Stop giving Darwin a bum rap already.

The fish was rotten before we wrapped it.

1) My home parish is St. Boniface; the wall over the choir loft contains a mosaic of St Boniface's martyrdom. (More accurately, Boniface getting snuffed by wild Germanic tribesmen.) I didn't know the details, but figured his missionary work probably rubbed a local Germanic chieftan the wrong way.

2) As an old-line SF fan, I often cross paths with Wiccans and other neopagans. Emphasis is on NEO -- modern neopagans are attempting to revive/reconstruct pre-Christian religions while coming out of a Christian-influenced culture, and syncretism/crossover works both ways. Neopagans can unconsciously incorporate Christian ideas that were just not there in the actual pre-Christian beliefs they attempt to reconstruct.

After 2000 years of Christian influence, we have forgotten what the old gods were REALLY like, and recast our reconstructions accordingly.

National Socialism was NOT neopagan in this respect -- it WAS pre-Christian pagan. Naziism had a better handle on the old gods, and firewalled them to the max (the opposite direction from NEOpagans).

3) I don't see in what way Marx or Darwin can be called "the modern pagans" under the definitions I'm familiar with, except as a Christianese "snarl word". (My jury's still out on Dr. Freud -- that guy was weird and not in a likeable "let's get weird" way.)

Marx took one tack from the old Jewish prophets and Christian preaching about "Woe to the Rich!", stripped it out of context, mixed it with fashionable philosophical logic of the time (Hegel's dialectic), and firewalled it. Perfect illustration of my old DM's explanation about why the Bible has apparent contradictions: "In case somebody takes one verse and starts running off on a tangent, you can throw the opposing verse at them to trip them up." Well, with Marx there was nothing to trip him up, so he went farther and farther off on his tangent.

Darwin proposed a mechanism that explained the life-forms in the fossil record and physical/biological relationships between all life on Earth, which seems to have "preponderance of evidence" on its side (enough to win in a civil court, but probably not convict in a criminal court). Problem was, it got the name "Evolution" (as opposed to Darwin's preferred "descent with modification"), which had secondary meanings of "progress", specifically "continuous UPWARD progress". ("The Victorians thought history ended well -- because it ended with the Victorians." -- Chesterton) The idea quickly got expanded way outside its bailiwick into explanations of just about everything in society, justification for even more things, and used as a weapon against the Church.

The problem wasn't Marx, Darwin, or Freud. The problem was "Men of Sin" who glom onto anything accepted as cosmic truth -- be it Bible, Koran, Marx, Darwin, Freud, science, nature -- to give themselves Cosmic Justification for whatever they were going to do anyway.

It was hardly worth the bones of even a Pomeranian grenadier to overthrow Thor again in 1945. What a weird concept.

The Bonifacian ploy, though remains relevant, and should be adopted by the U.S. in its war against Islam.

Instead of chasing bearded woo-woos, we ought to lay it out: We're coming, we're coming in defiance of your god and your prophet, and make the best of it you can.

That would lead to some values clarification and side-choosing and would wrap up the WOT very soon.

Harry:

That's exactly what's happening. Reformation of Islam is basically Judeo-Christianization of Islam.

Ken:

Darwinism is as Darwinists did.

You slander the pagans by calling Freud and Marx pagans.

Well, the Bonifacian solution was only the necessary first step. It took another millenium and a lot more work to make the Germans behave.

Took Darwin and Marx to make them stop.