We Study You So That We Can Control You

Here's an interesting article about a book that discusses why people leave xianity and how xians can lure them back to xianity. The use of the now-almost-completely-discredited-term "Neo-Pagan" is a clue to how "hip" the book really is. Honestly, the relationship of my practice to ancient Paganism is at least as direct as is the relationship of most modern xian practices to those of the 1st Century xians. If I'm a "neo-Pagan," then they're "neo-xians."

Also, look, I'm going to break this to you as gently as possible, but I don't give a flying frap how much you try to "show familiarity with [my] basic beliefs by asking [me] what attracted [me] to Wicca and what problems [I] have with xianity." (How those questions show any familiarity with my "basic beliefs" is beyond me.) I don't care whether you "show[] an appreciation for nature and a desire to protect it," and I really don't want you to think that you can "direct" me anywhere, much less to the god that YOU IMAGINE Nature reflects. Nor will it do any good for you to "not be shy about talking about your own spiritual experiences." I've been deep inside your religion/had your spiritual experiences (hint: I was raised in it and by "raised in it," I mean: Catholic school, daily rosaries and Mass, children's choir, taught CCD for years to first Communicants, did Catholic pentecostalism, was v. seriously recruited for the convent, tried Protestantism as a serious adult) and deep inside mine and I'M NOT COMING BACK. I'm an intelligent, well-educated (to which a lot of you xians object), adult female (and you might want to work on how you treat this half of humanity if you REALLY want to address my concerns) human being, who understands what you have to offer and what Paganism has to offer and who has found Paganism to be a better path for me. I'm (unlike you) happy if others find different paths for themselves, including your religion, but, after 54 years on Earth and several decades as a Pagan, a few bad Marketing 101 tricks aren't going to change my entire life, but, you know, thanks for the insult to my intelligence, integrity, and ideals.

Also, since I say this every time, if you're going to capitalize "Christian," you can capitalize even "Neo-Pagan." If you have to use "Neo" at all.

Can you imagine how insulted xians would be if, for example, Moslems wrote a similar book about how to lure xians into Islam?

Picture found here.

What, There Weren't Any Hungry to Feed or Sick to Cure?

Good grief, Charley Brown.

SOLDOTNA - An Alaska store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.
The Peninsula Clarion reported 45-year-old Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye' Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap.
Gonzalez says she believes in spiritualism rather than organized religion. She also said her father fought and died in Vietnam for religious and personal freedoms.
Her store specializes in wellness and self-help books, candles, oils and crystals.
Soldotna police say it may be the first vandalism of a religious nature in Soldotna.

So loving and full of light, these xians.

I'll just point out that I can't think of any story in even recent memory involving, for example, pentagrams painted on the outside of a Christian bookstore.

But it's the Christians who are persecuted.

Picture found here.

Still Enough to Get You Burned to Death

And it's still usually women getting burned.

The fear of witchcraft in Ghana has been traced back to the 15th century when the nation was introduced to Christianity. It was through the churches teaching that raised the anxiety of locals about the destructive influences of witches. Women named as witches were accused of drinking human blood and eating the flesh.

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More here, here, here, and here.

My New Name for a Blog

What Athenae Said.

Also: Patriarchy. You're Soaking In It.

Picture found here.

Not Helpful

Story here.

Interesting how little discussion news stories of, say, white xian men who shoot doctors in churches, have about pacts with St. Jesus. Because that would be wrong. I'm willing to bet, however, that Jesu Christo is "venerated in jails and among criminal gangs" to a far greater exent that St. Death.

The Kidz Are Alright

Here's a fascinating article about teen-aged xians. While the author of the featured book seems to suggest that even more intense evangelicalism is the answer, I doubt that this is a practical answer. While a significant portion of Americans do identify as evangelical, the notion that more parents and pastors are going to become even more "hard-core" in order to get teens fired up about their religion seems far-fetched to me.

What I find really interesting to consider is how a similar study of Pagan teens would turn out. I doubt many Pagans (the author of the study is xian) would even advocate that Pagan parents and priestesses/priests get more "hard-core" in order to get Pagan teens fired up about their religion. I think the study of xians stands, mostly, for the unremarkable proposition that most Americans self-identify as xians. Thus, most teens do, as well. That doesn't mean that they're fiercely passionate about their faith. I imagine that, in predominately Pagan societies, some small percentage of the population was passionate about their religion, while the majority, although identifying as a member of the locally-predominate religion, happy to celebrate a number of holidays, and very willing to propitiate the Goddesses/Gods, really didn't spend all that much time thinking about religion.

