Heathens, Pagans and Witches discussion
Practical Pagan
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Atheism
Most if not all wars are based on religious beliefs. Religious people feel the need for power and control over other humans
In addition. Religious myths stall scientific discovery and propogate misinformation about the world around us
Anything can be turned into a religion in the hands a fanatics. I remember an atheist friend of Spouse's parents griping at being asked to keep silence at noon in Westminster Abbey. She wasn't asked to pray, just to keep a respectful silence while other prayed. Her excuse was that the Abbey is subsidized by the British Government, so no one should pray there, not even the Anglicans who have been praying there for centuries. Too bad for her. I was in the Abbey at noon once and the moment of silence was lovely.
My husband is a militant ("recovering Catholic") atheist. He is very likely the same type of person Little is referring to. I blame the recovering-Catholic part for his pushiness. There is a lot of anger mixed into his feelings about all religion. I, however, am a pagan atheist, and find great beauty and value in many aspects of Wicca and other similar paths. I do not ever try to push my view; if anything, many people assume I am religious in the same way they are simply because I do go out of my way to be aware and respectful. The people who scream loudest are the most noticed. I think the latest atheist push, which I agree is happening, is because it is a safer world (at least in the USA, haha), to be open and outspoken without danger to mind or self, than it used to be. It will calm, I expect, after a few years.
The present day atheists remind me of the Puritans who came to North America to practice religious freedom, but in less than 100 years were hanging people as witches. Those who complain loudest about persecution are usually the first to jump on the bandwagon in persecuting others. The funny thing is, they still have a need to feel faith in something, so they substitute something else for religion; usually partisan political dogma which is just as fanatical and hypocritical as the religions they revile.
Atheism still defines itself by theism. It's perverse devotion. Yes Gina, I've encountered the pushiness quite a lot. They seem to find me incomprehensible when I feel I'm being perfectly logical.
As others have suggested, I do think for the pushy ones it's a form of conversion mania—they're newly "out" in their atheist faith and want to thump the pulpit at every opportunity. I respect atheists who show respect for others, but there is a certain strain of them who make the all the others look bad, as Mawgojzeta said. I had a friend, raised staunchly Catholic, who never fit in with that faith and had severe doubts, but he was always up for a reasoned discussion. Then he read Dawkins and Hitchens and went through a kind of conversion experience. Every opportunity (and I mean every) he started in with his newly acquired faith in non-faith so much that many of us didn't like talking to him anymore. He's a good person and to his great credit, once we pointed out that he was not behaving any differently than a religious fanatic, he moderated his behavior. He held on to his beliefs in non-belief, remained true to himself—and more power to him for that—but he stopped thumping the pulpit. I'm grateful to have him back as a friend.
Such good points raised, I'm really glad I started the thread. This has been getting to me lately. I'm a pagan, and despite my short bout of extreme paranoia and loss of faith last year, I am very much polytheistic. To me the world that we experience through our sense organs is a tiny fraction of the whole. As Nikola Tesla put it "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” We simply cannot detect or comprehend so much of what is out there. Interesting too that in the past so many of our top scientists were highly spiritual people looking for answers. I think science and faith go beautifully together and need not be opposed.It is a perverse devotion Aaron, spot on. I find it amusing that they are so adamant that nothing exists other than the visible, and those things that are definable by current scientific methods, and that there is no afterlife, when existence itself, our planet, and our universe, are so sublimely surprising and wondrous in themselves.
Holly wrote: "The funny thing is, they still have a need to feel faith in something, so they substitute something else for religion; usually partisan political dogma which is just as fanatical and hypocritical as the religions they revile. "
Great way of putting it Holly. I have a lovely friend on facebook who continually posts atheist slogans (sounds like your ex catholic friend Peejay). She's a good friend but if she was continually posting strident religious ideology I'd be irritated too. One of the posts also included something about not going to church due to practicing witchcraft, all under the title of atheism. But Wiccans are not atheists, and to describe them as such shows a complete lack of understanding.
