Heathen Dawn

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No, I've never read the stuff of the CoG, I've read mostly the writings of the CAW (Church of All Worlds), and this philosophy is independent. I just wish to avoid the sense of religion as something down out of fear and trembling.

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There's no need for nature to be "higher" in any sense except that we are her children. The fact that nature formed (or created, though you don't like that word) us is enough.


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I talk about the generic terms, not about their highly philosophized perceptions. Creation = what exists; creator = what brought what exists to the form it is in now.

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So say "formation" instead. You know I don't mean magical creation ex nihilo.

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I am of the opinion that if you think enough about evolution, this is what you inevitably find it to mean. Evolution is, after all, the process through which we were formed, and any such process must have bearing upon a lot of things. I don't believe in science-religion separation. "Separate magisteria" is a politically correct myth for keeping theists happy. The truth, I believe, is that many of the findings of science cancel out the theistic religions (Jujuism, CrossTianity, Islum) completely, shatter them to pieces.

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No. By "accord" I mean nothing simpler than their "drive". The elements just do it. I don't know why they do it, and I don't think they want or have been ordered to do it. I think it is inherently in them to combine.

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Pantheism is the conclusion that follows from thinking about evolution. I am of the strong opinion that one cannot think deeply about evolution without becoming a pantheist. Evolution simply screams pantheism!

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Well, not in this mind. Whenever science touches on aspects of cosmology and cosmogeny, it necessarily steps on religion's turf. A lot of the Bible cannot be understood without the flat-earth, geocentric cosmology in which it was formed. A change of cosmology warrants a change of theology.

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Evolution simply doesn't square up with the theistic religions. It simply doesn't. Evolution breaks all their assumption about creation-creator separation, the omnibenevolence of God and other such matters. This is an a posteriori evaluation. Again, I think the attitude of "science and religion are in harmony, not contradiction" is political correctness more than anything else. Which religion? Science contradicts some of the older concepts of paganism by shunting the gods into symbolic rather than literal truth, but that's not a mortal wound; but for theism, which really needs a literal God with literal sovereignty and a literal hell of sadistic torture, the damage which science inflicts upon it is fatal.

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A bit of it. Naturalism resolves, for me, the Problem of Evil and does away with the bribe and blackmail of heaven and hell.

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Man is the creator of all gods, including those symbolic aspects (God and Goddess which symbolize nature); but Nature is, undisputably, the creator (or say "formator") of man.

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It does not matter whether Abraham existed or not; what matters is that Jews, Christians and Muslims worldwide see him as the model for emulation. There is basically no difference between Abraham killing his son because God told him to do so, and between Ben Laden's pilots crashing the planes on the Twin Towers because God told them to do so.

I fight not people but ideas; people are captives of their ideas, and they kill because their ideas cause them to kill. I fight not Jews, Christians or Muslims, but rather Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Those religions are the bane of mankind's existence.

Perchance

All right, I can certainly understand that. However, if religion comes down, in the end, to a source of emotional pleasure and fulfillment, I see no need to advocate religion for everyone, any more than I think every person on earth needs to adopt the hobbies I like. (Again, sorry if you weren't doing this; but claims like "evolution is pantheism" and "paganism is the antidote to the Abrahamic religions" struck me as your saying that it would be better if everyone became pagan).

Here, with the "her," are you being literal or symbolic?

And I don't think there's really any exception to the "higher" thing. If we are part of nature, as evolution and even many pagans insist, then worshipping nature is essentially like worshipping our hands or feet or creativity- like worshipping part of ourselves.

Enough for worship? How does that differ, though, from the Abrahamic idea that one should worship God because he is the creator of the universe? (The threat of Hell might be hanging in the background, but this idea is often trotted forward as well). "How can you not acknowledge the creator of all things?" blah blah blah.

I don't "acknowledge" the creator because I don't think he exists. Now, I can see nature all around me and existing, which is a definite plus, but I still see no reason to worship it for doing so. I have no problem with an individual's right to do so, but I don't think it's something that humans "should" do, and I have problems with the logical (rather than the emotional) justification of it.

The second term is the one I'm having a lot more trouble with. What "brought what exists to the form it is in now?" Every chemical reaction that ever took place? The Big Bang? Evolution? The formation of our solar system?

When one begins talking about "what formed the universe" in any context other than the scientific, then I get wary, since most people I've met seem to want to tack a creator on there somewhere.


Actually, I didn't. That's why I'm asking.

What things?

If you mean it can be worked into human ideas, sure it can. I have no quarrel with the idea that someone might find evolution pantheistic (though, as I said, I'm trying to understand how that works and failing), but I have a quarrel with the idea that evolution is inherently pantheistic, so that this is the only rational conclusion one could come to.

More later; I have to go right now.

-Perchance.

Perchance

Okay, back now.

Hmmm. Again, I think this is a place where the choice of words can either convince other people (like me) that you're making assumptions you're not making, or perhaps unconsciously lead your audience to this conclusion. "Inherently in them to combine..." Maybe, by the laws of the universe, but unfortunately this phrase could also be seen as "evidence" of belief in a higher intelligence governing the ordering.

Again, if pantheism remains caught up with ideas of divinity, I don't see how. Evolution by itself screams nothing but evolution (at least to my mind). I don't see why anyone should become convinced that the divine exists just from the study of science, much less a particular "form" of the divine.

