pagan religion

So, racial identifiers are not accidental, nor superficial, nor social constructs...but display something profound, inherited potentials.
A factor to keep in mind when dealing with individuals, without it prejudicing evaluations.

Also explanatory of the current situation in the US.

I think that part, without it prejudicing evaluations, is the bit I would emphasise.

I knew you would.
This is also part of the problem.
We feel ashamed, embarrassed, for seeing reality.
Nature is brutal, unjust, and seeing this without offering a disclaimer is like agreeing with it.  
But that's another issue.

One of those things we may have to agree to disagree on then.

Like saying...I know green fruit is usually unripe and sour, but this is not always the case, so I'm afraid of using this prejudice to judge all fruit, because it may hurt their feelings, or because I don't want to be judged like that, or because I don't want to miss out on a rare, unusual, sweetness.
So I only judge when I've tasted, and recognize no patterns, nor exceptions to the rule.

Well, as long as the environment isn't too demanding and unforgiving this attitude is efficient.

In the end the deciding factor is necessity. If there is no need, there is no desire.
Dependence is another factor.

Race is actually something of a quagmire for me anyway, since it is usually defined, at least in everyday speech, by visual appearance.

Maia wrote:

Race is actually something of a quagmire for me anyway, since it is usually defined, at least in everyday speech, by visual appearance.

I know...so for you it isn't a pattern you can perceive at a distance.

The way I define it applies to all sense organs.
It is about performance, i.e., behaviour, demeanour, potentials, probabilities.

When I say appears, I mean to all the sense organs, as what is present and has a distinct pattern.

Life = type of unity of patterns; Species = common pattern in a pattern; breed = sub-category, pattern in a pattern in a pattern; individual = sub-category of a sub-category = pattern in a pattern, in a pattern in a pattern.

When confronted with an intractable or controversial issue, I ask myself, ok, what next?

I like to think of myself as an optmist, and always try and seek the most positive solution.

When I was young and my father was alive we would often watch documentaries. My father was a nature lover, as well, and he loved documentaries.
Sometimes one would be shown of lions on the savannah and how they would kill and consume their prey.
Brutal scenes of lions eating a gazelle alive, as it still lived, tearing at its flesh.
My father would explode in anger "they should exterminate those creatures!!" he would say....explaining why he was a Marxist until his death.
It don't sound right to me, back then, even if I shared his inability to witness such raw brutality.
I still can't watch certain scenes of nature's cruelty, but I can't use my emotions to judge.
I know, now, why and how.
We homo sapiens, as a weak species - all things considered - identify with the plight of the prey, and we also identify with the source of your domination, in our dependence with a group.
Big strong groups satisfy our needs, in proportion to our sense of vulnerability.
We rarely, if ever, identify with the plight of the predator.
Especially we Indo-Europeans.  

This is partly why we are in the state we are in.


Spengler: "Optimism is cowardice sic."...first see what is, then try to reach an optimistic conclusion.

It's because we, as a species, have empathy. No other animal has this (almost certainly, anyway). We are also the only species capable of placing ourselves in the mind of another, to try and imagine what they experience. Empathy, therefore, is clearly a function of intelligence. Intelligence has made us what we are today.

Empathy does not automatically lead to sympathy nor antipathy.
Empathy is not evenly distributed in our species.

On average: Men are more interested in things. Women are more interested in people.

This is the most significant difference we know of, psychologically, between men and women.

The Skavlan Show - October 2018. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Maia wrote:

It's because we, as a species, have empathy. No other animal has this (almost certainly, anyway). We are also the only species capable of placing ourselves in the mind of another, to try and imagine what they experience. Empathy, therefore, is clearly a function of intelligence. Intelligence has made us what we are today.

You, as a female, are more interested in people, relationships, maintaining social cohesion, dependence, stability ...compassion.
This is not my primary interest.
I don't give a shit about feelings and how others will fair, and sympathy...
I care about what is. Then I can give consideration to the rest.

Then I hope we can agree to differ.

Maia wrote:

Then I hope we can agree to differ.

The difference between men and women is what makes life worth living.

On that, I'm 100% with you!

In regards to race...the process is bottom<>up similar to the scientific method.
What does science do?
How does science begin with the observable and then construct categories?
It studies the specific.
Like an individual.
then notices similarities, creating a category.
A kind, a type, a breed.
Then it notices more similarities that cross bred categories and so constructs a species category.