And, you know, THAT'S OK. As Thorn Coyle recently noted (I'm paraphrasing here, any errors are my own), some of us (/raises Piscean flipper/hand) are called to live lives based as completely as possible around our religion. And for some of us, religion is an adjunct to our lives, which are mainly focused on art, or growing plants, or programming computers. We aren't all called to serve exclusively in the temple.

It might behoove us to open up our ideas of priesthood. Not everyone need go through the same initiation. The hierarchy of current initiatory systems only works for a few people. Why? Because the mystery of their particular service, creative spark, or connection to the Gods is not served by the rituals that exist. Those rituals are most often rituals to help people lead covens, or teach a certain pathway of magical practice, or marry a particular set of Deity forms, or often, to pass on that particular initiation.

What about the priest who whispers to the plants in the garden at midnight or dawn, and is initiated by the fecund powers of the earth and the effects of the moon and sun? What about the priestess who is the weaver of fine cloth and who ministers to us all through the mystery that flows together on her loom? What about the priestess who serves as a paramedic, doctor, or nurse? Or the priest who cares for children or the dying? All of these are sacred acts with their own trials and rites of passage. Each of these has a power that I cannot begin to understand. When did we cease to "labor along different paths of holiness" in order to best serve our own souls, our own Gods, our own communities? When did we begin to believe the lie that equality means equivalency? My theory is that because we come from broken traditions, we forget the householders and physicians and set our sights only at those who sat on the high seat or made the sacrifices for the community. We forget that every person had a different role to play and that this helped to keep the community healthy and strong.

~T. Thorn Coyle

Wicca, in particular, is known for attracting teen-agers who may or may not practice a religion that differs in significant ways from various tv shows. Some of those teens may go on to live a life full of passionate Paganism, some may go back to the xian faith of their parents, from which they were momentarily rebelling, some may become "mere" festival Pagans. And, you know, it's all ok. I'm not about to advise Pagan parents and priestesses to get more hardcore about our experiential religion in order to make sure Pagan teens can mouth what we want them to mouth or live as we want them to live.

Picture found here.

Pagan Theology: These Terms Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Gus di Zerega has an amazing post up on Witchvox. It's long, but it's truly worth your time to read the whole thing, bookmark it, print it out, put it in your journal.

Here's a tiny taste:

Because they worship different Gods under the same name, in over 2000 years sincere Christians (let alone monotheists in general) have never been able to agree on central matters of doctrine. Christians worship a God who loathes us, and a God who loves us, a God who surrounds us with intricate rules that we violate at the cost of our souls and a God who only requires us to take Jesus as savior, a God who holds us guilty of Original Sin, and a God who holds us guilty only of sins we personally commit. A God who predestined us to salvation or damnation long before we existed and a God who gives us freedom. A God who will save us all because He loves us, a God who will save most and also a God who will save few because his anger towards those who reject Him is eternal. The variety of sincere interpretations arising from a single text is remarkable, and to the degree unity in understanding has ever existed, it has come from political force. Monotheistic unity has always proceeded from the edge of a sword and the barrel of a gun, not from the persuasive power of argument and faith. When freedom of belief is established, the swords sheathed, the guns stilled, diversity emerges. Always.

One often hears the concern, and it's valid, that we Pagans are long on experience of The Divine, but short on theology. Gus' essay is, IMHO, a giant leap forward.

Thank you, Gus.

Picture found here

Yeah, How Come?

PZ Meyers is asking some good questions. I admit I've hung around the world of spell-casting for a number of decades without ever learning any specifically atheistic spells.

More importantly, as Meyers asks:

Oh, and if Indianapolis schools [which ban "[s]ites that promote and provide information on religions such as Wicca, Witchcraft or Satanism. Occult Practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or other forms of mysticism, [...] the use of spells, incantations, curses, and magic powers ] ban sites that talk about "paranormal or unexplained events", why aren't they blocking all of the Christian sites? Jesus was one paranormal dude with unexplained magic powers, you know.

Good question, PZ.

Points to IPS, though, for capitalizing Wicca and Witchcraft, but points off for failing to capitalize Voodoo. (Honest, is there ANY rhyme or reason to their capitalization practices? And they're teaching our kids?)

Picture found here.

Boy, I Get Tired Of This Kind Of Bullshit

Here's an excellent, almost sympathetic (although, as usual, points off for failure to capitalize "Pagan", etc.), write-up of the long-running legal battle between the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater and the Town of Catskill over the town's denial of a religious property tax exemption on the Maetreum's three-acre parcel along Route 23A.

