Other Natural Religions

[Bharatvarsh2]

Emperor Julian's Rescript on Christian Teachers

I hold that a proper education results, not in laboriously acquired symmetry of phrases and language, but in a healthy condition of mind, I mean a mind that has understanding and true opinions about things good and evil, honourable and base. Therefore, when a man thinks one thing and teaches his pupils another, in my opinion he fails to educate exactly in proportion as he fails to be an honest man. And if the divergence between a man s convictions and his utterances is merely in trivial matters, that can be tolerated somehow, though it is wrong. But if in matters of the greatest importance a man has certain opinions and teaches the contrary, what is that but the conduct of hucksters, and not honest but thoroughly dissolute men in that they praise most highly the things that they believe to be most worthless, thus cheating and enticing by their praises those to whom they desire to transfer their worthless wares. Now all who profess to teach anything whatever ought to be men of upright character, and ought not to harbour in their souls opinions irreconcilable with what they publicly profess; and, above all, I believe it is necessary that those who associate with the young and teach them rhetoric should be of upright character; for they expound the writings of the ancients, whether they be rhetoricians or grammarians, and still more if they are sophists. For these claim to teach, in addition to other things, not only the use of words, but morals also, and they assert that political philosophy is their peculiar field. Let us leave aside, for the moment, the question whether this is true or not. But while I applaud them for aspiring to such high pretensions, I should applaud them still more if they did not utter falsehoods and convict themselves of thinking one thing and teaching their pupils another. What! Was it not the gods who revealed all their learning to Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates and Lysias? Did not these men think that they were consecrated, some to Hermes, others to the Muses? I think it is absurd that men who expound the works of these writers should dishonour the gods whom they used to honour. Yet, though I think this absurd, I do not say that they ought to change their opinions and then instruct the young. But I give them this choice: either not to teach what they do not think admirable, or, it they wish to teach, let them first really persuade their pupils that neither Homer nor Hesiod nor any of these writers whom they expound and have declared to be guilty of impiety, folly and error in regard to the gods, is such as they declare. For since they make a livelihood and receive pay from the works of those writers, they thereby confess that they are most shamefully greedy of gain, and that, for the sake of a few drachmae, they would put up with anything. It is true that, until now, there were many excuses for not attending the temples, and the terror that threatened on all sides absolved men for concealing the truest beliefs about the gods.’ But since the gods have granted us liberty, it seems to me absurd that men should teach what they do not believe to be sound. But if they believe that those whose interpreters they are and for whom they sit, so to speak, in the seat of the prophets, were wise men, let them be the first to emulate their piety towards the gods. If, however, they think that those writers were in error with respect to the most honoured gods, then let them betake themselves to the churches of the Galilaeans to expound Matthew and Luke, since you Galilacans are obeying them when you ordain that men shall refrain from temple-worship. For my part, I wish that your ears and your tongues might be “born anew,” as you would say, as regards these things in which may I ever have part, and all who think and act as is pleasing to me.



For religious and secular teachers let there be a general ordinance to this effect: Any youth who wishes to attend the schools is not excluded; nor indeed would it be reasonable to shut out from the which way boys who are still too ignorant to know which way to turn, and to overawe them into being led against their will to the beliefs of their ancestors. Though indeed it might be proper to cure these, even against their will, as one cures the insane, except that we concede indulgence to all for this sort of disease.I For we ought, I think, to teach, but not punish, the demented.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Letter to Atarbius



I affirm by the gods that I do not wish the Galilaeans to be either put to death or unjustly beaten, or to suffer any other injury; but nevertheless I do assert absolutely that the god-fearing must be preferred to them. For through the folly of the Galilaeans almost everything has been overturned, whereas through the grace of the gods are we all preserved. Wherefore we ought to honor the gods and the god-fearing, both men and cities.



http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sterk/Docu...Julian.htm

[Husky]

But I already pasted that once before, didn't I? OK, I see, it was not in this thread. Well done, you're right, it should be here.

(BTW, there is also the Letter to Arsacius that is linked off JulianSociety. IIRC that was for priests.)



Note that in the following, his stress is actually on the *second* half of the statement.

Bharatvarsh2

Posted Today, 07:07 AM

Letter to Atarbius



I affirm by the gods that I do not wish the Galilaeans to be either put to death or unjustly beaten, or to suffer any other injury; but nevertheless I do assert absolutely that the god-fearing must be preferred to them. For through the folly of the Galilaeans almost everything has been overturned, whereas through the grace of the gods are we all preserved. Wherefore we ought to honor the gods and the god-fearing, both men and cities.



http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sterk/Docu...Julian.htm

The first half is the preliminary statement, the "given". The second half is his explanation of his full position - it is no mere qualifier.



Also, the translation of the same that can be found in Smith is better ("god-fearing" is christian <- and the non-existent demon "gawd"'s character is very much an object deserving of fear for those who believe in it: it is so highly volatile and brutal in temper. Whereas the line "those who revere the Gods" characterises the Hellenes - as well as other traditionalists such as the Hindooos):

'I swear by the gods', a letter runs, 'that I do not wish Galilaeans either put to death or unjustly beaten'. 127 But the [color="#0000FF"]sentence that follows[/color] reveals the author's [color="#0000FF"]principal[/color] assumption: 'None the less·, I insist that those who revere the gods should be given absolute preference to them; for by their folly almost everything has been destroyed.' [...]

[HareKrishna]

[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='21 May 2010 - 07:38 PM' timestamp='1274450418' post='106487']



On a side note, have you seen Agora about the life of Hypatia and if so what did you think of it, good/bad?

[/quote]

Allow me to have a small opinion:an excellent movie,no major flaws in it.Except the fact that it didn't have any spaceships and lasers .Clearly,a movie that couldn't be make it years ago.My christian friend refuse to see it all of it ,despite my insistence. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':o' />

But how about the ...Return of the mummies <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[HareKrishna]

[quote name='agnivayu' date='22 May 2010 - 09:33 AM' timestamp='1274500527' post='106498']

Good lesson. Constant pandering and trying to appease others is interpreted as a sign of weakness. The comments by the Sikh guy especially sounds like a Khalistani or someone full of hate. What do these guys want, a landlocked small country bordering Pakistan? They won't be Sikh very long like that, probably will be occupied by Pakistan. Forget about the Taoist, if they are interested in talking to Hindus, they can make the first gesture.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that the identity of "Hindu" carries a lot of baggage due to the vicious and continuous propaganda by the West, so people like to disassociate with that (example: Deepak Chopra). Bottom line is none of the other so called "Dharmic" religions have ever really wanted to help us. We outnumber them greatly (hence the Western targeted attack on Hinduism for the last 200 years), so in reality in the long run they will need our help rather than the other way around. It's better to focus our energy in uniting all Hindus, many of whom have developed self hatred due to brainwashing by colonial propaganda.

I have seen this with Buddhists etc also, never act too eager in wanting their support. While they may be light years better than Abrahamic religions, many of them are also driven by ethnic nationalism which clouds their thinking. Western Buddhists are a great example, you won't get any support from hardly any of them, they will probably mock Hindus or give a stern patronizing lecture on human rights as though they are superior.

[/quote]

like here?

http://www.essortment.com/all/hinduismandbud_rtqs.htm





Between Hinduism and Buddhism, I believe that Buddhism is more positive religion. The myths and history of Hinduism create a field of immensely greater interest than that of Buddhism. The culture of Hinduism also seems more captivating, although this is only by virtue of its distinct difference with Western class systems. Despite the draw Hinduism holds upon outsiders, Buddhism remains the more advanced religion. Whereas Hinduism represses others through caste, Buddhism projects ultimate acceptance. Both religions maintain an emphasis upon the community and a rejection of selfishness that is refreshingly different from Western religions. Although both of these religions instill respect and a genuine concern for others, Hinduism does so in a forced, repressive manner while Buddhism is more liberal.