So, I begin with the individual, then notice similarities with other individuals, then I notice similarities that encompass both categories.
From the bottom, the present, the apparent, towards the idea.

Doesn't science study individuals to construct general categories?
It doesn't start with the idea, the all encompassing. The solution.
It begins with the study and analysis of the particular.
Are all cows exactly the same?
No, even cows have personalities, and a particular genetic inheritance establishing the individual's cow's essence.

Paganism doesn't need no church, no priests no scripture no commandments...know why?
Our church is nature....and whatever we do the benefits and the costs come to us straight from nature.
We can believe whatever we like because we will suffer the consequences and we will not try to unload the causes - responsibility - on others.

There is no "self-less" act. All acts are expressions of self and so are selfish, even suicide even altruism even generosity and greed.
The self always affirms itself through the act - it gives to receive.
Charity, for example is a power display.
We see selfishness is motherhood and the parental instincts.
Self being, once more, the continuum of patterns held together by memories - both DNA and experiential.
Conception being the partial merger of two such continuums to form a new one.
Ego being the lucid part of self - the part that becomes aware of itself. We use words to distinguish to clarify, to discriminate.
Nihilism uses words to conceal, to obscure, to fabricate, to negate, to deny and dismiss - to lie.  

To ascribe willfulness only to the ego and not to the entire self, is how Abrahamics deal with regret - and resentment.

Kindness cannot be taught, neither can creativity.
What can be taught is imitation of its expressions, not of its internal sources.

There are many kinds of felines, from lions, to leopards and form tigers to cheetahs.
Each has its identifying traits, each has its dominating feature, determines by its survival strategy.
We can't say one is better than the other, yet if we were to gauge which trait offered an advantage over all the rest we could determine this depending on our objectives and by simply analyzing which one dominates in nature, rather than in zoos or circuses - which one dominates in real world conditions with no human interventions.

Noticing and expressing such things does not imply we want to get rid or abuse any one of these kinds of feline - neither through miscegenation nor through extermination.
We notice was is present. We cannot ignore it hoping it will disappear. Ignoring it will not protect us from what is present; it will, in fact, make us vulnerable to what we turn away from.

The goddess Ananke is one of the primordial deities in the Hellenic pantheon.
Ananke = necessity, or need.
"Need" is how organic life experiences existence, viz., constant interactivity - attraction/repulsion, producing friction resulting in a loss of energy which requires replenishment.
"Suffering" is need left unsatisfied - exceeding the organism constitution and tolerance levels, i.e., endurance.
As such need is how lack is experienced, and since flux is constant need is also constant, falling beneath the levels of consciousness only when it falls to levels within an organism's endurance tolerance.
This decrease is experienced as pleasure; a sudden decrease experienced as orgasm, ecstasy.
Ergo, anything that reduces the experience of need/suffering is called "pleasing" - a negative state, though the experience is considered "positive".

This constant replenishing of energies being lost - pattern deterioration - may produce excess energies, if and when successful for a period of space/time.
These excess energies may be stored as reserves, e.g., fat, libidinal, nervous energies, that may be redirected towards beneficial , constructive, methods of expunging them: self-maintennace - correcting the affects of attrition; growth - expansion of an organism's field of effect, i.e., probable interactivity (power); fight/flight, nervous energies kept in reserve for a sudden explosive burst; reproduction - growth and nervous energies directed towards self-replication (heterosexuality evolving this as a partial self-replication via another's cooperative mediation)...and/or in higher organisms creativity, art - growth and nervous energies directed towards self-expression, self-reproduction via a medium...
These energies kept on stand-by - stored - also require effort to be contained/controlled which is experienced as stress.
Their release is also experienced as pleasure.
Desire is the sensation of this stress focused on a object/objective promising their expunging.

Therefore...we can separate the sources of pleasure into two categories.
Need = lack seeking satisfaction.
Desire = excess seeking gratification.
A third category may be added that includes both, to varying degrees, and we may call this "want".
Want = need/desire synthesis seeking gratification/satisfaction.

Need is the foundation.
Desire depends on the consistently successful satisfaction of needs producing excess energies in the organism which can be wilfully directed.

"The religion of Sol Invictus is so highly esteemed that many people,before entering in the Churches,after climbing the steps,turn to the Sun and bow their heads in honor of it.We are distressed and very sorry for this fact that is repeated for pagan mentality".
(Pope Leo I,461) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Ligures Ambrones (@LiguresA) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Satyr wrote:

Kindness cannot be taught, neither can creativity.
What can be taught is imitation of its expressions, not of its internal sources.

