My own view is that the Easter story is one of many stories of dying and resurrecting deities. In these stories, the hero dies, descends to the underworld, and returns to the mortal world bringing some blessing or new knowledge. Persephone is taken to the Underworld by force, but returns every six months; Gilgamesh goes to rescue his friend Enkidu from death; Orpheus goes to rescue Eurydice. Jesus goes there to rescue the souls of those trapped in Gehenna (this is referenced in the only letter of the Apostle Peter). In Christus Victor theology, which is prevalent among the Eastern Orthodox churches, Jesus “tramples down death by death” and because he is God, cannot be contained by death, and so transcends it. He then returns transformed into a being who can manifest as he chooses — by the Sea of Galilee, or on the road to Emmaus. The mythical journey undergone by all these heroes and heroines is a descent into death and the underworld, returning transformed into something greater, and bringing back a gift for humanity. The hymn Now the green blade rises references this mythological and transformational aspect of the Easter story.
The spiritual journey involves the same transformation — the death of the ego, the descent into the dark night of the soul, and the resurrection as the True Self. In Orthodox Christian theology, this transformation is called theosis, literally deification, making us divine. It’s not too hard to see an analogy with the Buddhist concept of enlightenment. As James Martineau, the 19th century Unitarian theologian, said, “The Incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly. Humanity is the susceptible organ of the Divine, and he bends into it to dwell there.”
In Orthodox churches, Easter is celebrated as a unified event, and is regarded as being in the present, the eternal Now. So on Easter Sunday, people greet each other with “Christos Anesti” (Christ is risen) - because he is risen in their hearts and in the church which is his mystical body (and they presumably believe it literally as well).
In the Eleusinian Mysteries, people witnessed the unfolding drama of the story of Persephone’s descent into the Underworld, and underwent a profound transformation or initiation as a result.
You can enjoy Easter on a mythical and mystical level. There’s no need to take it literally to enjoy the unfolding drama of the Mystery. We can witness the many stories of death and resurrection and experience transformation ourselves, like participants in a mystery tradition.
Showing posts with label Pagan perspectives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pagan perspectives. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
What happens when the oil runs out?
I am currently reading the Emberverse series by S M Stirling, in which electronics, guns, the internal combustion engine, and gunpowder all stop working overnight. The laws of physics have been tampered with by some unknown power. The books explore the consequences of this strange event, known as the Change. Part of the story follows a small group of Georgian Wiccans who take to the hills; another part deals with a man who decides to set up a feudal Norman-style state. The people who do best are those with some skills in farming, making things, but also, the ones who are rich in stories that help make sense of the world, which help them to build just and cohesive societies.I think that the Change is shorthand, or a metaphor, for what happens when the oil runs out. It won't happen overnight, and if we are lucky, it will be managed sensibly. But all the current indications are that it will not be managed sensibly. Instead of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, companies are inventing ever more destructive ways of wresting them from the ground, the worst of these being fracking. We are also not investing in sustainable power sources, or taxing carbon consumption, or anywhere near enough of the things we should be doing. The warning signs of climate change are being ignored.
Rhyd Wildermuth's story, What we built from ruins (part 1 and part 2), in response to the question, what will Paganism look like in fifty years' time? got me thinking, as well. I realised that my response completely ignored the question of what will happen when the oil runs out.
I also recently attended a ritual in my local area that was part of a global magical working to protect the waters of the world from fracking, which is about the most irresponsible and damaging thing anyone could possibly do to the environment. It was a very moving and beautiful ritual, and it brought together eco-activists, Pagans, shamans, and others.
So what can Pagans and other ecologically-minded people be doing to prepare for the eventual crash, or shift?
We can reduce our own dependence on fossil fuels; campaign for investment in sustainable energy sources; campaign for environmental and social justice. But in addition to these, we can do magic (the art of changing consciousness in accordance with Will) to heal and protect the Earth and other living beings, and we can learn skills such as building roundhouses and coracles and boats, raising livestock, weaving, growing our own food, and so on. We can get involved with the transition towns movement and other sustainability initiatives, support organic farming, and check our own ecological footprint. We can build strong communities - not only of Pagans, but including others of good will. And we can engage with stories that show how to build just, cohesive, and inclusive societies. We are already doing all this to a certain extent - we just need to do it more.
Friday, November 09, 2012
Liberal Christianity made me a better Wiccan
I am not a Christian, but I highly value the liberal Christian strand in Unitarianism, as its alternative interpretations of the new testament in particular have helped to liberate me from the oppressive and painful interpretations I received from my fundamentalist and evangelical upbringing. People who do not have that particular painful experience perhaps can't know the fear - and actual physical pain - that it induces. I am very grateful to liberal Christianity for liberating me from that fear. Despite being a Pagan since the age of 17, I still had that fear (of hell, basically) lurking at the bottom of my psyche, encased in a volcano of anger. Once the anger had gone, the fear was still there, and it is liberal Christian interpretations of the Bible that have liberated me from that fear.
On a more positive note, I also value the fact that I can find a lot of common ground with liberal Christians, on values, shared appreciation of the beauty of Nature, and frequently shared understandings of the nature of the Divine as immanent and loving and including both genders as well as transcending gender.
If we have travelled by very different paths and still arrived at a similar understanding, that suggests we might be onto something. I met an ex-Franciscan who has a remarkably similar apophatic understanding of the Divine. I have met Unitarian Christians with a deep appreciation of the Divine immanence in Nature.
As a dear liberal Christian friend remarked approvingly, "Ah, so liberal Christianity made you a better Wiccan?" To which I replied, "Yes."
Liberal Christianity liberated me from my fear so that I could concentrate on my spiritual path of joyous communion with the Divine in Nature, with spirits of place, and with the land.
On a more positive note, I also value the fact that I can find a lot of common ground with liberal Christians, on values, shared appreciation of the beauty of Nature, and frequently shared understandings of the nature of the Divine as immanent and loving and including both genders as well as transcending gender.
If we have travelled by very different paths and still arrived at a similar understanding, that suggests we might be onto something. I met an ex-Franciscan who has a remarkably similar apophatic understanding of the Divine. I have met Unitarian Christians with a deep appreciation of the Divine immanence in Nature.
As a dear liberal Christian friend remarked approvingly, "Ah, so liberal Christianity made you a better Wiccan?" To which I replied, "Yes."
Liberal Christianity liberated me from my fear so that I could concentrate on my spiritual path of joyous communion with the Divine in Nature, with spirits of place, and with the land.
Friday, September 07, 2012
What's wrong with the Incarnation?
Many Christians think that other religions don't like the idea of the Incarnation because they're offended by the idea of God becoming human.
The thing that is specifically offensive about the idea that Jesus is the only way to God is the idea that stems from it that all other religions are wrong, and that unless you have "accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour" you will go to hell. So according to this insane and offensive theology, that means Gandhi and other great luminaries are in hell. (Then there's penal substitution theology, which is also offensive, but that is a separate issue.)
I don't have a problem with the idea of Jesus being divine. I do have a problem with the idea of his being the one and only incarnation of the godhead. As far as I'm concerned, we are all divine.
In polytheist religions, the idea of humans becoming divine, or the divine becoming human, crops up frequently. There's Krishna, who is an incarnation of Vishnu. There's Oðinn, who is either a deified human or a god who became human. There's Aradia, who was Diana's daughter and came to earth to teach Tuscan witches their craft, and how to resist oppression. There are many, many deities who became human, and humans who became deities. So the idea that other religions have a problem with the Incarnation because they don't like the idea of God becoming human is laughably ignorant.
In Judaism, the soul has three components - the nefesh (the animal soul, which disperses at death), the neshamah (the divine part, which returns to God at death), and the ruach (the breath of God, which gives life). The more spiritually developed you are, the greater the neshamah becomes. When Jesus told his disciples that he would send his ruach (his Holy Spirit) to be with the disciples at death, he meant he would send that component of his soul to be with them. This insight must have got lost in the early centuries of Christianity when the Judaic elements were eradicated from Christianity by opponents of "Judaizing". Anyway, the point here is, that in Judaism, everyone is a child of God, and has God within them. (For more on this, see my earlier post, The Trinity and Jewish theology).
In the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), they say that everyone has "that of God" within them, and refer to the Inner Christ or the Inner Light. The idea is to uncover that light (not hiding it under a bushel) and let it shine.
In Unitarianism, which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity back in the 16th century, the view is usually that everyone has the Divine within them, too. James Martineau, a great 19th century member of the tradition (who actually identified as a Free Christian), said:
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although they believe that Jesus is the one and only divine incarnation, they also have the concept of theosis, which means that because Jesus opened the way between the human and the divine, we can all become divine. Indeed, Jesus himself said, "I have said, ye are gods."