[agnivayu]

post moved

[HareKrishna]

[quote name='agnivayu' date='24 May 2010 - 06:51 PM' timestamp='1274706823' post='106547']





Don't tell me Buddhism is enlightened, I have seen the Monks physically fighting each other in South Korea and in Sri Lanka, nothing about them struck me as enlightened.

[/quote]

see sri lanka on this map

[Husky]

The discussion in posts 83 to 85 don't belong here, but rather in the thread questioning Buddhism. Could the respective authors of the posts mentioned move them there?



Please.



(And if Swamy G's #63 and Agnivayu's #80 could go into some other thread, then I could finally dump my #64 which is an eyesore as it doesn't belong here.)





And to ask all this I had to commandeer the space of a post. (Will try to replace this with something relevant in time.)

[Husky]

All the following is stolen from BV's find.



[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='08 August 2010 - 12:57 AM' timestamp='1281208785' post='107802']

Small part of a review "The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes" by Evaggelos G. Vallianatos:



http://mq.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/19/1/97

[/quote]

Now watch the magic -

p1:

While I was still trying to figure out the details of “the passion of philosophy,” that

is, what happened to Hellenic philosophy in Christian Europe, Vallianatos’s book came

to address such larger questions as, What happened to the Greeks? [color="#FF0000"]When did the Greek

Gods become “myths”[/color] and their people, the most highly evolved in the Mediterranean,

“pagans?” Why are their statues mutilated and their temples smashed? Why was so

much of their knowledge destroyed? This book tells the secret story of the Greek geno-

cide at the hands of the Christians from the fourth to the sixth centuries CE.



[color="#800080"](pp 3-4)[/color]

[...]



the infamous battle of Corinth in 146 BC, which the Greeks lost to Romans. The latter made mainland Greece a province of the

expanding Roman Empire. [color="#0000FF"]Of special interest here is the theory regarding the relation

between Hellenic historia (history) and mythologia (mythology), or “early history.” The

author explains, “God Prometheus comes to us out of what we call ‘mythology.’ Greek

mythology, however, is not a fairy tale or a legend — this is a pernicious lie the Christians

invented to denigrate the Greeks. Mythology, for the Greeks, is early history or

history lost in time, and it is the fundamental key to understanding the world, how it

works, and where we humans fit in.”[/color] In support of this theory he refers also to the work

of an expert in the field of Classical Greek studies, Mary Lefkowitz.2

In English "Myth(ology)" is used exclusively in the christian sense: a concoction/lie/fictional story/legend. And that's why christos will never use "mythology" for the babble's OT or NT/gospels: they know that myth means Lie in English and mythology means "bunch of fictional stories" whereas christos faithfully believe that the babble is early history.





p4:

Chapter 2, “Power and Importance of Greek Religion,” builds upon and elaborates

this theory. It addresses the important questions of how [color="#FF0000"]the Greeks and their gods are

literally inseparable[/color] and “why [color="#FF0000"]religion, in the form of piety for the gods expressed in[/color]

athletics, the tragic theater, the oracles, and the festivals, helped the Greeks to maintain

their Greek identity.” He insists that [color="#FF0000"]“Greek piety, the veneration of the Greeks for

their gods, was at the core[/color] of how the Greeks understood the universe, nature, the rest

of the world, and themselves. In fact the religion of the Greek people was their culture,

which was full of gods but did not have a creed, holy book or church. . . . All agricultural

festivals were propitiation to the gods for increasing the fertility of the land, for

a good harvest.” He concludes with an insightful observation: “So the Greeks started

their grand political experimentation in the gymnasion-palaistra of each polis with a

combination of training the beautiful nude body of young people with rigorous physical

exercises, and educating their minds with a command of the Greek language, music,

philosophy, mathematics and science. The nude athletic [color="#FF0000"]games of Olympia[/color] . . . were a

sort of final exams, [color="#FF0000"]an offering of piety to the gods,[/color] all in one political act and celebration

of common Greek culture.”

"the Greeks and their gods are literally inseparable". (So too the other Hellenists: the Romans.)

Exactly.



Just like Taoists, Shintos and the old dying generation of Hindus and all those Hindus who went before.



In the above brief reference too, can note how every art and skill etc. is an expression of the Hellenistic religion and derived from the Gods/Hellenes' piety to the Gods.

Same as how Hindu arts and skills are HINDU. Not "Indian". Hindu traditional music is about the Gods, even the major instruments are derived from the instruments of the Gods. Hindu traditional dances like Bharatanatyam and folk dances are Hindu, and derive from the Gods. Yoga is Hindu: a practice to connect the Hindu to his Gods. Origins of Hindu martial arts are also attributed to the Hindu Gods and the practice begins with worshipping them. Hindu "schools of thought" comes from the Hindu Gods and are about the Hindu Gods. The Hindu rituals concern the Hindu Gods. All Hindu scriptures (including the epics) down to the mantras they contain are Hindu. Traditional Hindu Temple and moorty construction are Hindu, deriving from Hindu scriptures again.



Meanwhile, modern indians keep trying to sell these as "secular" "Indian". There's nothing merely "Indian" about them - not part of any universal "Indian" "culture" or "civilisation". They are Hindu religion. (E.g. Carnatic music or Bharatanatyam is an act of devotion to the Hindu Gods, it concerns no other religion - not even any other Dharmic religion, which have nothing to do with them).



The Indians - those who sell the Religion of the Gods piecemeal - are traitors, even though some of them insist on calling themselves Hindu even as they sell off the religion on foreign shores. If these people's ancestors were "polytheistic idolators" but they aren't so anymore themselves, then they're not traditionalists ("heathens") anymore. They're simply successfully-subverted (alienated) people. (<- If they weren't alienated, they'd still be practising their ancestrally-handed-down religion, i.e. following ancestral tradition.)

They have lost something. They just don't know that they have, nor what that something is, nor how important it is. But all the same, they insist on keeping the label Hindu and associating themselves with the Religion of the Hindu Gods, even as they try to distance themselves from the Gods and separate all those Hindu things derived from the Hindu Gods which are actually inseparable from the Religion/Gods.





And this. At last, a one-line quote. Note how I'm not speaking. pp 6-7:

Chapter 6 is titled “Julian the Great,” not surprisingly, since Julian was the champion

of the “pagan” party and, in this regard, the opposite of Constantine and his pro-

Christian policies. His rise to power, his short rule, and his tragic fall (362 – 3) are

described in detail following Ammianus’s account. Julian was determined to restore

the worship of the gods and the honored Greek-Roman traditions. Thus, he “declared

religious freedom in the empire,” although he made it public that he was not a Christian

“but a faithful follower of the Greek and Roman [color="#FF0000"]gods[/color].” He “immersed himself in

Greek [color="#FF0000"]religion[/color] with the passion of a person who waited an entire life for that moment”; <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[color="#FF0000"]he “loved Greek philosophy and the gods, for the two were inseparable.”[/color] He made a distinction

between Christianity and Judaism and showed more respect for the latter. He

also considered rebuilding “the sacred city of Jerusalem.” But he always saw Christianity

as “an illegal, treasonous and newfangled cult and ideology that destroyed Greek

culture.”

See? Greek Philosophy=part of the Religion of the Gods of the Hellenes. I.e. Philosophy is a part of Hellenismos, and it concerns and is from the Gods.

The two are inseparable.



(And it's just like how Hindu arts, skills, and the various Hindu schools of thought are inseparable from the Hindu religion (=religion of the Hindu Gods), but I already said that). <- It's funny how there's always been this need to wait for other traditionalists to say it in order to find one's own voice. And of all of them - but there was no comparison - Julian says it so well, both in word and action. What a great Find Julian was. He may be (long) dead, but the fact that he existed - that such a human existed - is all that matters. Notice how when he says it, people take note. He is that kind of man: either respected/admired by all those with sense or deeply feared by his diseased enemies. But no one can ignore him, try as modern subversionists might (and they do try - desperately - to make little of his role and importance in history).





