RE: Paganism and Neo-Paganism

A response to Uncouth Barbarian

Now, first I will begin by saying that this is my first ever post on Substack, something I never thought I’d do. I am not an academic and I am writing this in my own spare time so while I will try my best to ensure my grammar and punctuation are to a good standard, errors may slip through.

Without further ado, let’s get to it. During the course of the most recent Christian vs Pagan debate that began on the 25th May 2025,

Uncouth Barbarian

(here on known as UB) responded to one of my notes:

The notion that we're currently living under pagan values is laughable. As someone who's read the classical sources, the pagans of that time were a far cry from the average person of our own time. We're living under secular, liberal, humanist values which are an outgrowth from Christianity. You might regard them as heretical like Arianism or Gnosticism, but that is their origin.

My argument is that if Christians truly believe that Christianity can “save the west”, why do they not actually organise around this principle? Why do they not do what the early Christians did, by actively seeking power to put forward their own vision as opposed to the vision of the ruling elite?

Anyway, while I may not agree with everything you've said, I think we're on the same page regarding western civilisation. Thank you for your measured and eloquent response.

Uncouth Barbarian then wrote a small essay titled Paganism and Neo-Paganism in which he made several arguments against what I’d written in my notes and against Paganism in general too.

Paganism and Neo-Paganism

In the interest of fairness, I’ll do my best to steelman his main arguments which are as folllows:

• In modernity, as Christianity and its relevance wanes, primal pagan influences resurge and push the unwitting secular populace towards greater chaos and degeneracy. In this he provides examples of modern life such as pre-marital sex or watching sports, followed by naming a God who may be benefitting from their victim’s sinful behaviour by leeching off their soul (as UB would put it).

• The various Gods are the anthropomorphised representations of universal aspects which pertain to the physical, emotional and metaphysical. These aspects are recognised across all cultures, therefore a pagan’s attachment to a particular pantheon (and it’s symbols/idols) is illogical.

• As the Gods are representative of universal concepts, having any degree of special attachment to a specific item or location (a tree, statue, rock, etc) doesn’t make sense as the specific item or location in question can merely be replaced or replicated unless the specific item or location is the actual God in question.

Modern Degradation

UB makes the argument that the primal pagan forces that were unleashed at the onset of the Renaissance have slowly but surely eaten away at social norms and mores to the point where society is unravelling due to alienation, isolation, deracination, and a lack of social standards.

Do I believe this? No, I don’t.

It is true that conditions in western countries are getting worse. Name any category (albeit in technology) and you will only be able to conclude that this is the case. I don’t deny this, but I think UB is trying to draw attention away from a particular ideology, one which goes entirely unmentioned within his essay, and instead places the blame squarely on paganism.

From what I understand, UB and his buddies take a dualist view in that Christianity is akin to order and paganism (which preceded Christianity) is chaos. As Christianity (order) recedes, disorder and chaos grow and vice versa.

Sounds simple enough. I’m sure a few people are convinced by this.

However, the question must then be asked on how liberalism fits into the equation? For it is the professed ideology of our democratically elected managerial regime and has been so for quite some time, particularly after the second world war. Yet UB doesn’t mention it once despite it being the ruling ideology. I would argue as a counterpoint to Mr UB, that “Liberalism”, as Jonathan Bowden once said, “is moral syphilis”, and is responsible for the great erosion in western culture and social bonds.

Now, I wager that the reason UB didn’t mention liberalism within his response is because liberalism takes its core values directly from Christianity itself. This of course would undermine his dualist argument, so I can understand why he chose to omit its mention.

Accidental Worship

Liberalism and social degradation aside, if we look towards the metaphysical parts of UB’s argument, he unintentionally or intentionally mischaracterises what worship of the pagan Gods is and what it entails.

Why do I say this? Well UB has obviously read the sources and understands that pagans have a transactional relationship with their deities and ancestors. However, he’s then extrapolated this notion and stretched it to absurd degree. In UB’s view, if you sleep with someone before marriage, you have inadvertently worshipped Eros or Frigg, or Cupid, etc by sacrificing your chastity.

The problem with this idea is that worship has to be a conscious effort and it has to be done via rites and rituals in a particular location while giving your due respect. Not only that, but the sacrifice for a particular God cannot be as something as abstract as time or chastity or stock market shares. Simply performing an action such as sex or recreational sport or gambling are not and have never been methods of worship. Once again this is just an elicit way for Christians to call Pagans devil or demon worshippers.

