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In Which Straw Men Get Punched —More on Halstead/Green
This is getting silly, but more has to be said in this conversation. Here is a link to John’s latest response to my response to his response. Links to all the other pieces are listed in that one. I am frankly tired of John’s putting words in my mouth and then arguing with them. He’s an attorney, he knows about logical fallacies, and he should know better. Let’s just list them, shall we? I have never suggested that renewable energy will provide as much energy as industrial capitalism consumes now. I am not a “techno-optimist”, as he had it. I am a pragmatist who understands that energy consumption will conform…
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What If We Are Screwed?
John Halstead very eloquently and thoroughly puts the question to us in his post “’Everything is Going According to Plan’”: Being an Activist in the Anthropocene”. Take time to read the whole thing. It’s well worth it. So really: what if it’s simply too late for any kind of peaceful transition to a sustainable post-disastrous civilization, and a messy and bloody collapse of industrial capitalism and Earth biodiversity in the context of skyrocketing global warming is now firmly set on course? It could be true. It may very well be true. What does this mean to us as Atheopagans, when we state explicitly that it is a part of our ethos to…
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What Makes a Ritual “Successful”?
John Halstead over at Humanistic Paganism has published a rather sharply-worded piece about “10 Signs You’re Half-Assing Your Ritual”. It’s well worth a read, and in general, he’s right: there is a lot of ho-hum ritual out there and many, if not most of us can do a better job of preparing and enacting our rites. But I think there is something missing in John’s piece, and that is this: a discussion of what we mean by a “successful” ritual. This is often a moving target. When you talk to someone who has come out of a successful ritual, more often than not what they will talk about is not…
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Godless Paganism declared “The Pagan Book of the Year!”
I was so proud to be a part of the creation of John Halstead’s Godless Paganism, and wanted to let all you Atheopagans know that Megan Manson of the Pagan Tama blog on Patheos has rated it the top Pagan book of the year! If you still don’t have a copy, you can pick it up at http://www.lulu.com/shop/john-halstead/godless-paganism-voices-of-non-theistic-pagans/paperback/product-22646041.html. Or save money and paper and buy the e-book at http://www.lulu.com/shop/john-halstead/godless-paganism-voices-of-non-theistic-pagans/ebook/product-22635653.html Lulu has a 20% off sale going through the end of the year, so get yours now!
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Atheopaganism at Pantheacon 2017
John Halstead and I have two events on this year’s Pantheacon schedule—plus a social gathering! This conference/convention, held in February each year, is the largest gathering of Pagans in North America and an important driver of cultural development in the Pagan community: four days of workshops, panel discussions, rituals and performances. It is held at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California; in 2017 the dates will be from Feb. 17 through 20. It’s also lots of fun! Much socializing and many parties. It’s an opportunity for people who don’t get to see one another often to catch up and work together, as I am looking forward to doing with John.…
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Some Language I’m Not Going to Use Any More: An Apology
This post is an apology. It has now been more than two years since I waded into the broader online Pagan conversation on behalf first of myself, and then of what has turned out to be the many Pagans who do not believe in literal gods. In those early days, the posts of myself and others like John Halstead and John Cleland Host were received in some quarters with bitter hostility. As a result, I became defensive. And when I’m defensive, I’m often acerbic. “Hard theists” and I aren’t going to agree cosmologically. We have fundamental disputes over the nature of the Universe itself, and those cannot be reconciled. However,…
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Returning to a Space of Our Own
Recently, Niki Whiting at Patheos advised her readers not to read the work of those who are “mean”, and specifically named me as one such writer. It’s not hard to see why. A core truth of Atheopaganism clashes with a treasured precept of the hard theist. We don’t believe in literal gods. They do. So in the very articulation of my beliefs, I am—if you see it that way—”mean” to those whose are opposite. And do I cushion my position much, so as not to offend? No, I really don’t. I don’t, because I don’t see many examples of those in the theist camp making the slightest accommodation in the other…
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Eggs and Sprouts
Reflecting here, on a mild day shortly after High Spring, on the currents of newness that have come to and through my life in the past few months. Feeling grateful. For better or worse, my life will change significantly in the next few months. I hope it is for the better, and what better time for hope than the Spring? Here are some of the Eggs I am incubating and the Sprouts I see emerging, already born and angling towards the Sun. Egg: With some luck, I will be starting a new job soon. If it’s the one I hope for, I’ll be working for a great organization with an exciting…
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The Spring Fast
John Halstead over at Patheos has an idea that I think is so great I am adopting it for myself and want to it capture here so other Atheopagans can consider it: “Lent for Pagans”, or what I am calling the Spring Fast. February and March were historically the leanest time for Europeans: the stores were growing thin, the good stuff had been eaten already, nothing had yet grown which could be gathered, and the party of Yule was long past. No surprise that customs of giving things up for religious reasons developed—culture, after all, is often driven by practical economics. The Catholic Church got something right with its conception of Lent. It’s…
