I am so not going to touch this one anymore than I already have, but still...

[chironcentaur]

Somebody pointing out that it seems there are two different approaches to religion in the Hellenic community (one primarily focused on culture and ethics; the other primarily on the gods themselves) should not be a signal for you to jump up on your tired old throne of infallibility soap box and start screeching, "See, I was right! We Recon are

Comments

[chironcentaur]

Well, of course you're the Pope. You have the awesome hat. Tim only has a tiny pointy head. :-P

ultimately what I see in the attitude you mention there is that somehow they know the minds of the arch-Hellenes better than they did.

But Tim does know better! Its just like all the arguments he makes about how the Hellenic religion never allowed any icky outside elements to mix in with their perfect, frozen in time tradition, and thus the Hellenistic era is to be shunned and ignored. Because they were Doing It Wrong, don't you know? And I'm sure some of the ancient people that lived very intensely devoted religious lives, like the people devoted to nymphs that lived outside society in a cave devoted to them (as just one example off the top of my head) were Doing It Wrong too. Delusional, over come by emotion and definitely Not Hellenic.

Because of course the ancient people were all the same, and there was a single universal religion and everyone lock stepped in line to it without even a slight variation.

For the people that actually lived in those cultures, it was something that was alive, and like all living things, it changed and evolved over time. And yet the people that want to carry on their traditions want something utterly frozen in time, something that will never alter or change again no matter how little sense the tradition makes in light of the knowledge we have now/in the climate we currently live in (see the fairly recent massive debate on gay marriage and whether or not "ugly" people should be allowed to be priests). And it almost always seems to be those same people that lament the lack of culture and tradition in America, they so badly want it yet seem to have no idea how it really works.