Happy rabbits

4.5 million animals saved from testing

At the request of HSI and others, the European Chemicals Agency recently announced that companies will not have to perform duplicative animal tests for some types of toxicity when registering chemicals.

In that one stroke, approximately 4.5 million mice, rats and rabbits were saved from suffering and death in European laboratories. Read more>>

Gay parents are just as good

Study finds no difference between children raised by gay or straight adoptive parents
(Pink News)

Kind of obvious, you would have thought, but apparently some people need telling this.

A study of adoptive parents has found "no significant difference" in emotional problems experienced by children brought up by gay adoptive parents.

The US research, published in this month's Adoption Quarterly, surveyed 1,384 couples, 155 of whom were gay.

All were asked about their family structures, the child's history before being adopted, his or her current emotional state and family interactions.

Community among Unitarians and Pagans

As a long-term participant in Pagan groups (since 1990) and having recently joined a Unitarian church (for those who don't know, there are plenty of Pagans in British Unitarianism), I have been mentally comparing the two. There is no clear "winner" but the comparison is interesting.

Pagans are more focussed on individual friendships; Unitarians are more focused on gathering in community.

Unitarians are better at including everyone in the community, even if they are different from others in some way. (Lesson for Pagans - we need to focus on shared values instead of differing beliefs.)

In a crisis, Pagan friends will rally round, which is great, but if you want a trained full-time minister, with all that that entails, then you're more likely to find one via Unitarianism.

In terms of age and class and education, Unitarians are more diverse than Pagans. This is probably because Paganisms haven't been around so long.

In terms of the values we embrace, Unitarians are much less diverse than Pagans. Even though a Christian Unitarian may differ from a Pagan Unitarian in the mythology they happen to like, their values are remarkably similar.

Unitarians are better at focussing on values and regarding beliefs as less important. Unitarians have more shared values in common, simply because we are very explicit about what those values are. (Hopefully Pax's recent Pagan Values Blogging Month will go some way towards changing that - and I hope it will happen again in 2010).

Both communities are inclusive and welcoming and non-judgmental.

I'd be interested to hear from UU Pagans on this.

Incidentally, while I am still philosophically pagan, I have stopped referring to myself as Pagan (I now call myself Unitarian and Wiccan) because it is no longer clear what "Pagan" actually means (due to things like the reburial issue).

Soulforce conference

The 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference is open to everyone who cares about the welfare of LGBTQ people and wants to help stop the harm caused by heterosexism, reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries and other sexual orientation change efforts. Conference attendees come from all walks of life and many professional backgrounds, including LGBTQ people, clergy, educators, mental health professionals, and allies. By attending this conference you will learn to:

• challenge heterosexist attitudes that exist on personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural levels.
• speak out publicly against the dangers of reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries, and other "conversion" efforts.
• build community to advocate for LGBTQ people and support them in leading successful, happy, and productive lives.

Zen teachings

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me for the path is narrow. In fact, just piss off and leave me alone.

Sex is like air. It's not that important unless you aren't getting any.

No one is listening until you fart.

Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

If you lend someone £20 and never see that person again, it was probably well worth it.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windscreen.

Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

Good judgment comes from bad experience. And most of that comes from bad judgment.

There are two excellent theories for arguing with women. Trouble is, neither of them work.

Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.

(received via email)

A Short History of Medicine

"Doctor, I have an ear ache."

2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 A.D. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2000 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"

(just received via email)

Gods give me strength...

Pagans March to a Different Drum Circle
By Jamie Laughlin

It's time to make a bold decision. The time has come to unlearn everything you've ever believed about pagans, and perhaps more importantly, about pagan celebrations.

Admit it — until now, you've bought all the silly urban legends surrounding these polytheistic partiers. Virgin sacrifice? Sure. A diet of raw meat seasoned in tears of the damned? Yup. Heck, you even figured that pagan parties ended wildly late — like "9 p.m. to ???" kinda late.

You couldn’t have been more wrong.

