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cultus deorum, Heathen, heathens for social justice, heathens united against racism, Hel, Pagan, Religion, social justice, social justice paganism, transphobia
A Social Justice, the great belief that all people should be equal. Equality of rights, equality of pay, equality of outcomes, and of course, equality of privileges. And by God, we will re-educate, harass, threaten, bully, punish, and ostracize you until you are equal to everyone else and believe as we do. You white cis-male piece of shit!*
I mean, what kind of world would we live in if everyone had freedom of thought (they might commit WrongThink!), or choice (they might end up more successful! Or worse, less successful!), or to dictate their own morality (they might become MISOGYNISTIC, TRANSPHOBIC, RACISTS!!!!!!).
So you should always thank your SocJus overlords for their constant assistance in telling you how to live and think. I mean, sill me, I thought Paganism was about worshiping the Gods, but clearly, I was wrong. After all, there’s this to consider:
I mean, why spend countless hours studying ancient, misogynistic, racist texts of previous civilizations telling you what those evil, misogynistic, racist Gods and Goddesses believed, when you can use this nice friendly ideology as your canon instead? After all, Goddesses like Juno, Venus, Frigg, and Freya have all clearly been compromised by their internalized misogyny to the point where they are Goddess who Stay at Home, and this clearly will not do when women only make up a fraction of CEOs in America!!!!
But come now, I know it’s hard to understand that SocJus is here to help you. After all, those wonderous prophets of SocJust Paganism face the horrors of things like this in their practice!
I mean, how can we allow such White Supremacy as allowing “white” Gods and Goddesses to sit atop a hierarchy which privileges them and their followers who worship them, when there are just so many more issues to be dealt with. Like black people dying at the hands of Cops (who cares if many of these deaths were the result of self defense, resisting lawful arrests, or while attempting to harm other people, black people died!!!!!)
After all, equality is good, so we should all have equality! Why, even the Gods should be equal, shouldn’t they? After all, we wouldn’t want the gods to have undue privileges, those white cis bastards. After all, they didn’t earn those privileges. And if they don’t like SocJus being the basis of religious thought, then they need to work on their internalized misogynistic, transphobic, racist selves.
I mean, the fact that except for some Lokeans, it seems Social Justice Pagans have to worship some unnamed Goddess and God doesn’t mean anything about how the Gods and Goddesses actually feel about the constant witch hunts, thought purges, and expulsion of Wrong Thinker imbued by our wondrous Social Justice Theology that works for all paths and branches of Paganism! (Well, except for those filthy Dianics and their Transphobic Goddess Diana. Bitch needs to re-educate her divine self. Men can be women too! Or those Baccanals where men dress up as women, how dare they be so transphobic and not understand trans people’s pain? And we really need to work on all these Racist Heathens with their emphasis on White Cis Gods from Europe, I mean clearly, such racist privileging of White Gods in their religion cannot be allowed in our Diverse circles. And we neeeed to seriously talk with the Cultus Deorum about how problematic it is that their Gods keep raping all these women. Like, I was totally triggered about that story of Hades sleeping with Persephone, I mean, that’s clearly rape. I don’t care if he was forcibly drugged and couldn’t consent either, it was his fault! They really need to stop privileging these Rapists in their worship! They need to address their whole rape culture. And that Goddess Hel? Seriously, that whole half white, half black thing? she needs to stop pretending she isn’t white. Trans-racialism isn’t real, you’re Born your race, you can’t change it, and you can always tell by their skin color {but remember, penis don’t mean you a man, that’s transphobic you cis-scum}. Only a racist would think they could stop being a privileged white person and steal the pain of minority peoples.)
Social Justice is totally compatible with Paganism and Heathenism. Now excuse me, I have to go back to my safe-space*** because dealing with all you shit lords has triggered me!
*
what’s that, you’re not white/cis/male? Well, you’re just a sock puppet who isn’t a real person, or you’ve so internalized the misogyny and racism of our white supremacist culture that you can’t tell you’re a misogynistic racist. Now hush you poor thing, I’m speaking for you to save you.
**
To be clear, White supremacy is defined here, and throughout, simply as a racial hierarchy in which Whiteness sits on top and from which White privilege flows. In this hierarchical system, the benefits bestowed upon White people can be found in the very organizing principles of many non-profit and collective spaces. – See more at: http://wildhunt.org/2015/08/column-social-justice-is-my-spiritual-practice.html#sthash.ddwgk4vG.dpuf
In English: hierarchies are White people stuff, and no minority civilization has ever had hierarchies, ranks, or power structures that were not 100% completely equal and democratic.
