Atheology
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Doubt
It’s the Enemy Voice in our heads: you’re stupid. You’re crazy. You’re weak. You’re sinful. You’re damaged. You’re wrong. About everything. That voice is the Enemy. It is the soul-killer. We inherit it from parents and teachers and classmates, from religious leaders. We internalize it, make it our own, until it almost seems it is there to help us. To protect us from harm. And so we start to listen to it. Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop. That voice is a LIAR. That voice is malicious and it is not on your side. HERE IS THE TRUTH: You are luminous and beautiful and creative and full of stars. That…
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Imagine
Ours is a vision of a better world. So let’s imagine it. In the world we seek to build, kindness is paramount. None are “Other” or “lesser”, be they queer or disabled or poor or differently colored in skin tone. And those who are unfortunate are helped: our society leaves no one behind, guaranteeing a minimum, livable standard of living in all the ways that matter, including housing, food, clothing, health care and access to transportation and education. Because we care about one another. In our world, intellect is valued and thinking and reason are considered to be good things. Expertise is respected, and all learn to think critically as they…
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The Magic of a World Without Magic
Atheopagans are what is called in philosophical circles naturalists. That means that we believe that everything is a part of nature, is composed of natural material, and is subject to the laws of physics. Everything. Accordingly, barring the arrival of a substantial and compelling body of evidence in support of the idea that rituals and mental effort can and do affect physical events at a distance in time or space—i.e., “magic”—we don’t believe in that, either. There are some in other Pagan paths who express pity for this position (not to mention resentment, but that’s another matter). As if living in a world without gods, without ghosts or demons or fairies…
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Towards a Spirituality of Responsibility
Paganism is fun. It is: it’s playful, humorous, creative, sexy, joyous, and results in communities which are often wonderful to belong to*. Atheism isn’t so fun—often, it’s stuck in fascination with being “right”—but it is grounded in reason and evidence and, thus, in what we can say with confidence is reality and not fantasy. Putting them together can result in a cross-pollination that imbues the combination with joy, exploration, groundedness, wonder, reason and humor. It can also help us transcend some of the inherent flaws in each approach on its own. Paganism can be self-indulgent, consumeristic, credulous, reflexively hostile to any suggestion that Pagans should be accountable to others, and—while…
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The Atheopagan Way, and What It Isn’t
It’s not dressing as if you’re at a Renaissance Faire. Nor goth/BDSM aesthetic, all black and “witchy”. Both are fine, if you want to indulge in them. But they’re not relevant to the path. It’s not a commercial platform for selling crystals, oils, tinctures, potions, tools, incenses, candles, Tarot cards, workshops or books. It’s not having elaborate “occult” tools. Though some who practice it may avail themselves of such things. Atheopaganism is actually something serious, though lighthearted. It’s not a dress-up game and it’s not about collecting stuff. It isn’t even necessarily about doing rituals…though it is about creating and having experiences. It’s about loving and delighting in and wondering…
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Being Rooted and Transcending the Overculture
Contemporary Paganism in the English-speaking world suffers from multiple contaminating ideas carried over from the overculture that suffuses that world. A part of our effort at liberating ourselves from these assumptions and paradigms through Atheopaganism must, therefore, lie in choosing and adopting different models for understanding ourselves in relation to our Universe and the very nature of religion itself. Among the ideas we must transcend are: • The assumption that it is normal and natural that a religion should be imported from far away, as opposed to rooted in local land and biome. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism all come from lands far distant from the Anglophone world. That’s…