[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='08 August 2010 - 12:57 AM' timestamp='1281208785' post='107802']

Also an interesting remark in the review on page 7:

He iscritical of Polymnia Athanassiadi who, following the line of St. Gregory, sees in Julian a

fanatic man and “the very incarnation of evil.”3

[/quote]The paragraph containing the statement BV refers to:

Julian even prohibited, rightly in the opinion of the author, Christians “from teaching

Greek and Roman philosophy, poetry and literature.” These were replete with references

to Greek religion and reverence for the gods. How could Christians appreciate

their beauty, understand their truth, and interpret it correctly? Gregory of Nazianzus,

who had met Julian as a student in Athens, called him “a public and private enemy”

and an “apostate,” an epithet that stuck with him thereafter. To counterbalance this,

Vallianatos calls Julian “ the Great” and a “philosopher-king.” If it was not obvious

that he loves Julian, the author tells us so. Because of this love, he admits that his portrait

of this tragic emperor is “probably more one-sided than I would like it to be.” [color="#0000FF"]He is

critical of Polymnia Athanassiadi who, following the line of St. Gregory, sees in Julian a

fanatic man and “the very incarnation of evil.”3[/color]

I did already think it possible she was a subversionist.

But that certainly would explain it: her apparent hatred of Julian makes clear why she lied so impossibly about him. A "monotheist/religious innovator" indeed. He was a traditionalist who loved his Gods more than anything (also: the Gods were the goal of Hellenismos' - hence his - Philosophy).

Gibbon may not have approved of Julian's most core nature, but at least he conveyed it accurately; I borrow R. Smith's stress of the importance of Gibbon's statement (with context):

Gibbon's verdict, though, was studiedly ambiguous, and when he wished to convey the heart of the man he looked elsewhere: 'A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian.'19 <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> In my [color="#800080"](R.Smith)[/color] view, that judgement deserves to stand.

But who cares about Athanassiadi's motivated opinion? (There are many in the christowest who are working hard to subvert the public view/understanding of the insubvertible Julian, precisely because he continues to be deadly to christianism.) Because the reality is not to be ignored, it speaks for itself:

Julian was simply the greatest human in History (even his failures are those that only the very great could have made: his aims were Great). The world is naturally divided into people who know and rightly understand this, and the truly pitiable who don't. All heathens warm to him upon learning of his existence: even though his words and actions were for the purpose of other (i.e. his own) Gods - rather because his words/actions were for the purpose of his Gods - heathens all over the world recognise in him one of their own, their own Hero (<- in the right=only sense of that word). The one whose words/actions echo what is in their own hearts and which they didn't know how to translate. But he - even his very life - is so articulate.



This bit in the above quoteblock:

If it was not [color="#0000FF"]obvious[/color] that he loves Julian, the author tells us so. Because of this love, he admits that his portrait of this tragic emperor is “probably more one-sided than I would like it to be.” [color="#800080"](NOT a tragic emperor. He tried. With the sort of ability only he possessed.)[/color]

Yes. Of course. And it's always obvious. Though such words of admission tend to be superfluous when the other words they write, their actions (the fact that they choose to write it at all) and most importantly, the degree to which they understand him, are consonant.



But curious how that's yet another author whose words I've actually read who spells it out loud: that they love (<- that word) Julian. And then there's some more authors/persons who have essentially said the same, and repeatedly, though in a great many other words. But then, like I said, it is always obvious with or without the direct admission. And always inevitable too: because, isn't Julian a Captain among men. He even wrests admiration from those who couldn't otherwise be bothered.

One naturally looks up to him and admires him - it is automatic - so these writers' feelings of deep and sincere admiration are only natural. Even the memory of his person is a refuge to all who learn of him: that such a human being - brave, undaunted, above all capable (with the boundless mental and physical energy required for his mammoth purpose) - existed. The man with the Right Words, the Right Actions - above all, the Right Motivations - and not a hint of this current deplorable universal cowardice concerning the Gods.

There will be no other like him. But we had the one. Only one Hero for all heathenisms.





[color="#0000FF"]ADDED:[/color]

p.7

[color="#0000FF"]"Clearly the author identifies with Julian and his project: “He, no more than I, had no

choice in growing up Christian. We dumped Christianity because it had been imposed

on us by the force of the church and the government in his case, and by the force of

unexamined tradition in my case."[/color]

Julian continues to be profoundly influential. Facilitating complete Proper reversions even long after his death (because he was a proper, complete traditionalist - he's the heathen's exemplary Heathen). And that's yet *another* reason for why he remains the greatest man in history.

Heathens are very fortunate because The Greatest Hero in the world - the Best of the Best - is an extreme Arch Heathen, the Ultimate Heathen. He is defined by his heathenism (hence also his eloquence on behalf of heathenism).





p4.

In chapter 3, “Apollonios of Tyana: Hellas is the World,”

[...] For, like Vallianatos, “he

passionately tried to preserve Hellenic culture by choosing its ascetic and scientific

version worked out by Pythagoras 700 years before his time. . . . [color="#FF0000"]He urged the Greeks

and Romans to stand by their traditions[/color], studying nature and medicine, [color="#FF0000"]offering piety

to their gods[/color]. . . .



[...]



Chapter 4, “The Treason of Christianity,” is one of the longest and most passion-

ate of the chapters. It narrates the failure of the Roman state to deal effectively with

the serious danger that the rapidly growing “insidious and seditious” Christian sect

represented, although the authorities were aware of its devious, antisocial behavior.

One Roman emperor after another underestimated the threat of Christianity until it was

too late to stop it

And that was the Romans, who were more clever by far than today's Hindus are.



At least the GrecoRomans, being traditionalists as they were (they stuck to their beloved Gods), stood a chance in the ideological war thrust on them. (That they lost was by a sordid twist of fate: christianism cheated by stabbing the victor before he was through.)

[Bharatvarsh2]

Hellenic philosophy: origin and character

By Christos Evangeliou



http://books.google.ca/books?id=V6VrPHfn...&q&f=false

Read part of the Introduction in the preview, good book. The author is not filled with the mental disease called Xtianism.



You can download it here:



http://www.downeu.com/ebook/140609-helle...acter.html

[Bharatvarsh2]

For those who had any trouble with the rar format above, I uploaded the above book in PDF format here:



http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/26...r-pdf.html



Let me know if its working.

[Husky]

Nothing new at all.





1. While the following brief excerpt says several things, contained in there is also the Heathen Argument against "inculturation". Sole argument (all there is to say on the matter) -

At root, what it (Julian's work "Contra Galilaeos"/"Against the Galilaeans") expressed was [...] a revulsion at (christians') efforts to assimilate the literary and philosophic heritage of the Greeks without accepting the religious values voiced in it. To Julian's mind, that seemed wreckage, not assimilation. And acceptance of those values was not for him just a process of thought. It demanded practice on the familiar principle of do ut des: 'We must maintain such rituals of the temples (ta en tois hierois) as ancestral custom prescribes, and we must perform neither more nor less than that to appease the gods the better.'81 On this point Julian's stance was basic and closed to argument: 'Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'

"(Julian's) revulsion at (christians') efforts to assimilate (=inculturate on) the literary and philosophic heritage of the Greeks without accepting the religious values voiced in it. To Julian's mind, that seemed wreckage, not assimilation."

Speaks on *why* inculturation should be opposed by all heathenisms. The Why is the most important part of the correct objection.



"On this point Julian's stance was basic and closed to argument: 'Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'"

Word for word.