The town's "reasons" for the denial sure do sound bogus:

First, Dan Vincelette, the town’s primary counsel in this proceeding, said during a phone interview that the 2007 exemption was initially denied because the group was experiencing structural turmoil during that year. No explanation for how that impacts tax exempt status. Nor of whether any xian church, in the process of throwing out its minister, has ever lost or been denied such status.

Then, According to Platine, a tour of the property by town officials, including Vincelette, yielded, to them, little sign of religious iconography.

Though to an unfamiliar vision, and without knowledge of their significance, Platine said, the Cybelline themes and traditional pagan symbols abounding throughout the hotel property may seem obscure.

“Here is a Minoan lily,” Platine said as she pointed to an inconspicuous hand-painted blue and yellow flower on the kitchen’s wooden bar.

Hanging on a kitchen wall were images of goddesses, the ancient deities praised by the Minoan culture.

On the parlor room mantle, amidst a piano and functional beeswax, cylinder-playing Victrola, sits a shrine where the priestesses worship and pray. In its center is a statuette of the Seated Woman of Catal Huyuk, also called Catalhoyuk, an iconographic depiction of the Mother Goddess.

The front entrance of the former inn shows Maetreum stenciling above the doorway, with goddess sculpture hanging beside the doorway and two lion statues guarding the entry way — a traditional guardian of ancient societies, Platine said. So I guess that unless you've got a crucifix or a star of david, there's no "religious iconography." No one tell them about the Islamic prohibition on representational art.

Then, During the Dec. 2 hearing, Pulver asked Smith for the precise arrears amount owed by the Maetreum, to which she responded that “the issue we are looking at isn’t so much the dollars and cents of exactly what the taxes are, which I don’t have off the top of my head, the issue is opening the floodgates. Once you relax the requirements, and if you stretch them too far, then you’re going to have just a multitude of organizations who under the spirit of the law go —”

At that moment, the official court transcript shows Smith was interrupted by Pulver, who again asked how much the amount of taxes owed was. Smith said she didn’t know and did not further qualify her statement. Come on. "Under the spirit of the law"? Really? Really?

To be clear, I don't think that any religious group should get a tax exemption, not even my own. But if you're going to give it to the xians, then you have to give it to everybody and you have to use the same standards.

Picture found here.

Ya Think?

[M]any Christian folk seem to me to be living largely disenchanted lives. Perhaps it's all the dogma, the rather stale services, and the general heaviness of establishment religion that closes so many people to mystery and wonder. Pagans, on the other hand, are radically alert to the magic of life, the planet and everything around them. They use symbol and ritual in such a way that connects powerfully with the human soul and makes sense not just to the mind, but to the heart and imagination, also.

Interesting viewpoint for an xian priest to hold.

Agora

NYT gives Agora, opening today in NYC, a good review.

It's got to be better than SitC III or Prince of Persia.

Things That Make Me Smile

But America is a "xian nation" they keep telling us.

Picture found here.

The Devil Is In The World -- Weird

I have to say, it can't be much fun, always having to be so paranoid and upset.

Again With The Capitalization Problems

So, it turns out that Tim Graham is an idiot, who surely failed 4th grade English. (In a few places below, he's quoting others who also, apparently, failed 4th grade English, but neither did he correct the errors, either with brackets or the use of "sic.")

I noted the U.S. Air Force Academy was making a public space for pagan worship, and wondered if the media would notice. Fox’s Special Report noted it on Monday, quoting a Catholic priest who disapproved. . . .

The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has now set aside a new outdoor worship area for followers of earth-centered religions. That includes pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans. [So apparently the umbrella term "Pagan" doesn't get capitalized, nor do the terms "Witches" or "Druids," but Wicca does get a capital letter. I can't find an underlying rule that explains this.]

Sanchez suggested paganism is somehow a brand new idea during his show Rick's List:

Is there a new religion out there that most of us haven't heard of? Time for today's most intriguing.

He runs the Air Force Academy's astronautics labs in Colorado Springs. He also helped turn this double circle of stones into an outdoor chapel for Druids, Wiccans, and followers of other earth- centered religions. He calls it a freedom ring.

Our most intriguing person of the day is Tech Sergeant Brandon Longcrier, who says about half-a-dozen academy cadets are now devout believers, and many more are catching on. Longcrier describes himself as a pagan. This is him use[ing] [I can't help myself.] white sage to consecrate the circle during the [W]inter [S]olstice. [If "Christmas" gets capitalized, and it does, why not "Winter Solstice" or, the more appropriate term, "Yule"?] Tech Sergeant Brandon Longcrier, intriguing? To say the very least.

