11.9.03
My Continuing Search for Religion. Strike II.
So, the latest convert, my friend's *father*, has me wondering what exactly this Paganism thing has going for it.
Paganism, Wicca and suchlike seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance. Ironic, considering Wicca never existed, and Paganism is a catchall term to describe any primitive non-Christian religion.
The idea that historical Paganism was the nature-loving peaceful religion it now purports to be is a fallacy. The term applies as much to a follower of the Egyptian gods as to any kind of Druid. Even if we narrow the filed to consider only the ancient European variations, we still know very little about their actual practices. The traditions that the Druids claim are ancient were, in all probability, created during the late 19th century by the rich, terminaly bored, and occult-obsessed upper-classes. There was no single 'Pagan' religion. It was a collection of diverse primitive belief systems, and even the ones that served as inspiration for the current Pagan incarnation were not centered around worshipping nature, but around worshipping their environment. The distinction, as we shall later see, is important.
Wicca has even less dirt to stand on. It is almost unanimously agreed that there is no written or archeological evidence to suggest an ancient civilization that worshipped a single archtypal mother goddess, nor that said ficitonal society was peaceful, or held a deep respect for women. I wish it were true. It sounds nice. But the ancient world as presented by the Wiccan religion has no basis in reality.
Sadly, the mother goddess that is so central to both Wicca and Neo-paganism is unlikely to have existed. All evidence indicates that the prehistoric peoples were polytheists. They had many different gods, all worshipped when the time demanded it. Gods varied from tribe to tribe and region to region, and while many of them may have had a senior, maternal deity, it would be an extreme leap with very little evidence to claim that she was the most important 'triple-goddess' that is revered today.
So, that concludes why I don't believe that any of this has much of an historical basis.
Now, why am I insisting on spoiling all the fun?
When people hear I think that Paganism and Wicca are silly, they always seem a little shocked. After all, I'm a left-wing liberalist hippy! How dare I not worship the mother goddess?
To be honest, I have a vague, bewildered affection for these religions. After all, my non-godmother (neither she, nor my parents, believe in that God) ritualistically pours out coffee for the ancients at night. Once I asked her if it shouldn't be sacramental wine, or something. She shrugged and said that coffee was her favourite drink, so of course that's what she was leaving out. I hold her in much higher regard than I hold most people.
And I think that the coffee is the key. She is a self-confessed Pagan, but I don't find her half as confusing as most of them. She is so unpretentious. She doesn't light candles and cast spells, although she does sometimes ask for things, and sometimes they come true. She pours out coffee into cracked wine glasses and leaves them on top of the television set, and she knows what that means to *her*. She worships the mother goddess because that's the goddess she feels most connected to, not because she's the oldest goddess or the best one, or because historically, during the last ice-age, during the wise-woman's heyday that's what everyone did.
No evidence we have found suggests that Paganism was highly ritualistic. Certainly the whole conducting ceremonies naked, having ritualistic sex, and wandering about with daggers has no factual basis. It was a comfortable religion. It was primitive, and slightly fearful. It was about respecting the environment, because lord knows, the environment wouldn't be respecting you back. You made offerings when you wanted something, and indifferent gods were a given.
I guess, I just want my friend's dad to admit that he's not one more link in a great unbroken, persecuted, mystical chain. When he puts on horns and dances around a bonfire, he is creating his own, new religion, the same way my not-quite-godmother is when she saves the last of her coffee.
It that was hot it was, perhaps I'd join.
I don't know, of all the branches of Paganism I've seen, I think that by far the weirdest, and by far the one that makes the most sense, is Techno Paganism. Sounds real hokey, right? But give it some thought. Paganism was about worshipping the environment, not nature. What has our environment become, now?
"My new Hypothesis: If we're built from Spirals while living in a giant Spiral, then it is possible that everything we put our hands to is infused with the Spiral?" -- Max Cohen, the motion picture 'Pi'.
The force that created the universe also created us. Everything that we create was therefore ultimately created by that same force and is just as divine.
