Comment by unknown_apostle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unknown_apostle | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

unknown_apostle

The whole thread, for me at least, is about confirming the Guardian article, that Christianity is declining in Europe. I'd say especially in NW-Europe.

I'm not talking about deist intellectuals and their opinions, or academic theology, or about places other than NW-Europe (New Mexico?), or a few big tourist tickets like Santiago.

I'm talking about the popular Christian day-to-day practice of regular people of NW-European communities, of which I can witness the last strange hours in my own community.

It's hard for me to come up with numbers beyond the kind of polls shown in the Guardian article or the drop in callings. It's not like we have centuries of headcount records for all the local events, cults and customs that used to exist here, the amount of tresses tied to chapel walls, or logs detailing the time and effort the local farmers, notables and grandmas spent decorating chapels. There have been no double blind control studies of how going to the village church made people's daily behavior slightly more mellow or made the community tighter here. By now there's mostly old pictures, living memories (less every year) and a rapid dwindling of what little remains today.

The edited stuff you refer to was a sarcastic quip along the lines of "Now that Christianity is gone, I'm sure celebrities or the state will tell us what to do." I removed it because, reading it back, I thought it detracted both in style and content from my main point.

Namely my prediction that future people in my community will regret current people having turned their back on this heritage so recklessly. They may try to reconstruct some of it, but it will be hard without continuity. I can see that happen even if Christian belief itself never bounces back. (Which would actually put such efforts at risk, by making them prone to political recuperation.)

Well, yes, Christianity had been on the decline in NW (and N) Europe for a long time. What's new is "as default is gone."

I'm from the US. My experience with pilgrimages is in the US context. I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the local big pilgrimage is to El Santuario de Chimayo. Not a big ticket pilgrimage. Because of this discussion, I remembered that there's also the pilgrimage to San Juan Capistrano, https://www.rcbo.org/year-of-mercy/pilgrimage-oc-sites/ .

You say now that you are not talking about "places other than NW-Europe". Thing is, you brought up "20 centuries of Christianity", and since it took a few hundred years until Christianity reached NW Europe, I think it's fair to believe you were talking about all of Christendom.

I understand that you are talking about the practice. My point was that you see importance in the connection to 2,000 years of religious faith, but that faith has not been constant over the years. I'll quote again what I quoted earlier:

> In the late Middle Ages the congregation sat down on the job and there was a drastic change in Christian worship—perhaps the most important in history. People, in effect, became custodians of individual spaces which they occupied throughout the service, and social distinctions made some spaces more privileged than others.”

NW Europe is mostly Protestant, and it's only been 500 years since Luther. Sure, it's connected to the older Catholic faith, but that's then connected to the Jewish faith, and that is connected to the Canaanite and Babylonian religions.

Your last paragraph is absolutely true. Look at the modern druids or the Asatru, who lack the continuity with the ancient Celtic and Norse religions, or the Slavic Native Faith. I wonder why we don't have that continuity, or even good records of what it was like then. Could it be that the Christians fought hard to expunge alternate (and ancient) religious practices, and didn't want to make and preserve those records over the centuries?

Or, perhaps you could you tell me about the preservation efforts that Christians did during most of those 2,000 years, for the cultures that it replaced?

By comparison, the current secular world seems much less likely to destroy traces of what came before. There will be books, movies, art, blogs, recorded sermons and more, by the bucket-full, for those trying to understand what a late 20th century NW-European Christian life was like.

-> 16 vs 20: I said in the beginning (talking about Europe) "rapid destruction of a cultural heritage that has co-evolved together with the European peoples and even their secular institutions for at least 16 centuries."

co-evolved. I understand that Christianity became big in Europe only centuries after Christ. And that it has changed and fluctuated a lot in its history. But I think there was never a discontinuity of the sort we see since ~2 generations.

"20 centuries" came into play when I deplored a modern fashion in which we're supposed to take the vastness of 2 millennia of highly complex history involving millions or billions of people, strip it from all context, compress it to a few soundbite sized low points and say: "this is Christianity".

-> About continuity and pre-Christian paganism: one of the things that fascinates me endlessly about the christian traditions of my community, is how many aspects of it are obviously echoes of pagan times. Many saints that used to be popular here, are not historical figures but thinly disguised pagan deities. A nearby community has (= used to have) a big tradition of Marian worship, which is almost certainly a continuation of an older cult devoted to a pagan fertility goddess. A nearby Christian chapel built next to a well, located beautifully in a forest in the middle of nowhere, was a place of worship in pagan times. Lots of Roman coins were found around the chapel. People used to walk there and tie strips of clothing from sick relatives to the chapel door. I can go on like this for quite a while. I would argue that the transition to christianity, despite its implicit intolerance at the time, does not seem abrupt but rather "organic".

