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The Atheopagan Suntree and Its Meanings
In summer of 2018, the Atheopagan community went through a process of selecting a symbol for our path. Many designs were submitted, and after several rounds of voting, we settled on this: the Suntree. I’ve been wearing a Suntree now since last August, created by community member James Morganstern. I get compliments on it often–it’s a friendly design, apparently, and I’m not the only one to think so. You can shop for wooden and metal options for Suntree pendants as well as various other goods with Suntrees on them here. I’ve found new meanings in the Suntree since we chose it–happy coincidences, if you will, or apophenia (seeing meaningful patterns where…
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There is No Resurrection
This week, Christians are celebrating their belief that someone rose from the dead, and—for unclear and not entirely logical reasons—that they are therefore absolved of a moral stain they believe they were born with. I do not subscribe to any of that. I don’t believe in original sin. I don’t believe in life after death, much less heaven and hell. And I certainly don’t believe that a human sacrifice has any pertinence to the moral character of anyone other than the people doing the sacrificing…and in that case, it’s a negative. I don’t find the Christian moral argument to be persuasive, and I find many of the values that are…
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Register now for MOON MEET 2019!
The third annual Moon Meet is a congregation of Atheopagans, non-theist Pagans and others interested in our paths, held from Friday, July 19 through Sunday, July 21, on private land on a redwood-covered mountain near Healdsburg, in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County, California. Registration is now open! Click here to register! Moon Meet—named because we will hold it during the weekend nearest the full moon—is a group camping gathering; a few indoor sleeping locations are available by prior arrangement for those disabled or coming from distance and unable to bring their gear along. We will share meals and workshops, hold a community discussion about how our Atheopagan community is developing…
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May Celebrations That Aren’t About Sex
Hooray, hooray, the first of May Outdoor fucking begins today! —old saw So, Atheopaganism is a pleasure-positive path. That’s Atheopagan Principle #10: so long as others and the Sacred Earth are respected, we believe that joy and fun and feeling good are our birthrights as humans. And that includes sex. Not for us, the furtive shame around sexuality that characterizes our Abrahamic brethren and sistren! We seek to be healthy in our boundaries, communications and behaviors, and happy in our enjoyment of our appetites. Sexuality—the ritual by which each of us is created—is Sacred, and it is a Good Thing. And. And that’s great,…
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In Which I Have Nothing of Value to Say
As I have noted previously, I am a white guy. Really, really white. 23andme.com tells me that I am 99.4% northwestern European in derivation. I get that this limits my perspective in a variety of ways, and so the following may be of no value other than for the questions. I lead with this acknowledgement because often, the perspective of (straight, cis-gender) white guys is considered the “baseline” from which all other perspectives are variations. And that’s just nonsense. It isn’t logical and it isn’t moral. Even in Anglophone countries, those people aren’t even in the majority; it makes zero sense that their views should be considered the norm. Recently, we…
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Authenticity
We revere the world because it is real. It verifiably exists, and it is magnificent: it sustains us, it unfolds in its myriad, fractal ways: in forests and grasslands, in oceans and deserts, in mountains and valleys and canyons, in lakes and rivers and fog and rain and snow. It feeds us, it waters us, it sustains us with warmth and so many kindnesses that, though it isn’t volitional, we might as well poetically conceptualize it as Love. We celebrate living because we are living. We sing, we stomp, we chant, we write poetry, we make art, we drum, we play. We light the candles, we burn the fire, we…