My ex is an atheist too. He has no tolerance for belief in anything. My children can't even talk to him about their dreams, and he is quick to squash any conversation about anything intangible. It's sad. I think it comes from fear (or perhaps even terror) of the unknown. Interestingly he is an ex Catholic too and his whole family are atheists.
Hmmm, I think you all may be confusing atheists with folk just being dicks...the atheism or born again bit seems pretty incidental.
Well it's easy to confuse people with dicks when there are so many of them, and they assume so many manifestations. Gina I'm surprised about your ex. I had the impression you had been reading some of the same books together.
Does Catholicism bread more atheists?
There was a time I felt so burned by religion I could not believe in anything. I eventually read a book on paganism. It opened my mind again to there being a spiritual side to life.
Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Hmmm, I think you all may be confusing atheists with folk just being dicks...the atheism or born again bit seems pretty incidental.":D I think you could be right O.B.
Aaron wrote: "Gina I'm surprised about your ex. I had the impression you had been reading som..."
Unfortunately no. There was a time he said he was a pantheist, and was more open to ideas, but now I think he only said that to humour me. He doesn't believe in the existence of souls, yet alone anything else. He never even remembers dreaming at night, never has. I think long ago he built a massive wall inside him, and nothing gets in. Not even me. It's very sad :(
And yes, I suspect Catholicism breeds atheists.
Joseph (Millennium Man) wrote: "There was a time I felt so burned by religion I could not believe in anything. I eventually read a book on paganism. It opened my mind again to there being a spiritual side to life."
I can understand this. I was almost violently anti-religion, especially anti-Christianity, for most of my life (I have no religious background at all). It has really only been the last few years that I have softened my outlook, and I have realised that there are core truths in all faiths, no matter the dogma that surrounds them. Even the term 'born again' comes from the Greek and Egyptian Mystery Schools.
That's very inspiring Joseph. Thank you for telling us.
Been AFK for a while and only near a real keyboard recently.Noticed the thread and have a handful thoughts.
As usual my misanthropic Discordianism colours my judgement.
Little wrote: "…why they feel so compelled to push disbelief and nihilism, and what's making them so scared that they feel the need to scream their anti-faith and anti-meaning message at every turn......"
I don’t know about the screaming, fear, and nihilism, you can be a fairly calm and peaceful atheist, quite content with things. I get the disbelief though.
The fact that they are vocal about it seems to be more of the issue. The fact that some are loudly and possibly aggressively vocal.
Many will be this way as they are “kicking against the pricks” (Acts 26:14) of the more organised religions in their areas, the fallout into the pagan community a secondary effect.
Holly wrote: "...a need to feel faith in something..."
I think that’s misunderstanding atheism, it’s not about faith in atheism or the “movement”. Atheism is one bit of an atheist’s reality tunnel. There isn’t really the all-encompassing thing that goes with religions. Atheists will disagree on many things other than the god issue.
I’ve quoted this before and here I go again, but I think it’s pertinent to this thread:
“In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice
Good to have you back O.B.:)I think a lot of atheists confuse atheism too. It seems very broad, and covers a wide range of thoughts. After reading the wiki article defining it, I'm surprised to see that some neopagan and wiccan groups DO accept the idea of atheism too. This seems more pantheistic than pagan (polytheistic). Interesting.
The atheists I have had contact with are more along these lines:
"With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Taoism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism They don't believe in anything supernatural: the Otherworld, magic, transcendental metaphysics, it's all considered childish and unsubstantiated.
I understand Crowley's stance. I go along with the Buddhist idea that enlightenment is not reached through the realm of the Devas, so perhaps it is immaterial whether they exist or not...
I think the extremely vocal and sometimes aggressively vocal atheists are battling some inner uncertainty. The same applies to the extra pushy religious folk. Those that are most content are, as you say, calm and peaceful, with no need to prove or disprove anything to anyone.
Now here's something I also find interesting. Despite the fact that they consider themselves (ex Catholic) atheists, some people I've had long dealings with are extremely suspicious of, or possibly downright scared of, witchcraft (and also of my wax poppets). If they don't believe in deities, the supernatural, magic, the afterlife and the Otherworld/Underworld, why the fear?