Oh please. The time to unlearn all that rubbish about sacrificing virgins was at least twenty years ago. Why does every journalist feel obliged to start articles with that sort of thing? Wake up and smell the coffee, people. Pagans of all varieties have been highly publicly visible for the last 50 years, carefully explaining that Paganism is about honouring nature and celebrating life. Anyone who hasn't got the message by now must have been living in a bubble.

Is there a distinctly queer spirituality?

A very exciting thing happened this morning: my copy of Contemporary Christianity and LGBT Sexualities arrived, to which I contributed a chapter comparing LGBT Pagan and Christian spiritualities, to see if there is a distinctly queer spirituality (I concluded that there is, not for any essentialist reasons, but because it is rooted in LGBT experiences). This is my first proper academic publication (yay!)

• Introduction: saints and sinners: contemporary Christianity and LGTB sexualities, Stephen Hunt
• The gift (?) that dare not speak its name: exploring the influence of sexuality on the professional performances of gay male Anglican clergy, Michael Keenan
• Between subordination and sympathy: evangelical Christians, masculinity and gay sexuality, Kristin Aune
• Common pathways, different lives: comparing the ''coming out'' narratives of Catholic nuns and lesbians in Poland, Marta Trzebiatowska
• Bisexual Christians: the life-stories of a marginalised community, Alex Toft
• Transgendering Christianity: gender-variant Christians as visionaries, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Michael Keenan
• Human rights and moral wrongs: the Christians ''gay debate'' in the secular sphere, Stephen Hunt
• Christians and gays in Northern Ireland: how the ethno-religious context has shaped Christian anti-gay and pro-gay activism, Richard O'Leary
• Is it meaningful to speak of ''queer spirituality''? An examination of queer and LGBT imagery and themes in contemporary paganism and Christianity, Yvonne Aburrow
• Trends in spiritual direction for LGBT people, Derek Jay

The book is a collection of papers from the British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group November Study Day 2007 on Religion, Spirituality and Gay Sexuality.

Psychological types and multiple intelligences

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the intellectual level of Pagans and the intellectual level of the general public. We seem less appreciative in Britain of our public intellectuals than, say, France or Italy, or even America. Indeed, if you asked most people to name a public intellectual, they might name Dawkins - that in itself is a sad indictment of what passes for an intellectual in these islands.

Now, don't get me wrong: I am all for raising the intellectual standard of Paganism and of our cultural life in general. That's why I am involved in the MetaPagan blog aggregator, to showcase the best of Pagan blogging. It's one of the reasons why I founded Pagans for Archaeology, to show the world at large that there are hundreds of Pagans who support archaeology and museums. It's the reason why I started the Pagan theologies wiki, to get Pagans thinking about theology and discussing our values and ethics and beliefs (not to end up with a standardised orthodox view, but to discuss the issues properly). And it's why I support the idea of Pax's Pagan Collegium site, and why I urge people to read the books of Ronald Hutton.

But the need for thinking is not the only requirement for a religion (or a way of life, if you prefer) that actually works. Jung identified four psychological types, and we need to develop ourselves in all four areas, not just one. Jung's types (also used in the Myers-Briggs test) are:

• Sensation (Earth)
• Intuition (Fire)
• Thinking (Air)
• Emotion (Water)

Most people have one of these modes as a dominant function, and the rest as secondary, with a deficiency in one area. But, I would argue, just because someone has a deficiency in one of these areas, doesn't mean they can't work to correct it. That is what education is for, or should be. I have met some intellectuals with the emotional intelligence of a flea; and people who are primarily emotional types who could do with developing their thinking ability; and so on.

Similarly, Howard Gardner identified multiple modes of intelligence, which are also relevant here.

• Bodily-kinesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Verbal-linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Naturalistic
• Intrapersonal
• Visual-spatial
• Musical

They are probably not reducible to Jung's four types; though there are some interesting similarities. The one of particular interest to Pagans might be Naturalistic intelligence, broadly defined as the ability to survive in the wild.

interpreting tradition

Sannion has just written a wonderful post about the issue of homophobia in Hellenismos (apparently a hot topic among the Hellenic community currently).

One of the many things that is interesting about it, is that it cuts to the very heart of what we mean by religion, by tradition, and by Pagan values.

