I've been following what's happening in the US with the murder of Charlie Kirk
I didn't know this influencer before his assassination so I'll spare universalist appeals to emotions and shared values that aren't here, because that would be hypocritical, since I'm not a Christian nor a Secular Humanist.
Speaking of values, I wanted to post a funny genealogy of some popular terms used by one side of the current debate to claim the moral high ground:
From a pagan or pre-Christian perspective (mine), racism doesn’t exist as a moral category because there is no universal axiom that all humans are equal.
In tribal or pagan logic:
Each group simply prioritises its own survival, its own gods, its own customs.
Strangers are outsiders; treating them differently is natural, not immoral.
Inequality between groups isn’t a violation of principle—it’s just fate (Moira), nature, or divine will.
The Christian revolution introduced the universalising claim: all souls equal before God. Once that axiom is in place, distinctions of race, sex, or class become potential moral contradictions. Racism as a concept only emerges after equality is established as a value.
Pagan worldview → no racism, only tribalism.
Christian worldview → racism becomes possible as a moral accusation because it violates universal equality.
Each term only exists if equality is already taken as a moral axiom. From a pagan/tribal frame, they collapse.
Racism
Christian frame: Racism is immoral because all humans are equal before God. Discriminating against someone on race violates universal worth.
Pagan frame: No such category. Preferring your own tribe is natural, outsiders have no guaranteed worth. It isn’t immoral to rank groups differently, only pragmatic.
Homophobia
Christian frame: After equality extends beyond tribes and into persons, sexuality becomes another field of worth. Condemning homosexuality is framed as denying equal worth of people regardless of orientation.
Pagan frame: No category of homophobia. Customs regulate sex for pragmatic reasons (fertility, inheritance, ritual purity). Same-sex acts may be ridiculed or tolerated, but not moralised as oppression.
Transphobia
Christian frame: With equality extended further into identity, rejecting someone’s self-declared gender is cast as hatred against their equal worth as a human being. Speech itself can become “violence” because it denies dignity.
Pagan frame: No transphobia. Gender roles are fate (Moira). If someone deviates, it may be tolerated as eccentric or punished as disorder, but it’s not parsed as denying equal worth, only breaking custom.
Bigotry
Christian frame: Bigotry is condemned as the refusal to extend equal worth universally. To be “closed-minded” is to fall short of the universal call to love one’s neighbour.
Pagan frame: No concept of bigotry. Favouritism toward kin and hostility to outsiders is expected. Open-mindedness is a pragmatic tool for trade or alliance, not a moral duty.
Therefore: if someone celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk because he was "racist, homophobic, transphobic, bigot" they're claiming the high ground with borrowed Christian values.
Calling him racist, homophobic, or bigot only makes sense if you believe in equal worth of all humans: a Christian inheritance. If you celebrate his death you deny that same worth, slipping back into pagan logic.
You’re preaching Christian values while acting like pagans.
If you're that person, you know your way to the door. I don't want you around.
_
It's pointless that you leave pissed comments or send me private messages because you're displeased about this post, you have no leverage. Money is no leverage. Morality is no leverage. Shared "categories" are no leverage. Inventing fantastical "we" to smuggle individual judgement as group authority is no leverage. You'll be instantly blocked. We share nothing, you are strangers, you get no right to speak, no right to appeal, no right to complain. This is PAGAN LAW. Take the door or I'll show you where it is.
-
I don't know what part of "you have no appeal" is so hard to comprehend for you others so I'll put it the way my father would put it: the problem with you people is that you've been taught that debate is endless and that boundaries can always be crossed if pushed in the correct way, that salvation is always possible. It is not. Debate isn't endless. This is where it ends. The signal that was given by killing Charlie Kirk then parading around in celebrations for ancient cultures or in some outside the West would be clear and brutal: that's a declaration of war. If you were not against your so hated Christians, the retaliation would not be peaceful.
