Anyone know any good forums / chats where people are knowledgeable about what the pagan “gods” ( I’m referring to the Slavic, Norse, Hindu, etc. “deities”) are up to these days, or at least think they are, and aren’t afraid to talk about it, and will talk freely (maybe for a small fee if they’re really knowledgeable).
Could you qualify the question? Do you want:
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Someone who is in touch with the acutal deities? (In this case, you might be able to find a spiritual professional in one tradition, but multiple traditions would be a problem.)
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Knowledge of what contemporary humans are doing in these traditions? In that case, I’d recommend http://www.beliefnet.com/ or http://www.religioustolerance.org/ as a place to start.
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The most up-to-date synthesis of knowledge about these deities? In that case, you’re probably better off here.
ETA: In any case, no need for the quotes. No one would deny that Thor is a deity, though you might get some lively debate about what that entails.
Would most Hindus be ok with being lumped in with European “pagan” polythesists ?
Try Google to begin with. First option for the Hindus Deities here. I’m sure there are many others–sponsored by different groups that might not agree with each other. But Hinduism is a living tradition. Study up on the basics & see if there are any local people willing to offer further enlightenment.
Also, begin checking for yourself on the Norse & Slavic Gods. These believers have mostly reconstructed their faiths, using archaeology & other means of understanding what mostly preliterate peoples worshiped. (The Hindus have scriptures.) But even the religions you might consider “real” do involve a bit of conjecture–& faith.
There are also non-believers interested in different religions. I’m pretty much on the Agnostic/Atheist Border but have studied myth & religion. I would use the same word (God) to describe the Deity of the Jews/Christians/Muslims as I would Krishna or Odin. No quotation marks.
Some believers might drop by to give specific details, but there’s a lot of knowledge open to all. At least you can make a beginning.
Depends on the context. In general, probably not, but it is well known that the roots of Hinduism are in Proto-Indo-European religion, same as Celtic / Norse / Greek / Roman. So they have a lot in common originally, meaning thousands of years ago. More comparable than either is with, say, Yoruba religion, but different in scope, kind, status, and pretty much everything else.
Not a chat or message board, but a decent source of a lot of cross-cultural and cross-temporal deities, (not so much the religions that worshipped them), is the Encyclopedia Mythica at www.pantheon.org/ .
If you’re interested in talking to worshippers of greek gods, this is a good forum:
http://hellenismos.us/f/YaBB.pl
And this mailing list is for folks into ancient roman religion: