But the Catholic Church is really rich, so whatever it does is credible per se.
The important point is that guys like the clever Mr. Greenberg, who claim to be interested in fair journalistic treament of "religion," have a very narrow view of what religion constitutes: Religion means Christianity, or something so similar to Christianity as to be make distinctions pointless. (They certainly aren't willing to recognize any concept of deity that involves the use of indefinite articles.)
I hate to think I'm so cynical that I can't believe the guy is really trying to do right ... but I can't help thinking the other shoe will soon drop.
Perhaps not, but what evidence is there that anyone is driving, or trying to drive, religion out of the public square. It seems to me to be everywhere. Where is there any argument except for those who oppose Christian (or vaguely monotheistic) prayers being said at every government function. Otherwise, religions of all kinds seem to be flourishing.
Under U.S. law, the church could have a problem if were operating the hall as a commercial public accomodation (British law may be different.) The principal is the same as if they wanted to exclude people on the basis of skin color.
While it is true that right-wing propagandists routinely claim that anyone who objects to allowing Christians to declare the supremacy of their god at every government function are somehow damaging religion, that doesn't make it "common wisdom" or correct; its just another product of the noise machine.
I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here, Tom: other than opposing government sanctions or favoritism for particular religions -- and we know who we're talking about -- I don't see that many Pagans "pushing religion further and further .. away from the public spheres ...." How is that true?
Of course, in that "secular" means "of the world," I've always thought of Paganism as secular: a religion of the spirit of real things, of the world that can be touched. But maybe that's just me.
You're correct, Bjorn, that you can't ever have the kind of precise knowledge that you claim to base your creed on: the information isn't there,and never will be there, so any reconstruction is equally "fantasy with appropriated names" ... unless you allow for the possibility of divine guidance, poetic inspiration and magical memory as sources of information. But if you accept those things, you must also accept that the people you so often abuse maybe receiving information from sources that you're not reaching, but which are not less valid for that.
Thank you for saying all that. Wouldn't it be interesting if the many other commenters who brag about their hard-nosed, historically-sound Paganism actually had to cite sources?
Though I would add the kind of nationalism that Ross apparently advocates reeks of 19th Century German Romanticism, a la Hegel, and doesn't seem particularly Pagan to me.
Not according to my Latin-English dictionary. Anyway, that term did come into use until the early middle ages, well into the Christian era. I don't suppose it matters.
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