(Excuse jumbled thoughts and rambling sentences :))
When the only God you know your whole life is the Christian God and then you realize what the church is all about, is easy to become an angry atheist.But hopefully spirituality will flow like water and find its way around obstacles to reach at least some of this people.
I think that's a good explanation Luciana.I've also realised that the people I've been dealing with aren't really atheists at all, they are nihilists.
"What Hitchens got wrong: Abolishing religion won’t fix anything"http://www.salon.com/2013/12/07/what_...
Speaking as a once ‘pushy atheist’ I will say that it was shockingly easy to become fanatical about my points of view. I live in a very Christian town where, because of my non-belief, people criticized, judged, and made misguided assumptions about my character. Little by little I became more and more defensive.
One day a coworker, who I considered a friend, actually stood up and moved to sit at a different table when I let it slip that I didn’t believe in any God. I was blown away that someone I’d spoken to everyday for years instantly disliked me. Amidst that hurt, my response was to go on the offensive and point out flaws in her religion. It wasn’t right; I know that now, but at the time I truly believed I was defending logic and enlightenment. (shaking head)
In time, I found myself arguing every time someone brought up religion or faith. In my mind, I was saying what desperately needed to be said.
It took a long time, years even, to seriously reflect and realize I was becoming someone I didn’t like. I debated as frequently and fervently as a zealot. No one could have told me this. I wouldn’t have listened. It something I needed to understand on my own. And it wasn’t until I let all that hurt, anger, and self-righteousness go before I could.
I became a much happier person when I shut-up and started to listen. No, I wouldn’t join anyone in their beliefs, but I realized how interesting and beautiful faith and spirituality could be.
This is just my experience, but I bet others felt like they were defending themselves, and once stepping across that line it is hard going back.
Jennifer wrote: "Speaking as a once ‘pushy atheist’ I will say that it was shockingly easy to become fanatical about my points of view. I live in a very Christian town where, because of my non-belief, people criti..."
Very well said, Jennifer. I think this happens a lot of the time—someone is put down for their ideas and feels they have to defend their point of view.
Being quiet and trying to respect others beliefs run the risk of not being true to one's self.
Around here we get a lot of door knockers, mostly Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons on mission and bible thumping evangelicals. I usually just politely smile and tell them I am pagan and say "no thank you"Once one of them asked me how I could live so long without Jesus in my life. I replied: "I've lived my whole life as a decent person, I am happy, well adjusted and reasonably successful, that is how I have lived all these years without Jesus. I happen to worship the earth and the sun......now you tell me how you would get through one day with either." They just looked at each other, gape-jawed, trying to come up with a reply to that. They couldn't, so they bid me good day and left.
That's a great answer, Holly, I might just try it next time...:)
I have respect for all faiths now but have no tolerance for door knockers. I have also had similar experiences Jennifer in small country towns on the mainland. I had one woman snub me publicly in a shop after she found out I was living in sin (sounds kind of exciting doesn't it?). Another woman stepped right off the footpath to avoid me--gape mouthed and horrified. And finally I hitched a lift with a local once and she gossiped to me about my neighbour--a morally ambiguous woman by the sound of it--until we both realised that she was talking about me. Much fun living in small country towns in the middle of nowhere, where everyone knows everybody else's business and has a strident opinion on it...
Little wrote: "I have respect for all faiths now but have no tolerance for door knockers. I have also had similar experiences Jennifer in small country towns on the mainland. I had one woman snub me publicly in a..."Haha Little, that sounds like it was an interesting car ride.
It was! Very amusing. She couldn't wait to get me out of her car. :D
"Until we both realised she was talking about me" too priceless. The look on her face must have been to die for.
I live in a big city. There exists an anonymity here so it is not likely to have someone get in your face. Plus, I would say many people are on the liberal side.I find more intimidating is being forced to draw a "blob" because there is not sufficient free space in the apartment to draw a circle.