And extends in equal measure to all "culture" thieves - of whatever hue. To the non-comprehending eye of the modern outer world looking in, religion manifests as "culture". But religio-culture - in ancient natural religio-traditions religion is the well-spring of what appears to others now as "culture" - is not some secular, generic (non-existent) "culture/civilisational values". E.g. considering the Dharmic religious tradition of the Hindoos, despite surface appearances, as Hindus know, there are profoundly religious reasons even behind why Hindus wear and apply certain things to their person. It isn't "culture". It's Hindu religion.





Moving on from inculturation, but still on this bit taken from the above. Julian - as others of his kind - repeatedly brings up the following matter (it's a very heathen view in general, a very important one). But people who have read him would be familiar with it by now. For others, then:

And acceptance of those values was not for him just a process of thought. It demanded practice on the familiar principle of do ut des: 'We must maintain such rituals of the temples (ta en tois hierois) as ancestral custom prescribes, and we must perform neither more nor less than that to appease the gods the better.'81

2. Thought I'd already posted this on IF some weeks ago. No matter, it can go here. For no other reason than that I merely want to put this bit up.

The following is (Roman Emperor) Julian again, here concluding his Oration to King Helios, the Sol. The rest of the text is significantly NP-specific, but bits of the next extract are very generally recognisable, since his personal views expressed herein are consistent with other traditional "heathenism" elsewhere.

Bold and colour highlighting, smileys and the title-casing of references to Divinity are mine, but italics were there in the original -

And such, dear Sallust, is the oration, which, being mostly composed in the space of three nights, according to the triple administration of the God, and from the suggestions of memory at the time, I have dared to submit to your inspection; since a former piece of my composition on the Saturnalia, did not appear to you entirely foreign from the purpose, and undeserving your esteem. But if you are desirous of more perfect, and mystic discourses on this subject, by revolving the books of the divine Jamblichus, composed with the same design as the present oration, you will find the perfect consummation 1 of human wisdom. But may the mighty Sun, nevertheless, enable me to understand whatever pertains to His Divinity; and to impart my information to all men in common, and privately to those who are worthy of such instruction. In the mean time, till the God shall crown my desires in this respect with success, let us both venerate Jamblichus, the friend of this Divinity, from whom we have committed to writing a few particulars out of many which occurred to our recollection at the time: for I well know that no one can speak more perfectly on this subject than Jamblichus; though by the most vigorous contention, he should endeavour to add something of novelty to his discourse; for by such an attempt, as it is reasonable to suppose, he would deviate from true conceptions of the God.



Indeed if I had composed the present oration merely for the sake of instructing others, the labour of writing on such a theme after Jamblichus would perhaps have been in vain: but since I had no other intention than to render thanks to this Divinity by a hymn, and considered my end accomplished in speaking of His essence to the utmost of my ability, I do not think that I have misspent my time by the present composition. For the admonition of Hesiod 1,



Perform, according to your utmost power,

Pure, sacred rites, to the immortal Gods. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



is not only to be understood as necessary in sacrifices, but likewise in the praises of the Gods. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> In the third place, therefore, I earnestly entreat the Sun, the King of the Universe, that he will be propitious to me for my affection <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> to His Divinity ; that he will impart to me a good life; more perfect wisdom; a divine intellect; and a gentle departure from the present state in a convenient time, that I may ascend to his Divinity, and abide with Him <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />, if possible, in perpetual conjunction. But if this be a reward too great for my conduct on this terrene abode, may I at least be united with him for many, and long-extended periods of time.

(His other hymn, the one to the Mother of the Gods, also ended on a similar note: he expressed his deep aspiration and desire to attain his Divine Mother - and indeed all his ancestral Gods, as was literally shown in another translation of the same piece - at the conclusion of his life.)



Typical. Just another heathen. Knows and loves his Gods, who mean Everything to him.

Quite like the Taoists, and well-reminiscent of the generation of elderly Hindoos (well, where I come from, anyway) plus all their predecessors, etc. They all sound similar in their expression - albeit in their own languages (or in their own translations of their views) - when explaining how they regard their Gods.

[Husky]

[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='26 August 2010 - 02:13 AM' timestamp='1282768542' post='108064']

For those who had any trouble with the rar format above, I uploaded the above book in PDF format here:



http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/26...r-pdf.html



Let me know if its working.

[/quote]Sorry, I missed this.

Downloaded and checked to see if I can read it, works for me.

Thanks for uploading. Have queued it into my way too long (FIFO) List Of Things To Read.



And for all those 19 other people who'd already downloaded it: couldn't one of you at least have answered BV's question in gratitude for his putting it up?

[Bharatvarsh2]

Thanks Husky.



Do check the book when you have time because it is one of the few books on Greek philosophy where the author talks about the viewpoints of the ancient Hellenes themselves instead of doling out his own opinions and also points out Christians took over and perverted the meaning of what Philosophy meant.

[Bharatvarsh2]

The One-God Delusion

By E. G. Vallianatos



The people of the West like to believe that they built their countries with values that are, primarily, from the legacy of the Greeks. This is true to some degree. But if those Greeks invented democracy, science, and the arts of civilization, and they did, what happened to them?



We almost never ask this question because, if we knew, we would be extremely embarrassed. Christianity did the Greeks in. Christianity, the second of the three one-god religions, is the other founding-stone of the West, especially America. That’s why we don’t know anything about that tragedy because Christianity does not want us to know its dark beginnings, how it planned and executed the final solution for the “pagan” Greeks while delegating the Jews to a disease-like condition.



Political Christianity annihilated the Greeks because they were inseparable from their gods. Everything they did, from the epics of Homeros, the dramatic theater, sowing their crops, inventing and practicing democracy, exploring the cosmos, building their beautiful temples, competing in the Olympics, which were in honor of their supreme god, Zeus, fighting wars or getting ready to expand their reach to a foreign land, involved the gods.



Thales, the natural philosopher who predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BCE, said that all things are full of gods. And Platon, the genius of Hellenic civilization, reported that the Greeks had no doubt their gods existed. At the rising of the sun and the moon, which the Greeks considered gods, Greek children saw their parents prostrate in piety. At harvest time, Greek farmers offered their first fruits to their agrarian and household divinities.



About eight centuries after Platon, in the fourth century, Christianity, assisted by its protector, the Roman Empire, ended the Olympics, forbidding the Greeks the worship of their gods, leveling Greece, uprooting Greek culture, and even importing barbarians to smash the temples, exiling reason and the sciences from the country.



Palladas, a fifth-century Greek writer, summed up the genocide of Christianity against the Greeks this way: “We Greeks,” he said, “are men who have been reduced to ashes. We cling to the buried hopes of the dead. Today everything has been turned upside down.”



In the sixth century, emperor Justinian rounded up the Greek genocide with shutting down the Academy of Athens founded by Platon. That school was Greece’s greatest university for about 900 years.



But that Christian catastrophe also brought Rome down, throwing the world into a millennium of darkness only dissipated by the Renaissance.



However, 500 years after the Renaissance, we need another movement to get us closer to the Greeks: we need the Greeks for clarity of thought and for our survival. We have built a complex and vulnerable world verging on mayhem and global chaos.



The United States, headed by George W. Bush, a born-again Christian, has become the new Roman Empire, threatening friend and foe alike so that its giant corporations can continue plundering the resources of a planet tottering on the brink of man-made hot ecological collapse and death.



In April 2003, the United States invaded Iraq for its petroleum. Such blatant, Christian faith-based imperial grab for global power set the Moslems on fire, reawakening the crusades. The Moslems are now fighting a low level holy war against both the Christian United States and the West.



In late December 2007, I watched a CNN reporter quizzing John Edwards, then a leading Democratic candidate for the presidency, on religion. The questions the reporter asked Edwards could have been those of a medieval Inquisitor. This was demoralizing for Edwards who struggled to give answers that fit the Christianity-loaded platform of American elections. This is bad for democracy, undermining the separation of church and state.



Getting closer to the Greeks – without the delusion of the one-god religions, especially Christianity and Islam – would restore democratic values in America and may give the West the intellectual and moral tools to solve the man-made crises without destroying the world.