Here’s the brief item from Special Report anchor Bret Baier:

The U.S. Air Force Academy is in the final stages of planning a worship area for followers of earth-centered religions, including Wicca and Druidism near its landmark chapel. [So here, the Druids at least get capitalized, although apparently all "Witches" are now "Wiccans." Again, no underlying logic that I can see. Nor can I see any point to the quotation marks in the next sentence. Would there be quotation marks around "St. Mary's Chapel," or "The Crystal Cathedral"?] The organizer of the "Stone Circle" says there has been no resistance at the academy.

But one Catholic [oh, yeah, they definitely get a capital letter] priest [Ha! That's a little-p-priest, but, then, it's not an in-quotation-marks-"self-described"-priest, either] calls the decision "politically correct cowardice by bumbling bureaucrats, adding quote "Behind the smoke and mirrors of the supposed high demand for earth worship prayer circles is a small group of activist atheists in America who seek first to water down and then to abolish the name and face of go[d] [Dude, you so missed an opportunity to win a capitalization war, here,] from the public square." [So it turns out that Pagans are atheists. Who knew?]

The academy chaplain says every service member is charged with defending freedom for all Americans, and that includes freedom to practice our religion of choice. The academy also has worship areas for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists. [OK, all of those guys get capital letters.]

But beyond my obsession with grammar, which has only been intensified by a life in the law where even capitalization matters, Mr. Graham's post is rather disturbing. Noting that some xians already felt compelled to show up and place a cross in the Pagan's Stone Circle (and we can all pause for a moment and consider the reaction should a bunch of Pagans show up and paint Pentagrams all over the "worship areas for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists"),
this 4th grade failure finds himself constrained to ask: To consult the dictionary, NBC was saying someone "violated the sacred character" of an object or place. What if the viewer at home doesn’t consider a pagan circle to be "sacred"? Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. What if I don't consider the baptismal font of your xian church to be [note the use of quotation marks] "sacred"? Does that mean that leaving Pentacles all over said font is not "desecration"? Are we to assume the xians didn't mean to violate the Pagans' notion that their place was sacred? It's all ok? Because, you know, sauce/goose/gander, and I can find your worship places lots more easily than you can find mine.

Lately, I've seen more and more xians worrying over how unpopular they are. They might want to begin to consider why that is.

Picture, provided for comparison purposes between the stone circle that the Pagans at the Air Force Academy get and the chapel that the xians get (and, yet, the xians felt the need to desecrate the Pagan circle), found here. Weak-ass god, if you ask me.

What The Rude Pundit Said

Where's some catholic man in a skirt to wonder why xians are increasingly unpopular?

Avatar: Is It A Pagan Movie?

This is an interesting take on the impact of the movie Avatar, not the least because it accepts the views of Australia's catholic bishop.

Other commentators have complained that Avatar promotes a leftist or greenie agenda but Cardinal Pell knows where the real danger lies. He is an expert on the activities of pagan propagandists. In 2001 he warned: "We must not allow the situation to deteriorate as it had in Elijah's time, 850 years before Christ, where monotheism was nearly swamped by an aggressive paganism, by the followers of Baal." (Baal was a Phoenician fertility god.)

Now it would seem that Baal is back, in the person of the writer-director James Cameron. Cardinal Pell is disturbed by Cameron's speculation that a planet might function as a giant organic computer into which all living things are connected.

Reviewing Avatar in The Sunday Telegraph last weekend, he wrote: "Worship of the powerful forces of nature is half right, a primitive stage in the movement towards acknowledging the one: the single Transcendent God, above and beyond nature. It is a symptom of our age that Hollywood is pumping out this old-fashioned pagan propaganda."

Love the conflation of all Paganism w/ Ba'al ( a deity with whom I am personally unacquainted). Not really.

What's really interesting to me is how threatened xians and conservative writers are about a film that shows how satisfying and profound it can be for people to have a relationship with their landbase, planet, natural world (and, no, those of us in such relationship don't regard our Planet as a super computer.) It's that element of Avatar that seems to be attracting huge attention (and pissing off Sullivan).

I also object as strongly as I know how (one of my favorite movie scenes is the one where, in A Few Good Men, Demi Moore objects, is overruled, and then "strongly objects") to the old notion that monotheism and a "transcendent" (aka broken relationship with nature) deity is a "step above" Paganism. And, the notion that Paganism is "old-fashioned."