So, no, the thing that annoys people about the Incarnation is not the idea that God became human - it's the idea that it only happened once.
Everyone has "that of God" within them - the neshamah, the ruach, the seed of a Future Buddha, the potential for theosis.
The thing that is specifically offensive about the idea that Jesus is the only way to God is the idea that stems from it that all other religions are wrong, and that unless you have "accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour" you will go to hell. So according to this insane and offensive theology, that means Gandhi and other great luminaries are in hell. (Then there's penal substitution theology, which is also offensive, but that is a separate issue.)
I don't have a problem with the idea of Jesus being divine. I do have a problem with the idea of his being the one and only incarnation of the godhead. As far as I'm concerned, we are all divine.
In polytheist religions, the idea of humans becoming divine, or the divine becoming human, crops up frequently. There's Krishna, who is an incarnation of Vishnu. There's Oðinn, who is either a deified human or a god who became human. There's Aradia, who was Diana's daughter and came to earth to teach Tuscan witches their craft, and how to resist oppression. There are many, many deities who became human, and humans who became deities. So the idea that other religions have a problem with the Incarnation because they don't like the idea of God becoming human is laughably ignorant.
In Judaism, the soul has three components - the nefesh (the animal soul, which disperses at death), the neshamah (the divine part, which returns to God at death), and the ruach (the breath of God, which gives life). The more spiritually developed you are, the greater the neshamah becomes. When Jesus told his disciples that he would send his ruach (his Holy Spirit) to be with the disciples at death, he meant he would send that component of his soul to be with them. This insight must have got lost in the early centuries of Christianity when the Judaic elements were eradicated from Christianity by opponents of "Judaizing". Anyway, the point here is, that in Judaism, everyone is a child of God, and has God within them. (For more on this, see my earlier post, The Trinity and Jewish theology).
In the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), they say that everyone has "that of God" within them, and refer to the Inner Christ or the Inner Light. The idea is to uncover that light (not hiding it under a bushel) and let it shine.
In Unitarianism, which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity back in the 16th century, the view is usually that everyone has the Divine within them, too. James Martineau, a great 19th century member of the tradition (who actually identified as a Free Christian), said:
The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there; and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.What a truly great concept - the incarnation is true of all humans. Or as Shakespeare (religious beliefs unknown) so memorably put it:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animalsIn Buddhism, we all contain the potential to become enlightened, to become a Buddha, to become divine. We are all Future Buddhas.
Hamlet, Act II, Scene II
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although they believe that Jesus is the one and only divine incarnation, they also have the concept of theosis, which means that because Jesus opened the way between the human and the divine, we can all become divine. Indeed, Jesus himself said, "I have said, ye are gods."
So, no, the thing that annoys people about the Incarnation is not the idea that God became human - it's the idea that it only happened once.
Everyone has "that of God" within them - the neshamah, the ruach, the seed of a Future Buddha, the potential for theosis.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Pagan support for equal marriage
Pagans support equal marriage, and have done for decades.
Unfortunately, in England and Wales, Pagan opposite-sex weddings have no legal standing, and the government has no plans to change that. So - among Pagans, marriage is already equal - a Pagan priestess or priest will happily do your handfasting (wedding) for you, but it won't have any legal standing whether you are marrying someone of the opposite sex or the same sex. A Pagan priest or priestess will also happily do a wedding for transgender people, poly people etc. The Pagan Federation's homepage states that it "regards membership of any organisations that refuse to support freedom of religion and equality of race, gender, and sexual orientation, as incompatible with our aims, objectives and values."
In Scotland, the situation is different. Pagan opposite-sex weddings are legal, and Pagans have joined in the lobbying for same-sex marriage and religious civil partnerships. The Pagan Federation Scotland has signed the Equal Marriage Pledge (see under faith groups), along with the Quakers, MCC, Scottish Unitarian Association, Humanists, Iona Community, 3 Liberal Jewish groups, and Changing Attitude Scotland (Episcopalians).
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Third Annual Pagan Values Blogging Month
Pax of the Pagan Values Blogject has just announced the third annual Pagan Values Blogging Month.
You can sign up for it on Facebook.
Pax writes:
Pagan Values Blogging Month 2010 and 2009 produced some excellent reflections on Pagan values and virtues - it was popular theology in the making.
You can sign up for it on Facebook.
Pax writes:
We must not be afraid to discuss the values and virtues and ethics we have discovered in our contemporary Pagan faiths. There are enough books on rituals and spells and prayers to last us a few generations… let's start writing works on confronting poverty and hunger from Pagan perspectives. Let us set aside the fear of prejudice, and the once glamorous but now tattered and worn mantle of the outsider and the rebel, and take pride in ourselves and our faiths, in our works and lives and worship and in our Pagan communities and our larger communities.
Learn more about the event.
When you get your contribution written/recorded and posted in June put a link to it in the comments stream on the Facebook page. Tags such as "PVE2011" and "Pagan Values" are also encouraged.
Pagan Values Blogging Month 2010 and 2009 produced some excellent reflections on Pagan values and virtues - it was popular theology in the making.
Friday, September 17, 2010
After religion, what?
As for ceremony, already the leaves have swirled over, the wind has spoken - Andrew Brown, Caute
Many of my Pagan friends seek to blame fundamentalism on monotheism, claiming that polytheism is inherently more tolerant. This is understandable, but it does the liberal monotheists a disservice. I think polytheism can be intolerant too - look at what happened to Socrates.
I think the problem is twofold: assuming that metaphors for the ineffable mystery are literal, concrete and graspable; and assuming that religion is an external process, something you do, a set of laws you adhere to, rather than an internal process and an internal apprehension of harmony.
We have just been through a week in which we have seen yet further examples of the deeply problematic nature of religion - especially in its monotheistic varieties.This is a wonderful post and very gently articulates what I have been struggling to say in several different ways: that religion is not all about fundamentalist nutters threatening to blow things up and burn things because the world isn't how they think it should be.
...
My question - developing in various ways since 9/11 - is how might we continue to access these sacramental energies without resorting to the language of the gods/God with which they were once so indissolubly linked? In short, what religion might look like after religion - after God?
Many of my Pagan friends seek to blame fundamentalism on monotheism, claiming that polytheism is inherently more tolerant. This is understandable, but it does the liberal monotheists a disservice. I think polytheism can be intolerant too - look at what happened to Socrates.
I think the problem is twofold: assuming that metaphors for the ineffable mystery are literal, concrete and graspable; and assuming that religion is an external process, something you do, a set of laws you adhere to, rather than an internal process and an internal apprehension of harmony.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Stop whining and get on with it
Cat at Quaker Pagan Reflections has posted an absolutely brilliant rant (well, she says it's a rant, but it's actually very mild-mannered) asking Pagans who have left Christianity behind to stop moaning about it and start exploring their own spirituality, i.e. instead of talking about why they don't like Jesus, they should start talking about why they do like Odin, or Freyja, or Isis, or the Tao. If more than 50% of your blogposts involve moaning about Christianity or Jesus, then please read it.
I couldn't agree more. I shudder at the number of times I have had to sit through interminable rants about how dreadful Christianity is at pub moots, and the number of blogposts I have had to sift through that were whining about how all the ills of the world can be laid at Christianity's door, and how they stole the Pagan festivals, yada, yada, yada.
Yes, Christians can be bigoted bastards. And yes, the Inquisition was bad. But on the plus side of the balance sheet, there's charity and compassion (not uniquely the preserve of Christians, but they do walk their talk in that respect).
It could be because many Pagans have come from a fundamentalist Christian background. I sympathise, because I have been there. But moaning about it incessantly is not the answer. Go and get some really good therapy, deal with it, and move on.
But it's not just Christianity and Jesus that get the blame for all the ills of the world. Oh no - in fact it's monotheism that is the bad guy, according to some. Last year, during Pagan Values Month, there were a number of posts going on about how polytheism was inherently more tolerant than monotheism. I disagree - I have met tolerant monotheists and intolerant polytheists. It's taking things literally that is the source of narrow-mindedness, and fear is the source of bigotry.
Trinitarian theology is mostly exclusivist, because it maintains that Jesus is the only gateway to the Divine Source; but all other forms of monotheism are conducive to the view that polytheism and monotheism are different perspectives on the same reality. But even some Trinitarians see their theology as a metaphor for other theologies.
