Avebury chapel's future

[jeremyp]

Hang on, Jeremy. You aren't stating truth. You are stating hypotheses and opinion.

If I say "nobody knows for sure about the religions of these people, I am stating the truth. 

You suggest things that the people in the past may or may not have thought - such as them not objecting to Seahenge being moved - but you gave no evidence for this.

I did not claim that the builders of Seahenge would want it to be moved, I said it is a possibility. 

I can counter that with the archaeological evidence that people in the past left things to be reclaimed by the elements and suggest that they would have expected the same to happen there.

Do you have any evidence at all to support that?  I would suggest that, generally, people in the past did not leave things to be reclaimed by the elements and what we see now are the exceptions for whatever reason e.g. they were inundated or lost or people just moved away or they genuinely were put there for "all time".   Have you noticed how many of the monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII have been reduced to not much more than foundations?  A primary reason for this is people nicking the masonry for other building projects. 

Neither of us knows. I can also claim that Holme11 has been left because it has been realised moving the original was bad archaeology - the two rings relate to each other and can no longer be studied in that context.

Holme 1 would no longer exist at all if it hadn't been moved.  Holme II will likely go the same way. 

Equally I can argue moving the original has taught us a great deal about the early Bronze Age, but whether it was worth destroying the site as a whole in order to do that is a matter of opinion, not fact.

The site would be gone anyway.  The sea was seeing to that.

You could also try to find some understanding within you as to why Matt gets defensive, given what he went through.

What he went through is totally unrelated to this argument.  Yes, I agree his story is shocking and I have nothing but sympathy for him in that respect.  However, I do not appreciate him (and you) using it as emotional blackmail to try to shut me up on this completely separate point.

In particular you might want to to consider how offensive it is to him for you to liken him to 'all religios' when it was religious intolerance and prejudice that nearly cost him his children and his liberty.

If he found me calling him out on his typical-of-religious-people tactic offensive, perhaps he would have done better not to use it.

[Rhiannon]

It's not what you are saying that I am objecting to, but the way you are saying it, so cut out the 'emotional blackmail' shit. If you felt sympathy you'd have done well to express it sooner, but actually in relation to a situation like Matt described empathy is much more useful.

[Hope]

Both disciplines that are pagan in toto! Thery were never Christian!

OK, so in that case, I'll include Buddhism and Hinduism.  If your definition of Paganism is 'not-Christian', then there are hundreds of belief-systems that these sites could have been related to.

[OH MY WORLD!]

Perhaps at the time the people needing homes were not wealthy and it made a lot of sense to take those stones, that had been sitting there as useless as the day they were set there, and build their houses. Good for them, no crime no foul. Finally putting those rocks to some real and beneficial use. And the truth is nobody gave a damned until the invention of neo paganism.

[Owlswing]

Both disciplines that are pagan in toto! Thery were never Christian!

OK, so in that case, I'll include Buddhism and Hinduism.  If your definition of Paganism is 'not-Christian', then there are hundreds of belief-systems that these sites could have been related to.

Don't be a bloody fool, Hope!

It is you, A chriustian, making the commentrs not a Buddhist or a Hindu!

Buddhists or Hindus building stone circles in the UK 4,000 yars ago?

[Anchorman]

Well the pagans destroyed the environment and habitat when they chiseled out those stones and dragged them to Avebury to build their pretty circles. And since the residents of the area had long ago dumped that paganism, they we right to use that rock to build their homes. No crime, no foul.

Oh, dear.......

[Anchorman]

If this is the decision I would foresee the Pagans getting together to purchse the plot, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, and turning it into a place to educate visitors as to the history - the real history and not the Christian version - of the whole Avebury area including the stone circles.

Matt, do modern pagans actually know anymore about the 'real' history of Avebury than Christians, Muslims, atheists, the Dutch, Hindus, the Zimbabweans, Buddhists, the Scots, ... ?

- Valid point!
There have been many revisions of Mesolithic and Neolithic Britain recently, and the Avebury and Stonehenge constructions are no exception.
Given the incredible finds on Orkney in the last two decades, the religious map of pre-Roman Britain is being turned on its; head.

[Anchorman]

Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.

I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.

-
Not just pagans, Rhi.
Anyone who has a sense of 'place' needs to respect the monuments in that place.
Take Brodger on Orkney, or Calanais on Lewis, for example.
We don't know what gods those who erected Calanais worshipped, or the two (or possibly three) religious upheavals at the Ring of Brodgar, but we can marvel at the sense of spirituality such places invoke.
I know I do.

[Owlswing]

It's not what you are saying that I am objecting to, but the way you are saying it, so cut out the 'emotional blackmail' shit. If you felt sympathy you'd have done well to express it sooner, but actually in relation to a situation like Matt described empathy is much more useful.

Give it up Rhi. You are wasting your breath and, truthfully I've got used to it, of the lack of it.

[Anchorman]

Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).

I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar

-
Get back up there!
They've discovered a whole series of temples, storage areas, ritual burning pits, etc, in that area recently.
Archaeologists now consider it the finest neolithic site in Europe!

[Owlswing]

Maeght isn't a Christian though, Matt.

I think when we talk about things such as sacredness it is a completely alien concept to people who haven't experienced that, or who haven't in relation to places or landscapes. I suspect we are just wired different ways. I think when it comes to sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge they really are 'for' everyone, but equally I think the pagan community is entitled to ask for respect for how we feel about these places.

-
Not just pagans, Rhi.
Anyone who has a sense of 'place' needs to respect the monuments in that place.
Take Brodger on Orkney, or Calanais on Lewis, for example.
We don't know what gods those who erected Calanais worshipped, or the two (or possibly three) religious upheavals at the Ring of Brodgar, but we can marvel at the sense of spirituality such places invoke.
I know I do.

I have admitted this point on so many occasions!

We vcannot know, we can only read what those who can make the best judgement say.

We do, by the dates the sites were created that they were Pagan - and no, I do not mean neo-pagan.

And it is the spirituality of these palces that we, neo-Pagans, find so important!

[Gordon]

Speaking as a grizzled old atheist who isn't even slightly 'spiritual' in the theistic sense but, nevertheless, can feel a sense of awe and wonder - I think that very old places can engender these feelings, along with a sense of mystery. I've never been to Avebury or Stonehenge but I have been to Orkney several times (and if you haven't been, and if you like archaeology, then it is a must).

I was usually there on work business, and on one occasion had driven up and taken the ferry, as opposed to flying, and on a wet and grey late November day when a meeting had been cancelled I took the opportunity to drive to the Ring of Brodgar - and when I got there I discovered I had this 4/5,000 year old monument to myself and just wandered around touching the stones: it was a memorable experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar

-
Get back up there!
They've discovered a whole series of temples, storage areas, ritual burning pits, etc, in that area recently.
Archaeologists now consider it the finest neolithic site in Europe!

Thinking of going back up next spring, Jim - from here it can be done in a day (albeit a long one)!

There are places there, apart from the archaeological sites, that are simply wonderful,

[Anchorman]

I've a friend who works up at the excavations, Gordon.
I get constant updates from him, raving at the latest finds and measurements.
The whole area seems to have been linked with causeways, temples, three stone circles (and a possible fourth as well - they're still plotting that), massive roofed stone structures - the biggest in the northern hemisphere from c 2500 BB till the Greeks and Romans got their ideas from looking at Egyptian structures).
They've found a few human-type images as well, and many symbols which seem to be the forerunners of thos enigmatic Pictish symbol stone carvings.
This site will keep the archaeologists busy for decades to come.
The beauty of the site is, of course, that, since there was little or no wood, those who erected these unique structures had no option but to build in stione.