#i'd love for them to build an at least non-hostile relationship

[hayaku14]

I'm still disappointed that we never got to explore Percy's family dynamic with Amphitrite, Triton, and basically his entire sea folk side of the family. I need this.

[upyrica]

Darling dearest, once you've consumed either the souls of the guilty or a serving of coffee that could kill a lesser being, do share your consideration on the antagonistic and/or not relationship of christianity and paganism, I'd love to read them <3

My second serving of coffee, thank you very much.

Now, this is a matter where we get into purely philosophical considerations, as I am a believer in a descriptive approach to what a religion is - that is, I am not inclined to limit it to its scriptures and approved teachings, but rather include the entire body of convictions and practices that any given tradition encompasses.

It can be noted that, practically speaking, in the past it was not necessarily the case that people believed in one or the other. Generally, a polytheistic worldview was seldom exclusive, limited to one group of gods. A tribe or a land may have some preference for particular deities, it may have its patron gods and local cults, but it does not mean that it viewed everything else as false, or as a corruption of their theological understanding. Similarly, when one is a firm believer in a multitude of gods, monotheism as such might be difficult to even conceive of, appearing instead very much as henotheism, a particular preference for one divinity. As you rightly noted, local religious understanding developed for the majority of the world without much contact with Christianity, which makes it rather impossible for it to be innately in opposition to it.

Now, that the Christian faith was intentionally put in a hostile position by its believers is a particular element of the interaction, rather than its natural quality, one without which neither can exist and be what they are.

On the other hand, when we discuss paganism, say, on the broader English-speaking Internet, we mostly mean modern practices inspired by pre-Christian religions. In it lies the tricky part: if a religion is to be current, and not a fashion of escapism, it must live in the modern day with all it entails - online connection, plastics, running water, and history of Christian hostility included. It must make rituals that work for the modern day, and views that have their roots in the modern day.

Then again, it has been noted by myself and others both that building a religion simply on being non-something else, rather than what it is, is, at the very least, a reaction to hurt by someone who still thinks like a Christian, whose perspective on religious affiliation is built in relation to one particular religion to which they do not belong. It could be argued that it is merely a natural response of, to put it crudely, a heathen offended by values foreign to them - but it ignores the fact that a heathen of today, on average, was raised in a Christian culture and intimate environment, to which certain views of how faith works are so innate that one might not think to question them.

Of course, in the end it is not a matter in which anyone can decide except for themselves, in accordance with their beliefs, spiritual cosmology, and personal history, but it certainly pays to look at all possibilities, whether or not one concludes they are true.