Aidonian's blog

I have stated before that mixing those are a bad idea. If we look at our history we see that nothing good comes from it. Religion was always used as a means to suppress the masses into accepting their fates. The Church did it. In Antiquity and earlier in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt we also saw that kings used religion to suppress the masses into doing their bidding and accepting their fate. That did not always work out though. As kings assumed divine lineage to legitimize their rule. Pharaoh’s saw themselves as living embodiments of the Gods. Julius Caesar traced his supposedly lineage back to Venus/Aphrodite while after death he was deified by Octavian and later Emperors also were deified after death with their own cults. Those were supposed to bring the people together under their rule and use religion so that people won’t revolt against the regime. The thing is, there will always be a class that doesn’t feel represented by the regime, be it lower classes, slaves, etc…

Unlike during Christian times, polytheism is more complex in the way that every head of the household could be their own priest if they want to so there is a clear distinction between the religion of the state and public and the private one. 

While the religion of the state and public is very well documented, the private ones less. New cults were introduced in the empire when new lands were conquered like the Celtic Gods, Mithras, Cybele, Egyptian ones. People could be part of various cults and no one objected to it, because it was all part of the polytheistic framework that allowed such things. The Judeo- Christian god was a different animal. They rejected all other Gods and even the imperial cult. The Judeo-Christian cult did not mix with other cults. Hence strife arose between people. While Jews wanted to be left alone and live in peace, Christians actually sought out to antagonize the ruling class. They then became favorite scapegoats for ineffective leaders like Nero and cult leaders took advantage of it to become powerful and misuse the religion to gain power as a “representative of God” on Earth. This would later become a bigger problem where kings and even clergy claiming to be the representative on Earth so that their rule could not be questioned, if you risk to question the will of God. 

Today you also see that with certain Christian Islamic cults also claiming that. The drive is clear: not to further the religion but their view and their quest for power over people. During Roman times, Jupiter Optimus Maximus was invoked by leaders who claimed to rule for them in one way or another. It doesn’t take much for people to lose faith in these Gods when the rulers who represent them or claimed to were failures or ineffective at leading. People still participated in city festivals because back then they believed that those cult practices helped support the world order. By failing those, they could risk the wrath of the Gods upon the world and they didn’t want that.Until several decades ago, people started to turn away from the church. The institution had its many faults, but the reason was more that the social control of being active in church was eroding which meant that people were free to move away from Christianity if they chose to. And many did. Some turned to other paths. 

Which leads me to my point that mixing religion with politics is a bad thing to do. It leads to misery and a theocracy where people are suppressed and are not free. Which was probably why Marx and Engels were against it and when the Soviet Union was created, they chose to ban religion because the church had such a powerful influence and seeing how the church and their officials lined with the elites, it was a recipe for disaster. 

I’m a proud polytheist but also a marxist. I was first a polytheist than I became a marxist. While they do seem contradictory, in my opinion it doesn’t. I love the Gods, and I serve Them in my own way to show Them my devotion and my love. While I do want equality and justice to be unbiased instead of biased as it is now, my drive for justice comes from Athena and Zeus. I analyze and reflect on my religion from time to time as all polytheists should do. Our religious practices should evolve with time and not remain rigid. All religions evolve naturally. They are influenced by internal and external forces who help shape their evolution over time to become contemporary. 

So when I hear Sannion writing on how polytheists claiming to be vessels for the Gods, claiming to speak for the Gods when it came to religion, I thought it was a bad idea. While the Gods certainly want people to voice their displeasure with the current regime, its another to claim that Zeus or Odin or Amon-Ra supports the No Kings protests. The Gods do want people to be critical, why others would during antiquity people back than try to explain the natural world through science and philosophers even criticized the Homeric view of the Gods? So there is certainly a case to be made here in favor of it. Here is the thing. While there might be polytheists claiming that the Gods support the No Kings protests, those who voted for Trump and support him might claim that the gods support Trump. Both sides will think that they are correct in their assessment while both can be wrong. Its better to leave religion out of politics. It only brings misery and strife. Polytheists are divided enough amongst themselves. We do not need more strife in it. Whether you are in favor of Trump or not, its good to remind that Trump and basically every politician with notable exceptions are only in it to serve themselves and their donor class. Its that class, the elites that want people fighting amongst themselves so that they can rule. Divide and conquer; is it through religion, politics, racism and discrimination, that is their means to divide the people. So I implore my fellow polytheists to restrain themselves from mixing religion with politics. Nothing good will come from it. Lets try to elect politicians who who represent all people of the country instead of just their base? We need better politicians. I doubt that they will listen to me, but I can only try to address the issue. We need to learn from the past to try to stop making mistakes in the future. If we don’t learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it in one way or another.