Comments (18)
Hey Zero, first of all, I love your ROM mods, without them i really don't think I'd enjoy spellcasters as much as I do. Second, this is a really interesting take! I’ve genuinely never seen this framing before! I just had a few questions out of curiosity. First, equality isn’t only a Christian value, right? I thought the idea of human worth or compassion existed in several other traditions too. For example, Buddhism talks about compassion for all beings, and Stoicism emphasizes shared rationality among people, so when you mention empathy for all is a Christan inheritance i think it's a bit unfair with other religions. Also, I found it a bit confusing that racism and homophobia were used as examples of “Christian moral categories,” since historically, many Christian groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses until like the 80s, supported racial segregation or condemned same-sex relationships using scripture. I know that’s interpretation, not necessarily doctrine, but it makes me wonder how that fits into your distinction, since it's how a lot of Christian interpret their book. I’m atheist, so I don’t really ground morals in divine law, I kinda just assume people developed ethical systems from evolutionary needs. That’s why I’m curious about which pagan traditions you’re referencing here! Some, like certain Celtic or Norse ones, didn’t seem to moralize sexuality the way Christianity later did. I did not heavily study pagan religion, but I studied my whole life in a catholic school. So my knowledge on pagan religions are from occasional curiosity, what I know about it is that they always seemed waaay more opened minded and empathetic than any Christian. And lastly, while tribal logic makes sense for small groups, I’m not sure how it scales to something like a modern nation-state. Western countries are massive, multi-ethnic, and shaped by empire and violence, so “outsider logic” feels harder to apply cleanly there. Also, the outsider logic based on race, specially in the west, I think it falls apart even harder, because so many people are mixed. Out-group distinctions based on race I think it's kind of a weird approach because the line is already so blurred. Anyway, I’d genuinely love to hear more about your perspective , it’s such a unique way of looking at morality and culture, at least for me. It even flips the usual argument I hear about Christianity, since it’s often portrayed as the one creating hierarchies and divisions rather than breaking them. Maybe in USA and where you are from Christianity is more kind and chill, but around here, it's often used as a disguise for the same things you say they technically condemn. That's why it stood out so much to me! Anyway, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts.
The idea of equality exists in tribal pagan religions too, what makes Christianity different is universalism, that's pretty much unique to the Christian faith. Pagan tribal societies only extended equality to the in-group (Including ancient Rome), this also applies to Islam that uses diplomacy to non-Muslims not equality (equal dignity or equal worth). Homophobia and racism are specific to the Western tradition and were later exported to the rest of the world. Moralising sexuality in pagan religion depends on the culture, Rome and Greece for example had specific festivals and mystery cults where sexuality was free while discipline was the norm, but there was no concept of sin. Tribalism doesn't scale well to large societies, it's one of the main reasons Rome adopted Christianity, to stabilise the Empire that was falling apart without a shared set of values. Christianity doesn't create divisions for the doctrine, it creates division when people use it as a tribal religion (us vs them framing, inherently Pagan) but I'd say that goes against the doctrine itself. People can't help it, we're tribal before being universalist.
I believe the problem with your argument is that we don't live in tribes. We live in one very large country of many many mixed tribes. Where two tribes -- through the structure of the country -- suppress the rights of the others. By those two, I mean the oligarchs and the supremest that they get to do their bidding through much manipulations. I wish it was as simple as tribalism. But it's not about how one person feels or thinks, it is systematically embedded into the fabric of this country. Like, why, the moment after this happened... why were black people immediately threatened by Kirk's followers. When black people had absolutely nothing to do with what happened. They even went as far sending bomb threats to black colleges! This wasn't the first time. Every time people like Kirk have been hurt in the history of the US, black people are attacked. And every time the story comes to light -- black people had nothing to do with the initial incident. This just has to stop. Personally, I don't care about what happened to Kirk. I'm not celebrating his murder -- but I'm also not sorry. He did a lot of damage in his time. And his hate came back to him from a person who thought his hate wasn't strong enough. If those hateful people want to eat each other up -- fine by me. Leave me and my people out of it.
I think it's because your country doesn't have a shared framework that keeps it together. It's an external perspective but it doesn't seem like the Human Rights framework is working very well at conciliating the differences among people. As soon as something happens, everyone turns on everyone and starts pointing the finger towards someone. If you compare this to Islamic countries, that you might not like from your binary moral perspective, Islam under the law is capable of closing the ranks without dissolving in internal fighting. The law is clear and binds the community. It also looks like you have a lot of unresolved grievances going on.
I find Kirk’s ideas abhorrent and worthy of robust critique. That said: celebrating his murder is a moral failure. Condemning speech as harmful is one thing; converting that condemnation into jubilation at a life ended is another entirely. We don’t have to be friends with those we oppose, but if our rhetoric pretends a universal commitment to human worth.. or to free expression.. we must be honest when our actions contradict those claims. The easiest way to hand power to the most monstrous storytellers is to answer blood with applause. Violence begets a cycle of martyrdom, and martyr narratives are how wars are escalated. If we want political change, aim at argument, exposure, legal and social pressure, not rejoicing in death. That is both strategically stupid and morally bankrupt.