Aaron wrote: ""Until we both realised she was talking about me" too priceless. The look on her face must have been to die for."It was. :D She attempted to backtrack but couldn't. It was awkward but hilarious. I let her stew. It seemed only fair.
Oh I'm laughing my head off at the car ride story. The door-knockers are a bane of my existence. Once my husband got rid of them for months by answering the door once naked.I want to point out my own little peeve: I hate it when people refer to Wicca as a faith. I'm Wiccan. In both the short form and the long form of the Charge of the Goddess there is the line "certainty not faith." And for that line alone I might be Wiccan. I think faith is a terrible idea. I don't think anyone should ever set aside logic and one's own experience just because somebody else tells you to have "faith." When you accept faith over your own experience and logical assessment then you are pretty much throwing over your self sovereignty. In meditative trances I have seen ghosts, elementals, and gods. I then found that what I had seen in trance was exactly correct. For instance with one ghost, I did not know my neighbor had committed suicide and he had, right before I saw his ghost. With the gods, I once dreamed of this goddess and had no idea about this goddess. I described the dream to my High Priestess and she gave me the name of the goddess--Durga. When I looked up Durga, she looked exactly like in my dream. The only Hindu goddess I knew of at that time was Kali. So, no my religion is not a faith. I do not take things on faith. I feel that if an element of a religon's beliefs is flatly contradictory to scientific fact, than that particular belief is wrong and should be changed to meet the facts. I think that using the word "faith" to mean religion is simply more of the Christian way of worming their lingo and ideas into others' ways of comprehending the world.
Now I'm going to go check out that Wiki article on atheism to see how Wicca could possible be conceived as atheism. Wicca involves worship of a goddess and a god; lots of goddesses and gods. Atheists do not believe in gods. This does not make atheists wrong. I assume through logical analysis of their life's experience they have come to the conclusion there is no deity, period. That's fine by me. I could be the wrong one, but you'd have to have a really good explanation for the weirdy weird things that I have experienced.
Very good points Cynthia. I will ditch the word. :) I'm stumped too as to how Wicca can be included in atheism as I thought the Gods were recognised and worshipped. Love the creative way your husband handled the unwanted visitors too. :):)
I prefer to use the word spirituality rather than either faith or religion to describe my own feelings.Cynthia wrote: I feel that if an element of a religon's beliefs is flatly contradictory to scientific fact, than that particular belief is wrong and should be changed to meet the facts.
Good points and an interesting post, Cynthia, but scientific 'facts' have been known to change :)
My personal take is that spirituality is faith based on inspiration, or even imagination. It's a creative burgeoning with intuition. Religion is faith motivated by fear. It starts from a negative premise.
Personally faith has been an important part of my practice. I think faith is even a part of learning. A certain amount of trust is required when learning anything from any teacher, and even though there is no physical evidence that they know what they're talking about, we proceed on faith, and eventually the proof becomes apparent, but I think a certain amount of faith is required in almost any endevour.
My experience with Atheists has been that most are disappointed Christians of one stripe or another. Their God did not "give them the pony they prayed so hard for" so to speak and they are punishing Him by withholding belief. This bit of irrationality is apparent even to them so they also attack their former belief, using the same tactics they were taught to push Christianity.When they remember that there are other beliefs besides their former one, they use their rude tactics against those who follow other faiths as well, though they treat Pagan faiths much the same as they did before they turned from Christianity.
Nell wrote: "Good points and an interesting post, Cynthia, but scientific 'facts' have been known to change :)"This is a great point, Nell. I heartily agree. :-D
I think we can honor both science and faith/spirituality. It doesn't have to be an either/or decision, once we realize that both spiritual beliefs and science are filtered through fallible human beings. Our experiences with these institutions don't necessarily contradict each other; we just don't necessarily have the full picture.
That's my one big article of faith: I know that I do not know. I know that it's impossible for anyone person or institution to know everything. I *believe* that the Universe is at once both more subtle than we are and much, much simpler. I believe in holding irreconcilable differences together inside me and cherishing both. Because some day, or in some dimension, they both may be completely reconcilable.
Yeah, that's my faith.
