I know that there’s a lot of ignorance on this subject, and I’d like to fight mine. What do you believe that is outside the realm of accepted science, besides abstract moral guidelines (although you can mention what those are, of course)? Do you believe in a literal god or gods? Do you believe in “magic” or spells? Do you believe in an afterlife or reincarnation? What else? [del]Why do you hate America?[/del]
Also, why do you believe this? What first made you take up these beliefs, since presumably you were not raised in them? I’m intending this as a poll, not as a flame-fest to argue about why these beliefs and justifications are good/stupid, although believers in more traditional religions and in no particular religion are free to answer in a non-confrontational way about their own beliefs, if they must.
To me, God and Nature are two words for the same thing; the subject matter that the physicists study is the same subject matter that spirituality tries to comprehend. Different paths, same mountain being climbed.
By definition I do not believe in anything “supernatural”. But there are many things still not fully understood that are fully natural, and many of the more imporant ones have to do with large-scale understandings of processes.
I don’t. Which is why I call myself a secular neo-pagan. Neo-pagan philosophy fits in perfectly with my political stance (green), and I like a lot of the religious ideas–honouring of women as well as men, sex is good and not evil, we are part of the earth and stewards of it rather than separate from it and tasked to dominate it, and so on–I just don’t believe in the gods or magic in the way a faith-holding Christian might believe in the power of prayer.
Interesting, although I have to say the idea of holding nature sacred has never appealed to me. Although I obviously value its facilitation of and benefit to humanity, that’s all it is—a resource for humanity to exploit and safeguard for its own long-term interests. And I think the defining thread of morality is that of overcoming our own natural instincts, including promiscuous sex, as well as in not violating the rights of others. I’m a Deist by the way; I don’t believe in an interventionalist God, but I do believed that everyone is judged after death for his actions and assigned appropriate (not infinite, like in Christianity) punishment for sins.
I don’t believe in magic, but I have seen it work. That is, I don’t believe in magic in the traditional sense.
I used to live with a pagan who believed in magic. One day, being hungry and poor (we were in college) he decided he wanted to summon pizza. He wrote up some ruins and posted them on the door to our apartment. All the while I was telling him he was an idiot and it wasn’t going to work. That the only way to “summon” a pizza was to pick up the phone and have your cash ready when the delivery dude came. He told me that sort of negativity would exclude me from his summoned pizza.
A little while later our friend came over. She asked what the sign on our door was. he told her he was summoning pizza. She thought for a minute, said “oooh, I’m hungry, pizza sounds like a great idea” and she left. fast forward and she comes back, post-pizza, and has one slice left, which she gives to my friend. He thanked her, then proceeded to indulge in his “summoned” pizza all the while grinning at me, the smug SOB.
That’s sort of the way those summoning ‘spells’ seem to work. I had an ex who refused to actively search for a job. Instead, he wanted to cast ‘summoning spells’ to magically get a job. It worked, in a sort of way, because it made me give up on him doing anything by himself. So I got a few newspapers, circled all the stuff for which he had experience, and put it on his little altar. FWIW, my method took less time than his method did.
As for me, I’m not neopagan, but I do have a little shrine setup in my apartment. I have a few Shinto charms that I keep there, and I pray in front of it from time to time, but I don’t really expect it to do much of anything. It’s just a relaxing little thing I do to take a physical and psychological timeout. More warm fuzzies than magic sparkles.
Also, it makes for a nice focal point on my western wall.
I’m a fairly hardheaded skeptic, but a stint living in Japan has left me with a firm belief in kami and other small gods, some of which are invented on a whim and dispelled just as quickly when they’re no longer needed. Magic is a way of focussing intent to bring about a desired outcome and the more I learn about quantum physics the more I think it’s going to prove magic someday.
Learning to be in harmony with the ecosystem you depend on strikes me as pure good sense, whereas the urge to dominate and control tends to produce bad outcomes in my experience and is best kept in check. I hold myself to be the highest and final arbiter of my own needs and actions and I accept that my actions have consequences that I’m able and willing to bear. Every part of me was once something else, and will be again and I find that comforting–I have no great desire to exist in perpetuity although should I be given that opportunity I’ll take it as long as the cost isn’t too great.