So, unless you have made some effort to study other religions' theologies in some depth, don't assume that the narrow-minded fundamentalist mindset you were brought up in is typical of the whole of Christian thought. Some of the best minds in Europe were devoted to theological musing for centuries, so it's actually quite subtle.
Unless you are aware that there are several different models of the atonement, plus Christus Victor theology, plus the Arian heresy, and you know what theosis, kenosis, coinherence and perichoresis are, when original sin was invented and by whom, and what the causes and implications of the Filioque controversy were - then don't think you are qualified to hold forth on what's wrong with Christian theology.
I couldn't agree more. I shudder at the number of times I have had to sit through interminable rants about how dreadful Christianity is at pub moots, and the number of blogposts I have had to sift through that were whining about how all the ills of the world can be laid at Christianity's door, and how they stole the Pagan festivals, yada, yada, yada.
Yes, Christians can be bigoted bastards. And yes, the Inquisition was bad. But on the plus side of the balance sheet, there's charity and compassion (not uniquely the preserve of Christians, but they do walk their talk in that respect).
It could be because many Pagans have come from a fundamentalist Christian background. I sympathise, because I have been there. But moaning about it incessantly is not the answer. Go and get some really good therapy, deal with it, and move on.
But it's not just Christianity and Jesus that get the blame for all the ills of the world. Oh no - in fact it's monotheism that is the bad guy, according to some. Last year, during Pagan Values Month, there were a number of posts going on about how polytheism was inherently more tolerant than monotheism. I disagree - I have met tolerant monotheists and intolerant polytheists. It's taking things literally that is the source of narrow-mindedness, and fear is the source of bigotry.
Trinitarian theology is mostly exclusivist, because it maintains that Jesus is the only gateway to the Divine Source; but all other forms of monotheism are conducive to the view that polytheism and monotheism are different perspectives on the same reality. But even some Trinitarians see their theology as a metaphor for other theologies.
So, unless you have made some effort to study other religions' theologies in some depth, don't assume that the narrow-minded fundamentalist mindset you were brought up in is typical of the whole of Christian thought. Some of the best minds in Europe were devoted to theological musing for centuries, so it's actually quite subtle.
Unless you are aware that there are several different models of the atonement, plus Christus Victor theology, plus the Arian heresy, and you know what theosis, kenosis, coinherence and perichoresis are, when original sin was invented and by whom, and what the causes and implications of the Filioque controversy were - then don't think you are qualified to hold forth on what's wrong with Christian theology.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A theophany
Christian theologians (especially Orthodox ones) love to point out that Pagans are worshipping the creation, whereas they are worshipping the creator.
It is one of the first rules of interfaith dialogue to listen carefully to what others say they believe, rather than telling them what they believe.
This creator and creation thing is a bit of an old chestnut and not really true (it may be so in terms of some Christian theological systems, but it doesn't translate into ours).
In other words, Mu. (A Japanase word meaning, "your question is irrelevant in my paradigm"; kind of like "meh".)
Most Pagans see the Divine as immanent in the Universe, not necessarily as identical with it (and yes, don't tend to pay much attention to the unknowable, or believe in the transcendent aspect) so the categories of creator and creature are a bit meaningless, really... in fact I personally find the idea of an external supernatural creator offensive, because to me the Universe was born, not made. It is a theophany: a manifestation of the Divine.
As Sam Webster wrote in his 2007 article, How Close the Gods? Transcendence, Immanence and Immediacy in Pagan Religion (given at Pantheacon 2007):
It is one of the first rules of interfaith dialogue to listen carefully to what others say they believe, rather than telling them what they believe.
This creator and creation thing is a bit of an old chestnut and not really true (it may be so in terms of some Christian theological systems, but it doesn't translate into ours).
In other words, Mu. (A Japanase word meaning, "your question is irrelevant in my paradigm"; kind of like "meh".)
Most Pagans see the Divine as immanent in the Universe, not necessarily as identical with it (and yes, don't tend to pay much attention to the unknowable, or believe in the transcendent aspect) so the categories of creator and creature are a bit meaningless, really... in fact I personally find the idea of an external supernatural creator offensive, because to me the Universe was born, not made. It is a theophany: a manifestation of the Divine.
As Sam Webster wrote in his 2007 article, How Close the Gods? Transcendence, Immanence and Immediacy in Pagan Religion (given at Pantheacon 2007):
Immediacy is a more modern term for wrestling with this problem, although one can find the idea discussed in the deep past. It is a subtle idea but its implications are vast. Here we would say, "the Goddess made the Tree and is present AS the Tree (not just IN the Tree)." To touch the Tree is to touch the Goddess. She is immediately present. Nothing is between us and Her. The whole World IS Her, made BY Her and OF Her, and by implication, there is Nothing BUT Her.In this way of looking at it, it is not that we are focussed on the creation instead of the creator / creatrix: the two are identical, and so making a distinction between them is meaningless.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Fame!
Cat over at Quaker Pagan Reflections has written a very interesting post about fame.
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree that fame and wisdom are not the same thing, I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that there are no Pagans who do not know the difference (famous or otherwise). It's rare for me to disagree with Cat, but on this occasion I have to say I do.
I've thought a lot about the whole fame thing. Part of my reason for writing books was that I wanted something to live on after death; but I've never wanted to be famous in a Big Name Pagan sort of way. Most of the Big Name Pagans that I really respect are the ones who do not expect everyone else to agree with them and fawn over them. I have a selection of people whom I have commissioned to give me a big kick up the backside if ever I turn into one of those people surrounded by fawning neophytes. Of course there are one or two of those sort of Big Name Pagans in the UK, but apart from their small gang of neophytes, they are widely regarded as Too Big For Their Boots. Another part of my reason for writing books was that I aimed to write the sort of books I wanted to read (on the assumption that there might be others interested in the same topics as me). The other day, someone did say to me that they were very grateful for my books as they thought they were the only one interested in such things - I was very glad to have been of assistance in this way, but I can't say it inflated my ego, though I was very pleased to discover a kindred spirit. I can certainly honestly say that I don't write books in order to acquire followers or be seen as super-spiritual; I write because I enjoy writing and hope that other people will enjoy the results. I've never wanted to be famous to the extent of being recognised in the street or anything like that; I certainly don't crave the attention of tabloids and paparazzi; and I would rather someone develop their own opinions than quote mine as an "authority" (if they happen to agree with me, that's nice, but only if they have come to their views after independent thought and reflection).
The authors I respect know what they think, cultivate wisdom, are generally humble, and do not expect the biggest table or spotlight at conferences. I happen to know quite a lot of Pagan authors, and for the most part they are people of integrity. Rather than keeping a coterie of dependent neophytes, they encourage others to develop their own opinions, walk their own path with integrity, and cultivate their own wisdom. A person who keeps others in a state of spiritual or intellectual dependence (beyond the point where they might be expected to think for themselves) is certainly to be suspected of overweening ego; but fortunately such people are reasonably rare. I personally couldn't be bothered to keep a flock of neophytes dangling at my tail, because it would be too much effort looking after their neediness, and people who can't think for themselves irritate me. If anyone says to me that I am wise or special, I just feel squirmily embarrassed, quite frankly. I mean, okay, I take a fair amount of pride in my breadth of knowledge and ability to express it clearly; but I don't pretend to superior wisdom on anything.
The Hávamál implicitly make the point that fame must be earned:
A person with integrity walks the walk, and does not merely talk the talk.
I have discussed Pagan virtues and ethics elsewhere at length (especially compassion), and they most definitely do include humility - but a humility tempered by honour, which in the Pagan sense is an accurate assessment of one's own self-worth (naturally not flinching from being aware of one's flaws). Honour and humility together bring integrity. And Pagan virtues (ideal and actual) certainly include the cultivation of wisdom - a wisdom that includes compassion for all life (including those less "spiritually advanced" than oneself).
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree that fame and wisdom are not the same thing, I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that there are no Pagans who do not know the difference (famous or otherwise). It's rare for me to disagree with Cat, but on this occasion I have to say I do.