After all, both the Arabs and the people of the West experienced a renewal of their culture only because they fell in love with the Greeks; the Arabs in the eighth to tenth centuries and the Westerners in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Both the Arabic and the Western Renaissance were movements of studying the Greeks. Out of those experiences Greek thought created Arabic and Western culture.



The Greeks gave us democracy, philosophy and science. Being with the Greeks, it becomes easier to build bridges between us. In addition, reading the Greeks gives us valuable clues to return to ancient traditional and democratic and just institutions or create new ones not merely for living but for living well. The Greeks did the same thing.



Philip Melanchthon, the sixteenth-century “Teacher of Germany” and great humanist of the Western Renaissance, was right: Embrace the Greeks, he said. The Greeks provide a fresh, reason-based stand from which to see the world.



E. G. Vallianatos is the author of “This Land is Their Land: How Corporate Farms Threaten the World” (Common Courage Press, 2006) and “The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes” (Clock and Rose Press, 2006). www.vallianatos.com



[url="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V1_JfGK6xtwJ:www.thehandstand.org/archive/april-may2008/articles/One%2520God%2520%2520Delusion%2520re%2520Greeks.doc+The+Passion+of+the+Greeks:+Christianity+and+the+Rape+of+the+Hellenes&cd=25&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca"]My link[/url]

[Bharatvarsh2]

The true Olympics were a Greek religious event in honor of Zeus that were held uninterrupted for over 1200 years until the Christian fanatic Emperor Theodosius banned them along with the other sacred games like the Nemean, Pythian and Isthmian games for being "pagan".



The games were held even as Xerxes Persian army was burning Athens.



Here is part 1 of a PBS documentary about them:



http://vimeo.com/5059505



It contains some mistakes though, for example it rightly points out that women were not allowed at these games but makes it out like they had no athletic outlet. In fact they did have their own separate games called the Heraean Games in honor of Hera the wife of Zeus:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraea_Games

[Bharatvarsh2]

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/201/help-...e-12-gods/

[Bharatvarsh2]

Posting the whole review here because the old link to the pdf now asks for login.

The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes,



Mediterranean Quarterly, 19:1 (Winter 2008): 97-106.



Book Review



Evaggelos G. Vallianatos, The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes, (Harwich Port, Cape Cod: Clock & Rose Press, 2006), Hardcover, 245 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59386-039-4 Reviewed by Christos C. Evangeliou.



This book was a pleasant surprise for me. Its title, The Passion of the Greeks, reminded me of a statement I had made in the Hellenic Philosophy, published ten years ago.[1]I had stated then that: “By the Hellenic definition of philosophia, understood as a free inquiry and unfettered speculation about both nature and culture, “European philosophy” becomes simply a case of homonymia. For this kind of “philosophy” has been deprived, for historical reasons, of that essential freedom of spirit, which is absolutely necessary for an authentic and genuine philosophy to be born and flourish…. [It] had the misfortune to serve, alternatively or simultaneously, three very non-Hellenic musters: dogmatic theology, scientific technology, and political ideology. Hence, what I have termed “the passion of philosophy,” which the forthcoming volume will attempt to bring to light, by critically analyzing the phenomenon of the historical transformation of Ancient Hellenic philosophy in Christianized Europe and the West.”



So, while I was still trying to figure out the details of “the passion of philosophy,” that is, what happened to Hellenic philosophy in Christian Europe, Vallianatos’ book came to address such larger questions as: “What happened to the Greeks? When did the Greek Gods become “myths” and their people, the most highly evolved in the Mediterranean “pagans”? Why are their statues mutilated and their temples smashed? Why was so much of their knowledge destroyed? This book tells the secret story of the Greek genocide at the hands of the Christians between the fourth to the sixth centuries CE... At a time of religious conflict between Christianity and Islam, this book highlights the intolerant nature of monotheism, the hidden history that plunged the West into the Dark Ages. This book is pleading for another Renaissance, another love affair with the Greeks, so as to reinvigorate our civilization with Greek values.”



Written with great passion, by a passionate Greek scholar, this impassioned book recounts with graphic details the historical “passion” of the pagan Greeks at the crucial time, when they encountered the fanatic hordes of missionary monks and Christianizing Roman Emperors. They tried to convert the remaining Greeks too to the new, fanatical, and fashionable faith at the time, willy-nilly. This book is unlike other books, which present the Christianizing of Greece and of the Mediterranean region as some kind of felicitous meeting and mating of the philosophic spirit of Hellenism and the prophetic spirit of the new and ecumenical religion of love and peace. For it chronicles, with boldness and candor, the other and more hideous side of this tragic story. The meeting of Christianity and Hellenism was not peaceful and pious, in the eyes of the author, but bloody and brutal, and has been kept secret and hidden for a long time.



This challenging and truthful tale, therefore, will probably offend the sensibilities of Christians and Greeks, who have been taught the other aspect of the story for so long that they have come to believe it with fanatic faith. They even feel proud of what they refer to, with equal passion, as the great and glorious synthesis of the Greco-Christian heritage, historically facing the menace of Islam. For, as Prof. Thanasis Maskaleris has put it: “[The] book dramatically portrays the immense conflict between Christianity and Hellenism from its beginnings to the present, and is structured with a backbone of extensive documentation. It also estimates our great loss for essentially abandoning the political and humanistic principles the Greeks shaped for a civilized sustenance of our world. One wishes that more books were written in the same vein, for the wisdom of the Greeks can provide the guidance we desperately need…”



More praise for this good book comes from distinguished Professors, like Apostolos Athanassakis and Phillip Mitsis. They have stated respectively that: “The Passion of the Greeks is a book which proposes to sail into the highly controversial early centuries when the Christian faith made every possible effort to prevail over the deeply-embedded Hellenic religion…. However, violence, political conspiracy, and downright destruction of the great religious centers of antiquity were much more the order of the day….” And, “His plea for reason, moderation, liberty, and a general world view that he finds best defended in the traditions of Hellenic philosophical thought is especially timely in a world increasingly disturbed by religious fanaticism and sectarian violence. Rather than giving into despair, however, Vallianatos tries to chart an optimistic map of human and political possibilities and calls for a general renewal of individual and societal reason based on modern pagan principles.”



The book deserves all this praise and more because it is written not only with great pathos, but also with clarity of thought and lucidity of style. What he said about Zosimos, one of his favorite Greek historians, applies to Vallianatos work as well: “He wrote in the great Greek historical tradition—of honesty, conciseness, insight, originality and moving narrative.” (p. 87) The book combines historical erudition with a personal touch, as the author tries to understand what happened to his beloved Hellenes and to him personally. His journey took him from a war ravished Greek island, Kephalonia, to America, where he discovered himself and his Hellenic roots through the study of history, with help from Adamantios Koraes, an enlightened and inspired Greek scholar on whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation.



Life in Valsamata, the village where Evaggelos was born and raised, in the post war Greecewhich was also torn apart by civil war, was tough and determined by the interplay of shadows. On the one hand were the shadows cast by mountain Ainos, with the ruins of the shrines of Zeus, Apollon, Athena, and Pan; and on the other, the shades coming from the monastery of St. Gerasimos, with its Church bells, festivals and icons. He explains in the prologue of the book the conflict within this tradition and in his inner soul:



The ideal of what Greece was in “ancient” times and the ideal of what it should be in my time clash violently with what Greece is, in fact, in the dawn of the twenty-first century. I love passionately all that is still Greek in Greece. I say this with sorrow, for Christianity radically remade Greece to the point that the real Hellaswas buried for more than a millennium, indeed it is still buried, in the country, which calls itself Hellas or Greece…. The Christians made the whole country a cemetery, which quite unintentionally preserved the aftermath of their plunder and genocide of the Greeks and Hellenic civilization…. The products of Christian culture—the bible, the liturgy, the miracles of Jesus and the saints, the dogmas of sin, paradise and hell, the icons of the religious hierarchy—come from a world that has nothing to do with the Parthenon and the philosophy and piety of the Greeks, who built this greatest masterpiece of Greek and Western culture in order to honor the Greek virgin goddess Athena. (pp. 4-10)



Between the long prologue (pp. 1-26) and a short epilogue (pp. 2001-207), the author has arranged



eleven chapters that make up the bulk of the book and house his passionate narrative of the passion of the Greeks. He chronicles the tragic transformation of the Hellenic and Greco-Roman civilization in the crucial time o f the 4th and 6th centuries. As he sees it, this civilization (rational, beautiful, good and humanistic) was replaced, for the most part violently, by the monstrosity of a theocratic Christian Empire, which was based on a fanatical and intolerant faith, with its foolish hopes and irrational fears of an after life.



