Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
I really think my friend John Halstead has missed the most salient points of my recent post, “Why the Doomsters are completely wrong”. His response glosses over my most important critiques of his position and mischaracterizes others. First and foremost, though claiming the space of “speaking truth”, he ignores the thorough debunking of Michael Moore’s … Continue reading The Doomsaying Simply Isn’t Helping: More on My Exchange with John Halstead
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My friend John Halstead has published Die Early and Often: Being Attis in the Anthropocene, recently reprinted in Medium. In it, he argues that the job of humanity now is to die gracefully: to accept that extinction is coming and work to leave a legacy that supports the Earth’s further evolution and biodiversity, and the … Continue reading Why the Doomsters are Completely Wrong
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Well, the new nonprofit has a name! The Working Group selected The Atheopagan Society (TAPS) as our monicker. We hope to move relatively quickly in developing the documents we need to file for incorporation in California and federal tax exemption, but there are a lot of policies and details to be worked out. The Working … Continue reading UPDATE: The Atheopagan Society. Also, Please Stay Home.
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Many religious people and paths—including many Pagans and Pagan traditions—place a great premium on claims of authenticity: that their mythologies, traditions and practices are, for want of a better word, “real”. “Real” ancient lore or rites. “Real” narratives about god/desses. “Real” translations of “real” ancient texts. “Real” rituals, real traditions, real teachers, real magic. “Real … Continue reading On Authenticity
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Hello, Atheopagans. By now, everyone knows about the novel coronavirus, CORVID-19. It’s spreading rapidly and it has killed more than 3,800 people worldwide as of this writing. It appears to have a mortality rate in excess of 2%. To put that in context, the 1918 “Spanish” (it wasn’t) flu pandemic had a mortality rate of … Continue reading Love in the Time of the Coronavirus
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I voted for Elizabeth Warren for US President. She was clearly the smartest, most prepared, most compassionate and sincere and—yes, I’ll say it—most progressive candidate in the race. She really gets poverty. She gets bigotry. She gets intersectionality. She gets it. She wasn’t perfect, and she’s made mistakes. Who hasn’t? But Elizabeth Ann Warren is … Continue reading It Is Long Past Time for Women, God Damn It.
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It’s not looking so great for the future of the world right now, is it? The machinations of Vladimir Putin to stir up nativist and racist sentiments in the UK and US have led to disastrous results: the Trump election and Brexit. Both are systematically destroying the liberal democratic traditions of these countries and threatening … Continue reading The Long Game
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Paganism is a very broad category. It includes a tremendous range of traditions, practices and paths. Which is as should be: people are diverse. They should do what gives them joy and meaning. So it can be about many things. It can be about rituals and “magic”. It can be about the Earth. It can … Continue reading I’m Gonna Go There: A Rant.
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Recently, I wrote an optimistic piece about the evolution of the Pagan movement. Some insightful commenters were not so sanguine as I, and I’d like to address their contentions here. Their arguments fell into several general buckets: The Internet is not a substitute for in-person contact and relationships. Rigid ideologies and fundamentalism are tearing us … Continue reading More on Community Transition
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Once upon a time in the mid-80s, few of the Pagans I knew ever even talked about what they believed. We just did rituals together and enjoyed one another’s company. Sure, there were shout-outs to various gods and goddesses in most of the rituals, but those were easily understood as metaphorical (as I did). When … Continue reading The Point of Friction
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