fuck being rational, give them what they ask for. sometimes you gotta pop out and show them. certified boogeyman, I'm the one that up the score with 'em.
in addition to everything that has already been said about modern pogan’, such as the fact that it is filled with mentally unstable people who are pushed even deeper into their psychosis by outright scums who convince them that everything is fine, I think that not enough attention is being paid to other issues.
1. people are so chronically lonely that their psyche has had to start inventing imaginary friends, or worse — “partners”, in order to cope with this loneliness in some way. and instead of encouraging these people to go out and seek real human connection in real life, they plunge them deeper into the abyss of loneliness and the echo chamber of other lost souls, cutting them off from society and throwing them onto the sidelines of life as it passes by. even more horrible is when this imagined reality of escapism becomes the entire basis of their identity. they do not exist apart from it, they are nothing on their own, and in their desire to become something greater than themselves, part of something meaningful, they destroy their last chance to become independent personalities, becoming merely appendages to their unhealthy fantasies, demanding that others respect and validate their imaginary world and imaginary friends, because real connections with living people frighten them, since it would be impossible to control them through their fantasies. a simulacrum of a person, to put it simply.
2. outright liars and manipulators who use this to assert their fake status and power. they know that they have no real spiritual connection with anyone, especially themselves, and decide to simply lie about it and invent self-insert fanfiction to give themselves weight in the society of like-minded cultists. everything here is based on banal narcissism and a mania for attention and adoration. they want to be the most magnificent and incredible in the eyes of everyone, they crave worship, and therefore they need to invent how to make every myth in the world about them, every deity in this world is in love with them and kisses their feet, they have 20, no, better 100 “godspouses” (the most pitiful thing I've ever heard), they put on unsuitable titles of “priests”, “oracles”, “channellers” and so on, telling about some deity what it likes and what it doesn't like. by what right? well, it's not real anyway!
and here is the cornerstone that they do not like to admit. for them, it is not real. they put on these labels not because they believe in something, but because they want to be “not like the others” among their peers. their entire “religion” ends with moodboards, games with friends on discord, yanking nonexistent “deities” that were invented by neo-nazis, imaginary stories about their “gods”, local conflicts born of the problems i described above and they call it a day. no, honey, just because you scattered some cards that fell according to probability theory and interpreted their meaning with your wishful thinking, and you will use them as a cult weapon against those you don't like, you have not received any higher connection with the gods. quite the opposite in fact, i would say. and when they are reminded that religion actually requires study and exists not to affirm their own egos and fantasies of their own importance, but to study the mysteries of existence and spiritual life, they immediately start whining and throwing tantrums all over the internet that the “elitists” and “gatekeepers” are forcing them to actually practise the religion to which they claim to belong.
by all means, create your moodboards, write imaginary self-insert fanfics, and fantasise about myths as much as you like, but call it what it is: a mythological fandom, not a religion. you have no connection to religion whatsoever, never have had and doubtingly ever will.
i know a guy who also brought up the topic of those who turned religion into a way to make money, indulge their own delusions of grandeur, and try to feel superior to others. he usually started his words with "woe to you".