Same for theology. (Btw, with some exceptions, this topic doesn't interest me much personally. Just like I don't care much for all the pseudoscience in secular academia.) But anyways, a lot of christian theology is obviously classical philosophy in a Christian jacket, with influences from Platonism to stoicism. In fact, christianity did something antiquity failed to do: in antiquity, becoming literate and trained in classical philosophy was very much a "1 percenter" thing. Early christianity brought a "pop version" of this literacy to a much broader public.

To conclude, I'd predict the exact opposite of what you said. To me, the current secular world actually seems more likely to destroy traces of what came before. Turning a church into a hipster lounge is so much more drastic than turning a pagan shrine into a church, or a church into a mosque. The French revolution or the various socialist regimes didn't seek to adapt, echo, continue, soften, change, transform, absorb or even abuse Christianity. They aimed to root it out.

The sudden and rapid abandoning of all things Christian suggests the secular revolution is finally succeeding in Europe. It's Brumaire of Year I. Or rather, Germinal of Year L.

Obviously, in all our secular glory and freed from the irrational, time consuming habits of our grandparents, Europe may never know wars or bigotry or superstition or pseudoscience or corruption again. And this time I will leave the sarcastic quip in :-)

"I think there was never a discontinuity of the sort we see since ~2 generations."

Is that perhaps because you don't have a good understanding of the history, or is it perhaps because recent changes affect you more strongly than old ones?

If you were a Catholic 500 years ago, wouldn't you have complained bitterly about the upheavals in the 1500 year old Church caused by Luther and those inspired by him?

If you were a Catholic in England, when Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church, wouldn't you again be complaining about the discontinuity?

I don't see why the large-scale changes of the Reformation are less discontinuous, for someone living in that period.

You wrote: "one of the things that fascinates me endlessly about the christian traditions of my community, is how many aspects of it are obviously echoes of pagan times."

This was part of a deliberate plan by the Catholic Church to co-opt local religions. It wasn't really "organic."

I know the history better in the context of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Catholics would come in, tear down the old places of worship, and build a cathedral on the same site. They would identify important stories, rituals, dances, etc. associated with the old gods, and recast them to the saints. This practice is known as Interpretatio Christiana.

This synecretic approach helped spread the religion, by making it a more tolerable replacement for what was before.

You write: "in antiquity, becoming literate and trained in classical philosophy was very much a "1 percenter" thing." You may want to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#Ancient_and_post-clas... and the given references like https://www.academia.edu/13211795/_Ancient_Literacy_in_New_T.... It seems that the during the 1990s and early 2000, it was though that about 10% of Rome was literate, and that more recent research suggests it was rather higher at perhaps 30-40% .. until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. That period of heightened literacy corresponds to the early Church, so it reflects the general culture and not something special about Christianity.

You write "Turning a church into a hipster lounge is so much more drastic than turning a pagan shrine into a church, or a church into a mosque."

Wow. Really? "Hipster" is a derogatory term meaning "I'm getting old and don't understand kids these days, so I'm going to call them names to make myself feel better."

I'll give an example from the Interpretatio Christiana Wikipedia page: "when Benedict took possession of the site at Monte Cassino, he began by smashing the sculpture of Apollo and the altar that crowned the height"

Would you rather have the sculpture of Apollo shown as artwork in a hipster lounge, that anyone can see, or destroyed to make way for a Catholic church?

The French revolution is hardly "current". The modern France - a mostly secular country - has a lot of archeologists and archivists trying to identify and preserve history, including non-Christian history.

Regarding your sarcastic quip, please stop trying to force things into a dichotomous world. We have only to look at the misogyny and racism of many of the "stars" of atheism to see that a lack of faith in a god has very little to do with good ethics.

"Is that perhaps because you don't have a good understanding of the history, or is it perhaps because recent changes affect you more strongly than old ones?"

Of the 2 choices you present me with: neither.

"This was part of a deliberate plan by the Catholic Church to co-opt local religions. It wasn't really "organic.""

Indeed, to co-opt it. It continued what came before.

"You may want to read..."

Actually bookmarked this.

"Would you rather have the sculpture of Apollo shown as artwork in a hipster lounge, that anyone can see, or destroyed to make way for a Catholic church?"

Of the 2 choices you present me with: as an artwork in a hipster lounge.

"The French revolution is hardly "current"."

If you use numbers in the same way as me, it's literally more current than the stuff you injected (lutheranism, Henry VIII, bishops smacking pagan shrines, Killing Time, Gusta Vasa, ...).

Many revolutionaries in France, like many more recent socialist regimes, aimed to root out christianity and religion in general, not change/extend/temper/reduce/garden wall/coopt/transform/echo/reorganize it.

"The modern France - a mostly secular country - has a lot of archeologists and archivists trying to identify and preserve history, including non-Christian history.""

France has museums and archeologists? Really?

