Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
Whether the gods are objectively real is the least interesting question you can ask about a person’s religious experience. What is much more interesting is the subjective reality of their experience. What was the experience was like for them? And what does it mean to them in the context of their life? People’s religious experiences aren’t going to help us put a person on Mars or cure cancer, but they can help us understand why we want to put a person on Mars or why should try to cure cancer.
Whether the gods are objectively real is the least interesting question you can ask about a person’s religious experience. What is much more interesting is the subjective reality of their experience. What was the experience was like for them? And what does it mean to them in the context of their life? People’s religious experiences aren’t going to help us put a person on Mars or cure cancer, but they can help us understand why we want to put a person on Mars or why should try to cure cancer.
The disenchantment of the world happened, not when we stopped seeing gods and spirits in nature, but when we stopped seeing our essential connection to nature. Personifying rivers and trees with dryads is not going to accomplish this. Rather, we need to realize our essential oneness, the manifold ways in which we are connected to the rivers and the trees–whether or not we find gods in them.
The disenchantment of the world happened, not when we stopped seeing gods and spirits in nature, but when we stopped seeing our essential connection to nature. Personifying rivers and trees with dryads is not going to accomplish this. Rather, we need to realize our essential oneness, the manifold ways in which we are connected to the rivers and the trees–whether or not we find gods in them.
Before you call someone a “non-practicing Pagan,” consider that their practice may just look different from yours, or consider that, even though you have very different beliefs, their practice may actually look quite a bit like yours.
Extortionist behavior is not aberrant–it’s a feature of a capitalist system. Not all capitalists will resort to this level of extortion, obviously, but there are no inherent checks to prevent it when they do. It even finds its way even into our religious lives. We can condemn the extortionist behavior, but its not a problem of a few bad apples. We need to get to the root of the problem–the inherently extortionist nature of capitalism. Until we do that, extortion will be an unavoidable part of our lives–and our Paganism.
In spite of the tendency of many Pagans to confuse the pre-rational with the trans-rational, in spite of the uncritical attitudes and superstitious ideas that haunt a lot of Paganism, I still call myself a Pagan. I am still a Pagan because I believe that Paganism is a door to the trans-rational. I believe that Paganism has the potential to bring together the wisdom of our animistic forebearers and the discoveries of contemporary science in a way that has the power to reenchant the world.
Opposition to all organization on principle serves nothing but the egos of certain individuals. And it reduces our community to the lowest common denominator — the heckler and the troll. They should not be allowed to define our agendas, because their only agenda is the destruction of all agendas. We need to recognize ego-Paganism for what it is: dead weight for our community. While we need to create space for ego-centered Pagans, we cannot allow them to keep us from coming together to help make the world a better place.
Sure, there’s a giant hole in center of the donut that is Paganism, but who wants donuts without holes? If more and more people are moving to the periphery of Paganism, who cares? Let them eat donut holes, I say!
While we may differ from many other Pagans in our attitude toward the supernatural, we are another one of the many varied and vibrant Pagan paths under the Pagan umbrella. We invite all Pagans to join us in our efforts to use evidence-based solutions to create a just, healthy and sustainable world for future generations