Thorrsman wrote: "though they treat Pagan faiths much the same as they did before they turned from Christianity."Isn't that always the way? Pagan faith gets treated like second-class or somehow diabolical, no matter what.
Folks, you seem to have encountered a narrow sampling of atheists.Here's Mr Minchin being rational and an atheist...and seeing the glory and beauty in things while arguing his point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXC...
Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Here's Mr Minchin being rational and an atheist...and seeing the glory and beauty in things while arguing his point.
http://www.yo..."
Rational perhaps, but science has moved past rationality and materialism to quantum theory, which apparently explains the Universe in an way that improves on classical physics. Tim Minchin uses overconfidence in his beliefs and a stereotypical caricature to bludgeon and ridicule a certain type of pagan, and the individual statements in his rant are not necessarily sustainable.
For example, to take simply the first of his arguments re. herbal medicine over conventional medicine, it is now being realized that many herbal remedies contain ingredients that mitigate the side-effects of their active ingredients. All that material is discarded if natural plant material is used (or never exists in the first place if the medicine is created chemically in the lab) and only the so-called active ingredient finds its way into medically approved medicine.
I could go on and write an essay on the double-slit experiment and probability waves/particles but life's too short.
“I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine.
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
J.B.S. Haldane
As a comedian I think he's great and extremely witty, but I agree with you Nell, his didactic arguments don't hold up.
Nell wrote: "Rational perhaps, but science has mov..."I agree. He has the same smugness and selectivity of focus (on who to pick on) as many another atheist I've heard/seen/met. His final bit on the wonder of the universe was quite nice, but what came before fit the pattern too well.
Sherman Alexie is perhaps more "my kind of atheist." :-D He calls out people like Dawkins, et al., for simplifying arguments, their smugness and selectivity, but he doesn't back down from his own non-beliefs. (At least as reflected in his Twitterfeed.:-/) He thinks the attitudes of some of these proselytizing atheists do rationality more harm than good because they reduce anyone with belief systems to either hopelessly naive, manipulatively evil, or stupid.
I celebrate atheists who realize the complexity of the Universe and the impossibility of any one point of view getting everything right. Who know that they do not know.
Knowledge isn't a point of view. It's what makes us grow as human beings, it's our shared culture and humanity, it's the font of all progress. (And progress is mostly good!) But Knowing, with a capital K, reduces us to fundamentalists and fanatics (whether we believe in an afterlife or not). Therefore, I'm happy to repeat: I know that I do not know.
It is true that Atheists are very pushy too. Once I talked to my friend (at a time when he still were my friend) and I mentioned that I believe in a sort of a afterlife and he started to convincing me that that's total nonsense and everything. SOme time back I found a show with Morgan Freeman called Through a wormhole. And it was talking about the discoveries of science and also about religion. They asked question regarding this. And theories. It was quite interesting.
Saying mre and more people are atheists, which is true. And how it will increase, based on a research the did in several countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zGbr...
But what question they didn't and which immediately was, "What will be of us and Who will we be."
The weird thing is the amount of anger that can come from atheists, or more specifically nihilists. I remember I used to follow this V-log on youtube which was a means of keeping in touch, of four college students who had moved away from each other.
These two guys jumped down their friend's throat because she confessed she believed in an afterlife.
I remember one of the guys saying, "there is no escaping the loneliness and desolation of death." If he doesn't believe in an afterlife, who is there to feel lonely?
I lost sleep arguing with him in my head.
Well that guy jumped down my throat. It really annoyed meWho is an nihilist?
I should really let Old-Barbarossa answer, but I think there's a subtle difference. An atheist is someone who does not subscribe to any particular religion. A nihilist is someone who does not believe in anything apart from random chance, and science.
Heathens, Pagans and Witches
Authors mentioned in this topic
Nikola Tesla (other topics)Tim Minchin (other topics)
Nikola Tesla (other topics)
I thought I'd start a thread for discussion about the increase of atheism, why they feel so compelled to push disbelief and nihilism, and what's making them so scared that they feel the need to scream their anti-faith and anti-meaning message at every turn...