Atheology
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Against the Golden Age
So, we were talking about “origin myths” in one of the Atheopagan community Zoom mixers the other day. And Mícheál, who is a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, suggested–somewhat facetiously–something like this for much of mainstream Paganism: Long ago, people lived in peaceful, egalitarian matriarchal/matrifocal societies that revered the Earth Goddess in many forms*. Since then, patriarchy has poisoned the relationship between humans and the Earth, subjugated women and created war. We must get back to that prior way of being. Now, this is grossly oversimplified, of course. But it is, at root, the story that many Pagans have told themselves, and often still do. Some still extend the…
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Celebrating the Sacred [INSERT GENDER HERE]
In Atheopaganism, we don’t believe in gods, and as a result we don’t have revered beings that embody the Sacred feminine, masculine or other genders. Rather than gendering the Sacred (or, as we see it, the Sacred Universe), we understand it as unconscious and without gender. Insofar as we can tell through the analytical lens of science, the Universe has no personality; it simply is, evolving and unfolding over billions of years in accordance with the laws of physics. But the idea of the Sacred feminine was a revelation not very long ago: it had been erased by the world’s large institutional religions for thousands of years until reintroduced by…
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Diversity and Community
In Atheopaganism, we believe in the elevation and development of each individual to be fully themselves. We celebrate the luminous spark of unique humanity in every member of our community. In order to do that, we have to be open to tremendous diversity in how Atheopaganism is expressed on a person by person basis. Your rituals, Focus, and the way you celebrate the wheel of the year will not look like mine, and that’s great! They should be as you find them meaningful, as you find them moving and transformative. This is markedly different than most other religious paths, which expect general conformity in practices, self-identification, often even dress and…
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Cozy
Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s dark time now. Three weeks to the solstice, with lights going up on houses and cars with trees atop showing up in traffic, en route to home and decoration and love. There is the consumer frenzy of the Overculture, too, of course, but I avoid all that. We no longer give gifts–we have enough things, and when we really need something, we just buy it. We choose instead to have lovely experiences and celebrate a bunch of holiday observances, which are detailed here. As the skies darken and the days shorten, grow wetter and colder, I find myself drawn more and more towards comfy…
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Now Comes the Tainted Holiday
It’s American Thanksgiving again. Time for turkey, stuffing, cranberries and cognitive dissonance. Like so much of the history of the United States of America, Thanksgiving is a happy smiley story layered over appalling crimes against humanity. Ask the Wampanoag what they feel about the meal they shared with white colonizers 400 years ago. It is not a happy, smiley story. They are not grateful for encountering those people, or for that day. And yet, part of me is so pulled to the concept of a holiday for gratitude. Which is, after all, one of the Atheopagan Principles. Shouldn’t we have one of those? Yes, I think we should. The Harvest…
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In Memoriam: Michael Dowd
After a life of convention-challenging thought and leadership, Michael Dowd has left us, quietly in his sleep last Saturday. There is a lot to say about Rev. Dowd. He was certainly a big thinker and he, with his wife Connie Barlow, was a pioneer in the framing of the very story of the Universe and evolution themselves as a grand spiritual narrative. He was also a “post-Doomer”, believing that climate change, ecological and civilizational collapse are inevitable and promoting a philosophical position that eschewed big-picture hope, but rather chose small acts of bettering the world immediately around us. I disagreed with him on this, and we had a couple of…
