What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

[hyem]

Hi,

All over the internet including some posts here I keep on seeing Armenians advertising Armenian paganism.

I guess this is something relatively new.

But I am confused exactly what they are trying to sell.

It seems that almost all of them mix in Aryanism, which was a signal for me that they are confused individuals.

Then I came across AAO in Armenia. They are soliciting for money to build some temple, and are advocating something called Aria Christianity. I read the lengthy article and did not understand anything and left with a headache. Something about replacing the old testament with Armenian history because the old testament has too much xxxishness, which is ironic considering the AAO founder could be mistaken for a rabbi himself.

In any case, can someone please explain to me what these people believe in exactly?

Are they just the Armenian version of neo-druid geeks who play dress up and role play as witches?

[jgk3]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

I don't know what they are. All I know is that the Armenian Church did a great job of destroying much of the relics of our pre-Christian history, we hardly know anything about our ancient religions... Zoroastrianism in Armenia is a hot topic for research however, a domain of inquiry that's spearheaded in western academia by a xxx known as James Russell, whom most of these AAO folk would probably want to burn on a pike before listening to, just for being a xxx. So whatever these folks are trying to "ressurrect" isn't exactly gonna be much of a return to the ancient, old stuff they crave to identify themselves with.

[Yedtarts]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

Yes our famous and beloved Armenian history falsifier James Russell.

Watch all the 5 parts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tr0Wd7ruWs

[jgk3]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

Yes our famous and beloved Armenian history falsifier James Russell.

Watch all the 5 parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tr0Wd7ruWs

I've watched those already, and I dare any Armenian who actually knows about his research to agree with our bullying of him like that.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

I've watched those already, and I dare any Armenian who actually knows about his research to agree with our bullying of him like that.

Plenty of Armenians don't need to know about something to have an opinion about something - so many (the majority?) will agree with that Armenian nutter, mostly for no other reason than that he is Armenian and his opponent is not (that is the extend of what they think they need to know).

[Yedtarts]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

I've watched those already, and I dare any Armenian who actually knows about his research to agree with our bullying of him like that.

Who was bulling who? He was lying about what he wrote and was calling the guy fascist and anti Semite every time he was confronted and cornered, you call that he was bullied?

[Yedtarts]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

Plenty of Armenians don't need to know about something to have an opinion about something - so many (the majority?) will agree with that Armenian nutter, mostly for no other reason than that he is Armenian and his opponent is not (that is the extend of what they think they need to know).

One more time if you didn’t get it the first time! We know very well who we are, we know very well our history, where we came from, what happened to us and who were the perpetrators and the executioners of the AG. We don’t need some sold-out historians or politicians with a certain agenda to tell us otherwise.

[jgk3]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

Who was bulling who? He was lying about what he wrote and was calling the guy fascist and anti Semite every time he was confronted and cornered, you call that he was bullied?

My only criticism of James Russell is that he's not nowhere near as forceful as the interviewer, who's much more effective in limiting the other person from explaining the background behind his opinions, creating more space for himself to hammering his own world view into James' face at every opportunity he gets. Therefore, how the hell can you call this an "interview"?

[jgk3]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

One more time if you didn’t get it the first time! We know very well who we are, we know very well our history, where we came from, what happened to us and who were the perpetrators and the executioners of the AG. We don’t need some sold-out historians or politicians with a certain agenda to tell us otherwise.

Yedtarts, how does any of this relate to the AG? By tying Western academia on Armenia into a conspiracy theory, you're promoting the alienation of Armenians from speaking at a higher level about their history than say a hypothetical case of an Englishman who believes King Arthur pulled out the sword from the stone, and anyone who says otherwise is the equivalent of a genocidal Turk.

Turks use Western academia perhaps as "revisionism" to attack the Armenian church's historiography we cling onto, which in this day and age, taken on its own 'without further inquiries'/'at face value', holds no currency outside of Armenia, just like the historiography told by the Old Testament without any serious re-analysis because to do so is to question the word of God, holds no academic currency either. So by holding onto this church history of ours, of course it becomes very easy to see some kind of "international conspiracy theory" run by "xxxs and Turks, who want to wipe us out". In reality, what is going on here is just coincidental preferences of some findings made by Western scholars about Armenia that suit the interests of Turks to make a lot of noise about in order to attack the legitimacy of our history in other areas where there is less ground to disprove, such as perhaps, the fact that Eastern Turkey is a homeland to Armenians. The western scholars would never say such a thing, and by attacking them just because Turks use their work out of context to attack our history in an academically bankrupt way... is just as ridiculous as what the Turks are doing.

In reality, the intent on the part of western scholars to make these conclusions that are so outrageous to Armenians such as that interviewer, is nowhere near genocidal. In fact they are eager to work with Armenians for linguistic and archaeological purposes and do not wish to steal any credit from Armenia for discoveries they have found about her history. What they don't defend are stories about Armenia's history which stand on shaky ground, such as the conclusion that Movses Khorenatsi's history of Armenia being written by a single author in the 5th century, without question. Or about how the Armenian Alphabet came into Mesrop Mashtots' head from a divine dream. The only people who would defend those things (and be outraged by scholars who don't defend them, but openly challenge their legitimacy) are patriotic Armenians who are not coming from the same worldview as these scholars, and are not familiar with academia, and thus are oblivious to ways it can actually be used to Armenia's advantage. It reminds me of a similar situation with Tibet and China... On the one hand, the western academia which doesn't begin from a Tibetan Buddhist historiographic standpoint, contradicts the mythical beliefs of Tibetans being held as historical facts, and on the other, proves beyond question through its diligent inspection of facts about Tibetan civilization and its chronology (even if the story being told contradicts the traditional religious narrative of Tibetans) that China is occupying land that it cannot claim as Chinese in history and culture. This is a very similar situation to what is going on between Armenians and Turks concerning the regions that are being denied by Turks as being historically Armenian in not just demographics, but also in civilization.

Of course if people start to question our traditional myths taken as truth, it's gonna anger Armenians who take the church stories to be the real deal. But the fact of the matter is, international academia will be as reluctant to accept, at a wholesale level, the credibility of an anachronistic story, or a divinely written alphabet when records reveal human records of its characters used up to 800 years prior to the earliest attestation of the Armenian Alphabet, than they would accept the idea that Turks are descended from a she-wolf and that the islands of Turks & Caicos was colonized by Turkish merchants in the 15th or 16th century, navigating out of the Mediterranean sea, across the ocean to the Caribbean, just because that's part of "Turkish History", and is apparently good for any healthy, patriotic Turk to know about.

[hrai]

Re: What do the Armenian neopagans believe in exactly?

I don't know what they are. All I know is that the Armenian Church did a great job of destroying much of the relics of our pre-Christian history, we hardly know anything about our ancient religions... Zoroastrianism in Armenia is a hot topic for research however, a domain of inquiry that's spearheaded in western academia by a xxx known as James Russell, whom most of these AAO folk would probably want to burn on a pike before listening to, just for being a xxx. So whatever these folks are trying to "ressurrect" isn't exactly gonna be much of a return to the ancient, old stuff they crave to identify themselves with.

jgk3, this is true for all religions throughout the world not just the Armenian Church.
New religions super-imposed themselves on the older, hijacking sites of worship, sites of pilgrimage,festivals and the plethora of gods.
The ancient worlds many lesser gods are replicated in Christianitys saints.
The relatively recent revival of interest in paganism is interesting, perhaps a pseudo-bohemian need to believe in something while rejecting the beliefs/standards of the majority.
These people might turn to Christianity if they lived in a totally pagan society.
I'm Christian and have a higher opinion of atheists than those playing pagans.