Now, see, I do have that desire, which is why I really hope some form of life extension, at least long enough to see the development of truly limitless life, is invented and within my means in my lifetime, since I’m not entirely confident that God exists. I would pay almost any cost, although not one that would permanently decrease the enjoyment from that life. And by immortality, I mean literally continuing to exist in the same consciousness for an indefinite period of time. The idea that I would “live on through my work” or whatever (or that my constituent parts will endure and be reformed into new things) is not all that satisfying.
I used to have a shrine set up back in college. Figuring that I was more likely to answer my prayers than anyone/anything else, I dedicated the shrine to myself. I’d pray at it every now and again, and i usually answered my prayers, so I guess it was pretty successful. Sometimes I’d ignore them though cause I was being a dick…
Well, trying to organize pagans is like trying to herd cats…
This is another reason I’d like to visit Japan. As a modern Pagan nation, it gives us a look at a world where the Religions of the Book did not become powerful. Kind of like going to Cuba to see a land without McDonalds.
A lot of small-g green stuff is like that; it’s just common sense, like recycling because living in garbage sucks. But the idea that we are not separate from the world has an effect as well. Sometimes as I travel through the city, I think, “This is the public part of my living room!” and have much less of an urge to litter the subway. If you think you are separate from something, it’s that much easier to attack it or exploit it. If you think you are part of something, that’s like hurting yourself.
I started to do that thing where I quote what I agree with and say some inane one word agreement like “this” to piss people off, but I had just about every quote+ box checked! So yes, all of it, everything that’s already been said, including the contradictory stuff. That and more is everything I believe.
I had a “Oneness” moment in Anatomy & Phys class today. The more science I learn, the stronger my faith in “there’s something bigger than me” gets. (That wasn’t always true - intro classes really turned me into an asshole, but now that I’m getting into slightly more complicated physiology, I’m beginning to marvel at the coolness of Creation as a more-than-physical construct again.) Anyhow, I had this moment while we were discussing respiration, where the alvelolar sacs meet the capillaries, and I got to thinking about how our bodies are billions of living cells all joined up into this thing that we call one “organism”, but we’re no more or less a single entity than those swarming bug consciousnesses of science fiction. I’m billions of interrelating things within this 5’6", 48" circumference area of space. Only…I don’t even really stop there. “My” CO2 goes on to become the carbon source for plants, so aren’t they really part of “me”, too? And my lungs draw in their O2 and my hemoglobin traps it and carries it away to my interstitial fluids and then my cells, along with the Water, Phosphates and other molecules from things I ingest through my mouth, so where do I really end and other things begin? I don’t. They don’t. To say we’re two separate organisms is pretty arbitrary when we’re a literally connected whole at a molecular level.
I think the problem with a lot of [del]neopagans[/del] people is that they take literally things that best serve as metaphor and take as metaphor those things which are most useful as literal truth.
Yes. I’m at a point somewhere on an axis of polytheism, pantheism and animism.
Do you believe in “magic” or spells?
No. I do not go for the crystal-waving, chakra-cleansing, womyn-power-chanting [del]nonsense[/del] stuff.
I may be pagan now, but I was raised Lutheran and that sort of thing just feels weird.
Do you believe in an afterlife or reincarnation?
I do not know. Sometimes. Maybe. I honestly don’t think about it much.
Also, why do you believe this?
Because it makes the most sense to me. Because I have felt most spiritually connected to the Divine when praying to pagan gods.
What first made you take up these beliefs, since presumably you were not raised in them?