I think I'll print your comment and hang it in my bedroom.
Exactly, I believe that not only do our subjectively moral tribes have no doctrine of equality but it actually contradicts it. You'd have to be supremacists of some sort to assert your morals over another, your tribe vs the rest.
That would require a level of self analysis they're not applying. That feeling of righteousness they're getting out of behaving like this is poison, it's addictive like a drug.
Zero-I greatly appreciate everything you have done for the Sims community. I would truly have preferred never having read this post because it is so bleak, so over-simplified and so hostile. I will put it behind me and pray that one day you allow the love God has for you to reach through the wall you have built around you and reawaken your faith. Show me the door if you must, I don't adhere to Pagan Law.
Boundaries are boundaries, and you know I must.
I personally think this is an interesting take because I'm not too familiar with paganism or its values, but when it comes to discussing racism, homophobia etc, I look at it from an evolutionary standpoint. In-groups, out-groups, stereotyping have served as tools for group survival. This has unfortunately evolved into things like racism. Yet, we are capable of moving past the need for the same categorization and tribalism we had then. In the same sense, (and I'll make another comment about this) compassion and empathy have been necessary for human survival, and is not just about religion. It's much older.
I think it's understandable that many of us argue with each other using values that have been popularized in the West by Christianity—after all, Christianity has been intertwined in American history since its founding. Many of us are either coming from a religious background or are exposed to religious beliefs. Still, human equality exists as a value outside of Christianity, so one doesn't necessarily need to be a Christian to believe in or defend equality and kinship regardless of gender, race, etc. take Stoicism (shared rationality), or even Buddhism (compassion for ALL beings). Even in Christianity, there is the concept of hierarchy, creating tension with universal equality. My takeaway is that there's just so much nuance in how traditions and perspectives shape values like equality.
Wow, this is a very interesting point of view and I one I have always agreed with. I am not a religious person, but I do find humanity's various faiths and beliefs interesting. I only followed Charlie Kirk because he occasionally appears in videos my husband watches. I would say a good many of us here in the US are not racist, nor do we care about people's sexuality or even their religion. The problem is, with essentially a two-party system, one side of the aisle tends to attract people who feel shut out by the other side, especially young people. Charlie Kirk's main claim to fame was his age. He was young, and he influenced the young, especially those who felt duped by the other side. He helped fill the vacuum. Very sadly, the person who killed him favored the opposite side and I think we are going to see more of this behavior the larger the divide gets. I appreiciate you very much! Thanks for sharing your point of view.
Both sides have been using inflammatory rhetoric, that unavoidably creates tribes. It's doesn't really matter if one uses that strategy in attack or defence but I'd say that the moment it spills into violence, the politicians should be mature and drop it instead of blaming each other. The mature move for the leaders would have been to say "we're both wrong in inciting this sort of division". But they didn't. I have no sympathy for the people at the top. Now they're playing politics with a corpse. And none of them, none, is taking responsibility.
So well said! I'm a Christian, and I agree with your reasoning. The Christian perspective holds that all of humanity is created in the image of God, regardless of ethnicity, class, or sex. Because of this, any act of harm against a person is an act of harm against the image of God. My view is simple: if you are a person, you have intrinsic value to me. I will care for you as I would my own flesh and blood, even if we disagree on beliefs or ideals.
They deserve all their categories to be destroyed and reclaimed by the rightful owners of those values, the only ones who can wield them rightfully, because they're all social constructs that belong to Christian tradition.
As a Christian myself, I couldn't agree more. There are a few things that you got slightly wrong about Christianity (love of the neighbour doesn't mean affirmation or tolerance for unrepented sin but it does mean not condemning the person, only the action, not exactly open-minded for someone like me, coming from liberalism to centrism and then Christianity where ideology dies). That being said, once again, you did it. You called out the hypocrisy. The funniest thing is that these same people who hated him and celebrated his death, hate Christianity as they somehow believe it promotes all their favourite words to through around, totally forgetting that without Christianity the standards they cling to, wouldn't exist......
Yes I've seen the hate for Christianity. I haven't studied the religion, I know enough to interact with it. But I didn't want just call out the hypocrisy, I noticed Christians take their values as self evident and I also wanted to give you the tools to fight back by comparing pagan and Christian worldviews directly.