Chapter one, “Greek History: From Marathon to Korinthos,” covers the historical period falling between the glorious battle of Marathon, which marked the first Greek victory over the Persians in 490BC, and the infamous battle of Corinth in 146BC, which the Greeks lost to Romans. It made mainland Greece a province of the expanding Roman Empire. Of special interest here is the theory regarding the relation between Hellenic historia (history) and mythologia (mythology), or “early history.” The author explains, “God Prometheus comes to us out of what we call “mythology”. Greek mythology, however, is not a fairy tale or a legend—this is a pernicious lie the Christians invented to denigrate the Greeks. Mythology, for the Greeks, is early history or history lost in time, and it is the fundamental key to understanding the world, how it works, and where we humans fit in.” (p. 29) In support of this theory he refers also to the work of an expert in the field of Classical Greek Studies, Dr. Mary Lefkowitz.[2]



Chapter two, “Power and Importance of Greek Religion,” builds upon and elaborates this theory. It addresses the important questions of how the Greeks and their gods are literally inseparable, and “why religion, in the form of piety for the gods expressed in athletics, the tragic theater, the oracles, and the festivals, helped the Greeks to maintain their Greek identity?” He insists that, “Greek piety, the veneration of the Greeks for their gods, was at the core of how the Greeks understood the universe, nature, the rest of the world, and themselves. In fact the religion of the Greek people was their culture, which was full of gods but did not have a creed, holy book or church…. All agricultural festivals were propitiation to the gods for increasing the fertility of the land, for a good harvest.” (p. 42) He concludes with the insightful observation: “So the Greeks started their grand political experimentation in the gymnasion-palaistra of each polis with a combination of training the beautiful nude body of young people with rigorous physical exercises, and educating their mind with a command of the Greek language, music, philosophy, mathematics and science. The nude athletic games of Olympia…. were a sort of final exams, an offering of piety to the gods, all in one political act and celebration of common Greek culture.”(p. 48)



In chapter three, “Apollonios of Tyana: Hellas is the World,” he discusses the special case of the sage Apollonios of Tyana, his travels all over the world, his many exploits, as well as the rivalry between his Hellenic movement and the early Christian cult. In him, the author sees an archetype with which he can identify. For, like Evaggelos, “He passionately tried to preserve Hellenic culture by choosing its ascetic and scientific version worked out by Pythagoras 700 years before his time… He urged the Greeks and Romans to stand by their traditions, studying nature and medicine, offering piety to their gods….Christianity did to Apollonios what it did to Greek culture—it obliterated his works and influence…. Apollonios, however, made a difference among the Greeks, offering a model of inspiration and resistance to them, which they used to preserve and protect their culture for many hundreds of years.” (pp. 59-60)



Chapter four, “The Treason of Christianity,” is one of the longest and most passionate. It narrates the failure of the Roman State to deal effectively with the serious danger that the rapidly growing, the “insidious and seditious,” Christian sect represented, although the authorities were aware of its devious, anti-social behavior. One Roman Emperor after another underestimated the threat of Christianity, until it was too late to stop it in the 4th century, when they embrace it and used it for their interests. Of course, “What happened to Rome eventually reached Greece: Tremors in Rome became earthquakes in Greece. [But] it took time for the cultist tremor of Christianity to become a political and cultural earthquake.”(p. 62)



Several pages of this chapter are devoted to Celsus or Kelsos’ sustained attack of the new religion, as well as the reactions to it of leading Platonic philosophers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE, such as, Ploutarchos, Plotinos, and Porphyrios. According to Kelsos, “Christianity had nothing original or divine in its history and theology. It was a stolen piece of Judaism modified to fit the fiction of Jesus. This was a Jewish sorcerer whom the Jews rejected because he claimed to be their messiah. The Jews, however, expected a messiah-prince to free them of Roman rule, but Jesus had nothing to do with princes or revolution. The Christians, nevertheless, made Jesus, a secretive, untrustworthy sorcerer, into a god. …Christian teachers sought their converts among slaves, women, children and fools. This was no accident but a consistent policy because they feared educated people. They considered science and learning dangerous and evil, and thought of knowledge as a disease of the soul.” (p. 68) All these conclusions the author derives from Origenes’ response to Kelsos’ attack of the Christian Church. In the eyes of Hellenic philosophers and Roman authorities, the Christians appeared as “atheists and impious and criminal.” This is attested by Christian Eusebius, among other authors, in Preparatio Evangelica (1.2. 1-4).



The 3rd and 4th centuries were certainly stressed times intensified by ideological war between the new Christian thinkers, like Eusebius and Augustine, and traditional thinkers, like Plotinus and Porphyry. Porphyry in particular became the champion of Hellenism and Hellenic polytheism, so that he attracted the ire of the theologians. In this, the author sees a parallel to the recently ended Cold War pitting Communists against Capitalists: “This war was as nasty a war—fought between the Greeks and the Christians—as that fought in the twentieth century between the Communist Russians and the Americans. Eusebios and Augustine played the role of the hagiographers of Lenin and Stalin. No crime made any difference as long as the hero was on the side of Christianity…. After all, they spent their entire lives trying to show the Jewish prophecies and the gospels were not fiction but the word of god…. Yet the slander of Porphyrios by Eusebios and Augustine did not diminish his timely and all-important message.” (pp. 79-80) The Emperor Maximinus Daia (308-313) was probably influenced by Porphyry and picked up the message and the struggle against the enemies of the state, but it was too little, too late. Constantine had other plans in mind.



Chapter five is titled, “Decline and Fall of Rome--Through Greek Eyes.” The author wants to look at the decline and fall of Rome through the eyes of two Greek historians, Zosimos and Ammianus, because: “To uncover what the Christians did to the Greeks, we need to turn to the Greeks themselves—that is, we must understand Roman imperial history from the perspective of the Greeks who witnessed the smashing and burning of their culture. That is the only way to get to the truth. The Christians… whether historians, philologists, translators, editors or theologians writing in the last several centuries, including the twentieth century, are unreliable: They no longer see the Greeks as Greeks but see them as idolaters, heathens and pagans…. That is the main reason we must consult the Greeks in order to reveal the truth.” (p. 87)



When we do consult the Greek historian Zosimos, we see that he identified the period 313-363 as the crucial time of Roman decline. Two related factors, Christianity and barbarity, combined to bring down Roman power. For the Barbarians “infiltrated the Roman world, and together with the Christians, barbarized it. Finally, the barbarians and the Christians became indistinguishable, destroying the integrity, and indeed the civilization, that had been Roman Empire.” (p. 88). This certainly happened in the western part of the Empire, but the eastern part seems to have faired a little better, perhaps in the eyes of other observers, but not in the eyes of the author of this book. For him, as for Zosimos, the emperors Constantine and Theodosius I, do not deserve the title “Great,” that Christians historians have bestowed on them, because they share “most of the blame for the catastrophe,” the collapse of the Empire. More to the point:



