{"id":7475,"date":"2015-09-02T04:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T10:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7475"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:12:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T03:12:37","slug":"responding-to-attacks-on-pagan-shrines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7475","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Attacks on Pagan Shrines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"_85298986_palmyra_before_after_624\"On the 20th of August, I posted about “Khalid al-Asaad and the War on Pagan Idolatry<\/a>.” He was the Syrian archaeologist beheaded by the Muslim fanatics of the Islamic State, their reward for his devoting his professional life to preserving and studying the ancient (and Pagan) city of Palmyra<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the first of September, the BBC displayed before-and-after satellite images of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra.<\/a> Now you see it, now you don’t.<\/p>\n

Responding to the Islamic State’s campaign of destruction against Pagan holy sites, blogger Galina Kraskova writes,<\/p>\n

We are horrified, and rightly so, by the human rights violations this filth commits, but we should be equally horrified, if not more so, by the destruction of ancient spaces and places of worship. The destruction of a place like Palmyra, isn\u2019t just the destruction of an ancient building, it\u2019s an attack on the future and what it might be, what it can become. It\u2019s a severing of any link with a pre-Islamic past, and likewise a severing of possibilities for the future. In blowing up the Temple of Ba\u2019al Shamin and the Temple of Bel, they\u2019re damning future generations and that is an attack far more long lasting in its impact, than simply the loss, however grievous it might be, of an antique site.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She offers some suggestions about what to do, both on the “outer” and the “inner” planes, and warns that militant monotheism comes in various disguies<\/a> (let us not forget the non-theistic mono-ideologies as well).<\/p>\n

And for background on Ba’al Shamin and Bel, see this post by Tess Dawson.<\/a><\/p>\n

If there is a blessing to be gathered out of the ashes of the wanton acts of evil Daesh [the Islamic State] has done here, it is that polytheists are gathering together, protesting in solidarity. I hope and I pray that for every temple they threaten, and for every mine they plant in these dusty, dry, decaying ruins, seven more living, new shrines or temples will spring up. As great as our fury is, we may feel drawn to hurl curses upon the heads of those who would threaten these sacred places. I do not say \u201cdo not curse them\u201d\u2014by all means, if you feel moved to do so, be my guest\u2014but I firmly think that there are more important things that need doing first and foremost.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.<\/a> These horrid actions should remind us that if IS could get us, they would treat us contemporary Pagans just the way that they treated the Yezidis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 20th of August, I posted about “Khalid al-Asaad and the War on Pagan Idolatry.” He was the Syrian archaeologist beheaded by the Muslim fanatics of the Islamic State, their reward for his devoting his professional life to preserving and studying the ancient (and Pagan) city of Palmyra. On the first of September, the […]<\/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":[20,15,202,5,40],"class_list":["post-7475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-islam","tag-middle-east","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Wz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=119","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":0},"title":"Saint Valentine . . .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Saint Valentine . . . the pagan? Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia (our good friends, the Saudis) denounce Valentine's Day as a \"pagan Christian holiday\" and forbid its celebration in the kingdom. Other news reports speak of reprisals against shop owners selling Valentine's Day items. Ah, wonderful, a jihad against\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1529,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1529","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":1},"title":"No, It Wasn’t the Provocative Women","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It was Icelandic Pagans who caused the volcano to erupt, say Russian Orthodox clerics, countering the Shiite Islamic cleric who blamed women for inciting the lust of hapless men and thus, somehow, earthquakes. They noted that Iceland \"has recently become a center of European neo-paganism of Aryan occult kind, which\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":12050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12050","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":2},"title":"Pagan Studies Call for Papers, American Academy of Religion 2021","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the call for papers for the Contemporary Pagan Studies unit of the American Academy of Religion for the 2021 annual meeting, to be held in San Antonio, Texas, Nov. 20\u201323. (Insert pandemic disclaimer here.) Contemporary Pagan Studies is an interdisciplinary unit, and we welcome submissions of theoretically and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/SanAntonioWelcomeHeader-633x260-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/SanAntonioWelcomeHeader-633x260-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/SanAntonioWelcomeHeader-633x260-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2741,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2741","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":3},"title":"Ronald Hutton Responds to His Critics","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Even before his interview with Australian scholar\/blogger Caroline Tully, Ronald Hutton had written a lengthy article for The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies titled \"Writing the History of Witchcraft: A Personal View.\" It is now available as a free download from Equinox Publishing. In it, Professor Hutton discusses\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7450,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7450","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":4},"title":"Khalid al-Asaad and the War on Pagan Idolatry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Wouter Hanegraaff, professsor of Western esotericism at the University of Amsterdam, has written a moving blog post on larger implications of the death of Khalid al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist recently beheaded by the Muslim fighters of the so-called Islamic State. (He was a Muslim too, of course.) We are told\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7590,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7590","url_meta":{"origin":7475,"position":5},"title":"I Was Afraid This Might Happen","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There is a well-established (since the 1970s, I think) Pagan\/metaphysical bookstore in Denver called Isis Books & Gifts. Someone got confused about the name, it appears. And it was not the first time. All the more reason to refer to those rapists and beheaders as \"Daesh\" or the \"Islamic State.\"","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475","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=7475"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7483,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions\/7483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}