{"id":1736,"date":"2010-08-03T15:36:22","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T21:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1736"},"modified":"2010-08-03T15:57:10","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T21:57:10","slug":"agora-pagans-v-christians-or-atheists-vs-religious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1736","title":{"rendered":"“Agora”: Pagans vs. Christians or Atheists vs. Religious?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living in the cinematic boonies as I do, I will probably not see Agora<\/a> until it comes out on DVD.<\/p>\n

Here is a long dissection of it<\/a>, from period-incorrect Roman armor to its avoidance of exactly what Hypatia taught:<\/p>\n

But because the film never bothers to make her neo-Platonist asceticism clear – exactly what her philosophical views might be is never explored except in the vaguest terms – this incident doesn’t really make much cultural sense – she comes as a modern career academic “married to her job” rather than a disciple of the school of Plotinus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writer Tim O’Neill also notes that the conflict in the movie is not Pagans versus Christians <\/a>so much as it is non-theistic philosophy (rational) versus religious people (fanatical).<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it is tempting to read Hypatia’s story as (not hostile to science) Pagans versus (book-burning) Christians. I nudged it that way a little bit myself in the entry I wrote on Hypatia years ago in the Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics<\/a>.<\/em> I had a little fun with the telling.<\/p>\n

But is that how the conflict should be framed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living in the cinematic boonies as I do, I will probably not see Agora until it comes out on DVD. Here is a long dissection of it, from period-incorrect Roman armor to its avoidance of exactly what Hypatia taught: But because the film never bothers to make her neo-Platonist asceticism clear – exactly what her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,36,5,90],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-s0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":168,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=168","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":0},"title":"The fastest-growing religion? The notion\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The fastest-growing religion? The notion that Wicca is America's fastest-growing religion has achieved meme status. Everyone says it, but who started it? Thanks to Jim Lewis, I have been looking at some of the data collected by the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted at CUNY, and comparing sociological changes in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10111,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10111","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":1},"title":"Which “Paganism” Did the New York Times Mean?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When New York Times (mostly) political columnist Ross Douthat wrote a December 12 column titled \"The Return of Paganism: Maybe There Actually is a Genuinely Post-Christian Future for America,\" some Pagans got a little too excited \u2014 look, the NYT is writing about us! Remember, there are at least three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10841","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":2},"title":"When “Pagans” Return, Who Gets Hurt?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I read an alternative-history novel now and then,((Robert Harris' Fatherland remains an all-time favorite.)) especially those in which the Pagans triumph. For instance, John M. Ford created a 15th-century world, Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History, in which Julian the Philosopher, the last Pagan emperor, did put on his armor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0380698870","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":337,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=337","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":3},"title":"Seasonal confusion, hard feelings, and\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Seasonal confusion, hard feelings, and so on. Evidently the struggle over who gets to define the solsticial holiday continues. The Bureaucratic Mind, confronted with competing claims, tends to retreat to blanket negativity . . . and is then accused of promoting \"secularism.\" Punditry ranges from ramblings about \"druids\" to curmudgeonly\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":4},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher's recent post--and especially the comments--pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today's population--even omnivores--are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3682,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3682","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":5},"title":"What Do Pagans Get from Interfaith Activities?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"What does \"ecumenism\" mean when you don't \"all worship the same god\"? Elizabeth Scalia, a\/k\/a The Anchoress, a Roman Catholic blogger at Patheos, comments simultaneously on posts by another Patheos Catholic blogger and by Star Foster, who manages the site's Pagan portal. Both of the latter, in Star's words, hold\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1741,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}