{"id":273,"date":"2004-09-29T19:37:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-29T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=273"},"modified":"2004-09-29T19:37:00","modified_gmt":"2004-09-29T19:37:00","slug":"273","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=273","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Kinder, gentler polytheism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charged with reviewing both it and a new book<\/a> about the emperor Julian<\/a>, I have finally begun Jonathan Kirsch’s God Against the Gods<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even as the legacy of the Vietnam War still influences American politics, so the fourth-century C.E. conflict between the ideas of Julian and his uncle Constantine<\/a> echo down unto our era. Kirsch’s thesis, in brief, is that monotheism produces intolerance and violence, such as flying hijacked airplanes into office buildings. “At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice,” he writes by contrast–and I am all for that. <\/p>\n

(On the other hand, when dealing with any of the “desert monotheisms”and their commands to “kill the polytheists”<\/a>, it’s best to keep your eyes open.)<\/p>\n

Jason Pitzl-Waters earlier blogged<\/a> about the same volume, and it furnished the subtitle for The Juggler<\/a>, the collaborative Pagan blog.<\/p>\n

A sidelight: Julian’s story was still so annoying to some medieval Christians that Winchester Cathedral<\/a> contains a set of paintings depicting an entirely fictional version of his death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: If you like that “open-minded and easygoing” polytheism idea, then surf on over to Godchecker<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kinder, gentler polytheism Charged with reviewing both it and a new book about the emperor Julian, I have finally begun Jonathan Kirsch’s God Against the Gods. Even as the legacy of the Vietnam War still influences American politics, so the fourth-century C.E. conflict between the ideas of Julian and his uncle Constantine echo down unto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-273","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":877,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=877","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":0},"title":"Reading Augustine on Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As a Reed College student in my freshman humanities class, I read St. Augustine's Confessions, often considered to be the first autobiography in the Western world.Augustine did more to shape institutional Christianity in the West (Roman Catholics, Protestants) than anyone except the apostle Paul. The eastern Orthodox churches were not\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":472,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=472","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":1},"title":"Historic preservation leads to .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 22, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Historic preservation leads to . . . polytheism?Those fun-loving Wahabi Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia fear that preserving historic buildings in their holy city of Mecca--even sites associated with the prophet Muhammed himself--might lead to polytheism.Their reasoning is so convoluted that I cannot easily summarize it. But an Arab architectural\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10181,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10181","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":2},"title":"Pentagram Pizza with Milky Devotion and Unlikely Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Is this a case of misplaced devotional offerings? The Tamil Nadu Milk Dealers Association says yes. \u2022 The Live Science news site is not the place where you expect tor read about Norse (or any other) polytheism, but this article strikes a reasonable note. \u2022 Icelandic elves again, this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"elves\"","block_context":{"text":"elves","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=elves"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/pentagrampizza.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=841","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":3},"title":"Polytheism, not Tradition","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Keep an eye on the International Year of Polytheism Web project.This is really more of a conceptual art piece than any sort of reconstructionism (definitely not reconstructionism or capital-T Tradition), although it has been mentioned earlier in the Pagan blogosphere.Still, if anyone wants to \"wants to overcome the epoch of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1235,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1235","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":4},"title":"Downsizing Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A 2003 panel from Partially Clips\u2014A Webcomic for Grownups. Click to embiggen if necessary.","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chasclifton.com\/uploaded_images\/canoe_sm-753434.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2894,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2894","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":5},"title":"Polytheism in the Marketplace","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Going to buy puja supplies from an immigrant Hindu shopkeeper. Confusion ensues, but is resolved.","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\/273","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=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}