Codified Paganism

In online alternate history I've come into several examples of pagan polytheist religions becoming, well, pseudo-mainstream in the sense they're not just for cultures about to get steamrolled through writing down and codifing the oral tradition- the Norse Vinalanders in Doug Hoff's Empty America, and the Yoruba religion mentioned in Tripartite Alliance Earth.

Does anyone else think other pagan/polytheist religions could have become more widespread with the help of literacy, and possibly, at least one powerful nation supporting it? Evangelizing/prosyletizing is not a required aspect. Hindus aren't particularly missionary-minded, at least not as much as Abrahamic faith followers, and they only have about two countries predominantly Hindu, yet it's still considered one of the big five of religions.

The only one that springs to mind is Mongol State Religion. Yes, the Mongols were remarkably tolerant religiously, but they still had a distinct worship of Tengri, lord of heaven. The only question is if Tengri-worship was together enough to be codified and widespread. Of course, I'm not asking for pagan religions to become one of the major faiths, just enough so people can point it out and say, "yeah, they have an organized religion, not a subsect, cult, shamanism, or animism" on the level of Sikhism or so in OTL.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
No, I don't think any of the polytheistic religions could have become big religions in the modern world.

In polytheism you have a bunch of little religions bundled up into one and everyone can choose whatever god fits their persona. To use the Greeks as an example; if you're a rational thought mr logic type you'll worship Apollo, if a loosey goosey artiste, Bacchus, if you're like a modern Wicca girl, Aphrodite, etc etc.. They're great for self discovery and inner peace but have little utility in making good citizens.

In monotheism everyone worships one god whose got just one way, if I'm logical, I become more loving, if artistic sterner, wiccans just die, etc etc. There's one overall good and we're all sinners striving for that perfection. Hell on the individual but gives you devoted soldiers.

And that's what the Romans noticed. Too late to save them and by the time Empires came back everyone was Christian.

No, polytheism could have never gotten any one state behind it because its the tail wagging the dog. Monotheism largely was a main part and parcel of the growing of the modern state and remains a major base of its force and power in the present world.
 

Darkest

Banned
Well, maybe not polytheism, but a much smaller pantheon of gods may work, say three or four. It could incorporate the best aspects of monotheism and polytheism. I don't know what it would consist of specifically, but it is an idea.
 
NapoleonXIV said:
No, polytheism could have never gotten any one state behind it because its the tail wagging the dog. Monotheism largely was a main part and parcel of the growing of the modern state and remains a major base of its force and power in the present world.

Hello?

Hinduism?

At the level of most of it's followers it is indeed polytheistic (although things get a bit more complicated as you climb the philosophical ladder).

Hinduism is basically the only descendant of Indo-European polytheism to have survived, primarily because it did have a massive written and codified base behind it.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Flocculencio said:
Hello?

Hinduism?

At the level of most of it's followers it is indeed polytheistic (although things get a bit more complicated as you climb the philosophical ladder).

Hinduism is basically the only descendant of Indo-European polytheism to have survived, primarily because it did have a massive written and codified base behind it.

Actually, Hindu tries to have the best of both worlds but ends up with neither, being a sort of slippery fish that even its own practitioners despair of describing well. Same goes for Buddhism, really, which many say isn't even a religion.

One possibility I missed was Shinto but that may be the other side of the coin. While it definitely has had a state behind it, its actually far less codified than any other here, seeming to be mainly a mass of stories about the constantly shifting fortunes of daimyo-demons within a sort of spiritual feudalism.
 
Julian did try to codify paganism and even appointed a chief priest. But it would have probably failed even if Julian had lived. Polytheism is just that - a belief in numerous gods and demons and angelic powers etc.

Neo-Platonism tried to condense polytheism into a coherent philospohy with an unified theology. Just like christianity really. Three supreme gods with many supernatural helpers to keep the universe going.
 
So, writing down oral traditions wouldn't help organizing polytheist religions any?

Mm, guess no neo-Battlestar Galactica religions then.
 