And, I'm not going to bother with the notion that, until Avatar's ticket sales surpass those of The Sound of Music (a film released years and years and years ago) it's a flop. I could make, in about ten minutes of billable time, a damn good argument that The Sound of Music, with its focus on family, landbase, freedom, the overthrow of a patriarchal family regime, and underground movements, is a Pagan movie.

The article discusses Monbiot's points that Avatar reflects Europe's actions in America (and I'd argue in all of not-Europe, see, e.g., India, Africa, Asia, etc.). Yeah, that's the part of the movie that my brilliant friend E called "anvils" -- it hits you over the head. But Monbitot, who is far more brilliant that I can ever hope to be, misses the point. The point is that people who invade don't have the same relationship with the landbase/plantet/etc. as the people who have lived there forever. So it's a lot easier to strip resources, denude forests, kill off "natives" if you're doing those things to someplace "other" than if you're doing it to your own landbase. A movie that posits a relationship with an entire planet makes that process, absent instellar travel, a lot more difficult.

Finally, this article has has the regular capitalization problems and a problem with calling the movie "propaganda." Was Mel Gibson's movie "propaganda"? Have all the movies that adopt a patriarchial, xian approach to the univers (aka 98% of them) propaganda?

Lately, I'm thinking more and more about how the Na'vi "ground" by inserting a portion of their bodes into the planet. I may have more to say about that later.

Picture found here.

Breaking Toast Together

I'd still rather see the gov't leave religion alone, but, if it won't this is kind of nice.

Logic And Consistency Are Too Much To Ask

Dear Cardinal,

"Pagan" -- I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Muslims are conquering Europe because Christians have become too selfish and pagan to defend the spiritual heritage of the continent, a Vatican cardinal said this week.

Miloslav Vlk, who has served as archbishop of Prague since 1991 and was considered as a successor to John Paul II, launched an outspoken attack on Christians living in Europe and accused them of allowing Muslims to "Islamise" the continent.

He warned that Europe would "fall" to Islam if people continued to deny their Christian roots.

Of course, Europe has has a Pagan "spiritual heritage." Kali on a cucumber sandwich, if Cardinal Vik were doing his job, wouldn't Europeans be flocking to xianity? Wouldn't the Moslems who moved to Europe observe the love, warmth, charity, and joy of the xians and long to convert? Maybe Europeans don't like child abuse, pederasty, and cover ups?

t was Muslims and not Christians, said Vlk, who were shaping the spiritual outlook of Europe. "The Muslims definitely have many reasons to be heading here. They also have a religious one – to bring the spiritual values of faith in God to the pagan environment of Europe, to its atheistic style of life."

In a separate interview, a second cardinal criticised Islam for repressing religious freedom.

Which, you know, is true in some places, but, pot, kettle, black.

Cardinal Tauran: also commented on the Swiss referendum to ban the construction of new minarets, and seemed to approve of the outcome. "Naturally it is necessary to harmonize construction with the atmosphere in which it comes to be a part, with the city landscape, the cultural context, and the complex of the laws and norms that regulate the life of the society."

Which is odd, because that wasn't the church's position when it built xian churches on sacred Pagan spaces, nor when it built Spanish churches in North and South America.

You Want Outrage?

As a member of religion about which people often say "grossly abusive or insulting things" that "cause outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion," (never mind that the person making the statement is often a member OF my religion), I'd say the Irish atheists have this about right:

SECULAR campaigners in the Republic of Ireland defied a strict new blasphemy law that came into force on New Year's Day by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The law, which was passed in July, means blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros.

It defines blasphemy as ''publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted''.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has said the law was necessary because while immigration had brought a growing diversity of religious faiths, the 1936 constitution only extended the protection of belief to Christians.

But Atheist Ireland, a group that claims to represent the rights of atheists, responded to the legislation by publishing 25 anti-religious quotations on its website, from figures including Richard Dawkins, Bjork and Frank Zappa.

Michael Nugent, the group's chairman, said it would challenge the law through the courts if it was charged with blasphemy.

Mr Nugent said: ''This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

. . .

''Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.''

Mr Nugent said the group's campaign to repeal the law was part of a wider battle to create a more secular republic. ''You would think that after all the scandals the Catholic Church endured in 2009, the introduction of a blasphemy law would be the last thing that the Irish state would be considering in terms of defending religion and its place in society.''

More here.

Here, BTW, are the 25 blasphemous quotations. They include some good ones:

Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

and

Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”

They left out HecateDemetersdatter, who said, "Fuck you, Padrick, you woman-hating, Celt-hating, nasty slave."

Picture found here.

Hat tip to my amazing friend NYM.

Love Him Or Hate Him, Lon Milo Says What He Thinks

Peregrin is not impressed.