Unless one has no need for theology whatsoever.

If one sees theology as formed, like mythology, to deal with questions of the universe that were not understood at the time, or to deal with the doctrines and implications of mythology, then there was a need for it- at the time it was created. I don't think that someone who doesn't believe in divinity of any kind needs theology, and I don't think the study of nature needs it. I think it makes a fascinating academic study, but I don't think it's an inherent part of human existence.


I don't know that the monotheistic religions necessarily need such a sadistic concept of God and Hell (ask a liberal Christian), but I'm more puzzled and intrigued with this continuing statement that paganism is not theistic. Why not? Is it because, as you said, you think the majority of pagans do not believe in the gods as literal figures? But then what makes it religion, if it is not theistic?

Though I think that religions are in a state of flux and change (and I think that is definitely a good thing, as long as the new religions don't decide that non-believers are also their enemies), definitions are not so unstable. They change as popular use changes them, but also as writing changes them, and language is not under the control of any one group. If one is going to change "religion" so radically from the commonly understood definition, then why keep calling it "religion?"

So you don't have any problem with the seemingly logical conclusion that when our brains decay, so do our personalities? That there is no evidence of the supernatural and the soul? I've read quite a bit about the "Summerlands" and the idea of reincarnation in various Pagan belief systems. Isn't holding to some notion of an afterlife, even if it isn't heaven or hell, theistic?

Again...

I don't think nature deserves worship just because of that. After all, then we should also worship our parents, because they bore and sired us. Yet I have heard few people suggest that, at least for both parents (some people seem caught up in a romantic idea of childbirth as deserving of worship, as if the female were the sole parent).

We've come a long way with science and technology that some people call "unnatural." Now, I fail to see how this can be unnatural if we are part of nature and using our natural brains to think of and craft these things... but that's a debate for another time. The point is, humans have done a lot to better life for other humans, as well as it to make it worse for other humans, and more recently than evolution or nature has "done" anything for us. We could die tomorrow, and, as you've pointed out, nature wouldn't care. Though I agree it doesn't make much sense to worship a god just because he will throw you in hell if you don't, I also don't think that it makes much sense to worship something just because you evolved from it. Nature doesn't care, and won't give anything back. There is no possibility of communication, let alone quid pro quo.

Again, I have no problem with someone choosing, individually, to worship nature. I have a big problem with someone declaring that everyone should worship nature, or that nature is somehow inherently deserving of worship by everyone.

Actually, I've heard comparatively few Christians talk about Abraham as compared to Jesus. (I have much less experience with Jews and Muslims). Why are you so convinced that Abraham is the one they want to emulate? And if they were emulating him, wouldn't they be sacrificing their own children for God, rather than killing others?

I think there is a big difference. First of all, Abraham is a mythic conception at this point, whether or not he ever existed; Bin Laden is a real person. Second, I think that Bin Laden's move was political as much as religious, striking out at a country that he hated, not just a country that had a different (majority) religion than he does. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that Abraham was killing Isaac for political reasons. Third, Abraham thought he heard God speaking to him. The terrorists may have believed they were going to heaven if they died this way, but did they believe that God actually spoke to them? I didn't think so. I thought they were under the control of Bin Laden.

Since I think that God does not actually exist, I think it was people who did these things; and since Bin Laden's crime involved people we know were real and actually succeeded, I don't think that it really compares to a sacrifice that happened long ago, if it was real, and didn't end up being completed.

Ah. I think I see part of the conflict between us now. I think people are the problem. As I mentioned before, I don't accept the idea that people are completely unable to choose their own religious beliefs or make up their own minds, unless they've been severely indoctrinated all their lives with no chance of any outside idea ever getting through. I wouldn't classify many monotheists with the possible exception of some fundamentalists inside this conception.

Ideas are not (in my conception) evil. If they have had bad consequences, then it is because of people who either corrupted them, or originated them in the first place with the intent of controlling people. Any idea can be perverted; there is not, I think, something inherently different about the monotheistic ideas that makes them worse.

I dislike the idea of religion in general because I think it is silly and irrational, and that includes all religions, including polytheism and paganism. However, I respect the right of people to worship as they choose, to believe as they choose, and to, in fact, act as they choose as long as they aren't forcing others to believe as they do, or hurting them. (As an aside, this is one key point where I differ from the Wiccan Rede, which includes the idea of harming oneself as a bad idea. Since I severely doubt the existence of a higher power, I think that every individual is the ultimate arbiter of decisions that concern only that individual. Thus I support assisted suicide; thus I support the right of individuals to do things that are risky to themselves, if they wish. I don't think there is a kind of mystical connection between everything that is harmed if a person decides to harm himself or herself, for whatever reason).

I do not think that polytheism and paganism differ fundamentally from other religions as long as they still hold to the ideas of worship and some kind of inherent meaning in the universe and some idea of fate. I do not think that polytheism and paganism are better than the monotheistic religions. At the moment, they have done less harm. However, that does not mean that the seeds of harm do not lie within them; and it does not mean that people who follow them will not do evil. They may not. Again, they might. I do not think that pantheism is the panacea for the future. No idea can make us stop being human.

-Perchance.