"Searles O'Dubhain"
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> "Tom"
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>> "Searles O'Dubhain"
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>>>
>>> Simply put; Druids teach that:
>>>
>>> One should honor the gods,
>>
>> Which gods? How are they honored?
>>
>
> These gods:
>
> According to Raymund Karl:
>
> "THE NAMES OF THE CELTIC GODS
>
> Well, I already mentioned that we have over threehundred names for
> Celtic gods. Lugos, Toutatis, Taranis, Cernunnos, Esus, Sequana,
> Brigantia, Epona, Matrona, Noreia, Eriu, Govannon, Belenos, Mabon and
> so on.
Those are all the Celtic gods. Does that mean they are all Druid gods as
well? Are you saying that being a Celt was the same as being a Druid, that
no other religion existed among the Celts prior to the arrival of the
Romans? Are you saying that all Druids worship all those gods?
> It has been, for a long time, considered that the Celtic
> pantheon was regionally split up, that Noreia was a tribal godess for
> the Norici, Sequana a tribal godess for the Sequani, Eriu a tribal
> godess for the Erenn. This also seems to be true, but only to a
> certain extent. As far as we can say by now, the Celtic gods had a
> lot of variants, the most we can find here are local but it is also
> possible that some were functional. This is nothing surprising in
> fact, if we look at other IE pantheons we find that most gods in most
> pantheons have numerous, local and functional, bynames and names. The
> Greek god Zeus had multiple names, as is true for all the other greek
> gods. Iuppiter is also known to us as Dispater, and under numerous
> other names. The Hindu gods all have multiple names. The same is true
> for the Germanic gods. And if we look at the gallo-roman inscription
> in which most of the Celtic god names have been brought down to us we
> find, not really surprising, that Mars is mentioned with over 50
> Celtic godnames, as Mars Toutatis, Mars Ambiorix and others, while
> Apollo is going along with Grannos, Belenos and others, while Taranis
> and others are atrributed to Iuppiter.
By this same process many pagan mythicand legendary characters became
Catholic saints. So Catholics are all Druids too.
>>> Do no evil,
>>
>> What is evil?
>
> Evil is anything that violates honor, breaks a law or is against the codes
> of living (usually expressed in the traditional tales though also codified
> in the Brehon Laws among the Irish).
So evil is anything forbidden by the Brehon laws? Are you aware that those
laws have been heavily edited by the Christians from the time of St. Patrick
forwards? Patrick himself is credited with being the first to codify the
Brehon laws, since many Gaels and Gauls considered it profane to actually
write down their laws, and by his own admission he left out anything that
"clashed with the law of God".
As in everything else, the morality of the Druids is based on a poorly
remembered and substantially romaticized version of pre-christian culture.
>>> Act in a correct manner at all times.
>>
>> What is the correct manner?
>
> The correct manner is exemplified in a body of over 350 tales and about 12
> volumes of law in the Irish traditions.
So it would be incorrect for anyone to behave differently from your idea of
how an ancient Druid might have behaved?
>>> This is all summed up in the motto:
>>>
>>> "The Truth Against the World"
>>
>> That sounds a lot more like truthiness than truth. How can truth be
>> against the world? A true belief is one that describes how things really
>> are. Shouldn't truth support the world rather than antagonize it? On
>> the other hand, truthiness is a belief held in spite of evidence, not
>> because of it. So truthiness is often against the world.
>
> Truth is what is held in spite of the spin the world might attempt to
> place on a matter.
The world's spin is a real one. You can see it every day as the sun moves
through the sky. It's folly to try to oppose that spin. I think you may be
talking about a different "world" than the real world.
> How things really are is usually not as they seem.
That's fairly true. However, it's even more true that things are not true
just because we'd like to believe that they are.
> I say let it be as it is and live with it.
It does seem sensible under most circumstances.