I've thought a lot about the whole fame thing. Part of my reason for writing books was that I wanted something to live on after death; but I've never wanted to be famous in a Big Name Pagan sort of way. Most of the Big Name Pagans that I really respect are the ones who do not expect everyone else to agree with them and fawn over them. I have a selection of people whom I have commissioned to give me a big kick up the backside if ever I turn into one of those people surrounded by fawning neophytes. Of course there are one or two of those sort of Big Name Pagans in the UK, but apart from their small gang of neophytes, they are widely regarded as Too Big For Their Boots. Another part of my reason for writing books was that I aimed to write the sort of books I wanted to read (on the assumption that there might be others interested in the same topics as me). The other day, someone did say to me that they were very grateful for my books as they thought they were the only one interested in such things - I was very glad to have been of assistance in this way, but I can't say it inflated my ego, though I was very pleased to discover a kindred spirit. I can certainly honestly say that I don't write books in order to acquire followers or be seen as super-spiritual; I write because I enjoy writing and hope that other people will enjoy the results. I've never wanted to be famous to the extent of being recognised in the street or anything like that; I certainly don't crave the attention of tabloids and paparazzi; and I would rather someone develop their own opinions than quote mine as an "authority" (if they happen to agree with me, that's nice, but only if they have come to their views after independent thought and reflection).
The authors I respect know what they think, cultivate wisdom, are generally humble, and do not expect the biggest table or spotlight at conferences. I happen to know quite a lot of Pagan authors, and for the most part they are people of integrity. Rather than keeping a coterie of dependent neophytes, they encourage others to develop their own opinions, walk their own path with integrity, and cultivate their own wisdom. A person who keeps others in a state of spiritual or intellectual dependence (beyond the point where they might be expected to think for themselves) is certainly to be suspected of overweening ego; but fortunately such people are reasonably rare. I personally couldn't be bothered to keep a flock of neophytes dangling at my tail, because it would be too much effort looking after their neediness, and people who can't think for themselves irritate me. If anyone says to me that I am wise or special, I just feel squirmily embarrassed, quite frankly. I mean, okay, I take a fair amount of pride in my breadth of knowledge and ability to express it clearly; but I don't pretend to superior wisdom on anything.
The Hávamál implicitly make the point that fame must be earned:
Happy is he who wins for himselfFame is not merely earned by spouting opinions; it is earned by wisdom and a life well lived.
fair fame and kindly words;
(Hávamál, 8)
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
fair fame of one who has earned.
(Hávamál, 75)
A person with integrity walks the walk, and does not merely talk the talk.
I have discussed Pagan virtues and ethics elsewhere at length (especially compassion), and they most definitely do include humility - but a humility tempered by honour, which in the Pagan sense is an accurate assessment of one's own self-worth (naturally not flinching from being aware of one's flaws). Honour and humility together bring integrity. And Pagan virtues (ideal and actual) certainly include the cultivation of wisdom - a wisdom that includes compassion for all life (including those less "spiritually advanced" than oneself).
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Pagan clergy?
Gus di Zerega argues that Pagan clergy is not a good idea.
His first argument is that power corrupts, and a Pagan clergy could become corrupt.
Ye-e-es... Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that - but it won't if we don't give Pagan clergy absolute power.
I think it is worthwhile having people properly trained and accredited in counselling skills and having a good overview of Pagan understandings of birth, life, death, and rebirth, ethics and the nature of reality (so they can do chaplaincy work in prisons, hospitals, universities etc). But that does not mean that they thereby gain authority over other Pagans, or authority to speak for other Pagans. If they did, then I would be opposed to having clergy.
A lot of people want to take part in Pagan rituals and spirituality, but not to become a dedicated priest or priestess. Unless we are going to turn these people away, we will need people who are skilled facilitators of ritual and who have an understanding of group dynamics.
There are many different models of clergy, and I think we would do well to examine them all before dismissing the whole concept.
His second argument is that the connotations of clergy (and all the words that are linked to it) are not the same as the terms for Pagan spiritual leaders: priestess, priest, high priestess, high priest, Witch Queen, Magus, healer, medium, shaman, and diviner. Furthermore, he writes:
However, the training offered at Cherry Hill looks very Pagan and not at all conforming to mainline Protestant expectations.
His third argument is that the reason we seem to need some kind of official 'clergy' status is because church and state are still not as separate as they should be. He argues that we already have access to prisons, hospitals, and so on, and that we already do public ritual, so we don't need clergy for that. Also, he writes:
On the other hand, as Chip O'Brien says in his comment on the third article:
His first argument is that power corrupts, and a Pagan clergy could become corrupt.
Ye-e-es... Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that - but it won't if we don't give Pagan clergy absolute power.
I think it is worthwhile having people properly trained and accredited in counselling skills and having a good overview of Pagan understandings of birth, life, death, and rebirth, ethics and the nature of reality (so they can do chaplaincy work in prisons, hospitals, universities etc). But that does not mean that they thereby gain authority over other Pagans, or authority to speak for other Pagans. If they did, then I would be opposed to having clergy.
A lot of people want to take part in Pagan rituals and spirituality, but not to become a dedicated priest or priestess. Unless we are going to turn these people away, we will need people who are skilled facilitators of ritual and who have an understanding of group dynamics.
There are many different models of clergy, and I think we would do well to examine them all before dismissing the whole concept.
His second argument is that the connotations of clergy (and all the words that are linked to it) are not the same as the terms for Pagan spiritual leaders: priestess, priest, high priestess, high priest, Witch Queen, Magus, healer, medium, shaman, and diviner. Furthermore, he writes:
The critical question is where we will strike a workable balance between what we are now and what society as a whole finds comfortable. In negotiating this cultural dance we should never forget that Western society is based on beliefs that are fundamentally anti-Pagan. The secular world sees nature as mundane, composed in most cases of resources valued for their use to us. Human beings are the acme of existence, and science someday might give us power over the world. Even more important for this present discussion, Western Christian spirituality focuses on the sacred as only or almost entirely transcendent, the world as fallen, radically distrusts individual experience of the sacred, and regards the only truly reliable spiritual knowledge as coming from revealed written words, even if there is no agreement on what they actually say. Moreover, Catholics partially excepted, people continually need to be reminded about the sacred through sermons rather than participating in and reconnecting with the sacred through rituals.Now that is a much better argument than the first one, and I agree that the style of Pagan ritual (and therefore the functions of the ritualists) is radically different from that of other traditions.
However, the training offered at Cherry Hill looks very Pagan and not at all conforming to mainline Protestant expectations.
His third argument is that the reason we seem to need some kind of official 'clergy' status is because church and state are still not as separate as they should be. He argues that we already have access to prisons, hospitals, and so on, and that we already do public ritual, so we don't need clergy for that. Also, he writes:
[F]or me the term 'laity' is as dangerous a term as 'clergy.' It suggests a sharp distinction between two groups rather than the complex blends we have as Pagans. We are focusing on divine immanence, not transcendence. This means we believe the sacred can be accessed everywhere when approached properly. Therefore the complex areas of life where spirituality and the mundane come together are even more an issue for Pagans than Christians. For this very reason, I think it would be a mistake creating the clergy/laity distinction.Again, this argument is more convincing than the first. But perhaps we do need a collective name for the various different roles that people perform in ritual and beyond it.
On the other hand, as Chip O'Brien says in his comment on the third article:
I don't want to ask my office worker friend to marry my partner and me. I don't want to search for a priestess and wonder whether she's run this ceremony before, whether she's studied our traditions or just another New Age opportunist out to suck our community dry. Ultimately, I don't want to remain as we are now: bereft of role models, utterly lost when we fall into depression and spiritual questioning because there's no one we can talk to except our peers, who don't know any more than we do. This isn't about surrendering my personal power so someone else can provide my answers on a plate-- it's the fact that I don't have all the time and resources I'd need to be comfortable with myself as my only spiritual authority. In rough times, even the best of us may need some help hearing the gods again.I think this last point is very important - I have recently been through a spiritually fallow period, and was greatly helped by having other Pagans to discuss my issues with; but I think I would have benefited from having someone to talk it through with who really understood all the issues and the theology. A full-time priest or priestess would have been helpful; but are we willing to contribute the funds to support full-time practitioners? I think most people, suspicious that clergy would be trying to wield authority over others, would not be prepared to contribute in any case.
Monday, January 12, 2009
agnostic bus
I donated five pounds to the Atheist Bus campaign on the grounds that I am irritated by all the evangelical Christian propaganda on public transport. A Christian friend of mine also donated on the grounds that the advert would promote discussion. Well, it certainly has, but perhaps not quite the sort of thing he had in mind.
Here's my suggestion: "There may or may not be a Divine Being or Beings, and they're probably just the anthropomorphic interfaces of vast cosmic processes, but anyway, they're on their own spiritual journey and their goals may or may not coincide with yours. They certainly can't be bothered to arrange for you to fry for all eternity on a hot griddle, so you can stop all that worrying."
But perhaps the above is not as snappy as the Atheist Bus.
Liz Williams suggests:
(Also available in Judaism, where it's a sin to refuse a pleasure, apparently, and it's requirement to make love on the Sabbath eve; and Unitarianism, which celebrates being alive.)