Before you joined, it was about the decline of christianity in Europe, which is not bricks and books, but actual people identifying with and practicing a living cultural heritage.

We're going nowhere here.

"Wow. Really? "Hipster" is a derogatory term meaning...."

Lmfao here.

You lost me.

Do you really want me to list all of the possibilities? I'm not trying to force you to choose one of the ones I present. I do not get from your writings that your statements about history are made with a certainty which is not justified.

You wrote "Indeed, to co-opt it. It continued what came before."

You cannot make that simple connection. The Marvel comics co-opted Thor as a superhero. That does not make Marvel comics a continuation of Norse mythology, nor does it mean that watching "Thor: Ragnarok" is a form of religious service. The system of physical exercise called "yoga" in the Western world co-opted the physical motions of the branch of Hinduism called "Yoga", but the people doing yoga at the gym down the street are not meaningfully connected to the 2,000+ year old tradition.

Christians destroyed the sacred trees and groves which were a core part of Germanic paganism. They co-opted the (symbolic) power of Donar's Oak into wood for a church they built on the site. That isn't a continuation.

Charlemagne destroyed the Irminsul and ordered the massacre of 4,500 Saxon pagans as part of his campaign to Christianize the Saxons, and justified it as acting "like a true King of Israel" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden .

This is not a continuation. This is an usurpation. The cultural symbols were co-opted to demonstrate that a new power is in charge.

You wrote "Of the 2 choices you present me with: as an artwork in a hipster lounge." We are making the assumption that the congregation can no longer support the physical building. What other option you would prefer?

You wrote "If you use numbers in the same way as me ..." I understand the comment now is meant as sarcasm. But I am trying really hard to not cherry-pick the bad parts of religion, but rather trying to demonstrate that your statements about history appear do not appear to come from a strong understanding of that history.

While it seems that you see me pointing to those counter-examples to your assertions, interpret it as cherry-picking, and so decide to cherry-pick in a tit-for-tat sort of dialog.

I don't think it's really correct to say "like many more recent socialist regimes, aimed to root out christianity and religion in general". Certainly early Marxist-Leninists in China and the USSR and its satellites were against all religions (as compared to all-but-one religion, as was the case in European countries for hundreds of years. Similarly, early republican countries, like the US and France, were also against religion. But looking at the list of officially socialist countries now, I see quite a few secular countries with strong support for at least one religion, and often support for the free practice of religion.

As you point out, we are talking about "actual people identifying with and practicing a living cultural heritage." My question again is, so what? Cultures change. There are always people who bemoan change. It's hard for me to have sympathy given the excellent records we have, the voluntary nature of the change, and given the long history of Christians stomping out older religions.

Yes, "hipster" is a derogatory term. Why else did you qualify it as "hipster lounge" instead of simply "lounge"?

“This is not a continuation. This is an usurpation.”

Fine, call it usurpation already.

Older pagan habits survived in later pagan habits. Pagan habits survived in catholicism. And catholic habits survived in Lutheranism.

And now this whole package, this sponge of history, is just being abandoned.

“You wrote "Of the 2 choices you present me with: as an artwork in a hipster lounge." We are making the assumption that the congregation can no longer support the physical building. What other option you would prefer?”

As an artwork in another church or in a museum or something like that? Where are you going with this?

“You wrote "If you use numbers in the same way as me ..." I understand the comment now is meant as sarcasm.”

No, this was actually not sarcasm. You pick numerous events from all over Christianity’s history. When I pick something, you complain it’s not “current”. Wtf? And now you complain that it’s “tit-for-tat” picking. 2 weights I call it.

“I do not get from your writings that your statements about history are made with a certainty which is not justified.” “your statements about history appear do not appear to come from a strong understanding of that history.”

One thing that oozes from all your writing is that you seem to think you’re lecturing me on stuff I don’t know or that I deny or something.

Aside from a potentially interesting tip on literacy in antiquity, you gave me nothing new.

“My question again is, so what? Cultures change.”

Ok, back on topic.

Yes, culture change.

I care because unlike you, I think the christian habits of our grandparents were interesting, positive and linked us to history. Loosing that is not good, even if you don’t believe in God.

“ (…) Christians stomping out older religions”

No, not stomping out. Usurping them, to use your latest choice of words.

“Yes, "hipster" is a derogatory term. Why else did you qualify it as "hipster lounge" instead of simply "lounge”?”

Sorry, I just wanted to be cool and hang out with you modern kids (<- sarcasm, to be clear)

Heads up: I probably won’t read your reply, as we’re going round and round and round.

You wrote "I think the christian habits of our grandparents were interesting, positive and linked us to history. Loosing that is not good, even if you don’t believe in God."

Given your positive views on how Christianity has incorporated non-Christian practices, you should have no worries. Christian traditions will continue to be followed in a non-Christian future in ways similar to how Christian traditions currently include older religious practices.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com