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Europe Returning to Pagan Roots
NewsMax ^ | May 30, 2003 | Fr. Mike Reilly

Posted on 05/30/2003 9:55:54 PM PDT by Hugenot

NewsMax.com's religion editor, Fr. Mike Reilly, sees a disturbing trend in the latest news from the European Union.

Zenit News is reporting on the new Constitution for the European Union and the news is not good.

"Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, which, nourished first by the civilizations of Greece and Rome, characterized by spiritual impulse always present in its heritage and later by the philosophical currents of the Enlightenment, has embedded within the life of society its perception of the central role of the human person and his inviolable and inalienable rights, and of respect for law. ..."

Do you get the sense that there's something missing from the preamble? What "spiritual impulse" are they referring to? Could it be the Irish druids, who worshipped trees? Or perhaps the Norse gods like Thor and Loki? Maybe they mean ancient German legends about Siegfried coming from Valhalla.

Are these the "spiritual impulses" that united Europe, or rather was it something called Christendom?

"It borders on the ridiculous that the Preamble should make nominal reference to the Hellenistic and Roman component and jump directly to the 'philosophers of the Enlightenment,' omitting the Christian reference without which the Enlightenment is incomprehensible," Josep Miro i Ardevol, president of the Convention of Christians for Europe, said in a statement.

In an interview on Vatican Radio, Cardinal Roberto Tucci, a member of the executive council of the radio, said that "It was not a question of adherence [to Christianity], but of recognizing the historical fact of the enormous influence that Christian culture has had on European culture."

"The most unifying factor of Europe, which has been Christian culture, is missing" in the Preamble, he said.

The draft continues, "Conscious that Europe is a continent that has brought forth civilization; that its inhabitants, arriving in successive waves since the first ages of mankind, have gradually developed the values underlying humanism: equality of persons, freedom, respect for reason. ..."

Where do they think these values come from? What other civilizations espouse these values? The fact is that it was Christian culture which civilized and united tribal barbarians into what was left of the declining Roman Empire, which would eventually become modern Europe. That is why every modern tyrant has seen the need to attack and suppress Christianity.

This does not bode well for Europeans who treasure freedom. If our rights come from men, then men can take them away. Our founding fathers were wise enough to acknowledge that "man was endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights. ..."

Sadly, the leaders of Europe lack that insight.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Free Republic; Front Page News; Germany; Government; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: christianity; constitution; eu; euconstitution; europe; europeanchristians; faithandphilosophy; idolatry; religion
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1 posted on 05/30/2003 9:55:54 PM PDT by Hugenot
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To: Hugenot
The fact is that it was Christian culture which civilized and united tribal barbarians into what was left of the declining Roman Empire, which would eventually become modern Europe. That is why every modern tyrant has seen the need to attack and suppress Christianity

And now many European countries are voluntarily reliquishing their heritage and future to the tyrant Islam.

2 posted on 05/30/2003 10:02:44 PM PDT by petuniasevan (Some folks are wise; some are otherwise)
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To: Hugenot
Europe has always had an exceedingly tumultuous experience with the imposition of Eastern dogmatic religions (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) atop its Western polyvalent spiritualism (secularist paganism). The authoritarian, ecumenical impulses of the former have been breaking down inexorably for at least four centuries now into a fractured, decentralized patchwork.
3 posted on 05/30/2003 10:08:03 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: petuniasevan
Why am I not surprised?
4 posted on 05/30/2003 10:27:40 PM PDT by MeekMom ((HUGE Ann Coulter Fan!!!) (Life-long Python Addict))
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To: AntiGuv
"The authoritarian, ecumenical impulses of the former have been breaking down inexorably for at least four centuries now into a fractured, decentralized patchwork."

Exactly, beginning with the fleeing of people from Europe for the new world (America). And why were these people fleeing Europe, to escape the oppressive rule of church and state. So today, we have some people who want to re-create that European model here.

Maybe it is we who still have something to learn and not the EU.

5 posted on 05/30/2003 10:29:15 PM PDT by Kerberos (Ah yes the liberal democrats, united as ever in opportunism and error. Tony Blair 3/18/03)
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To: Hugenot
Europe is toast.

Prepare for war.

China is on the entre menu and the Europeans are ala cart.
6 posted on 05/30/2003 10:31:46 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (Defund NPR, PBS and the LSC.)
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To: Hugenot
I don't really see the problem- Christianity is just a neutered, tired religion.

Once, it was like Islam is now, full of fire and passion and global conquest, but now is nothing more than memories.