Agreed.

In nature - and paganism - there is no good versus evil.
There is only good versus bad - virtue versus vice - and always in relation to a goal.

Good/Evil is an Abrahamic fabrication of absolutes virtue and vice, implying an absolute objective.
Ironically those who cry against fascism imply the most authoritarian world-views, and those who deny free-will are the first to accuse.
Their exit plan, when light is cast upon their slithering existence in the darkness, is to scurry into the imaginary void of nil., where they hope they will escape the eyes of others who see who and what they are - via their motives.
Movement is essence. Action is essence.
Words referring to words is concealment - twisting the mind to confuse it.
First came the act - energy.

What confuses degenerates is sheltering; for how long and how much collectives have protected them from natural laws.
Perspectivism is reaching its irrational extreme due to this reduction of severity for almost all bad judgments and life choices.
Modernism wants to make reality fool proof, and this has other consequences, e.g., the increase in idiocy and infantilism.
It is now ingrained in the psychosis of the average mediocre mind, this modern entitlement to collectivized responsibilities that disseminate the consequences of bad judgments.
In nature slight mistakes lead to severe repercussion.
Over the decades this blurs the lines and convinces mediocrity that there is no such thing as a bad judgment or a bad choice.

A smart man that makes smart choices is now forced to share in the consequences of the idiot who makes bad choices, resulting in intellectual stagnation.
We are living ni an increasingly idiot-proff manmade environment - a brave New World where intelligence, prudence, wisdom is no longer advantageous.

This, too, is a by-product of living in manmade - artificial - environments almost completely detached from natural order.

@Maia
We've agreed that morality is not social or cultural but natural. The activity, at least. The moral behaviour, not th words spoken.
To say 'I love you' or 'I love the world' is verbal and can deceive, but the act cannot deceive because the act has a cost.
Culture gives it form, it encodes it and formalizes it and it also adds to it.
So, adultery is not tolerated because it would break apart the fabric of a society which is the family.
This is what is happening currently.
Ethics adds addendums to moral behaviour to produce a particular kind of man - guided by an ideal. Every culture has its own ideal and ideal man, so it has ethical codes that sublimate natural moral behaviours.

We know this because many species have moral behaviours. Social species. Species that use heterosexual reproduction have their own codes of conduct, particularly around mating season.

The next thing is to agree upon the relationship of an ethical code - and moral behaviour - with an objective.
Killing is neither good nor evil in nature, but the motive, the objective, determines the acts, the choice's, destructiveness or constructiveness in relation to an objective.

For example, in-group violence is destructive to cohesion so nature selects it out of species practicing cooperative strategies.
But out-group violence is not...and may be constructive.
This is why modern degenerates must make morality universal to include all humanity...but not all species.
The in-group is expanded to included all homo sapiens. this si not pagan, though a respect for all life is.
Pagans know that violence is, sometimes, necessary. And non-violence in certain circumstances would be destructive.

The objective is what makes a choice good or bad.
For example, the ancient Spartans had as their objective the creation of a warrior tribe, so they routinely destroyed infants born with a genetic deficiency.

Speaking as someone who would probably have been left on the hillside at birth, or, according to modern morality (which is apparently somehow better), aborted before birth, I would take the view, firstly, that we have moral obligations to all members of the society that we're part of, and that these obligations are practical and concrete.

The question then becomes, as you point out, what is our society? Is it our family, our tribe, our country, or the whole human race? I think the only reasonable answer to this is that it depends on the context. Levels of threat vary from local to global, and the responses should vary too.

Then you, like most, take your self interests as the standard. You aren't objective.
If I only considered good what benefited me then I would have to agree...but I don't.
My self-interests are irrelevant. More of a nuisance.
In order to understand what the hell is happening to our world you begin by taking yourself out of the equation.

Nevertheless, the objective - whatever it may be - is what determines the goodness or badness of an act.
Every objective is idealized.
An objective idealizes and promotes a particular kind of man.
Universal love, for example, leads to this corruption, even if it is impossible and no man can ever practice it.
Pagans first worshipped their dead as gods.
Blood was central. Family, tribe, ethnos. The hearth.
Universality is an Abrahamic ideal. Globalism is its secular form. This leads to our current state of affairs.

Let's put it another way...if we want to benefit a herd of asses is it best to protect them from wolves, to heal them from disease, to mix them with horses and zebras....which is best for the donkeys?
Can we destroy another with love?
What does nature say?