All this talk of buses reminds me of the short story by E M Forster, The Celestial Omnibus, which you can hear read aloud at the Library of Babel.
Here's my suggestion: "There may or may not be a Divine Being or Beings, and they're probably just the anthropomorphic interfaces of vast cosmic processes, but anyway, they're on their own spiritual journey and their goals may or may not coincide with yours. They certainly can't be bothered to arrange for you to fry for all eternity on a hot griddle, so you can stop all that worrying."
But perhaps the above is not as snappy as the Atheist Bus.
Liz Williams suggests:
GOD: SHE'S NOT JUST AN OLD BLOKE WITH A BEARD, YOU KNOW!Another suggestion from KH:
"Zeus is going to kick your pussy God's ass and then shag your women!"Maybe we could just have a poster on the side of buses that reads: "Paganism: the religion where enjoying yourself is SACRED." Except that we don't believe in evangelising.
(Also available in Judaism, where it's a sin to refuse a pleasure, apparently, and it's requirement to make love on the Sabbath eve; and Unitarianism, which celebrates being alive.)
All this talk of buses reminds me of the short story by E M Forster, The Celestial Omnibus, which you can hear read aloud at the Library of Babel.
The title-story is a whimsical piece of fantasy which again uses a child as the means to unmask unimaginative adult pragmatism. “The Celestial Omnibus” starts with a young boy who is perplexed by the sign-post in his Surbiton street that says “To Heaven” and points to a cul-de-sac. Running up the blank alley one evening he encounters an omnibus which takes him up to a paradise where he meets all the characters from fiction and mythology that his parents and their friends talk about but do not really believe in.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Criteria for theology
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is allI think any explanation of the nature of the universe should be elegant and the simplest possible solution to the problem (so it could actually be quite complex, whilst still being the simplest possible explanation). Physicists often talk about elegance and simplicity as criteria for their theories about how the world works. Also I think we should distinguish between theories (large bodies of complex reasoning backed by copious amounts of evidence) and hypotheses (propositions about how the world works that have yet to be proven).
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
~ John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
Theological explanations should also be internally consistent and logical (even if the logic is different from conventional forms of logic), as well as consistent with the fact that there are millions of people with a different explanation. Pagan theological formulations usually take into account the plurality of religious beliefs; Christian theological formulations signally fail in this regard. For example, most Pagans say that other people are following their own unique spiritual path in their own cultures; there's no drive to convert others to Paganism (Jews and Sikhs also believe this). Most Christians believe that Christ is the only means of accessing the Divine, and many believe that non-Christians won't be "saved" (this fails to explain why other faiths are so satisfying for their adherents). Theologians should also practice triangulation, comparing their explanations with those of other religions and philosophies, and with science, to see if they still make sense.
Many theologians claim that theology is resistant to logic because the Divine is paradoxical: but paradoxes can often be resolved by looking at the thing from a different perspective - like the old chestnut about "God is no where and God is now here".
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
a little light reading
Four interesting projects....
Peter says:
If I was going to do a Bible-blogging project, I'd start with something as near to the original as I could get: the Hebrew Tanakh in English. Alternatively, I would blog about a book that I might enjoy reading, like the Tao Te Ching or the T’ai Hsüan Ching.
- Badger's Bible Project, in which an atheist reads and comments on the Bible
- Peter on Genesis, in which a Quaker Pagan reads Genesis and Exodus
- Blogging the Bible, in which David Plotz, who is Jewish, finds out what's really in there
- Bill Darlison, a Unitarian minister, also reads the Bible (for the 14th time)
Actually the Flood was caused by Ishtar when she was suffering from PMT. See Tablet 11 of The Epic of Gilgamesh. I am also mystified as to why anyone would worship a being who is described as sending plagues and floods on innocent people. Anyway, it’s all a metaphor…So the Lord said, “I will destroy Man whom I have created from the face of the Earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry I have made them.” - Genesis 6:7
So, God gets pissed at Man and decides not only to kill every single person on the planet (even the newborn babies who are, one would think, blameless), but he also decides to off all the animals. Well, except fish, I would guess. They were probably quite pleased!
Anyhow, flood happens. God has a grand ole time going along undoing everything he did. Is it just me, or does he strike you as a frustrated gamer, always reloading Sims from a save point, after having done horrible things to his Sims?
Peter says:
The Bible was written by writers, and I’ve long felt that much of what those writers wanted to say has been lost, crushed, twisted, and sometimes outright perverted by later so-called “Bible based” traditions. All religious sentiments aside, as a fellow writer I feel it is my calling and my sacred duty to read through the text, not for comfort or for inspiration or for edification, but simply to hear what it is they were trying to say.David says:
This is not a story they taught me at Temple Sinai's Hebrew School in 1980: The founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel lie, breach a contract, encourage pagans to convert to Judaism only in order to incapacitate them for slaughter, murder some innocents and enslave others, pillage and profiteer, and then justify it all with an appeal to their sister's defiled honor.Bill says:
I am not against the Bible. I am just against the idea that this book – or any other book, including the Koran or the Book of Mormon or whatever – is a special revelation from God. It is probably the most irrational, dangerous and divisive idea that currently infects the human psyche. And, as Art Lester said to me last month, ‘The book-believers are the ones who will destroy the world.’ Sadly, Art might just be right. And it is our duty to challenge the book-believers, by fostering a new kind of religious consciousness with the contrary message that knowledge and wisdom are the result of human thought, human experience, reflection, reason, scientific endeavour. They do not drop down from heaven fully formed, nor are they are not the preserve of one nation or one religion or one period in history. And they are certainly not to be found in one book. To suggest that they are is to turn works of literature into loaded guns.Bill is the author of The Gospel and the Zodiac, which puts forward the idea that the Jesus mythos was originally an initiatory mystery based on the symbolism of the Zodiac. Neat idea.
If I was going to do a Bible-blogging project, I'd start with something as near to the original as I could get: the Hebrew Tanakh in English. Alternatively, I would blog about a book that I might enjoy reading, like the Tao Te Ching or the T’ai Hsüan Ching.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
No to bigotry, yes to life
I've written before about the difference between interfaith dialogue, evangelism and proselytising.
Now a particularly sickening and insidious example of "evangelism" (or is it proselytising?) has been highlighted by my fellow Wiccan blogger over at Witches and Scientists.
So, a message to Christians of an evangelical and/or proselytising persuasion:
People of other religions than your own are not "lost". They didn't get "sucked into" the other religion because they somehow failed to notice the existence of Christianity. If they looked at Christianity, they probably rejected the disgusting doctrines espoused by some Christians, but not all, of exclusivity (the idea that only Christians can get to heaven), penal substitution, and the idea that the divine isn't immanent in the world, and is only masculine. They probably rejected the utterly sick idea of "dying to the world and living in Christ". They probably saw the humanity and spirituality of a gay friend and rejected the sick and perverse doctrines that seek to prevent that gay friend living and loving to the full.
Instead, we embraced the idea that all religions are paths to the Divine (with the possible exception of those espousing the above-mentioned doctrines); that the Divine is immanent in the world - that each rock and tree and living being is filled with the Divine - and that the messages of compassion, love and spirituality shine forth everywhere, in all times and places. And that all forms of love and pleasure are sacred, rituals of the Goddess of life and love (including same-sex love).
So, no thanks, we don't need the narrow, warped, cramped, life-denying, exclusivist, dreary creed of the sort of Christians who write utter drivel like "Generation Hex".
We are very happy to embrace as kindred spirits the kind of Christians who are prepared to acknowledge that other religions and lifestyles are valid paths to the Divine (and there are many more of them every day, thank the gods) but we will never, never compromise with the evil bigots who promote homophobia, bigotry, and hatred of other religions.
Now a particularly sickening and insidious example of "evangelism" (or is it proselytising?) has been highlighted by my fellow Wiccan blogger over at Witches and Scientists.
So, a message to Christians of an evangelical and/or proselytising persuasion:
People of other religions than your own are not "lost". They didn't get "sucked into" the other religion because they somehow failed to notice the existence of Christianity. If they looked at Christianity, they probably rejected the disgusting doctrines espoused by some Christians, but not all, of exclusivity (the idea that only Christians can get to heaven), penal substitution, and the idea that the divine isn't immanent in the world, and is only masculine. They probably rejected the utterly sick idea of "dying to the world and living in Christ". They probably saw the humanity and spirituality of a gay friend and rejected the sick and perverse doctrines that seek to prevent that gay friend living and loving to the full.
