Community
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Some Language I’m Not Going to Use Any More: An Apology
This post is an apology. It has now been more than two years since I waded into the broader online Pagan conversation on behalf first of myself, and then of what has turned out to be the many Pagans who do not believe in literal gods. In those early days, the posts of myself and others like John Halstead and John Cleland Host were received in some quarters with bitter hostility. As a result, I became defensive. And when I’m defensive, I’m often acerbic. “Hard theists” and I aren’t going to agree cosmologically. We have fundamental disputes over the nature of the Universe itself, and those cannot be reconciled. However,…
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Building Atheopagan Community
As I referenced earlier, Atheopaganism as a named path is new. That means that those of us who are a part of it are rare, and far-flung (the Facebook group has members from across the globe). That said, Atheopaganism has something precious to offer both atheists and Pagans, and those are quite a bit more common. Atheopagan community is therefore likely to be ecumenical community: at first, at least, we will gather with both those who share our worldview and those whose cosmologies differ. Pagans are rare enough in most places; expecting to find a broad community of atheist Pagans may be unrealistic. However, most Pagans are pretty tolerant–they will joyfully be a…
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What’s the Point?
People ask me, “if your religion isn’t about gods, what, really, is the point? Why do you do it?” It’s a valid question, because there are several things that Atheopaganism isn’t for. It isn’t for worshiping. It isn’t for entreating supernatural assistance, nor for attempting to influence the physical Universe through wielding of Unseen Forces. It isn’t for attaining an afterlife. No, Atheopaganism can’t offer those things. It operates within an understanding of finites: that the Universe is finite (there are things we imagine that are not so); that our lives are finite (we die); that our powers are finite (we cannot affect the course of physical events merely by wishing…
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What Will Be the Paganism of the Future?
Many religions contain a rosy story about the past, and look forward to a “foretold” future. Certainly the Abrahamic monotheisms do that; and many Pagan paths are highly focused on learning about and replicating traditions from long ago. Even many atheists who pursue spiritual paths these days feel that there must be a story about the future to which they can subscribe: the idea of humans as the vehicle for Life to spread to other words (SolSeed), and even transhumanism, wherein we can use technology so that our consciousnesses are preserved indefinitely, transcending death. To which I say: enh. I’m more focused on the relationship between humans and the biosphere. In healing that rift.…
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They’re Not My Elders
Recently, there has been much sturm und drang in the Pagan blogosphere over the clearly-just-not-getting-it comments about trans women by recognizable Names in the community who have been involved at a high-profile level since the 1970s or even earlier. I feel a need to say something about this. First–as seems unfortunately necessary in a situation like this–I will declare my allegiances: I am for the inclusion and acceptance of trans people. I think theirs is about as hard a road to walk as can possibly be imagined, and I support easing it at every possible turn. AND I understand that as a man I don’t have any idea about women’s spaces, AND…
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Castles in the Air
John Halstead has published a characteristically provocative piece in which he calls out John Beckett about the advisedness of the so-called “polytheist revolution”. Please go read them both; this post won’t make a lot of sense without them. I agree with Halstead completely on this matter, but for somewhat different reasons. The first is cultivation of an appropriate sense of scale. Pagans generally and polytheists particularly are a handful of people on a multi-billion-person planet, and their so-called revolution is, therefore, mostly in their minds rather than in fact. I think it would behoove all of us to stop talking about world transformation as if it’s a thing we can actually do–it…