Strategos' Risk said:
So, writing down oral traditions wouldn't help organizing polytheist religions any?

Mm, guess no neo-Battlestar Galactica religions then.

Homer and Hesoid are credited with 'codifying' Greek polytheism. I think this is an exaggeration.

What they did was transmit some of the stories around at the time and their powerful and poetic descriptions of the gods and their attributes became so influential that this became the norm. Yet there were many aspects of Greek religion they did not write about.

The Panathenaic festivals became ritualised over the centuries just as pagents and ceremonies do in the modern world. The British royal traditions are mostly Victorian inventions, for example. Many papal traditions are relatively modern with papal infalibility only a product of a single decision about a century ago. Many catholics do not accept it by the way since it has never been ratified by a church council.
 
MarkA said:
Many papal traditions are relatively modern with papal infalibility only a product of a single decision about a century ago. Many catholics do not accept it by the way since it has never been ratified by a church council.
What was the First Vatican Council then? :confused:
 
Strategos' Risk said:
So, writing down oral traditions wouldn't help organizing polytheist religions any?

Mm, guess no neo-Battlestar Galactica religions then.

I think the Colonial religion from BSG would work if Kobol was settled by a large number of Hellenic pagans from Earth, with a smattering of Jews and Hindus/Buddhists.

The resulting fusion would be polytheistic, but you have an exodus narrative and the "cycle of time."
 
Orphic Bible

Orphism had a written set of scriptures, the so called Orphic Bible. The Orphic religion--like Hinduism--is polytheistic from one angle and monotheistic from another.

Tom
 
MarkA said:
Neo-Platonism tried to condense polytheism into a coherent philospohy with an unified theology. Just like christianity really. Three supreme gods with many supernatural helpers to keep the universe going.

This goes back centuries for the Greeks though; even Socrates speculated on a supreme being, and discussed how many of the fables couldn't be true, because the gods were perfect.
 
I don't agree with Nap. It is possible that polytheism could be useful as a means of organizing disparate elements of society--all the social groups' patron gods all want country X to be supreme.

Perhaps something like Santeria--there's a monotheistic God, but He delegates most of his work to lesser gods. This way, you get all the advantages of both.
 
Id say the biggest obstacle to codifying paganism is that paganism isn't a religion. It at best describes a group of similarly structured religions. Therefore, any codification would immediately create the one thing pagan traditions are best at avoiding - division. You can not use poaganism to hold together a state or nation - at best, you can use a specific ethnic subset, and even that is questionable (AFAIK for every Hindutva activist, there's five who disagree with his reading of their faith). It would, of course, be possible for a polytheist faith to develop into a separate revealed religion (you could argue that's what Christianity is), but the moment it starts defining itself through the truth of its own scripture vis-a-vis the errore of everyone else's, it would cease being 'pagan' in any meaningful way.

But wouldn't an Empirewide 'subset-religion' be a cool thing?
 

Hendryk

Banned
Stratego's Risk said:
So, writing down oral traditions wouldn't help organizing polytheist religions any?
I personally think it would--and it has in OTL. Apart from Hinduism, which has already been commented on, there is Taoism, which in its religious expression is technically polytheistic (although in its philosophical form it's more of an impersonal pantheism, insofar as such pigeonholing is applicable at all).

But my opinion is that a written canon would only have been necessary in the context of resisting encroachment by Abrahamic monotheism (it's an open question as to whether Lithuanian paganism, for example, would have survived to the present day with a written canon; after all, it was alive and well way into the 15th century). In other contexts, not being actively persecuted by a state structure in thrall to monotheistic interests would probably be enough. Japanese Shintoism doesn't have a canon, nor a clearly defined dogma, yet it thrives to this day. And as president Morales of Bolivia demonstrated the other day, Native American traditions are still influential enough after 500 years of persecutions and marginalization that a recently elected head of state can score bonus points by endorsing them.
 