Instead, we embraced the idea that all religions are paths to the Divine (with the possible exception of those espousing the above-mentioned doctrines); that the Divine is immanent in the world - that each rock and tree and living being is filled with the Divine - and that the messages of compassion, love and spirituality shine forth everywhere, in all times and places. And that all forms of love and pleasure are sacred, rituals of the Goddess of life and love (including same-sex love).
So, no thanks, we don't need the narrow, warped, cramped, life-denying, exclusivist, dreary creed of the sort of Christians who write utter drivel like "Generation Hex".
We are very happy to embrace as kindred spirits the kind of Christians who are prepared to acknowledge that other religions and lifestyles are valid paths to the Divine (and there are many more of them every day, thank the gods) but we will never, never compromise with the evil bigots who promote homophobia, bigotry, and hatred of other religions.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
New article by Michael York
As editor of the Pagan Theologies wiki, I am delighted to announce that Professor Michael York has kindly contributed a specially-written article to the site.
It is entitled A Pagan defence of theism and is very interesting:
It is entitled A Pagan defence of theism and is very interesting:
we are not talking about monotheism. Paganism is either bitheistic in comprehending divine reality as ‘The God’ and ‘The Goddess’ or, more traditionally, polytheistic – entertaining the possibility of many gods and goddesses. But ‘theism’ here is the substitute term for ‘supernatural’. Personally, I do not like this last and tend to avoid using it as much as is feasible. The supernatural as we know it is largely a Christian-derived expression from the idea that its ‘God’ is over and ‘above’ nature – material/empirical reality. It is this notion that is the target of secular and naturalistic animosity alike. Instead, rather than ‘supernatural’, I turn instead to the ‘preternatural’ that expresses the non-causal otherness of nature – one that comprehends the magical, miraculous, numinous, mysterious yet non-empirical quality of the sublime. Most important, however, the preternatural does not demand belief or faith but instead encounter and experience – whether through contemplation, metaphor, spontaneous insight, ecstasy, trance, synchronicity or ritual or any combination of these. As Margot Adler expressed it, paganism is not about belief but what we do.» Read more
Saturday, June 14, 2008
A Pagan response to Dawkins, part 2
Dawkins' view of religion really is rather odd. He appears to think that because people believe in stuff, they have a separate compartment in their minds that is set aside for religion, where reason and empiricism are not allowed to penetrate.
He also tends to regard religious ideas as contagious memes, rather as if they had an objective existence like a computer virus. Of course, the meme is a useful metaphor, but it's not objectively real (much like deities).
Pagans tend to take the view that they had an experience, and it might have been a hallucination, or it might have been a projection, or it might have been a manifestation, but much of the time to realise that it's not what the experience actually was, but how it was experienced that is important, and what its effects were. We did a ritual - do we now feel better as result? Good, then it worked. Those of us with a more empirical cast of mind might spend time tinkering with it to make it work better; and those of us with a reasoning-about-things cast of mind might spend time wondering how it worked; but most people are just happy that it worked. That's not to say that we should not be on our guard against doctrinal no-go areas creeping in (because they are in some traditions, especially "hard" polytheism) but for the most part Paganism is gloriously doctrine-free (except for the doctrine that we don't have doctrines).
Anyway, on to the specifics.
On pp 125-126, Dawkins says "Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious". This is a twisted view of what mysticism and mystery is. For one thing, mystics have historically been persecuted by the Christian Church because their connection with the Divine bypasses official channels; for another thing, the mystics are generally much more loving and humane than the Church, because mystics identify with the whole of existence, whereas the Church wants to bring everything under their dominion. And mysticism, for the most part, is like the "Eisteinian religion" that Dawkins praises in chapter one. The Mysteries are something that can only be experienced and not described. The ancient Greeks had two words describing the Mysteries: aporrheton (that which may not be spoken, the lesser secrets) and arrheton (that which is inexpressible, the greater mysteries). The reason that mysteries are revealed in sequence is because the mind is unprepared for the greater mysteries and can only approach them via the lesser ones. Unfortunately the Christian Church suppressed all the Pagan initiatory mystery traditions as competing paradigms. Had they taken the advice of Symmachus (as New Atheists could also benefit by doing), things might have been better:
On page 163 he describes natural selection as if it were a force with agency; I know it's a metaphor but he'll just give the creationists a loophole by talking like that; he should be more careful.
Chapter 4 should be entitled "Why there almost certainly is no Creator" (rather than "Why there almost certainly is no God") because he is only talking about the concept of the Creator, and not other concepts of the Divine.
On page 166, in listing characteristics of religion, he only lists the negative behaviours associated with (fundamentalist) religion. Later, he (quite correctly) goes on to say that our capacity for morality is nothing to do with religion and transcends it; I would say this was also true of our capacity for immorality.
On page 168 he quotes a comedienne as saying "religion is basically guilt with different holidays". Very funny, but this is not true of the joyful and life-affirming traditions which do not dwell on guilt, such as Unitarianism and Paganism.
On page 174, he sets out to show how religion is a by-product of other propensities of the human mind. A very interesting idea, as religion (like language) must have evolved from other cognitive functions. However, he maintains that religion is a harmful by-product of these other functions. The example he gives is that it's good to believe what your parents tell you, because they have lots of information about which plants are good to eat and which are poisonous; but the downside is that you will also believe all the weird stuff they tell you (i.e. religion). There are two things wrong with this argument: firstly, not all religion is about obedience and gullibility; and secondly, there are lots of positive aspects to religion which must be beneficial by-products of other cognitive functions. Dawkins' working definition of religion is far too simplistic.
Why can't religion (in the sense of connection with the world around you) be seen as a positive emergent complexity arising from smaller components? Surely the mystics' capacity to love their fellow beings (an extension of genetic kinship) is a positive by-product? Or the heretic's quest for truth and following their own conscience?
On page 177, Dawkins cites JG Frazer's evolutionary theory of folklore and mythology, which is largely discredited (NB this is not the same as Darwinian evolution). Humanity has not proceeded in an orderly fashion from animism to polytheism to monotheism to atheism; beliefs do not evolve by natural selection. Dawkins also uses the analogy of language evolving from a single source (sometimes called Proto-World) and diverging; however this theory is largely discredited among linguists. If he's going to stray into other academic disciplines, he should at least check the current state of research in those disciplines. Nevertheless, language is quite a useful analogy for religion; but Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic model of the spread of ideas is much more helpful than the evolutionary model.
On page 180, he suggests that the cognitive predisposition to dualism gives rise to religious thinking. I agree that there is a cognitive predisposition to dualism (anthropological and psychological research has shown that this is the case, for example the work of Emma Cohen), but I disagree that it gives rise to religious thinking; rather, it gives rise to supernatural thinking (but then Dawkins assumes that all religion believes in the supernatural). But what about all the monistic religions like pantheism, most of Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Unitarianism?
On page 188, he cites JG Frazer's Golden Bough as evidence of the diversity of human irrational beliefs. This is rather a circular argument, because that is precisely the use to which Frazer intended his work to be put (he would have been shocked and dismayed at all the Pagans who mine it for rituals). Also Frazer's comparative method has long been discredited in anthropology as too selective (he developed a theory and then went around looking for examples to back it up, which is precisely the opposite of the scientific method, as Dawkins should know).
On page 189, Dawkins says that languages evolves. As already stated, evolution is not a helpful metaphor for language (or religion) though another biological model, the growth of rhizomes, is a useful analogy.
On page 190, he says that reason is the enemy of Christianity. Very true; however I seem to recall that Pope John Paul II declared a truce in his encyclical about reason and faith. Reason is not regarded as the enemy in Paganism or Unitarianism or Judaism, however; indeed in the case of Unitarianism it's one of their three key concepts (reason, freedom and tolerance).
On page 191, he describes the theory of memes, which is interesting but by no means accepted by all theorists of culture. As stated above, I find the rhizomatic model more persuasive.
On page 199, he defines faith as "belief without evidence". That is how I always used to define it, until I came across this marvellous quote from Alan Watts:
On page 212, he quotes the various obnoxious fundamentalists who have written to him to tell him he'll burn in hell etc as typical examples of religious adherents. I don't think these obnoxious bastards are typical of religion in general at all. Besides, I've come across some pretty obnoxious atheists (e.g. on a discussion board, there was one who wanted to ban all talk of religion; the other more sensible ones asked how the ban would be enforced) but I don't thereby assume that all atheists are like that.