I don't really mind, either. The glory of European civilization came from the pagan parts- Rome and Greece, and their rebirth and rejection of Christianity in the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
7 posted on 05/30/2003 10:32:44 PM PDT by TheAngryClam (This space for rent.)
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To: Hugenot
SITREP
8 posted on 05/30/2003 10:41:18 PM PDT by LiteKeeper
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To: Hugenot
"Sadly, the leaders of Europe lack that insight."

Even more sadly for us, the governmental and intelligentsia leaders in the U.S. lack that knowledge also.

9 posted on 05/30/2003 10:45:33 PM PDT by nightdriver
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To: TheAngryClam
And the notion that all virtues came exclusively from Christianity is preposterous. As if the pagans threw out the baby with the bath water.
10 posted on 05/30/2003 10:48:28 PM PDT by ffusco (Maecilius Fuscus, Governor of Longovicium , Manchester, England. 238-244 AD)
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To: TheAngryClam
Pre-Christian Europe was a patchwork of barbarian tribes, with perhaps the exception of Greece, and later on Rome. All subsequent development came from the integration of its Christian roots with its ideals, albeit in an undesirable way. For instance, pagans had no compassion whatsoever for weaklings and children who were born with any physical defects were killed at birth. War and oppression were not merely a means to an end, but were seen as the most glorious of human endevours.
Greece and Rome were not half as glorious as modern day armchair historians make them out to be.
11 posted on 05/30/2003 10:51:13 PM PDT by Dat
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To: Hugenot
I thought Germany already tried the return-to-paganism thing in the 1930s and '40s.
12 posted on 05/30/2003 10:55:53 PM PDT by Pelham
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To: TheAngryClam
"I don't really see the problem- Christianity is just a neutered, tired religion."

More's the tragedy. The only Christianity you see may be as you describe, I can't deny that, but Christianity isn't really a "religion" at all in the true definition of the word. It has only become (falsely) represented as such in this last century.

13 posted on 05/30/2003 10:59:01 PM PDT by nightdriver
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To: ffusco
The pagans usually burned the babies.
14 posted on 05/30/2003 11:03:44 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get)
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To: Pelham
I thought Germany already tried the return-to-paganism thing in the 1930s and '40s.

Well, many did, but when I was there, (80 to 84) I thought, for the most part, they were still pretty much a bunch of pagans, but that is just my opinion.

15 posted on 05/30/2003 11:12:43 PM PDT by Mark17
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To: Dat
"pagans had no compassion whatsoever for weaklings and children who were born with any physical defects were killed at birth."

It was legal for a Father to kill a only a horribly deformed child in the witness of 5 neighbors. Infant mortality rates wre high and medicine was crude. A mercy killing was often the best solution.

War and oppression were not merely a means to an end, but were seen as the most glorious of human endevours.
The Romans didn' see it that way:
 
Vergil's Aeneid
"Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth's peoples - for your arts are to be these:
to pacify, to impose the rule of law,
to spare the conquered, battle down the proud."

They thought it was their mission to civilize the world-and they did, just as we did with Manifest Destiny and our latest foray into Iraq.

Greece and Rome were not half as glorious as modern day armchair historians make them out to be.
The water in some aquaeducts still flows as well as echoes of Cicero and Plato in our laws and customs.
16 posted on 05/30/2003 11:13:52 PM PDT by ffusco (Maecilius Fuscus, Governor of Longovicium , Manchester, England. 238-244 AD)
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To: philetus
Riiight.
17 posted on 05/30/2003 11:14:57 PM PDT by ffusco (Maecilius Fuscus, Governor of Longovicium , Manchester, England. 238-244 AD)
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To: nutmeg
read later bump
18 posted on 05/30/2003 11:35:10 PM PDT by nutmeg (USA: Land of the Free - Thanks to the Brave)
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To: Dat
I'm a bit more than an armchair historian.

And "with the exception of Rome" at it's height was essentially all of Europe except for Germany and the lands more east. It also included all of northern Africa and the Levant.

Christianity was a disaster for Europe. It was only through turning to the traditions of pagan Rome, such as the Roman Catholic Church and most of the early kingdoms (for example, the Goths that ended the Western Roman Empire were more "Roman" in their habits than the Eastern Empire soldiers that came to retake Italy), that civilization survived.
19 posted on 05/30/2003 11:43:19 PM PDT by TheAngryClam (This space for rent.)
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To: philetus
Actually, they usually stuck them out on the hillside/local trashheap to die or passed them on to another family (adoption was far, far more prevalent in ancient Rome than today).

That hillside was where the poor went to pick up new slaves.

Actual death of children wasn't as common in ancient pagan Europe as you make it out.
20 posted on 05/30/2003 11:45:12 PM PDT by TheAngryClam (This space for rent.)
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