this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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This meme is just confused. The Feast of the Gods motif would be familiar to da Vinci and whether it was deliberately referenced or perhaps just a visual convention of how to portray a feast, and who influenced who are questions best asked to an art historian specialized on the time period. But ultimately it doesn't really matter - da Vinci's The Last Supper is one of the most iconic images in history and it's not strange that people watching makes the connection, I certainly did even if I also got the reference to Les Festin des Dieux. Of course the idea that the ceremony mocks Jesus or whatever is a hysterical reaction, but that's American evangelicals for you.
Connecting this to christian adaptation of Pagan holidays and motifs, however, is farfetched and ahistorical. The Last Supper is a painting, Leonardo is not the christian church. Leonardo was active during the high renaissance, a time when the ideas and imagery of (mostly pagan) Antiquity was reintroduced into christian europe. References to pagan rome and greece was à la mode in art.
It's not like the Christian appropriation of non-christian things just ended sometime before the high renaissance. I'd argue it's ongoing. And even if Leonardo did not appropriate, the Christians now reacting with fury to the depiction of "their" last supper are appropriating.
By that time, there were next to zero pagans left in western europe to appropriate from. The appropriation of pagan holidays and themes was mostly motivated by easing the conversion to christianity, so yes, it wasn't really a thing after the conversion was complete. Local traditions and syncretism (saint worship etc) living on was mostly discouraged by the church so there is no appropriation argument to be made there either really.(The rest of the world is another issue; we're talking pagan here, which specifically refers to european polytheistic traditions.)
Well, go ahead and argue. Isn't the tendency of modern evangelicals rather to be scared out of their minds by any suggestion of heathendom, basically equating it to satanism? Jehovahs Witnesses for instance does not celebrate christmas for this very reason?
Jan van Bijlert who painted Les Festin des Dieux was a christian.. His depiction of Roman gods and entities are probably as accurate as The lion at Gripsholm Castle is to a real lion. And again, at the time there were no Roman Pagans alive to appropriate from, just as there are none today. You make no sense.
There are no pagans alive today?
Wew lad. Ignorant AF.
Also why are you specifying only roman pagan? That's completely non sensical.
It is blatantly obvious that a vast majority of the miracles and practices of Jesus was directly stolen from various pagan religions.
Christmas trees, stockings, winter solstice celebrations...hel even the days of the week are stolen from various pagan religions.
You're simply wrong in so many ways with your post it's funny Christians are so sensitive.
There are more or less well informed re-enactments perhaps, but the connection to the pagan traditions relevant here (no, not only roman, but western european polytheistic traditions) were essentially completely severed by christianisation, industrialisation and modernity. There are small pockets in eastern europe and northern scandinavia where some traditions survived, barely. (A convincing argument could be made that modernity and industrialisation actually was a harder blow to lingering remnants of folk beliefs than the conversion to christianity, but that's a discussion for another day.) I am very familiar with the historical sources, european folk beliefs and various neo-pagan movements, so I'm not making this argument out of ignorance. You may still think I'm wrong of course.
I'm not actually, but look at the meme again. The context of this discussion is imagery of roman deities from the european renaissance.
Yes, and so what? The argument made about the Olympic ceremony in the meme is still confused and inaccurate.
Edit: and you seem to believe I'm a Christian; I'm not.
Nah, we know what was stolen and where from. This is accurate and just one example of how they take and distort from other religions and beliefs. Look at Christmas. They couldn't get the pagan out of the people so they subverted it.
You'd almost think this was a meme community and not concerned with things like historical accuracy in favor of amusing people, wouldn't you?
That's a pretty poor excuse since the meme makes a statement presented as factual that falls apart upon scrutiny. Without this connection, the meme is nothing.
Secondly, the meme isn't actually funny, it just validates the previously held beliefs of this community. There is no joke, just a poorly argued "gotcha". Validation feels good, but it's not actually humor even if the two is often confused.
Careful talking shit to him, he'll make it where you can't post on the instances he's a mod of. No abuse of power there....
It doesn't fall apart on scrutiny you're just too dense to understand it's not about dates of paintings and Christianity is largely based on other religions beliefs that christianity literally appropriated.
Jesus wasn't the first to walk on water or turn water into wine and he sure as hell wasn't born in December.
Fine. The meme isn't accurate to reality. What's the meme trying to say then? Isn't it only funny because "haha dumb Christians"? Doesn't ignoring the actual facts lump us just as much in the ignorant group?
If it's just a funny meme, and its accuracy isn't what matters, then fine. But also, fine to the guy who is correcting the facts. They're either both cool or neither cool.
If you're making fun of people for not knowing history, it would be a good idea to not expose your own ignorance of history while doing so. It's like screaming "look how much I'm like the people I hate!"
That... That's what OP is saying...
It's really not, but please do explain your line of reasoning.