On page 220, he compares the naturalist model of altruism as having some evolutionary advantage with the authoritarian idea that people are moral because God is watching and he'll get you if you misbehave. I completely agree with the quote from Einstein on page 226, that "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." The idea that altruism has evolved is reassuring, because it means it's innate and internal rather than cultural and external; but where is the element of choice if everything is genetically determined? I find something heroic in the idea of doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, and not because someone (God) or something (genes) is making you do it. Our genes presumably predispose us to be bad as well as good, so we still have a choice, surely? Consciousness is an emergent property of life, not pre-determined.
If altruism as a by-product of some other cognitive function is benign, why not some aspects of religion, such as feelings of being connected to other people (human, animal and plant)?
On page 227, he quotes the horrible views of Ivan Karamazov. I hope, though I have no evidence, that Dostoevsky was setting up Karamazov as a straw man to highlight the horribleness of his ideas.
On page 232, he mentions absolutist morality. Not all religious adherents are absolutists in matters of morality (think of the famous quote from Jesus about the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law); Dawkins doesn't appear to be saying that they are, but some readers might infer that view.
On page 237, he acknowledges the worthwhileness of liberal Christians like John Shelby Spong and Richard Holloway. If he can appreciate them, why doesn't he realise that lots of religious adherents are like them, and more of them every day?
On page 245, he talks about the autocratic behaviour of Yahweh in insisting that the Ba'al-worshippers among the Israelites be killed. Yes, the Bronze Age priests of Yahweh were a thoroughly unpleasant bunch of murderers - but he doesn't stop to ask why the worship of Ba'al was so persistently attractive. Could it be because Ba'al is an immanent nature deity, associated with trees?
On page 251-252, he discusses the thoroughly unpleasant doctrine of substitution or atonement; however this disgusting and pernicious doctrine is only found in Western Christianity, and not in Eastern Orthodoxy.
On page 254, he starts quoting more frothing mad fundamentalists as typical of religion. This is simply not the case.
On page 257, he talks about the intolerance of the Abrahamic religions towards other faiths. This is certainly true of large swathes of Christianity, but not all of it. For example, St Francis preached against the crusades, and many Christians (such as John Shelby Spong) are coming to appreciate the wisdom of other faiths. Islam became intolerant as a result of the crusades. Judaism has only become intolerant again recently, due to specific historical circumstances. Such intolerance is not usually found among polytheistic or pantheistic religions, because they have a theology that can cope with other views of the Divine.
On page 259, he admits that internecine struggle is often caused by factors other than religion, but that religion is often used as a label for the perpetuation of conflict. True, but if religion didn't exist, some other identity marker would be used instead, like language, skin colour, territory, etc. (all of which have been used as excuses for the perpetuation of conflict).
Is it inevitable that conflict will arise as a result of different religious views? Maybe, but I suggest that it is often a convenient excuse for a desire to label an out-group, and if there wasn't another religious group to pick on, another label would be used instead (like colour, sexuality...).
On page 261, he discusses the indoctrination of children. The vast majority of Pagans are opposed to the indoctrination of children and against the establishment of Pagan schools; and even those who are bringing their children up as Pagans are not inculcating them with a dislike of other faiths, or of atheism.
In a 2005 survey by Covenant of the Goddess (an American Pagan organisation), 49% of respondents indicated having no children, and of the remaining 51%, only 27% (i.e. approximately 13% of the total sample) said that they were bringing their children up as Pagans. 52% of those with children said they were bringing them up in a multi-faith environment; 9% said 'another faith'; and 12% said 'none'.
[Part 1 of A Pagan response to Dawkins]
He also tends to regard religious ideas as contagious memes, rather as if they had an objective existence like a computer virus. Of course, the meme is a useful metaphor, but it's not objectively real (much like deities).
Pagans tend to take the view that they had an experience, and it might have been a hallucination, or it might have been a projection, or it might have been a manifestation, but much of the time to realise that it's not what the experience actually was, but how it was experienced that is important, and what its effects were. We did a ritual - do we now feel better as result? Good, then it worked. Those of us with a more empirical cast of mind might spend time tinkering with it to make it work better; and those of us with a reasoning-about-things cast of mind might spend time wondering how it worked; but most people are just happy that it worked. That's not to say that we should not be on our guard against doctrinal no-go areas creeping in (because they are in some traditions, especially "hard" polytheism) but for the most part Paganism is gloriously doctrine-free (except for the doctrine that we don't have doctrines).
Anyway, on to the specifics.
On pp 125-126, Dawkins says "Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious". This is a twisted view of what mysticism and mystery is. For one thing, mystics have historically been persecuted by the Christian Church because their connection with the Divine bypasses official channels; for another thing, the mystics are generally much more loving and humane than the Church, because mystics identify with the whole of existence, whereas the Church wants to bring everything under their dominion. And mysticism, for the most part, is like the "Eisteinian religion" that Dawkins praises in chapter one. The Mysteries are something that can only be experienced and not described. The ancient Greeks had two words describing the Mysteries: aporrheton (that which may not be spoken, the lesser secrets) and arrheton (that which is inexpressible, the greater mysteries). The reason that mysteries are revealed in sequence is because the mind is unprepared for the greater mysteries and can only approach them via the lesser ones. Unfortunately the Christian Church suppressed all the Pagan initiatory mystery traditions as competing paradigms. Had they taken the advice of Symmachus (as New Atheists could also benefit by doing), things might have been better:
We ask, then, for peace for the gods of our fathers and of our country. It is just that all worship should be considered as one. We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth? We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road.Dawkins goes on to say that "one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied by not understanding". This is definitely not true of the majority of religions. It is certainly true of a large swathe of Christianity, but not of Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism, Unitarianism, Judaism, Sufism, etc.
— Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (340–402)
On page 163 he describes natural selection as if it were a force with agency; I know it's a metaphor but he'll just give the creationists a loophole by talking like that; he should be more careful.
Chapter 4 should be entitled "Why there almost certainly is no Creator" (rather than "Why there almost certainly is no God") because he is only talking about the concept of the Creator, and not other concepts of the Divine.
On page 166, in listing characteristics of religion, he only lists the negative behaviours associated with (fundamentalist) religion. Later, he (quite correctly) goes on to say that our capacity for morality is nothing to do with religion and transcends it; I would say this was also true of our capacity for immorality.
On page 168 he quotes a comedienne as saying "religion is basically guilt with different holidays". Very funny, but this is not true of the joyful and life-affirming traditions which do not dwell on guilt, such as Unitarianism and Paganism.
On page 174, he sets out to show how religion is a by-product of other propensities of the human mind. A very interesting idea, as religion (like language) must have evolved from other cognitive functions. However, he maintains that religion is a harmful by-product of these other functions. The example he gives is that it's good to believe what your parents tell you, because they have lots of information about which plants are good to eat and which are poisonous; but the downside is that you will also believe all the weird stuff they tell you (i.e. religion). There are two things wrong with this argument: firstly, not all religion is about obedience and gullibility; and secondly, there are lots of positive aspects to religion which must be beneficial by-products of other cognitive functions. Dawkins' working definition of religion is far too simplistic.
Why can't religion (in the sense of connection with the world around you) be seen as a positive emergent complexity arising from smaller components? Surely the mystics' capacity to love their fellow beings (an extension of genetic kinship) is a positive by-product? Or the heretic's quest for truth and following their own conscience?
On page 177, Dawkins cites JG Frazer's evolutionary theory of folklore and mythology, which is largely discredited (NB this is not the same as Darwinian evolution). Humanity has not proceeded in an orderly fashion from animism to polytheism to monotheism to atheism; beliefs do not evolve by natural selection. Dawkins also uses the analogy of language evolving from a single source (sometimes called Proto-World) and diverging; however this theory is largely discredited among linguists. If he's going to stray into other academic disciplines, he should at least check the current state of research in those disciplines. Nevertheless, language is quite a useful analogy for religion; but Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic model of the spread of ideas is much more helpful than the evolutionary model.
On page 180, he suggests that the cognitive predisposition to dualism gives rise to religious thinking. I agree that there is a cognitive predisposition to dualism (anthropological and psychological research has shown that this is the case, for example the work of Emma Cohen), but I disagree that it gives rise to religious thinking; rather, it gives rise to supernatural thinking (but then Dawkins assumes that all religion believes in the supernatural). But what about all the monistic religions like pantheism, most of Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Unitarianism?
On page 188, he cites JG Frazer's Golden Bough as evidence of the diversity of human irrational beliefs. This is rather a circular argument, because that is precisely the use to which Frazer intended his work to be put (he would have been shocked and dismayed at all the Pagans who mine it for rituals). Also Frazer's comparative method has long been discredited in anthropology as too selective (he developed a theory and then went around looking for examples to back it up, which is precisely the opposite of the scientific method, as Dawkins should know).