***
In addition, a new group has formed called Heathens For Social Justice (HFSJ), which was created after the June events. HFSJ is run by nine democratically-elected board members. They describe the group as a “safe space” and as being “committed to fighting all oppressions, wherever [they] find them, in service to both [the] heathen community and [their] local, regional and national communities.” Organizers added, “We are about action, not platitudes.” – See more at: http://wildhunt.org/2015/07/pagan-community-notes-robert-rudachyk-fairy-survey-many-gods-west-heathen-groups-and-more.html#sthash.snV1SV8e.dpuf
Yeah, that’s not a joke. There’s a group of “Heathens” who have created a Safe Space. Because, really, the way to get to Valhalla is not through battle, it’s by hiding in a room with coloring books away from people who think differently, while calling them racists. That’s completely compatible with Heathenism. XD
I have to wonder why you’re getting so worked up over other people’s stupidity. I mean how drastically does social justice affect your life day to day? As I understand, it from friends who are heathen, the top five priorities are God’s, family, community, honor and duty. If that’s the case how many heathens actually give a damned about social justice? I have to wonder why it bothers you so much. Is it because you’re angry that more of it doesn’t apply to you and your station in the world? Are you concerned that people might stop taking you seriously? I think you need to examine more in depth why it bothers you so deeply. So far all your diatribes seem to be reactive instead of reflective.
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Well, let’s get reflective then.
When you get down to it, Social Justice as an ideology sounds good, but generally produces only violence and authoritarianism. In seeking to achieve “equality” there is a near constant effort to force equality and to vilify and destroy those who have achieve a state of “privilege” above other people. Rather than trying to raise up those below, it seeks to tear down those above.
It is, really, the epitome of what Nietzsche calls the “slave morality.”
So why get worked up about some other people’s stupidity? Well, if it was merely people being stupid, that would be one thing and I wouldn’t care about it. But it never stays that way. When you look at nearly every area in which social justice shows up, from Paganism, to Gaming, to Metal, to Movies, to Fiction, to even College campuses, they force their standards of behavior and belief on everyone else and bully those who disagree at a minimum. I’ve seen social justice proponents censoring art they find “problematic” even when it was a proper nod to history. I’ve seen them try to remove sacred Pagan texts because they were “triggered” by events described. They have even managed to change the rules for sexual assault on college campuses to the point where it is nearly impossible for two people to prove they had consensual sex.
And this is troublesome. Because when you vilify people, vilify sex, vilify thoughts other than your own, you start down a very dark and terrible path. Paganism got started because we all wanted freedom to believe, to set our own moral by the Gods we chose, not to be dictated what we should believe.
So if I am reactive, it is because I have reflected on what the end results…no, what the current results and the coming results will be. If I am forceful, it is because ignoring has proven to do nothing to preserve the freedoms of people that social justice proponents find problematic or offensive. And if I am bitter, it is because I know what their actions have cost us.
When I first got into the Online Pagan community, the Dianics were a rather well known group with some influence, and their leader Z Budapest was well respected. And then, because of SJ intolerance the Dianics religion was attacked, their leader disgraced, they were driven from the public forums, and all because they refused to budge on a religious definition of what a woman was, given to them by their Goddess. Now, I did not agree with what the Dianics believed, in fact I found them highly misandric, but that was their path as dictated by the goddess Diana. And they were able to help women who had suffered really bad trauma. But now they can’t. They’re “transphobic” and “problematic” and they either cannot practice their rituals at festivals anymore, or must violate the tenants of their goddess to include people whose presence they found painful and who violate their Goddess’s definition of a “woman.”
On a closer note to myself, HUAR has been attacking nearly every Heathen group of note (and many of lesser renown), labeling them as racists, and the recent split I mentioned above is because a splinter group was pissed they wouldn’t call Heathen groups homo/transphobic while they were at it. And when I say they have called every major Heathen group as racists, I do mean it, including the universalist groups who don’t believe you have to have Norse heritage to worship Norse Gods. And remember, what a label of being Racist does to a person, much less an entire organization or religion. The only representation Heathens have in the Larger media is as Racists, because that’s what we have been universally labeled by Social Justice proponents both in and outside the Heathen community.
Covenant of the Goddess has been forced to have a Social Justice committee to permanently go over all their press releases and literature. To make sure that they are thinking the right way. That isn’t stupidity. That is outright villainy and totalitarianism. And all for the sin of saying that every life matters. Now you can say that such a thing was stupid, or insisting that they hold to “black lives matter” is stupid, but when you insist that only one group of lives matter and to say otherwise is tantamount to a cardinal sin, then you have passed into the realm of being Racist. CoG has essentially created a Racist Committee to oversee them. Stupid, yes, but horrifying as well.
So how much does SJ affect my daily life? When I’m called a racist because of my religion, when I’m called a misogynist because of my hobbies, and when the books and shows I read are censored or co-opted to either preach their message, or bullied for not preaching their message…I’d say that much of my, and your, daily life has been highly affected by SJ
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I can’t say I agree with you. What I can say is I think you’ve let your focused narrow to near vendetta worthy levels. I’d like to propose a topic change. Perhaps you could discuss how you justify being a ‘God’ of law when the law sees to it that the rich stay stupidly rich and the poor become hopelessly poorer and even homeless.
As an added challenge discuss this in a blog post and do it without rreferencing social justice at all.
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