Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

Imagine…

A world where critical thinking and reason and Occam’s Razor are the predominant means people use for determining what to believe. Where education is celebrated and made a major public priority, and expertise is once again respected.

A world where the Earth and Sun, and beauty and truth and love are considered Sacred. Where people conduct themselves according to principles of kindness and compassion.

Where we ritualize our life transitions, and calmly and factually embrace both sex and death as natural parts of a human life. Where consent culture is a norm rather than an aspiration. Where each of us is empowered to take on whatever religious roles we choose, subject to no priesthood, no religious authority.

Where our rituals are meaningful and transformative, and bring us into a sense of community and shared culture with our fellows. Where love, kindness, reason and wonder are the watchwords of an entire society, and the difference between experience and fact is clearly understood.

Wouldn’t it be lovely? Wouldn’t it be right?

Atheopaganism is a path for individuals to adopt and adapt as they see fit, but it has core principles and a vision that we all (hopefully) share. And that vision entails that through our practices we will become wiser, more grounded in reality, more reasonable, more kind, more compassionate, more environmentally and politically responsible.

And that as a result of our examples, these values will rub off. Will spread.

It’s late in the day for Western industrial capitalism. All the indicators are that it isn’t going to be able to manage to keep going for much longer. We’re going to need new values and approaches to living if humans are to enter another chapter and succeed.

So be proud, Atheopagans. You’re doing something new, something that actually squares the circle of integrating science and religion not only in terms of cosmology, but practices. And in the process, you’re building richer and more joyous lives for yourselves, your families and your communities.

Never doubt it: we’re playing the long game of culture-building.