![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yes. Yes it is.
The week of quiet worship and celebration went off very well. I think my ancestors were very pleased, and I'm very happy for that.
Everything at school is going well. Got an email about having a dismal GPA - my advisor forgot that there are only two grades on there and that it will be dismal by default until the end of the semester. Acing both my theology and philosophy courses.
The theology is especially nice. Giving a thorough reading through the Pentateuch through Catholic and historical Jewish eyes has lent a level of clarity on Christian doctrine that I hadn't necessarily had before. My varied attempts at reconciliation with Christianity are being settled in a more organized fashion than they were before, and that makes me very happy. I'm still not in line with the Church, but I wasn't necessarily trying to be, either. The greater goal of reconciliation is understand a) how Dveviere is conceived as a system, and b) how they fit together without exploding the brain.
Historically speaking, the converted Slavs didn't think twice about such an issue. They already had their world view well established when the Christians came and regardless of what the Priest was saying, their God was just one of many. 1,200 years later, and not a whole helluva lot of that pre-Christian religion exists, as a result of that world-view. Dozens of pagan Gods and traditions were absorbed into Christian figures as a function of blending two systems. There's nothing wrong with that. However, my own practice is rooted on the pagan side of the fence. This puts a fundamental divide between me and Slavic Christians of any flavour, and Slavic Heathens/Rodovers.
The divide with the Heathens is a pretty big one, I think. Many of these groups are filled with insipid racism and nationalism bordering on fascism. While I am a Pan-Slavic nationalist, active and opinionated in Slavic issues (especially in Kosovo i Metohija), I'm not at all of the opinion that my politics and my religion need be bedfellows. I see quite often Rodnover groups practicing the Native Faith only in order to widen the divide between the superior Slav and the inferior other; this faith is billed as a revival, but really, it tends to amount to nothing more than Christianity with an overlay of Heathen names (Triglav standing in for the trinity, as opposed to the actual historical God) and lots of posturing about being a superior Aryan race.
Even all that aside, and I still don't see the worth in tossing out 1,200 years plus of organic innovation within the culture.
The divide between me and Christians is theologically greater, but perhaps more subtle in practice. I am not a Christian. I fundamentally disagree with major elements of Christian doctrine. In practice though, I'm not all that different from any other Slovak who is observant of cultural traditions. My biggest practical divide is where I place my focus - my attempt to remove the Christian veneer from my practice to get at the underlying meaning of it. Where the Christian practice is the primary, I don't attempt to remove it from my life; my cultural traditions are just as important to maintain as the integrity of my religious beliefs.
THERE BE NO CONCLUSION HERE.
The week of quiet worship and celebration went off very well. I think my ancestors were very pleased, and I'm very happy for that.
Everything at school is going well. Got an email about having a dismal GPA - my advisor forgot that there are only two grades on there and that it will be dismal by default until the end of the semester. Acing both my theology and philosophy courses.
The theology is especially nice. Giving a thorough reading through the Pentateuch through Catholic and historical Jewish eyes has lent a level of clarity on Christian doctrine that I hadn't necessarily had before. My varied attempts at reconciliation with Christianity are being settled in a more organized fashion than they were before, and that makes me very happy. I'm still not in line with the Church, but I wasn't necessarily trying to be, either. The greater goal of reconciliation is understand a) how Dveviere is conceived as a system, and b) how they fit together without exploding the brain.
Historically speaking, the converted Slavs didn't think twice about such an issue. They already had their world view well established when the Christians came and regardless of what the Priest was saying, their God was just one of many. 1,200 years later, and not a whole helluva lot of that pre-Christian religion exists, as a result of that world-view. Dozens of pagan Gods and traditions were absorbed into Christian figures as a function of blending two systems. There's nothing wrong with that. However, my own practice is rooted on the pagan side of the fence. This puts a fundamental divide between me and Slavic Christians of any flavour, and Slavic Heathens/Rodovers.
The divide with the Heathens is a pretty big one, I think. Many of these groups are filled with insipid racism and nationalism bordering on fascism. While I am a Pan-Slavic nationalist, active and opinionated in Slavic issues (especially in Kosovo i Metohija), I'm not at all of the opinion that my politics and my religion need be bedfellows. I see quite often Rodnover groups practicing the Native Faith only in order to widen the divide between the superior Slav and the inferior other; this faith is billed as a revival, but really, it tends to amount to nothing more than Christianity with an overlay of Heathen names (Triglav standing in for the trinity, as opposed to the actual historical God) and lots of posturing about being a superior Aryan race.
Even all that aside, and I still don't see the worth in tossing out 1,200 years plus of organic innovation within the culture.
The divide between me and Christians is theologically greater, but perhaps more subtle in practice. I am not a Christian. I fundamentally disagree with major elements of Christian doctrine. In practice though, I'm not all that different from any other Slovak who is observant of cultural traditions. My biggest practical divide is where I place my focus - my attempt to remove the Christian veneer from my practice to get at the underlying meaning of it. Where the Christian practice is the primary, I don't attempt to remove it from my life; my cultural traditions are just as important to maintain as the integrity of my religious beliefs.
THERE BE NO CONCLUSION HERE.
