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[badstar]

Greek gods prepare for comeback

It has taken almost 2,000 years, but those who worship the 12 gods of ancient Greece have finally triumphed. An Athens court has ordered that the adulation of Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena and co is to be unbanned, paving the way for a comeback of pagans on Mount Olympus.
The followers, who say they "defend the genuine traditions, religion and ethos" of the ancients by adhering to a pre-Christian polytheistic culture, are poised to take their battle to the temples of Greece.

"What we want, now, is for the government to fully recognise our religion," Vasillis Tsantilas told the Guardian. "We will petition the Greek parliament, and the EU if that fails, for access to worship in places like the Acropolis, for permission to have our own cemeteries and, where necessary, to re-bury the [ancient] bones of the dead.
About 98% of Greeks are Orthodox Christian, and all other religions except Judaism and Islam had been banned.

Yet the pagans say as many as 2,000 Greeks have signed up to their movement. Mr Tsantilas, 42, a computer scientist who came to paganism after toying with Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, said worshippers perceived the ancient gods as the "personification of the divine".

But Greece's powerful Orthodox Church takes a less charitable view, accusing the worshippers of idolatry and "poisonous New Age practices".

Father Eustathios Kollas, who presides over the community of Greek priests, said: "They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past."

So...if you make one religion like, the official reigion of the contry, and outlaw all the others excet for two...and then you take a survey...is it any surprise that you get a 98% sampling that respond yes to the official state religion? I mean, duh. If it were the other way around and the worship of the ancient deities was the state religion and Christianity was outlawed so vehemently...the numbers would still be skewed. Now, given the sheer number of Christians who are wiling to profess their faith openly, even when it's threatened or illegal, the numbers may not be skewed quite so much, but still they would be.

Seriousy, if it's illegal, how many people do you expect to say "Oh yeah since you asked, actually I AM dodekatheistic...pardon me, but I need to go and dust out my shrine to Hera."

I would venture a guess that more than 2% of the population actually is something other than Greek Orthodox, but according to Wikipedia if you are of another faith (And by another faith, they mean Jewish or Muslim) you have to get a "church license"...I'm trying to find more information about that- Wikipedia inks to an external website on that point, but I haven't found anyhting there. I wonder what kind of enforcement there is...I mean, do they take attenance at church? Do they periodically raid synogogues and mosques and check the registry?


(Random things I learn from Wikipedia: According to its constitution, the president of the Republic of Lebanon must be a Maronite Catholic Christian.)

Comments

[pytheos.livejournal.com]

If caught practicing, you would be arrested.

[vees.livejournal.com]

This is the same reason why surveys about the drug war are dumb.