Imajin said:
What was the First Vatican Council then? :confused:

Many would argue that such a fundamental change to canon law and church tradition requires a church councilm not one simply composed of catholic dlegates. The pope declares infallibility then calls a council that has no support of the eastern churches and has that council declare him to be correct sounds rather dodgy.
 
Harry Harrisons 'Hammer and the Cross' series has a structured religion based on the Northern religion - the 'Asgarth Way', where the main tenants are the preaching of the religion (to combat that of Christianity), the supporting of the priest class by their own work, and the idea of preparing for Ragnarok on this world.

If we suscribe to the belief that religion is a tool of the ruling class to provide an opiate for the masses, the last two clauses are the ones that would be most pleasing to them. Supporting priests through work means the church costs less than Christianity. Ragnarok gives the rulers control, as there is the constant fear of being useless to the gods, of being cast aside to Hel's domain. I believe this could work, especially in Canutes Northern Empire, where Christianity was skin deep at best - many of the nobles of England remained sure of their divine descent from the Asir even in the 11th century.

The religion would not have replaced Christianity in Southern Europe, but the extent of Viking journeys could have meant it may spread throughout Northern Europe, including Germany, Russia, and Canutes empire. To a jealous church this may have pointed crusades Northwards, but depending on the timing these would likely have failed, as they did in the East - the Scandinavian and English troops were some of the most skilled Early Medieval forces. What this does for knowledge without the Celtic Church to keep it alive, I'm unsure - but the contacts of the Vikings with blaland may have kept Greek knowledge in circulation without the need for the Irish monastaries hoards.
 
Yeah, I was thinking about the Norse pagan state in North America (Domstolland) in Doug Hoff's Empty America ATL.

By the mid- to late thirteenth century, Domstolland in on the trailing edge of a great transition. The pagan Norse religion, the reason for the Commonwealth's existence in the first place, has moved from essentially a private cult, sponsored by magnates in their private frohargs, to a public religion sponsored by the state. The change was perhaps inevitable, since one of the primary functions of the Domstolland government it to preclude the encroachment by Christians. Also of critical importance was the arrival of Snorri Sturluson in the 1220s. Sturluson, a Christian convert to paganism, writes down and organizes the stories of the Norse gods, thus laying the groundwork for the development of a formal, literate priesthood, sponsored by the state. The movement towards an official religion is largely supported by the smaller farmers and townspeople of Domstolland. With the development of a strong central government, the grip of the magnates' authority had been further weakened, as they were no longer permitted their own courts and armed bands (in competition with the elected local courts and organized militia) to enforce their will. One of their few remaining avenues of control was through their construction and monopolization of the frohargs. In the late 1240s, the Logretta, which is dominated by smallholders and their allies, moves decisively to abolish private control over religion and establish state sponsorship.

The change is not without its bumps, some of which changes the political map of Ultima Thule. In 1255, shortly after its completion, civic strife erupts in and around the temple of Freyr, the God of Plenty, in Tivrhofn. Skári Valdisson, a magnate of some substance, was outlawed by the Logretta in a move of very questionable legality, since the legislature was stripped of much of its judicial authority when it was founded. While the controversy surrounding his conviction continued, but before his sentence was executed, Valdisson showed a ceremony at the Freyr temple, accompanied by an armed escort. A recipe for trouble - since both outlaws and weapons are prohibited in the temple. The hrafnsmal, wolf-coated temple guards, attempted to remove Valdisson peacefully, but a brawl ensued that spreads into the street. Both sides summon reinforcements, and Domstolland teeters on the brink of civil war between the magnates, who are using the incident as a pretext to reassert their power, and the supporters of the government. Now there is no question but that Valdisson must go - the Logretta outlaws not only him (again) but all of his followers and allies. As the fighting continues, the governmental forces gain the upper hand. Valdisson calls for a truce. It is agreed - he will be given safe conduct, and he and his people will depart.
 
Was there, in the time of King Canute, any significant persons amongst the nobility, whom given the chance, would have pushed for this new, codified "Asalaw"? Were there any literates among the last of the Norse Pagans?
 
Top