Jeremy Paxman said it all the beginning of newsnight yesterday: "Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Britain. Who cares."

I suppose he could have said it more like a question, but he didn't. It was hilarious.

More on your subject, the pagani lived in the country. If you can see the sky and appreciate the weather and the seasons maybe you're a bit more likely to unconsciously keep a bit of the Old ways?

I think that our 'hardware' is the same, but the circumstances have changed around it. Or in other words, that it would only need the circumstances to change again to bring some of what you're talking about back to the surface.

I'm quite superstitious for example, even though I know that it's daft.

Yes, its Thorsday again ... I think it is generally accepted that the Age of Christianity is over, replaced by the Age of Reason (quote: Rodney Castleden from Britain 3000BC). We can only hope that the Age of Reason will filter into the 'other great world religion' too.

If 'Pagan' means observing Nature with a sense of awe then it is alive and well ... gods, goddesses and God had been invented by mankind in its own image and sets us apart from other animals as a species with an ego.

Having said all that though, for all the Irish Catholics who have been discriminated against over past decades both in England and Scotland, I hope the Pope's tour (kicking off in Scotland) is successful - as some of my good friends say through gritted teeth "don't start me off" - then for my dear old Mum who believes she was born a Catholic and will die one.

Peace to all.

"On the eve of the pope's visit to this '3rd world country' of ours, how pagan are we still? Underneath the delaminating veneer of the State religion, and the State establishment, how much of the old ways still linger deep within us? Not so much in the brittle surface of our society, but more in what we say and do on a daily basis without hardly thinking of it. The intrinsic 'we' that lives on in our language and in our relationship with our land and our fellow human beings."

Well as someone who loves the gods of old, be they Northern or 'celtic', I'd say the Anglo-Saxon pagan character still lives on in our British belligerent attitudes, (witness football) and on a quieter note, I think most of us love the natural world, and that can be seen in how we fight over the 'freedom' to walk freely in this country of ours, and how there are so many organisations dedicated to preserving birds, animals, wild places etc..... whether this has a pagan origin I'm not sure but one thing is for sure, religion provokes a helluva of an argument ;)...

Bright Blessings & Aum to All:

http://www.amergin.net/songofamergin.html

:-)

The touble with these organised religions is they simply cannot let everyone else be... it's all about power and money, isn't it? Christians HAVE to save you, whether you like it or not. Muslims say they detest violence and then go about proving the exact opposite over and over again to the infidels. And what evidence do they have that they are right? None. They just KNOW.

Dawkins may sometimes be an arrogant bugger, but it must be bloody difficult dealing with people who are so entrenched that any argument is superfluous. As far as I can see the aethiests are the only people who actually present any evidence whatsoever for their viewpoint, a viewpoint which is incidentally not based upon fear and retribution either, but on logic and balance of probability. A viewpoint that doesn't advocate going back to being children because we can't cope with the adult state.

Religion worked when the medieval lord in his castle worked hand in hand with the church to maintain the monopoly of power through fear. Heh! heh! You stratch my back and I'll scratch yours...Keep the peasants illiterate and they won't find the gaping holes in the bible and start asking awkward questions. Education has been the key in allowing the layman to expose the bible etc for the sham I believe it to be. Didn't Richey Edwards say 'I am all the things that you regret. A truth that washes, that learnt how to spell'?

But I'm ranting, I guess. Ah, 'scuse me... I'll just go and ask Eric Cantona what he thinks. He's making tea in the kitchen, by the way. Takes ages, too. Perfectionist. Yeah, no-one can see him, but I KNOW he's there. Kylie, ask him to get a move on, pet.