On page 189, Dawkins says that languages evolves. As already stated, evolution is not a helpful metaphor for language (or religion) though another biological model, the growth of rhizomes, is a useful analogy.
On page 190, he says that reason is the enemy of Christianity. Very true; however I seem to recall that Pope John Paul II declared a truce in his encyclical about reason and faith. Reason is not regarded as the enemy in Paganism or Unitarianism or Judaism, however; indeed in the case of Unitarianism it's one of their three key concepts (reason, freedom and tolerance).
On page 191, he describes the theory of memes, which is interesting but by no means accepted by all theorists of culture. As stated above, I find the rhizomatic model more persuasive.
On page 199, he defines faith as "belief without evidence". That is how I always used to define it, until I came across this marvellous quote from Alan Watts:
"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."On page 203, he describes the development of cargo cults, and wonders if they are a good model for the evolution of religion. Well, at least cargo cults are logical and based on empirical observation, at least the way Dawkins describes them!
On page 212, he quotes the various obnoxious fundamentalists who have written to him to tell him he'll burn in hell etc as typical examples of religious adherents. I don't think these obnoxious bastards are typical of religion in general at all. Besides, I've come across some pretty obnoxious atheists (e.g. on a discussion board, there was one who wanted to ban all talk of religion; the other more sensible ones asked how the ban would be enforced) but I don't thereby assume that all atheists are like that.
On page 220, he compares the naturalist model of altruism as having some evolutionary advantage with the authoritarian idea that people are moral because God is watching and he'll get you if you misbehave. I completely agree with the quote from Einstein on page 226, that "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." The idea that altruism has evolved is reassuring, because it means it's innate and internal rather than cultural and external; but where is the element of choice if everything is genetically determined? I find something heroic in the idea of doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, and not because someone (God) or something (genes) is making you do it. Our genes presumably predispose us to be bad as well as good, so we still have a choice, surely? Consciousness is an emergent property of life, not pre-determined.
If altruism as a by-product of some other cognitive function is benign, why not some aspects of religion, such as feelings of being connected to other people (human, animal and plant)?
On page 227, he quotes the horrible views of Ivan Karamazov. I hope, though I have no evidence, that Dostoevsky was setting up Karamazov as a straw man to highlight the horribleness of his ideas.
On page 232, he mentions absolutist morality. Not all religious adherents are absolutists in matters of morality (think of the famous quote from Jesus about the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law); Dawkins doesn't appear to be saying that they are, but some readers might infer that view.
On page 237, he acknowledges the worthwhileness of liberal Christians like John Shelby Spong and Richard Holloway. If he can appreciate them, why doesn't he realise that lots of religious adherents are like them, and more of them every day?
On page 245, he talks about the autocratic behaviour of Yahweh in insisting that the Ba'al-worshippers among the Israelites be killed. Yes, the Bronze Age priests of Yahweh were a thoroughly unpleasant bunch of murderers - but he doesn't stop to ask why the worship of Ba'al was so persistently attractive. Could it be because Ba'al is an immanent nature deity, associated with trees?
On page 251-252, he discusses the thoroughly unpleasant doctrine of substitution or atonement; however this disgusting and pernicious doctrine is only found in Western Christianity, and not in Eastern Orthodoxy.
On page 254, he starts quoting more frothing mad fundamentalists as typical of religion. This is simply not the case.
On page 257, he talks about the intolerance of the Abrahamic religions towards other faiths. This is certainly true of large swathes of Christianity, but not all of it. For example, St Francis preached against the crusades, and many Christians (such as John Shelby Spong) are coming to appreciate the wisdom of other faiths. Islam became intolerant as a result of the crusades. Judaism has only become intolerant again recently, due to specific historical circumstances. Such intolerance is not usually found among polytheistic or pantheistic religions, because they have a theology that can cope with other views of the Divine.
On page 259, he admits that internecine struggle is often caused by factors other than religion, but that religion is often used as a label for the perpetuation of conflict. True, but if religion didn't exist, some other identity marker would be used instead, like language, skin colour, territory, etc. (all of which have been used as excuses for the perpetuation of conflict).
Is it inevitable that conflict will arise as a result of different religious views? Maybe, but I suggest that it is often a convenient excuse for a desire to label an out-group, and if there wasn't another religious group to pick on, another label would be used instead (like colour, sexuality...).
On page 261, he discusses the indoctrination of children. The vast majority of Pagans are opposed to the indoctrination of children and against the establishment of Pagan schools; and even those who are bringing their children up as Pagans are not inculcating them with a dislike of other faiths, or of atheism.
In a 2005 survey by Covenant of the Goddess (an American Pagan organisation), 49% of respondents indicated having no children, and of the remaining 51%, only 27% (i.e. approximately 13% of the total sample) said that they were bringing their children up as Pagans. 52% of those with children said they were bringing them up in a multi-faith environment; 9% said 'another faith'; and 12% said 'none'.
[Part 1 of A Pagan response to Dawkins]
Friday, May 09, 2008
TAG -Theoretical Archaeology Group conference 2008
So I submitted an abstract for TAG 2008...
Our silent ancestors:Don't know if they will like it.
an exploration of the discursive construction of issues around ancient British human remains
There is currently some discussion among museum staff (Levitt and Coats, 2006) and archaeologists (Carroll, 2005: 1) about how best to treat ancient human remains. Some druids (Davies, 1998) have been calling for the reburial of all ancient British human remains, partly in response to the perceived greater respect given to Christian remains, and partly in response to calls by indigenous peoples in other parts of the world for the repatriation and reburial of their ancestors (Wallis and Blain, 2004: 3). Pagans' responses to this issue vary considerably, but illustrate the interrelationship between their spiritual and other concerns. Amongst the respondents of my study, I identified two main groups; those who took a broadly holistic and ahistorical view of the past, and wanted remains reburied eventually; and those who took a more scientific and historical view, and wanted remains to be studied. They also felt that their positions were not the only possible ones, acknowledging the validity of other views, as is quite common among Pagans. However, Pagans form a significant sector of the heritage audience, so the diversity of Pagan discourse should be considered in formulation of policy (Blain and Wallis, 2007a: 10-11).
In order to explore the various discursive positions occupied by Pagans in relation to this issue, qualitative interviews were selected as the best method for this project because they can elicit 'multiple and contradictory perspectives' (Burck, 2005: 241).
Clearly, with such a small sample, it is not possible to generalise about all Pagans; there are several different contemporary Pagan traditions. All that I can describe is how these particular Pagans frame their talk discursively, and compare it to the writings of others on this theme.
Currently, 'official' discourse largely doubts the 'legitimacy' of Pagan concerns, some even dismissing them as 'frivolous' (Blain and Wallis, 2007b: 10), but this has begun to change. It seems that the issue of human remains is now firmly on the agenda, though it remains to be seen whether the multiplicity of Pagan voices will be heard, especially of those who do not want to see remains reburied.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
some Pagan LGBT articles
- Gay Paganism: A Celebration (articles on Witchvox)
- Lou Hart (2005), Magic is a many-gendered thing, http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/flsh_gendered.html
- Gay Pagans, Gay Witches
- New Flesh
- Sodomy & Sorcery
- Babalon
- Between Mirrors by Yvonne Aburrow (originally published in Queer Spirit, now The Bezoar.) - reflections on polarity, duality, sexuality and gender (October 2000)
- GayWitch
- Radical Faeries
- Androgyne: The Union of Opposites Within (An Internet Study)
- Spirit Matters IV:Ten Queer Spiritual Roles by Tom Moon
- Q-Spirit
- Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit
- The Homosexual Agenda and The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom by Hal Duncan
- About.com GLB page
- The Bisexual Pagan mailing list home page
- White Crane Journal - gay spirituality, wisdom, culture
- White Crane blog - gay spirituality, wisdom, culture
- Links to LGBT Pagan groups
Monday, February 12, 2007
bloggers' responses
Some Pagan bloggers have responded to the request for reburial.
- Chas Clifton comments briefly on the issue, viewing it largely as a political stunt;
- and Jason Pitzl-Waters also comments on it and has a longer article on it.
- Dieneke's Anthropology blog was less than impressed;
- Remote Central favours a compromise;
- Cabinet of Wonders comments on the difficulty of establishing genetic or cultural continuity;
- Green Bamboo draws an analogy between demands for reburial and other unreasonable religious demands;
- I-confusion is not sure what to think, but is generally of the opinion that once you're dead, you're dead, and it would be quite interesting to be on display in a museum.
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