CDR: Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)

[ocorrain at esatclear.ie]

>Nonsense, says religionmonger. You obviously haven't researched the
>pagan world to much depth. 

I don't know if I'd call what you refer to below research. Fantasy would
be closer to the mark.

>Druids, for instance, have a strong, clear
>line going way back, as do Wiccans. Because of persecution by the 
>God-damned church, they spent a long time underground, but there's never
>been a time when they weren't active and working.

I was under the impression we were talking about the era around 500AD,
before the Inquisition, and not long after the Christians themselves
were persecuted. I'm no skypilot, but the implied timelines you associate
with Wiccans and Druids (of the modern sort) are, to say the least,
somewhat confused.

>You understand 
>nothing of it, and never will unless you could somehow convince some
>group to initiate you, which is unlikely. 

It's even more unlikely I would seek such an initiation. 

>Experiential religions have no need of scripture -- that's the
>bailiwick of the later, false, paternalistic, religions of the dominator
>cultures.

Into which scumble of badness you would no doubt throw Hinduism, Buddhism,
Taoism and the philosophies thereof? Whereas your religion is based on
handing down knowledge (without records or a literate culture) from
mother to daughter. A mirror image of the apostolic succession, amusingly.
I'll quote from Joyce's Ulysses:
     The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is
     why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze into your omphalos. Hello.
     Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one. (p46)

Does that sound like what you're on about? Guess what it's about.

To turn centuries of folk knowledge persecuted by those who did not
understand (not just priests, you know, peasants burnt their own out
of fear as well) into a religion with a continuous link to pre-Christian,
even pre-historical times, is an interesting hypothesis. It would take
some proving, rather than a random spew about 'false' and 'paternalistic'
, and especially 'later' religions. Coming from a
country where Druids at least existed in historical times, I can
tell you that the evidence suggests that Druids existed as lawmakers
and counsellors. Their true heirs are in the lawcourts and in politics.
Disappointing, no?

All the best

Tiarnan