the most medial coverage. People like, well, myself, don’t seek the cameras. We probably don’t look any different any different than you do. I could be your next-door neighbor, your kid’s school teacher, your doctor, the harpist at your sisters wedding… you’d never know. I would not want you to know. My beliefs are mine, they are private, but that does not mean I enjoy reading gross misconceptions of them online.

Mr. Trevino

I don’t require you to respect my faith. I require you to respect me as a human being, as I must respect you. Without this simple offering from one person to another, our world has no hope. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you have zero respect for any faith but your own. As I mentioned in an earlier message, I expected as much.

I don’t have to defend my faith to you – it is far beyond your ability to harm. What spurned my ire was the disrespect in your tone, your insults, and your intolerant attitude. These things, above all else, harm our society and the world that we all must share. Perhaps one day you will be able to walk a path of peace, or you may carry your personal Crusade to the grave. Either way, you will have to do it alone.

I deeply resent it when non-pagans attempt to lecture me on what Paganism is and isn't. I’m sure you feel likewise about your own faith. My knowledge of Christianity comes from my mother, who taught Sunday school for over 20 years, the decade I spent in Catholic school, and my good friend of 8 years who is a Christian Priest. When volunteering at his Church we often talk about religion – so many of the core beliefs we share are similar.

How many Pagans do you know? In fact, prior to ranting about this single article, how much thought have you invested in learning about paganism? My guess; about as much as you have invested in learning about Buddhism. You probably have superficial knowledge (learned from likeminded Christians) that provides you with enough information to be rude, judgmental and confrontational… but without an ounce of true understanding.

In my personal experience, people who feel driven to “disprove” other people’s faith are actually very unsure of their own. That’s the Persian flaw of the absolutist-mentalities.

@ Trevino

Certainly, paganism deserves "ridicule", so by all means engage in ridiculing it.  But, your recommendation for "ejection" (from a political forum), based on someone's opinions (not on behavior) deserves contempt from all 'democrats' (with a small d).  

By jolly, even though this is a 'belgian' website, you don't seem to have heard of the famous "cordon sanitaire" which has ensured that a majority right-of-center Flemish people are being governed by naive-leftish policies in Belgium.  Censureship, banning, ejection......they are the actions of intolerant minds.     

“you self-identify as pagan,”
 

And you, sir, self-identify as Christian… yet your disrespect and prejudice of another’s faith reveals how very Un-Christian you can be. I know many Christians who would be horrified to read what you wrote in regard to a faith-group that you clearly have very little understanding of. Some may even go so far as to denounce the validity of your self-proclaimed Christian-status. Thus is the nature of paradox.

“…and are a participant in a demonstrably half-baked and mostly-contrived modern revival of an imagined dead faith.”

Sticks and stones. Paganism is not one religion – it is an umbrella term for many diverse (non-Abrahamic) paths; all of which descend from historically evident religions. Religions don’t die, Mr. Trevino. When thousands of people gather to honor their Deities, you better believe that the religion is alive and well -- in whatever incarnation it has adopted. Just imagine how many incarnations Christianity has been through over the centuries!

As it stands modern Christianity is a deeply splintered and divided religion, with each denomination claiming to be the one true way. Consider how this might look to an outsider! Well, when it comes to paganism, that is what you are, sir: an Outsider.

But all of this is rather moot, isn’t it? Clearly we won’t see eye-to-eye on this subject. It boils down to Freedom of Religion. Believe what you want, and I will continue to do likewise. The difference being that I will not spit on what you hold sacred via Blog entries.

People can believe whatever they want to believe in as long as their belief allows others to believe whatever they want to believe in.

Clearly Mr. Trevino has not heard of, or does not care about, “Freedom of Religion.” At least, with no more respect or seriousness than the Greek Government has – a government that still outlaws preaching non-Greek Orthodox faiths!

Mr. Trevino’s poorly spelled diatribe (the word is, “mycenaean” not, “mycanaean”) was nothing more than an intellectually-masturbatory rant against an expression of faith that he clearly understands nothing about. At times like these I must remind myself that this is a Blog and not an actual form of respective journalism.

Regardless, I take offence (as I suspect any person of faith would) at my spiritual beliefs being made the subject of public ridicule by an ill-educated and blatantly biased individual.

As a Pagan (although not of the Hellenic denomination) I take my beliefs and faith very seriously. Agree or disagree as you will, it really does not bother me as long as we still have “Freedom of Religion” in this country. Clearly this is a freedom that superiority-minded people like Mr. Trevino would rather see disrespected and weakened, but it is one I hold quite dear to my heart. Coincidently, so does my best friend of 8 years, who happens to be a Christian Priest.

I’ll just have to console myself with the knowledge that it is people like my friend who form the bedrock of Christianity… and not ranting bigots like Mr. Trevino!

Good article.
The reader comments are very disheartening, though.
The rise in various flavors of Neo-Paganism have NOTHING to do with spirituality beyond illustrating that humans have a need that cannot be met be atheism or substituted with celebrity worship.
The need for community, if nothing else, is there - but in their antisocial pride they must only allow themselves to associate with those who also agree to throw off "conventional" religion.
The growth of such "micro-orthodoxies" is symptomatic of the breakdown of cultural unity.

Orwell said the best sect lovers eg trots, stalin, NSPA, etc tend to also have started out as the most devout east:western:orthodox:born agains etc...

jump frm ship to ship like rats or swine

each time claiming to have seen the light

and forgetting all sins from past.

eg: "BUT that was then, this is..."

NOW!

It looks harmless.

Those Greeks priests should enter in the Belgian governement, they seem to have the intellectual level for. By the way, lots of christians still glorificate winter solstice through christmas ! Catholics try to take it over by moving the birth of Jesus a 24th december but it's still the shortest day of the year.

And i agree with  Kruger and Doney's comments.

"This is where secular leftism leads."

No it isn't. It's where superstition and unreason lead. Some of the Greeks of the fifth century BC may have been the first to start the long fight against superstition and unreason, but there is still an awful long way to go.

Bob Doney

“What their worshippers symbolise, and clearly want, is a return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past,” says Father Eustathios Kollas.

How naive of the man. How naive of Trevino. Christianity plunged into the Dark Ages, halted science and progress during the Middle Ages and in the 21th Century its universalistic creed has opened the gates to mass immigration.
Indeed, if the West is to be saved it has to shed the autodestructive masochistic creed that hails from the Middle Eastern desert.

Only a folk-based return to Europe's profound roots will save the continent and its biological-cultural foundations.