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Let Us Give Thanks
In the United States, this is the week of the annual secular holiday Thanksgiving, coming up on Thursday the 22nd. Originating with the Michaelmas harvest celebrations of England, the American Thanksgiving is rooted in the mythologizing of a harvest feast shared by colonizing “Pilgrims” in the New England region and Native people following a successful harvest in 1621. Of course, within a short time, said colonists were massacring their Native neighbors, and the North American genocide was underway. Given that capitalism turns everything it touches into something grotesque, the American holiday has become more of a celebration of gluttony and an often-problematic convening of family members who may not actually…
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Forging Paths of Integrity (with Minor Update)
There has been a lot of talk online lately about the Pagan (or neopagan, if you prefer) community* and integrity, or lack thereof. Stuff about “fakelore” traditions and lineages: pretense of ancient roots that aren’t, and people using this pretense to dangle “ancient secrets” before naive seekers to leverage sexual favors . Stuff about lousy sexual boundaries, harassment and assault**; particularly, the usage of status and power (such as the power to approve or disapprove elevation to higher “degrees of initiation”) to extort sex, money or power. I’ve written about some of these issues before. They are real. They go to the origins of modern witchcraft’s practices and culture with some decidedly kinky…
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for the Atheopagan Blog
Atheopaganism is a collaborative enterprise: a constellation of individual practices that share certain things in common, like a naturalistic cosmology, a set of values and principles, and ritual practices that enact, invoke and embody our celebration of the world and of living. We all do it a little differently, and that’s a part of its beauty: it is intended not as a template that all participating must follow, but as a landscape of possibilities, through which each of us can choose our way in the manner which best serves us. Your Atheopaganism is not my Atheopaganism, exactly, and that is precisely as it should be. I am the publisher of the Atheopaganism…
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Our Story Thus Far
In 1987, a friend invited me to an autumnal equinox circle with his Pagan coven. I had been an atheist all my life: a rational, naturalistic believer in science and reason. But I went. I still don’t entirely know why. It was…odd. There was drumming. The standing-in-a-circle-holding-hands was a bit uncomfortable. There was talking to Invisible Presences, though that seemed much more like symbolic action than people actually believing they existed. But on the other hand…it was the autumnal equinox. That’s a real thing, a real event in the natural world. When was the last time I had noticed that? How connected was I to the reality of what was…
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SF Bay Atheopagans: Join Us on Dec. 9!
Atheopagans and friends are welcomed to join us for a potluck early winter gathering and nontheist Yule ritual on Sunday, Dec. 9, at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Connie Barbour room (1606 Bonita Ave, at the corner of Cedar St. in Berkeley—map link here). The gathering will convene at 2 pm, with the ritual at 3:30. Please bring a dish and something to drink to share. We would appreciate it if you bring non-disposable eating ware, as well, so we have very little waste from the event. Please no red wine, thanks—the venue is concerned about stains. This event is our second effort to engage more local Atheopagans and…
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Inclusiveness Starts with Your Ideas
One of the ways Atheopaganism differs from many other Pagan paths is that we don’t have to go through endless parsings of “what gods are” or “what gods want”, nor seeking to overcome biases baked into traditions that arise from times and cultures where bigotries of various kinds were the norm (be they ancient Greece or Britain of the 1950s). I’m seeing much soul-searching in the Pagan community about this sort of thing recently: concern about the heteronormativity and gender essentialism of mainstream flavors of Wicca, for example. When you assert the existence of a (fully able-bodied, typically white, slender, young, heterosexual, cisgender and conventionally attractive) Goddess and a (similar) God as…
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Reflections on the FFRF Conference 2018
So…the Freedom From Religion Foundation conference was…interesting. It’s a great organization. Lobbying and legal work to prevent religious incursion into governmental and public spaces. Very important stuff. I got the sense that most of the attendees felt a deep relief at being in a place where they could admit their atheism. And that seemed to be the end-all-and be-all of the conference’s message: we’re atheists, and that’s good. Presenters were stellar (Salman Rushdie!) And their points about the deep wrong of theocracy and enforced religiosity–even to the tragic murders and forcible exilings of nonreligious people in the Islamic world–were powerful. That said, it seemed so passive: people sitting in chairs,…
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Atheopaganism is Not Just a Religious/Spiritual Path. It’s a Movement.
Imagine… A world where critical thinking and reason and Occam’s Razor are the predominant means people use for determining what to believe. Where education is celebrated and made a major public priority, and expertise is once again respected. A world where the Earth and Sun, and beauty and truth and love are considered Sacred. Where people conduct themselves according to principles of kindness and compassion. Where we ritualize our life transitions, and calmly and factually embrace both sex and death as natural parts of a human life. Where consent culture is a norm rather than an aspiration. Where each of us is empowered to take on whatever religious roles we…
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If You’re a US Citizen, PLEASE VOTE!
Jon over at Humanistic Paganism has a great post up, reminding us of the critical importance of voting—and voting Democratic—in Tuesday’s U.S. elections. The domination of the nation’s current politics by the party of Trump simply must end, and the first step must happen now. I have just returned from the Freedom From Religion Foundation‘s annual conference in San Francisco. Among the presenters were atheists from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh who told harrowing stories about what happens when religion is allowed to drive politics. Trump and his evangelical supporters want similar draconian “morality” inflicted on our nation, but we have a tool that those presenters do not: elections with an…
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I’m Off to See the Atheists!
This weekend, I will attend the Freedom From Religion Foundation‘s annual conference, held this year in San Francisco. FFRF is the largest freethinker/atheist organization in the U.S. It advocates for strict separation of church and state, and for atheists’ rights where they have been violated. This year’s conference will include speeches and presentations by such luminaries as my Congressman and friend, Jared Huffman, who founded the Freethought Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the eminent novelist Salman Rushdie. Regrettably, Adam Savage of “Mythbusters” withdrew due to a family emergency. I’m able to attend the conference because of the generous support of two members of our community, and I’m deeply…