I grew up fairly devoutly Christian, but at some point I determined that it didn’t make sense that the ultimate divine power of the universe would focus its attention so exclusively on such a small geographic area. And the paganism sort of grew out of that and the spiritual satisfaction I get from nature.
well, I usually say “gods damnit” cause I realize and respect teh fact that I’m not the only god
I mean, let’s face it, if I was the only god you’d all be screwed. I used to test The Sims 2 and my sims were not happy that I was their all-powerful sometimes-present being
I don’t think I have a lot to add to what’s already been said (other than “Yep”)…
But I’ll say that as much as humans as a larger group try, we cannot separate ourselves from Nature. As WhyNot pointed out, we still need to eat, breathe, and shit in order to live. Many humans at many times try to separate themselves psychologically from nature, but given our intimate interdependence on it, I don’t think it’s incredibly healthy to do so from either a physical or mental health perspective. If nothing else we should occasionally remind ourselves of the fact that we are a part of the greater ecosystem (like it or not) and everything we do has a ripple effect on the world around us. Plus, we are nature – we are animals, mammals, like any other. And it’s not wrong to simply be what we really are (and it confuses the hell out of me that some people think that it is).
I believe in the Divine in the sense that the gods, us, that tree, this fish, this rock, that star, that asteroid, are all manifestations of the divine creative life force (for lack of a better term – and I wish there was one, that sounds completely hippy-dippy) that connects everything. They can be physical manifestations, spiritual ones, some combination, or something else (or several something elses) that I don’t have good words for. The metaphor I commonly use is that we are the fingers and toes of the greater body of the universe – we do exist in our own right, as individual entities (an individual finger), but are not and can not be entirely separate things from the rest of the “body.” A finger that’s not connected to a body is either an injury or simply makes no sense.
The other metaphor I commonly use in my approach to spirituality is the blind men and the elephant. I could explain how I think that gods and the universe works, but I’m mindful of the fact that I’m only getting a partial view. One blind man touches the trunk and thinks he “sees” a firehose; another touches the tail and thinks he “sees” a rope. Neither are entirely wrong, and as metaphors their perceptions are decently useful, but it’s not the whole picture.
See, this makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would a god create people such that their nature, what comes naturally to them, is exactly the opposite of what he/she/it wants them to be? Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to create them to have the nature he/she/it wants in the first place?
One thing I did take from my upbringing (from my Catholic mother, if not from the Church itself) was that God Don’t Make Junk. From that I derive that what I am, at core, is what Deity wants me to be.
Obviously I think that working against ourselves is unhealthy, as well as ultimately an exercise in futility. (Of course I’m saying this as someone who’s queer, female, and kinky, and grew up Catholic. ) If your personal spirituality isn’t helping you to be true to yourself, and to become your best self, then I feel it’s a pretty pointless exercise.
You know, I’m kind of glad I’m not the only one drawing connections between quantum physics and magic. I claim no great expertise in how either works, so it’s nice to know I’m not making entirely illogical leaps, here.
(And to the rest of your post… “Yep.”)
snort Yeah, magic isn’t really a get out of jail free card. The Universe helps those that help themselves. No spell will get you a job if you never send out a resume. It might arrange things so that your resume crosses the manager’s desk when she’s in a really good mood, however.
Why I ended up at Witchcraft… that could be a several-page post in itself, full of sturm und drang. The (extremely) short version is that it makes the most sense to me, does a far better job of explaining the world in terms of how I’ve experienced it (the RCC explains a world which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t actually exist), plus I can’t connect at all to the “sacred theatre” form of worship – priest up there “on stage”, me watching in the “audience”, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Being able to actually participate in the real “meat” of the ritual, and not just spit out canned responses and play sing-along, is huge to me, and completely altered my perception of my own spirituality and its place in my life. I am able to achieve altered spiritual states of consciousness in pagan ritual, simply from being in the middle of all that energy we raise; I never experienced that, or anything even close, in Catholic Mass.
How does inventing and dispelling kami work? Lets say I want money, what steps do I take? Then what happens to bring about the outcome? Are there restrictions on who can invoke kami or do they work for anybody who follows the ‘recipe’?
No more than any other Buddhist country. The vast majority of Japanese don’t have much attachment to either Buddhism or Shinto, and much of modern Shinto was invented in the 1880s as a form of nationalism.
