The Religious Question: Toward a New Mythos

Editor's Note: The video based on this essay can be found here.

Every great civilization requires a uniting mythos – a worldview that serves as its ideological foundation and provides a meaningful narrative for its past, present, and future. This central idea defines and reinforces a civilization’s values, identity, and destiny.

Some civilizations and cultures have, for various reasons, been able to retain a consistent mythos for millennia. The history of Europe, however, has been defined by many ideological ruptures.

The first rupture occurred when Indo-Europeans invaded Europe from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. They brought with them a virile, action-oriented form of polytheism, which would gradually form the Greek, Roman, Germanic, and Slavic. forms of Paganism with which we are all familiar. Little is known about pre-Indo-European religion in Europe, but it has been thought be focused on fertility, as its practitioners were farmers, as opposed to the nomadic Indo-Europeans.

The next great rupture occurred with the dawn of Christianity. This new creed became popular among slaves and peasants, who were attracted to emphasis on the downtrodden and its utopian vision of the afterlife. Originally, Christians faced persecution for their beliefs. However, Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal for the first time in 313, and by year 391, Christianity became the official Roman religion, with worship of other gods outlawed.

While it’s true that Christianity has Semitic origins, to say that it is entirely foreign is incorrect. As a result of the Church’s efforts to convert Pagan tribes, Christianity became Germanicized. This double conversion can be seen most prevalently in Christian holidays, most of which are centered around Pagan holy days and feature many Pagan traditions and aesthetics.

The next ideological rupture came with Martin Luther’s 95 theses. Upset with many aspects of the Church, including the selling of indulgences, Luther’s revolt against church authority would later be known as the Protestant Reformation. This split effectively tore Europe apart, and lead to many destructive wars between Europeans, such as the Thirty Years War, which resulted in the deaths of over ten-million.

Later came the Enlightenment. By placing an emphasis on reason, logic, and individualism, this 18th century intellectual movement demystified reality, thereby casting serious doubt upon Christianity. When Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed “God is dead”, he wasn’t claiming that mankind murdered the Christianity deity, but that the Enlightenment had ensured that the Christian mythos would no longer be Western man’s uniting ideology.

Fast forward to today. The West is facing an existential crisis on multiple fronts: cultural, religious, demographic, financial, and political. And a large part of this can be attributed to the fact that the chasm left behind by Christianity has been filled by Cultural Marxism.

One has to wonder: what does the future hold for the West?

Regardless of one's religious inclination, it's quite clear that conventional religion – in particular, Christianity – will no longer be the West’s uniting mythos.

A quick glance at the Alt-Right reveals that we have Christians of various denominations, Pagans, atheists, and agnostics. Many believe that their particular religion – or lack thereof – will come to dominate, but this is delusional. You might fantasize about converting Christians to Paganism, or convincing Protestants to return to the Church, but if you’re honest, you’ll realize that any such conversions are the stuff of fantasy.

With that in mind, it’s obvious that we need a new ideology – one that offers room for different religious inclinations.

This new mythos based on the fundamental laws of nature – hierarchy, identity, differentiation, upward evolution and struggle, to name a few. For regardless which stances one takes on metaphysical issues, the laws of nature reign supreme in this world, and civilizations that fall out of the natural order are doomed. This new ideology must support virtue and promotes excellence, strength, beauty, and honor. Most importantly, it must be able to transcend our differences.

What this new mythos will be named, and what external form this manifestation of higher truths takes remains to be seen. But it remains clear that something both new yet timeless is needed to save the European race.