Paganism and natural order.

Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis wrote:

The religion of these primitive ages was exclusively domestic; so also were morals. Religion did not say to a man, showing him another man, ‘That is thy brother’. It said to him, ‘That is a stranger; he cannot participate in the religious acts of thy hearth; he cannot approach the tomb of thy family; he has other gods than shine, and cannot unite with thee in a common prayer; thy gods reject his adoration, and regard him as their enemy; he is thy foe also’.
In this religion of the hearth man never supplicates the divinity in favor of other men; he invokes him only for himself and his. A Greek proverb has remained as a souvenir and a vestige of this ancient isolation of man in prayer. In Plutarch's time they still said to the egotist, ‘You sacrifice to the hearth.’ This signified, ‘You separate yourself from other citizens; you have no friends; your fellow-men are nothing to you; you live solely for yourself and yours.’ This proverb pointed to a time when, all religion being around the hearth, the horizon of morals and of affection had not yet passed beyond the narrow circle of the family.
It is natural that moral ideas, like religious ideas, should have their commencement and progress, and the god of the primitive generations in this race was very small; by degrees men made him larger; so morals, very narrow and incomplete at first, became insensibly enlarged, until, from stage to stage, they reached the point of proclaiming the duty of love towards all mankind. The point of departure was the family, and it was under the influence of the domestic religion that duties first appeared to the eyes of man.

Fustel de Coulanges wrote:

We must place ourselves, in thought, in the midst of these primitive generations to understand how lively and powerful were these sentiments, which were already enfeebled in Cicero's day. For us the house is merely a domicile — a shelter; we leave it, and forget it with little trouble; or, if we are attached to it, this is merely by the force of habit and of recollections; because, for us, religion is not there; our God is the God of the universe, and we find him everywhere. It was entirely different among the ancients; they found their principal divinity within the house: this was their providence, which protected them individually, which heard their prayers, and granted their wishes. Out of the house, man no longer felt the presence of a god; the god of his neighbour was a hostile god. Then a man loved his house as he now loves his church. Thus the religion of the primitive ages was not foreign to the moral development of this part of humanity. Their gods enjoined purity, and forbade the shedding of blood; the notion of justice, if it was not born of this belief, must at least have been fortified by it. These gods belonged in common to all the members of the same family; thus the family was united by a powerful tie, and all its members learned to love and respect each other. These gods lived in the interior of each house; a man loved his house, his home, fixed and durable, which he had received from his ancestors, and which he transmitted to his children as a sanctuary.

Fustel de Coulanges wrote:

The Public Repasts. We have already seen that the principal ceremony of the domestic worship was a repast, which they called a sacrifice. To eat food prepared upon an altar was, to all appearance, the first form which men gave to the religious act. The need of putting themselves in communion with the divinity was satisfied by this repast, to which they invited him, and of which they gave him his part. The principal ceremony of the city worship was also a repast of this nature; it was partaken of in common by all the citizens, in honor of the protecting divinities. The celebrating of these public repasts was universal in Greece; and men believed that the safety of the city depended upon their accomplishment. The Odyssey gives us a description of one of these sacred feasts: Nine long tables are spread for the people of Pylos; at each one of them five hundred citizens are seated, and each group has immolated nine bulls in honor of the gods. This repast, which was called the feast of the gods, begins and ends with libations and prayers. The ancient custom of repasts in common is also mentioned in the oldest Athenian traditions. It is related that Orestes, the murderer of his mother, arrived at Athens at the very moment when the city, assembled about its king, was performing the sacred act. The public meals of Sparta are well known, but the idea which men ordinarily entertain of them is very far from the truth. They imagine the Spartans living and eating always in common, as if private life had not been known among them. We know, on the contrary, from ancient authors, that the Spartans often took their meals in their own houses, in the midst of their families. The public meals took place twice a month, without reckoning holidays. These were religious acts of the same nature as those which were practiced at Athens in Argos, and throughout Greece.

Satyr wrote:

Monotheism, goes hand-in-glove with monopolies.