Although perhaps I only kind of like it because it's so damn weird.
So, the latest convert, my friend's *father*, has me wondering what exactly this Paganism thing has going for it.
Paganism, Wicca and suchlike seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance. Ironic, considering Wicca never existed, and Paganism is a catchall term to describe any primitive non-Christian religion.
The idea that historical Paganism was the nature-loving peaceful religion it now purports to be is a fallacy. The term applies as much to a follower of the Egyptian gods as to any kind of Druid. Even if we narrow the filed to consider only the ancient European variations, we still know very little about their actual practices. The traditions that the Druids claim are ancient were, in all probability, created during the late 19th century by the rich, terminaly bored, and occult-obsessed upper-classes. There was no single 'Pagan' religion. It was a collection of diverse primitive belief systems, and even the ones that served as inspiration for the current Pagan incarnation were not centered around worshipping nature, but around worshipping their environment. The distinction, as we shall later see, is important.
Wicca has even less dirt to stand on. It is almost unanimously agreed that there is no written or archeological evidence to suggest an ancient civilization that worshipped a single archtypal mother goddess, nor that said ficitonal society was peaceful, or held a deep respect for women. I wish it were true. It sounds nice. But the ancient world as presented by the Wiccan religion has no basis in reality.
Sadly, the mother goddess that is so central to both Wicca and Neo-paganism is unlikely to have existed. All evidence indicates that the prehistoric peoples were polytheists. They had many different gods, all worshipped when the time demanded it. Gods varied from tribe to tribe and region to region, and while many of them may have had a senior, maternal deity, it would be an extreme leap with very little evidence to claim that she was the most important 'triple-goddess' that is revered today.
So, that concludes why I don't believe that any of this has much of an historical basis.
Now, why am I insisting on spoiling all the fun?
When people hear I think that Paganism and Wicca are silly, they always seem a little shocked. After all, I'm a left-wing liberalist hippy! How dare I not worship the mother goddess?
To be honest, I have a vague, bewildered affection for these religions. After all, my non-godmother (neither she, nor my parents, believe in that God) ritualistically pours out coffee for the ancients at night. Once I asked her if it shouldn't be sacramental wine, or something. She shrugged and said that coffee was her favourite drink, so of course that's what she was leaving out. I hold her in much higher regard than I hold most people.
And I think that the coffee is the key. She is a self-confessed Pagan, but I don't find her half as confusing as most of them. She is so unpretentious. She doesn't light candles and cast spells, although she does sometimes ask for things, and sometimes they come true. She pours out coffee into cracked wine glasses and leaves them on top of the television set, and she knows what that means to *her*. She worships the mother goddess because that's the goddess she feels most connected to, not because she's the oldest goddess or the best one, or because historically, during the last ice-age, during the wise-woman's heyday that's what everyone did.
No evidence we have found suggests that Paganism was highly ritualistic. Certainly the whole conducting ceremonies naked, having ritualistic sex, and wandering about with daggers has no factual basis. It was a comfortable religion. It was primitive, and slightly fearful. It was about respecting the environment, because lord knows, the environment wouldn't be respecting you back. You made offerings when you wanted something, and indifferent gods were a given.
I guess, I just want my friend's dad to admit that he's not one more link in a great unbroken, persecuted, mystical chain. When he puts on horns and dances around a bonfire, he is creating his own, new religion, the same way my not-quite-godmother is when she saves the last of her coffee.
It that was hot it was, perhaps I'd join.
I don't know, of all the branches of Paganism I've seen, I think that by far the weirdest, and by far the one that makes the most sense, is Techno Paganism. Sounds real hokey, right? But give it some thought. Paganism was about worshipping the environment, not nature. What has our environment become, now?
"My new Hypothesis: If we're built from Spirals while living in a giant Spiral, then it is possible that everything we put our hands to is infused with the Spiral?" -- Max Cohen, the motion picture 'Pi'.
The force that created the universe also created us. Everything that we create was therefore ultimately created by that same force and is just as divine.
Although perhaps I only kind of like it because it's so damn weird.
