Atheism and being Armenian

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Not only Armenians but Russians as well were forced to give up their Orthodoxy as Churches were destroyed and priests were killed. For about 1,600 years until the Armenian Genocide, Christianity played a very important role in our identity. The Armenian identity. Our every day lives were part of it.

For the past 100 years and after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Armenians of Armenia became Atheists because of Soviet doctrine. Still, I believe that our religion was still stronger than the Soviet Union's propaganda so many Armenians actually kept their faith, although in secret.

In the above, if you were to replace "Christianity" with "Pagan" and "churches" with "temples", and then replace "Soviet doctrine" with "Christianity" then you will be writing about what happened to the population of Armenia in the 4th century AD.

Although both conversions were imposed from above, unlike during the imposition of Christian doctrine, considerably less priests were killed and only a handful of religious shrines were actually demolished during the imposition of Soviet doctrine.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

There are problems with the reliability of history of the subject by the subject, sometimes. Can we be sure something like that wasn't promulgated to help create a disconnect with the past pagan ways?

"Armenian Legends and Poems" is not (and never was meant to be) an academic book. It was bought by those who already knew the subject, and bought as a bit of expensive fluff for show (the 1910s equivalent of a "coffee-table book").

[Siggie]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

There are many historical texts and I'm definite this was common knowledge up until the years of the Genocide.

"It is said by ancient Armenian historians that the Armenians were originally worshippers of the One True God, but they, like all other nations, deserted Him and took up with various religions. Sun-worship was one of these; Zoroastrianism also had its turn; in due course, the Greeks introduced their own deities; even India succeeded in making its influence felt. Strabo has it that the Armenians, during the period of the Arsacid dynasty, were of the same religion as the Parthians. It appears that the Armenians fused together Zoroastrianism and the polytheism of Greece and other nations, thus combining eastern and western religion. One result of this fusion was that though the Zoroastrians made no visible representation of their God, the temples of Armenia were full of images, brought from Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Greece."

Armenian Legends and Poems [1916] at sacred-texts.com

There are problems with the reliability of history of the subject by the subject, sometimes. Can we be sure something like that wasn't promulgated to help create a disconnect with the past pagan ways? It wouldn't be the first time Christianity employed those sorts of tactics to encourage converts to let go of the past. That something was common knowledge, does not necessarily make it true. E.g., Americans think the interaction between the Pilgrims and Natives looked like the crap Thanksgiving story they're fed in grade school; doesn't make it so.

Not only Armenians but Russians as well were forced to give up their Orthodoxy as Churches were destroyed and priests were killed. For about 1,600 years until the Armenian Genocide, Christianity played a very important role in our identity. The Armenian identity. Our every day lives were part of it.

For the past 100 years and after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Armenians of Armenia became Atheists because of Soviet doctrine. Still, I believe that our religion was still stronger than the Soviet Union's propaganda so many Armenians actually kept their faith, although in secret. The Armenians of the diaspora continued their faith in Christianity as normal since the countries they moved to for the most part encouraged, rather than discouraged religion.

This is why the average diaspora Armenian tends to be more religious than the average Armenian from Armenia.

I'll get to the rest later.

What documentation is there of "many Armenians of Armenia [becoming] Atheists because of Soviet doctrine"? Admittedly, I do not know a lot about this time period. If there are scholarly sources you can point me to, I would greatly appreciate it.

But does the average diasporan Armenian tend to be more religious? Has there been a survey of various Armenians around the world? I don't know that we can just assume this is true then use it to bolster the argument by saying it's consistent.

I just don't think "we've been X a really long time" is a good enough reason to continue that way. "That's how we've always done it" isn't a good argument in my opinion.

Will a decrease in religiosity spell the end of Armenian identity? I don't know why we should assume it does. We certainly have plenty of anecdotes to the contrary, so at the very least we can say it doesn't invariability lead to that.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

I don't know how you can make a statement like at no point in time did Armenians not believe in a god. How do you know this? Do you have accurate records spanning the entirety of the history of the Armenian people? Do you have any records spanning that time? Yeah, didn't think so...

There are many historical texts and I'm definite this was common knowledge up until the years of the Genocide.