Slaughtz wrote:

Paganism proliferates, not reduces, the amount of Gods/'Idols' when, out of dissolution into the known, they are no longer mythical new Gods arise as what is natural becomes again an avenue of revelation for what appear as smaller deities. The extremist reduction of all to great minimums is the refusal of the believer of an old God to let go; demonstrating a desperation to keep a frontier open - a frontier which tied closely to a, or some, vulnerability. We witness the same happening with the refusal to acknowledge racial reality and differences.

When Gods intersect, they increasingly dissolve. It is distinction which must be progressing. And Gods are not lonesome and their genders not different for no reason; taken individually they lose meaning. Their interactions and myths have as much if not most value.

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Athens had its Gods. Other countries, likewise, even fighting with those that have the same religious pantheon (i.e. Sparta). Having the same religion does not presuppose 'getting along'. Those Gods represented larger human patterns, racial patterns, and ethnic. Aspects of Gods destroyed/minimized/enlarged - even from battle itself - others achieving apotheosis.

A single 400-year-old ancient oak produces 234,000 litres of oxygen a year, and may support more than 2,000 species of bird, insect, fungus, and lichen. Let's look after the trees. Via [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Little Green Space (@LGSpace) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Paganism sacralizes and thereby exalts this world whereas Judeo-Christian monotheism sanctifies and thereby retreats from this world. Paganism is based on the idea of the sacred. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Alain de Benoist (@Daily_Benoist) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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The symbol of the World Tree, the World or Universal Column or pillar is one that is shared throughout Indo-European cultures, and is unilaterally representative of the masculine or male essence within creation and being/becoming. Hence, we see the tree/column most
often associated with the personification of a Creator-, Sky God or Sky Father (partner or spouse to the Earth Mother or Earth-feminine principle). Such is in fact the case within both Scandinavian and Germanic understandings-

From the Nordic Eddas comes a vivid account of the fashioning and ordering of the multiverse or cosmos by Wodan, Willo, and Wîh. The fruit of their labor is best illustrated within the mythic cycles as the World- or Universal/Cosmic Tree, Yggdrasil and the nine worlds which it holds and supports -the very tree upon which Wodan would later sacrifice himself in facilitating a death-initiative evolution that subsequently wins him the knowledge of and mastery over the runes. From these accounts, Wodan came to be associated with the Tree and of the mysteries and power it holds, and to this day it bears the God’s name: Yggdrasil. The Irminsul is similarly named for a God or divine/Creator essence.--- James Hjuka Coulter, Germanic Heathenry

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The term itself (Irmin) is an Old High German form related to or drawn from an older, Gothic aírmana, which itself derives from the Proto-Germanic ermuna or ermana, and is related to Latvian (e)rms:..µe..s:marvelous apparition, and Greek rushing furiously…interestingly, these terms are quite reminiscent of traits or characteristics typically attributed or known of Wodan: brings our attention to Wodan as the Lord of the Dead, and leader of the wild or furious host that rushes forth on the winter winds, the infamous Wild Hunt. The Latvian (e)rms calls to mind Wodan as God of All-light, the repository of All-wisdom and All-being, the source of Armanic wisdom, the shining Armangot, the true manifestation of Artor (Ar-tor) himself. From the same Proto-Germanic root (ermana)
is drawn the Germanic stem word ermen [found in both Middle Low German (Ermenrík) and Middle High German (Ermenrich)], Old
English Eormen (a name of Wodan) and Old Icelandic Jørmunr (another name of Wodan).

The Irminsul -the pillar of Irmin- is clearly the pillar of Wodan, the World Tree that stands at the center of the All, that point from which all roads both originate and hence return! It is the conduit of runic form and force, the embodiment of the ordering of the multiverse (the working of Wodan, Willo, and Wîh), the beam upon which Wodan hung in sacrifice to himself…It is that mighty column by which the Gods hold Thing-That very stead at which their dooms are set, and judgments made…The Irminsul is the symbol of the enduring ALL, the enduring spirit and power of our folk and our blood, and of the ultimate source of that blood and progenitor of our folk: Irmin-Wodan!---James Hjuka Coulter, Germanic Heathenry