Pantheons and Gods

The majority of UB’s essay is dedicated to the argument that the Pagan Gods are just anthropomorphised aspects of universal concepts such as war, fertility, the ocean, luck, death, etc. He posits that having a connection to a particular pantheon is illogical as from his perspective, they are all the same.

From his argument, I suspect UB has read quite a lot of Plato and is essentially laying the groundwork for a monotheistic argument. Unfortunately for him, I disagree with the idea that all pantheons are the same (albeit with name changes). What UB is missing from his analysis is that while concepts such as love, war, the weather, fertility, etc are universal, they are interpreted differently by different people, and this goes on to shape the way the people view and relate to their pantheon.

Now you could make the case for Europe, Anatolia, India and Persia that because of the Proto-Indo-European invasions (Aryans if you prefer), all of the pantheons for the various peoples that live in these regions share a common root, and they do.

Though, the problem you’ll find when you try to equate all these pantheons and deities, is that over the course of centuries, the various peoples developed their own cultures based upon their surroundings, their climate and their own individual histories which directly informed how they interpreted their Gods and the stories and mythologies that developed alongside them. Essentially, each pantheon of Gods is a representation of the biospirit of each group of people.

Historically as well, European pagans were not blind to the similarities that some deities possessed when compared to foreign ones. The Romans often compared the Germanic God, Wotanaz (Woden) to their God Mercury for instance. The similarities though wouldn’t justify a Roman praying to Wotanaz, because why would they worship a deity of a foreign people, when they have their own pantheon?

Worshipping a foreign deity signfies submission, as everyone secretly knows.

Idols or the Gods themselves?

From his brief essay, UB as his last point tries to make the case that the ancient pagans had an over-the-top attachment to their representations of the Gods and concludes that those idols/statues were not just representations but the God’s themselves (or demon infused artefacts).

The examples he provides is that of Aneas rescuing his household statues as Troy is conquered and the outrage of pagans due to St Boniface cutting down a fabled oak tree (a representation of Thunor/Thor).

Now if you’re coming at this from a Christian perspective then you’ll recognise that UB is hinting that the pagan Gods aren’t gods at all but are instead demons inhabiting those various items.

If you reject this frame though, I think it’s hard to argue against people being attached to the idols that are either direct representations of or are directly linked to the divine.

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Take Mr. Uncouth Barbarian himself. He is a devout catholic and as any devout catholic who’s worth their salt, I’m sure that he has a shrine dedicated to Christ the Redeemer. Now theoretically, if someone were to break into UB’s home and either stole or defiled his shrine, what do you think UB’s reaction might be? Do you think that:

a) UB would be completely unconcerned by the theft/defilement of his sacred shrine? Afterall crucifixes are a dime a dozen so the loss or defilement of one isn’t much of an issue as they’re all the same.

b) UB would be apoplectic with rage at the audacity for someone to break into his home and to steal/defile the shrine to his God.

I don’t know UB in real life, but if I was in that situation, I would be case ‘b’ every single time.

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Going back to the examples provided in his essay. The reason Aneas is told to take the idols of the Gods to a new land is because the Gods of a pantheon are the representation of that particular people. During Antiquity, if a people were conquered by another tribe, kingdom, city state or empire, then the idols of their Gods would at best be replaced by the conqueror’s Gods and moved to a lower position within an area of sacred ground, thereby signifying their submission.

Or in the worst-case scenario, their statues/idols would be defiled, smashed or stolen signifying their metaphysical humiliation (rape) alongside whatever emotional and physical distress the conquered people had already suffered.

By saving the statues of his Gods, Aneas had saved the spiritual heart of his people from destruction, even though their city was destroyed. As for St Boniface, whether he realised it or not, the day he chopped down that oak tree, was the day a part of Anglo-Saxon soul was lost forever.

Conclusion

This has been quite an interesting exercise and something that I have been well out of practice with, but I think I did a decent job in responding to all of the points that Uncouth Barbarian raised.

I may do an analysis of the recent Christian vs Pagan debate that occured, but it’s very possible that ship has already sailed. I’m not sure when I’ll do another article (or if I ever do another one), but I do hope that I have provided something interesting and entertaining to the reader.

Please leave me feedback in the comments below.

Thank you for your time.