"It is said by ancient Armenian historians that the Armenians were originally worshippers of the One True God, but they, like all other nations, deserted Him and took up with various religions. Sun-worship was one of these; Zoroastrianism also had its turn; in due course, the Greeks introduced their own deities; even India succeeded in making its influence felt. Strabo has it that the Armenians, during the period of the Arsacid dynasty, were of the same religion as the Parthians. It appears that the Armenians fused together Zoroastrianism and the polytheism of Greece and other nations, thus combining eastern and western religion. One result of this fusion was that though the Zoroastrians made no visible representation of their God, the temples of Armenia were full of images, brought from Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Greece."

Armenian Legends and Poems [1916] at sacred-texts.com

Nor was atheism forced on them. Were Armenians atheists while part of the Soviet Union?

Not only Armenians but Russians as well were forced to give up their Orthodoxy as Churches were destroyed and priests were killed. For about 1,600 years until the Armenian Genocide, Christianity played a very important role in our identity. The Armenian identity. Our every day lives were part of it.

For the past 100 years and after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Armenians of Armenia became Atheists because of Soviet doctrine. Still, I believe that our religion was still stronger than the Soviet Union's propaganda so many Armenians actually kept their faith, although in secret. The Armenians of the diaspora continued their faith in Christianity as normal since the countries they moved to for the most part encouraged, rather than discouraged religion.

This is why the average diaspora Armenian tends to be more religious than the average Armenian from Armenia.

I'll get to the rest later.

[Siggie]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

@ Siggie: There is no point in time that Armenians didn't have a society with a belief in god(s) until atheism was forced on them by rule. You are simply overlooking the progression of intelligence which developed after the introduction of Christianity mainly due to the order and structure it brought to society. Paganism became obsolete, it no longer could ensure survival against competing regional forces. Atheism is systematically and suggestively brought into the media, politics and school systems today to ensure that people brainlessly give up their right to land through deceptive monetary policies in order for the creation of a communist empire. Simply believing that humans have no inherent rights will yield power to the organizations that promote atheism.

Oh my... so much to follow up on. I'll take it in pieces.

@ Siggie: There is no point in time that Armenians didn't have a society with a belief in god(s) until atheism was forced on them by rule.

I don't know how you can make a statement like at no point in time did Armenians not believe in a god. How do you know this? Do you have accurate records spanning the entirety of the history of the Armenian people? Do you have any records spanning that time? Yeah, didn't think so...

Nor was atheism forced on them. Were Armenians atheists while part of the Soviet Union?

You are simply overlooking the progression of intelligence which developed after the introduction of Christianity mainly due to the order and structure it brought to society.

Temporal precedence alone does not establish cause: research methods 101.
Just because some things got better following the adoption of Christianity doesn't mean they were caused by that change. The simple fact that one thing precedes another is not sufficient to establish a causal link before the two. If we were going to play that game, couldn't I say that the worst fate of the Armenian people was brought about by Christianity? But I don't say that because it's illogical.

Paganism became obsolete, it no longer could ensure survival against competing regional forces.

Paganism became obsolete because it couldn't ensure survival? What are you talking about? I don't think any supernatural belief is a good thing, but I don't understand what you're trying to say here. How did it ever ensure survival? What regional forces?

Atheism is systematically and suggestively brought into the media, politics and school systems today to ensure that people brainlessly give up their right to land through deceptive monetary policies in order for the creation of a communist empire. Simply believing that humans have no inherent rights will yield power to the organizations that promote atheism.

How is the media systematically and suggestively bringing that? If it's systematic then you should have no problem in the least providing some evidence of this occurring. I'd like to see it because it doesn't seem this way to me at all. If this was the case, there would be more favorable attitudes toward atheism than there are.

Second, how does atheism lead to giving up rights including the right to own property? If anything ownership of land in the US came with the puritan colonists. The natives didn't "own" the land.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

@ Siggie: There is no point in time that Armenians didn't have a society with a belief in god(s) until atheism was forced on them by rule. You are simply overlooking the progression of intelligence which developed after the introduction of Christianity mainly due to the order and structure it brought to society. Paganism became obsolete, it no longer could ensure survival against competing regional forces. Atheism is systematically and suggestively brought into the media, politics and school systems today to ensure that people brainlessly give up their right to land through deceptive monetary policies in order for the creation of a communist empire. Simply believing that humans have no inherent rights will yield power to the organizations that promote atheism.