Zosimos disliked Constantine primarily because, by his support of Christianity, he broke irrevocably with both Greek and Roman past. Zosimos was right…. Constantine inflicted a nearly mortal wound on the civilization of Rome. He was the first Roman emperor who, by his actions, became no longer the chief magistrate of the Roman people, but a despot armed with troops and his own state religion, Christianity. He wrecked the ancient Roman tradition that the emperor, the princeps, was the legal representative of the senate and the Roman people. Instead, Constantine founded a hereditary monarchy and used religion to draw moral and political support. This, in my opinion, is the overarching reason why Constantine made Christianity a state religion…. Christianity would forever bless him and justify his rule.” (p. 93)



These insights are right on target. Christianity was ready to forgive Constantine’s many hideous



crimes, and even elevate him to the level of the Apostle, calling him isapostolos. Ammianus was equally “disturbed by the violence of the Christians,” in the rein of Constantius, son of Constantine. (p. 99)



Chapter six is titled, “Julian the Great,” not surprisingly, since Julian was the champion of the “pagan” party and, in this regard, the opposite of Constantine and his pro-Christian policies. His rise to power, his short rule, and his tragic fall (362-363) are described in detail following Ammianus’ account. Julian was determined to restore the worship of the gods and the honored Greco-Roman traditions. Thus, he “declared religious freedom in the empire,” although he made it public that he was not a Christian, “but a faithful follower of the Greek and Roman gods.” He “immersed himself in Greek religion with the passion of a person who waited an entire life for that moment;” he “loved Greek philosophy and the gods, for the two were inseparable.” He made a distinction between Christianity and Judaism and showed more respect for the latter. He also considered rebuilding “the sacred city of Jerusalem.” But he always saw Christianity as “an illegal, treasonous and newfangled cult and ideology that destroyed Greek culture.” (pp. 106-112)



He even prohibited, rightly in the opinion of the author, Christians “from teaching Greek and Roman philosophy, poetry and literature.” These were replete with references to Greek religion and reverence for the gods. How could Christians appreciate their beauty, understand their truth, and interpret it correctly? Gregory of Nazianzus, who had met Julian as a student in Athens, called him “a public and private enemy” and an “apostate,” an epithet that stack with him since. To counterbalance this, Vallianatos calls Julian “ the Great” and a “Philosopher-King.” If it was not obvious that he loves Julian, the author tells us so (p.119). Because of this love, he admits that his portrait of this tragic Emperor is “probably more one-sided than I would like it to be.” However, at this point, he is critical of Dr. Polymnia Athanassiadi who, following the line of St. Gregory, sees in Julian a fanatic man and “the very incarnation of evil.”[3]



Clearly the author identifies with Julian and his project: “He, no more than I, had no choice in growing up Christian. We dumped Christianity because it had been imposed on us by the force of the church and the government in his case, and by the force of unexamined tradition in my case. In addition, and this is the real reason of abandoning Christianity, that religion had nothing to do with our Greek culture. In fact, it turned out to be a fatal enemy to that culture. The apostates were the likes of Gregory Nazianzus who willfully ditched their fabulous and philosophical Greek tradition for an alien and treasonous doctrine.” (p. 119) With the assassination of young Julian (in 363, at the age of 32), and the intensified barbarian attacks on Rome, the Empire seemed as if abandoned by the gods, and doomed to follow “its Christian path of violent decline and fall.” This decline is covered in chapters seven and eight



Of special interest is chapter eight, “Universal Captivity of Greece,” because it provides what the author calls “chronology of murder and genocide,” a long list of dates in which policies directed against the pagan Greeks were adopted by Christian Roman Emperors. Worship of the Hellenic gods and sacrificing to them were forbidden on the penalty of death. The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Olympic Agones were ended. Teachers were forbidden to engage in Greek studies. An edict of Zeno, published in 484, reads thus: “Bishops and government agents should find and punish teachers of Hellenic studies. They should not be allowed to teach, lest they corrupt their students. But, above all, Bishops and government officials should put Greek teachers out of business, bringing the “impieties” of Hellenism to an end. No one shall leave a gift or bequeath anything to Greeks or to schools and other institutions supporting the “impiety” of Hellenism. All previous legislation against the “error” of the Greeks is reaffirmed.” (p. 139)



Dr. Vallianatos comments on the imperial order that brought an end to the Olympics, as follows:



Here was a millennial tradition of athletic competition for arete (courage, virtue, equality before the law, goodness, manliness, nobility and excellence) started by Herakles, son of Zeus and the Greeks’ greatest hero, and Theodosios, thinking like a barbarian, brought it to an end.



The Olympic agon (contest) was much more than a struggle between outstanding men for physical excellence. It was, above all, a Panhellenic honoring of the gods. It was an extraordinary effort to rein in the Hellenes’ passions for war and bring them together from all over the world for the celebration of their common culture. The overwhelming idea behind the Olympic contest was political. The Olympic contest was an effort to build a Panhellenic polis and commonwealth, a united Hellas under democratic governance. The Olympic agon was also building better and nobler human beings. And, yet, the Hellenes’ greatest athletic contest and celebration of national identity were buried…. by a barbarian king who knew no better than listening to the fanaticism of his Christian advisors. (p. 136)



The destructive work of Theodosius against the Greeks and their culture continued by his successors and, with real zest, by Justinian, who closed down the schools of philosophy in Athens in 529, and “brought barbarism to Greece.” According to John of Ephesus, “in 546 Justinian’s agents discovered several illustrious and noble men, grammarians, sophists, and doctors, who were worshiping the Greek gods. The government of Justinian tortured, beat, flogged and imprisoned these men who then rushed to denounce each other. Some of them admitted their “false beliefs” and became Christians. One of these rich and powerful men, Phokas, committed suicide in prison rather than face Justinian who ordered that he “be buried like a donkey.” (p. 148) Together with the pagan Greeks, the Jews were targeted too. For instance, St. John Chysostom considered them, long before Hitler, as a “disease that had to be eradicated.” (p. 154)



Chapter nine is titled, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” The question has been borrowed from Tertullian, a Christian fundamentalist and bigot, who represented an extreme version of Christianity. He expressed deep suspicion and hatred of Hellenic philosophy, which he considered the seedbed of heresy. For him, and many other Christians like him, the truth had been revealed and was to be found in the Holy Scriptures, whose origin was in Jerusalem, and not to be sought by philosophers and their theories, whose origin was in Athens, Greece. At any rate, the fact is that, although the Christianized Roman Empire retained in its eastern parts at least the Greek language and some morsels of classical literature, this was just the cell of the Hellenic culture, without the soul or vital spirit. The spirit was lost and would not be revived in the West for more than a millennium, until the coming of Renaissance in the 14-15th centuries.



