Is it just me or is it impossible to completely convert certain peoples to a religion?
I live in Lithuania and the majority here are Roman Catholics. I noticed that many people here, myself included, feel a certain spirituality towards trees and forests, much like the old pre-christian pagans. There was also a sort of a return of pagan ideals and religion to some extent in recent decades.
We have many poets that write about the beauty of nature (particularly forests) and this trend is still going ever since we were baptized 500~ years ago.
Is this just some phenomenon of geography? Culture? Something else?
Pursue your individual mysticism my man
>>420547
I feel as if almost every culture in the world has some degree of nature fascination. Whether it be British and druids, to Germans dressing up like wolves and yiffing.
>>420581
Really? I heard the french literature about nature is non-existent?
It's not a "degree" of fascination.
Every notable poet here has written something about nature.
It's strange because everyone feels a certain pull towards nature here, even the city folks.
literally every culture reveres nature in some form
>>420607
Theirs doesn't feel the same though.
Definitely a European and US movement away from institutionalized religions, and towards more earth- and nature- based religions. God is everywhere...including nature!
>>420547
Most Europeans converted to Christianity because it appealed to their religious sensibilities. Traditional Germanic religion especially was weakening under hero cults that celebrated personal triumphs and the admission to glorious afterlife because of those triumphs (one of the reasons raiding became a normal occupation). Clever priests took advantage of this relative apatheism and turned Christ into an ultimate hero cult, where one worships the man that defeated death itself and who grants his worshipers an eternal life after death, escaping even Ragnarok.
>>420581
Humans begin and end with "nature". The anatomically modern humans had to spend millions of years with their developing advanced consciousness trying to survive by gathering, scavenging, and hunting (if possible), living with bears, wolves, big cats, snakes, scorpions, etc. God is found in whatever one fears.
>>420647
To add, my point is that I don't think most people really move past old ideas, they just get incorporated in other ways. The only people that get really upset about the "old ways" are whatever priesthood is involved because their whole mission is establishing orthodoxy and orthopraxy. These efforts may or may not be successful in convincing the populace but what you end up getting is a mostly new culture with elements of the old. And this is true across the board, really. The same thing with Europeans and the introduction of Christianity existed in Arabia and the introduction of Islam, China and the introduction of Daoism and Confucianism, etc.
>>420616
>Theirs doesn't feel the same though.
Because it's not yours.
>>420547
What does having an affinity to nature have to do with paganism vs. Christianity? How did this line of thinking start?
Affinity for creation is innate in all humans, as you have noticed.
>>423411
"Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honour and all blessings.
To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.
Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.
Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.
Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You my Lord through our Sister,
Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial.
Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they will be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,
from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.
No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks,
And serve Him with great humility. "
- St. Francis of Assisi
I am Latinamerican and the Native American religions are just bafflingly alien to me. Must be the Spanish genes.
"But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you."
Job 12:7-8
Canadian Catholic here.
I understand what you mean. Seems more like a human phenomenon to me, which is perhaps why Baroque artwork is so appealing to so many still. We are awe inspired by things which are on such a scale, and which are so much larger than us. And they're ultimately things we need; storms, mountains, earthquakes, things of nature which are on a magnitude we can hardly comprehend.
>>420547
The concept of "certain peoples" has pretty much been eliminated from historiography because of its mystic elements. The last hold out was Soviet historiography's nationalist bent, or crazies like Goldhagen's blood guilt hypothesis.
I think the simplest explanation that will satisfy you is that deep themes in Lithuanian culture reference and rereference "the natural" and "the forest" as the natural in ways that allow you to feel spiritual meaning about the forest.
Come see "the bush" in Australia and you'll have a very different reaction.
>>420547
I think that each of our personal religions is necessarily syncretic. It's a strange mixture of personal experience with received knowledge (and in rare cases, Wisdom).
I think there are certain usurping Truths, or Virtues, personally. Like Christ -- I think there is a very personal, human face to the face of God.
>>420547
>>423734
and I think that people can be converted to those truths.
If it were not for that paradox, that we always seem only half-way converted, all religious thought would cease.
>>420547
"He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He casts forth his ice like morsels;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends forth his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow."
Psalm 147:16-18
>>423715
>Come see "the bush" in Australia and you'll have a very different reaction.
Not very true; the original 'spiritual wilderness' that created monastics was the desert.
>>420547
>feel a certain spirituality
That's just called emotion. There's no such thing as spirituality.
>is it impossible to completely convert certain peoples to a religion?
Yes. Religion amounts to the sentences you think, feelings you have, and the significance you give them. Signifigance ranges from seeking to repeat sentences and feelings by joining, creating, or proctoring a specific community or through ritual, to telling yourself the sentences you think describe a supernatural ontological realm.
>Is this just some phenomenon of geography? Culture? Something else?
It's a feature of people giving the sentences they think unrealistic significance.
>intermittent significance about Roman Catholicism, trees, forests
It gets hard to compare the absurd notions you keep if you get enough of them and never let them all go.