[Siggie]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

I wonder the same thing

Siggie: Armenians were Pagan before they were Christian
Kanada: The automobile was created after the horse and buggy
Siggie: The horse and buggy shouldn't have been destroyed
Kanada: It wasn't, it became obsolete... do you want to go back to the horse and buggy?

It's a good thing the whole exchange only spanned about 4 or 5 posts and is right here in the immediately preceding posts for people to read over...

Yup that pretty much summarized things.

Seriously... I love how he tried to make it sound like I'm the one that brings up things that aren't even tangentially related as if the posts demonstrating otherwise aren't right here.

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Here it is all in order to illustrate:

Christian identity is central to being Armenian. Even if one is not very religious they should still respect the Armenian Church, holidays, and clergy.

Christianity has not even been part of the Armenian identity for the majority of its history, let alone long enough for us to insist it is an essential element of being Armenian.

Here we go again. J3ws congregate at temple. Muslims at mosques. Armenians... well nowhere because they've been convinced that their churches needed to be destroyed because their beliefs attained through history were inferior!

Yeah, I don't see us as being inferior to either of those groups if we didn't have this attachment to church.
Why do you feel it is something we need? No one should convince us to destroy our churches. They are part of our history and they should be preserved. It seems like religion that's often a motivation to destroy history. E.g. destroying pagan buildings, not preserving history from our pagan past, etc. as efforts to forget the past and dedicate ourselves to the present and future as Christians. For instance, the Greeks and Egyptians aren't now destroying their ancient temples because the religion has changed and they no longer believe in Zeus, Athena, Ra, or Osiris.

Here is a pic of Pagan architecture in Garni. Are you comparing this basic bird house with pillars to the highly complex mathematically calculated and detailed architecture of our Churches?

Do you actually read posts and think about a reply before posting a reply or do you just skim and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind? What in the world does this have to do with anything? This is even further off the mark than the original comment about destroying churches.

To illustrate the disconnect:

Kanada: Shoes are essential to being human.

Siggie: There were humans before shoes.

Kanada: xxxs and Muslims wear shoes. Why should we destroy our shoes?

Siggie: Who said anything about destroying them? I don't think we should destroy our shoes. They're part of our history and we should preserve them just as the Egyptians and Greeks continues to preserve their shoes even when they stopped wearing that style of shoe.

Kanada: Are you comparing this ugly poorly designed Greek footsack to this fine, complex, Armenian shoe?

---

HUH? Comparing the architecture of the churches is not relevant. The point is that there is no need to destroy any of them. The only comparison I made was to point to these cultures as examples of ones where the national religion changed, but in the present day, they see no need to destroy things associated with the religion(s) of history.

The point is they are THOUSANDS of years old and THEY GET DESTROYED BY NATURE UNLESS THEY ARE RESTORED. However, thousands of our Orthodox Churches were RECENTLY DESTROYED in hopes of covering up OUR EXISTENCE AND LAYING CLAIM TO OUR GOD GIVEN LANDS.

Yes, I'm aware that our churches are being destroyed for that reason. Screaming doesn't illuminate what that has to do with *this* discussion.

It has EVERYTHING to do with this discussion.

[Sip]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Siggie: Armenians were Pagan before they were Christian
Kanada: The automobile was created after the horse and buggy

Yup that pretty much summarized things.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Do you actually read posts and think about a reply before posting a reply or do you just skim and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind? What in the world does this have to do with anything? This is even further off the mark than the original comment about destroying churches.

I wonder the same thing

Siggie: Armenians were Pagan before they were Christian
Kanada: The automobile was created after the horse and buggy
Siggie: The horse and buggy shouldn't have been destroyed
Kanada: It wasn't, it became obsolete... do you want to go back to the horse and buggy?

[Sip]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Anyone that has grown up in and around the Armenian church should know that it's critical to Armenian community events and social gatherings which form the Armenian identity. Most Americanized Armenians will associate themselves with the college/university they attended as if it's their identity in the same way a sports fan will act like they are part of the team when their home town sports team is playing. Yeah, I'm a Michigan Wolverine!!!

I don't disagree with you here. Actually I think fanatically following a sports team, University, and God are all basically the same. What I don't understand is why do we still think we need the holy spirit business in our social gatherings? Why should our social gatherings revolve around someone in a beard and a cape who goes around chanting things and reading things out of a book in a language that no one understands anymore?