But, before the Italian Renaissance, another renaissance had taken place in the Islamic world in the 9th and 10th centuries, especially in Baghdad under the Abbassid dynasty. This was primarily due to the fact that many books of Greek philosophy and science were translated into Arabic in a systematic way. The two captures of Constantinople (by the Crusaders in 1204, and the Turks in 1453) brought to the West valuable Greek manuscripts and competent Greek scholars, who gave an impetus to the Renaissance. But the light of Renaissance was soon to be dimmed by the fury of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic reaction. Thus, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) brought effectively the Renaissance movement to a premature end. The author correctly observes that, “As a result, the religious wars in the sixteenth century, among many other catastrophes, nearly sealed the fate of Hellenic logos (reason) in European culture…. Calvinism brought an end of pleasure, the agonizing fear of sin, and hatred for nature and the earth to the Evangelical Christians. Calvin said Christians longed for death, not life. Calvin was right about that.” (p. 169)



However, the movements of Renaissance and Reformation left Greeceand its Orthodox Church unmoved, as they were covered protectively with the darkness of Turkocracy (1453-1821). To this theme the next chapter (chapter ten) is devoted and is titled, with caustic irony, “The Greek Palimpsest.” The comments, in this chapter particularly, about the Greek Church will make religiously minded people in Greece upset, and not eager to extend their Christian love to the author of this book. Consider for example:



At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Christianity is still a force to contend with in Greece. The church is an occupying and colonial and colonizing force. The church in Greeceis the highest of all conceivable corruption. It stole the identity of the Greeks and continues to muddle their minds with anti-Hellenic thoughts. The church is also the wealthiest institution of the country. It has made religion into an extraordinary profitable business…. What Christians did to the Hellenes and their culture…. is a closed and secret page of Greek history in Greece…. Most Greeks don’t know that their church collaborated with the Turks to keep them slaves for 400 years. Adamantios Koraes was straightforward. Writing anonymously in 1806, he said the priests and monks and bishops were primarily responsible for the Turkish occupation of Greece…. The country is a Palimpsest. Barbarians are writing over the scraped history and culture of Hellas…. Greek children and students sing the praises of Christian saints, some of them with abominable records of anti-Hellenism, but barely know the poetry, or even the names of, Homeros, Hesiodos, Aischylos, Sophocles…. (pp. 171-172)



In spite of this bleak picture of the status of Greek culture in Greece, in Europe, and the world, he is optimistic that a possible renaissance by the resurrection of Hellenic gods, especially agrarian Dionysus, to replace Christian Jesus, is not out of the question completely. To this possibility the last chapter of the book is devoted, “Dionysos for a Permanent Hellenic Renaissance.” Following on the steps of Nietzsche, he sees the difference between a Greek god and other gods: “A god to a Greek is not what Christians (and other monotheists) understand their god to be. The Greek god was sometimes an immortal being of pure goodness, intelligence, beauty, and power; but, more often, the Greek god was a mixture of human and divine elements, a human-like god or god-like human with immortality, goodness, power, beauty, and intelligence to spare—the very ideal of Greek philosophy and culture, kalon k’ agathon, the beautiful and the good.” (p. 187)



He also meditates on the relation between Greeks and Christians, and finds the combination of “Christian Greek” a kind of oxymoron. This will not please many Greeks and Greek-Americans who are proud of their Greek Orthodox Christianity. He always seems to return to the basic “anti-Hellenic impulse of Christianity” which, for him, constitutes the “Greek tragedy in Christian Greece.” This would make one wonder what a Jew would say about Christianity, which, in his eyes, took the concept of the one Jewish God, and turned it into a Trinity, using the tricks of Greek sophistry and some ideas of Hellenic philosophy. We know that Mohammed found this radical transformation of the “one true God” abominable and blasphemous. Hence the unbridgeable gap that separates these two sister religions and “faiths of Abraham.”



The author hopes earnestly that Hellenic logos and a revived Dionysus can help humanity to find its way back to reverence for nature and its gods. But, as the 9/11 and the war on terror indicate, Islam and Christianity are ready for another round in the cosmic arena for world dominion. It would be great if only fundamentalist Muslims and Christians could be persuaded to supplement the reading of the Holy Bible or the Holy Koran, with the reading of other good books like the book of Dr. Vallianatos! Then, there would be more hope for his dream to come true, a renaissance of Hellenic learning and culture. But that will take a true miracle. On the other hand, just as the Hellenes were turned into Christians, the Christian Greeks at least could be made to return to their Hellenic cultural roots with some good luck and in better times ahead.



Dr. Christos C. Evangeliou



Professor of Hellenic Philosophy and Poet



Towson University, USA



Author of several books, including



Hellenic Philosophy: Origin and Character.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



[1] Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia and Africa, (Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, 1997), p. iii



[2] “Greek Gods, Human Lives: What we can Learn from Myths” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).



[3] Julian: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), especially, pages 32 and 227-229.



http://thehandstand.net/archive/february...greeks.htm

[Capt M Kumar]

लंदन।। भारत में धार्मिक संगठन न सिर्फ व्यावसायिक संगठनों की तरह काम करते हैं, बल्कि लोगों की निष्ठा बरकरार रखने के लिए वे अपनी गतिविधियों में विविधता भी लाते रहते हैं। ब्रिटेन के कैंब्रिज विश्वविद्यालय की ओर से किए गए एक अध्ययन में यह बात कही गई है। यह अध्ययन भारतीय मूल की शिक्षाविद, श्रेया अय्यर की अगुवाई में किया गया है। min translation: London based Ayer did the study of practices of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jains in India and concluded that all are being run as business houses.



अर्थशास्त्र विभाग के एक दल ने दो सालों तक हिंदू, मुस्लिम, ईसाई, सिख और जैन समुदाय के 568 संगठनों पर अध्ययन किया। इसमें भारत के सात राज्यों के धार्मिक संगठनों की धार्मिक और गैरधार्मिक गतिविधियों का अध्ययन किया गया। http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/art...782120.cms

[Husky]

What does the previous post have to do with this thread? I presume it was accidentally posted here and will hopefully be shifted to whichever thread it was meant to go in..







Anyway. On the following from post 138 of the Vegetarianism thread (a post which actually belongs in this thread as well):

Hippocrates ("Hippocratic Oath" Hippocrates)

460 BC – ca. 370 BC was an ancient Greek physician and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the " father of medicine"

"The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different."

I recently came across the Hippocratic Oath again - or at least, I always thought this next was it - and so figured I'd transcribe it here:

I swear this oath by Apollo Physician,

by Aesclepius, by Health

and by all the Gods and Goddesses*:

In whatsoever place that I enter,

I will enter to help the sick

and heal the injured.

And I will do no harm.

<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Ah heathens. Always a breath of fresh air.



* The reference is of course to the Gods and Goddesses of Hellenismos: all the Gods and Goddesses belonging to the Hellenistic heathens. Naturally, the one who devised that oath meant every word, as did the other Hellenes who were sworn into the profession. Just to be explicit, the Hellenistic physicians were not swearing to "symbols" or "ideals", but invoking as witnesses and guardians of their oath what is real (including therefore, real to them): the GR Gods, who are also the origin of the science of the GR physician, as is evident even in the Oath itself.





Compare with christoislamics invoking their non-existent gawd with "deus volt" and "allahuakbar" before said christos and islamics massacre the unsaved infidels.

That is, compare:

- Hellenistic heathens swear by their very real and life-giving Gods to heal all.

- Christoislamics swear by their non-existent mono night-terror to convert-or-kill all the unsaved infidels.





Hindus should recall all these things when they next consider what religions they want to compare their own to and identify with. In any case, Hindus cannot and may not identify with both christoislamania AND Hellenismos(/Daoism/Shinto) since the latter set is mutually exclusive with the former. As an illustration of the mutual exclusivity: christianism murdered Hellenismos and genocided the Native Americans and their religion. All Hindus who identify with christianism approve of that, because - NB - the murder of Hellenismos is The Definition of christianism. (The psychotic parasite of christianism owes its entire life to its brutal murder of its unwilling and resistant host, Hellenismos. As usual: don't take my word for it. Look it up in the accurate history books.)

Of course, in reality, Hindu religion exclusively belongs in the Daoism/Shinto/Hellenismos camp. But many among the visible Hindus today are - for various reasons (all of them meaningless) - ready to make any concessions necessary to dump the sacred Hindu religion alongside the terrorist ideologies.

by Apollo Physician, by Asclepios, by Health and by all the Gods and Goddesses (of Hellenismos)

Indeed.

Long - eternal - life to the religion of the GR Gods. To the religion of Julian's Divine Parents.

[Lalitaditya]

Well, I created a video on the hypocrisy of Westerners when it comes to changing their colours. Check out my video,



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcLSGl0C6Yo[/media]



Check out the comments <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



there is no direct comments acknowledging that Europeans were converted en masse (by region) to Christianity and that they abandoned their original faiths. Only that Christianity is not as bestial as Islam.