Why do modern Christians sometimes accuse Heathens of atheism?
Historically the church accused Heathens of worshipping devils and demons. Whenever we Heathens worshipped wood or stone images of the gods and thereby encountered the numinous, the Christians said that these idols were actually possessed by demons who tricked us into calling them gods. When the images were made to speak in the way that Woden taught mankind, then the church said that this was due to the magic of wizards. When our necromancers went to barrows and caused the dead to rise and converse with the living, the Christians, whose religion does not allow for the Heathen to have the power to undo death, therefore said that this was the devil in the shape of a dead man. The Christians never denied that the gods appeared to speak through idols, they never denied that the dead appeared to rise and converse with Heathens, instead they made up explanations to cope with these realities and preserve their world view by saying we had been deceived by evil beings in the shape of the dead or the gods.
But the modern Christian, particularly the very online sort, doesn’t bother with traditional Catholic doctrine. They go against the teachings of the early bishops and Saints who made the above declarations. Instead they accuse the Heathens of only pretending to believe in the gods and ancestors. In defying the Saints they are probably guilty of heresy within their dogma, but it is pertinent to consider why these modern Christians take such a radically different attitude toward Heathenry compared to the Christians of Early Medieval Europe. I think it is because they do not believe such things are even possible. For the majority of Christian history the belief in ghosts was taken for granted. It is the Protestant reformation that opened the door to a modern view that such beliefs are superstitious. From this great cleavage with the ancient world, the cults of scientism and materialism emerged. These cults are so pervasive that they inform the views of all Christians, not only Protestants but Catholics too, especially hyper-online Catholic converts. This explains why they accuse Heathens of atheism - it is a form of projection. These people do not believe in a holy ghost, nor in the witch of Endor’s necromantic power, nor in the talking serpent of Eden, nor in Nephilim or millions of horses with the heads of lions or any of the other fantastical beings that their holy book requires them to believe in. THEY are atheists and they do not believe in the Christian religion as they are supposed to, they merely pretend to. They pick and choose what to believe from the Bible, and they focus only on a soteriological doctrine from a universal god who, in the most sentimental terms, they describe as “love” and who is his own son who brings the message of “love” to mankind. This common Christian view is not really the religion of the Bible. It is practically atheism, and in many cases I suspect the “converts” are cynical atheists who find the aesthetics and consoling continuity of Christianity appealing because it has been present in our culture for so long. They don’t really believe in it. These are the people who then say we are only interested in Heathenry because we like the “aesthetic” - which makes no sense because the aesthetics of Heathenry changed a lot from the Migration to the Viking era and the modern Heathen religion has no prescribed aesthetic. They are really speaking about themselves because they do not know what it is like to encounter the numinous, or to enter communion with one’s departed ancestors.
I should stress that I have hardly ever had any negative experiences with Christians in real life throughout the 15 years I have practised the True religion, but rather our most fervent opponents are limited to the online sphere. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks".