According to Sannion (and I would agree with him) ancient Hellenic values at their best were about free enquiry, democracy, questioning assumptions and finding out what makes stuff work. In many ways their society was flawed (e.g. slavery, treating women and "effeminate" men as second-class citizens) and we wouldn't want to revive those aspects of their society.

In my view (and Sannion's) we need to be selective and reasonable about what we revive of past paganisms, and acknowledge that culture and tradition are multivalent, multivocal, developing and growing and moving on.

I have come across people in Wicca who say that because polarity was originally envisaged as being primarily a male+female dynamic, that is now part of the Tradition and cannot be changed. FFS, the tradition is only fifty years old; we can expand and deepen our understanding of what polarity means, by listening to LGBT understandings of it. See for instance the excellent article by Lynna Landstreet about it.

The problem of historicity

Regarding the historicity of Pagan traditions. Given that we know next to nothing about what ancient druids (if they were really as described by the Romans) got up to or believed, or what medieval witches (who, even if they existed, were probably not pagans) got up to, or what early medieval heathens got up to (a bit more data, but a lot of it written down by Christians), the people who claim that they're doing something because their ancient forerunners did it, and not because they feel it to be the right way for them to be a Druid/Witch/Wiccan/Heathen/Pagan in the here and now - that is what is irritating to the academically-minded.

You can be a Druid/Witch/Wiccan/Heathen/Pagan because you feel you are one because it fits the image you have in your mind of what a Druid/Witch/Wiccan/Heathen/Pagan is (and I affirm your right to do so).

But what happens when someone else with a completely different idea about what a Druid/Witch/Wiccan/Heathen/Pagan is, does the same? Then we have confusion...

What is the solution to this dilemma? I'm not sure that I know. I know that we do need to have discussions about our theology, our values, our worldview, our ethics, and what is distinctly Druid/Witch/Wiccan/Heathen/Pagan about them. We don't want to establish a creed or an orthodoxy, because that could lead to persecution of dissenters. But that does not mean we can dodge the issue and just not talk about it.

As far as historicity is concerned, the rest of us could learn a lot from Heathens and reconstructionists, who have gone to the effort of reading as much of the available source material as possible, and comparing it with experiences and ideas of present-day Heathens, and creating a synthesis of historical and present-day insights. They are lucky because early medieval heathenry lasted a lot longer and was better-documented than other traditions. They also have a well-worked-out and widely publicised set of Heathen virtues. Wicca also has a set of virtues, but this is not so well-known.

Personally, I feel that we are also the heirs of the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and Romanticism, and we cannot just ignore the intervening centuries and pretend they didn't happen. This is one of the reasons why I am interested in Unitarianism.

We are the Pagans who have moved on

We are the Pagans who have moved on.
We do not pretend that our traditions stretch back into the mists of time.
We do not use custom or tradition as justification for our actions.
We do not berate the Christians for stealing festivals that our predecessors invented in the 1950s, or for ancient persecutions or wrongs, actual or perceived.
We do not pretend that we know what ancient pagans believed, or thought, or did.
We do not appropriate the culture of others.
We do not leave litter at sacred sites.
We do not hold heterocentric or hierarchical rituals.
We do not pretend to be better than others
- everyone has something to teach, everyone has something to learn.
We do not pretend that we are the holders of arcane secrets.
We do not mistake our personal truth for universal truth.
We do not tell others what they should believe or value or do.

We leave these behind and move on,
not in arrogance, not unaware of tradition’s worth,
not creating new conflicts as bad as the old ones,
or so we hope!

We find the divine in all nature
- in place, and animals, trees and birds, and human beings.
We hold love, compassion to all beings, and wisdom as our highest ideals.
We seek and honour the truth wherever it may be found.
We tread lightly upon the Earth.
We seek to live in peace with all beings.
We seek to cultivate virtues in the garden of our own souls.

We are the Pagans who move on.

(inspired by a meditation by Cliff Reed)

(if you want to copy this to your own site, you are welcome to do so but please retain my authorship and the acknowledgment of Cliff Reed, and link back to this page)