Carl Sagan made it easy to be an atheist

I am still working on my piece on fasting. As it turns out, how you consume calories can have implications for many, many other parts of your life. I'm very excited about eventually telling you all about it.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about Carl Sagan a lot lately. If you've never read his book, The Demon-Haunted World, I would highly recommend it. In one part of the book, he explored the etymology of the word "spirit." The word comes to us via Latin, but it seems to be even older than that, and it basically means "breath." And at this point Sagan got very poetic about the lightness and mobility of our breath, saying that our "spirit" was our desire to be uplifted - to find wonder in our universe and in ourselves.

I hope you can all appreciate what a wonderful moment that was. Here was a man who didn't necessarily believe in gods, or even spirits, acknowledging that people have a "spiritual" side. That's something I was struggling with at the time, so I personally found it very uplifting and comforting. I miss you, Carl Sagan! I don't know for sure if there's an afterlife (you'll notice that while I have many feelings about the spiritual dimension to our existence, I don't claim to know squat about it!), but if there is I hope you're enjoying the heck out of it. And if there isn't, I'm sad you're dead but happy that you made the world so much richer a place while you were alive.

Next post: Friday, November 9

Our handles on reality

I just realized that my last two posts have been about symbols. The first was about a symbol that I have found very useful, while the second was about a symbol whose usefulness I was questioning. There's a reason I think so much about symbols - they've proven to be very important. They're the handles we use to get a grip on reality. I'm pretty sure a vast majority of our scientific advances would have been impossible without our ability to conceive, understand, and manipulate symbols. I would say a significant portion of scientific work is playing around with symbols. The earliest study of biology was largely naming all the organisms and all their components. If you want to explain chemistry to someone, you show them some balls connected by sticks. Physicists would be lost without their mathematical expressions and diagrams. Sometimes focusing on just the right symbol can make the difference between choosing to put in the necessary effort to do something important or sitting down and saying, "Why bother?" When I questioned the usefulness of a certain symbol in my last post, I was by no means questioning the usefulness of symbols in general.

This got me thinking - what is the difference between a useful symbol and a counterproductive symbol? I think I have an idea about that now: a useful symbol gives your mind access to a broader portion of reality (like helping you confront things that make you uncomfortable and you might prefer to avoid), while counterproductive symbols limit your access to reality (like encouraging you to avoid things that are "inappropriate" to your gender).

I would be very interested to hear other people's thoughts on the subject.

Next post: Monday, October 22

The mask of the Goddess

Modern Paganism is full of feminine symbolism. The moon, the sea. Flowers, fruit. Hearth and vessel. These symbols have given women dozens of unspoken ways of saying to the world, "My energy makes the world go around just as much as a man's energy does. We are intuitive and fluid. We are fertile and nurturing. Your world would be nothing without us."

There is just one problem with this set of symbols: it distracts people from the fact that women are human. To be fully human, one has to be able to participate in the entire human experience, not just the aspects of it that your gender currently symbolizes. My concern is that embracing these symbols could ultimately make it more difficult for all people to access all the human activities available to them. This applies equally to men and women; both have the right to everything humanity has to offer.

It took a long time for women to be taken seriously in scientific communities because science required the ability to reason. This had nothing to do with what women and men were actually capable of, but what "woman" and "man" had come to represent symbolically. Yes, symbols can be liberating, but they can also become quite limiting if you let them.

Yes, women can intuit. But they can also reason. We can give and nurture life, but we can also fight. We can show compassion, but we also reserve the right you exercise judgment. To put on the mask of the Goddess is to lose half of your humanity. I'm not saying the mask has nothing positive to offer the world, but like all symbols it must be used with an awareness of its limitations.

(Oops, I'm getting this in a day late this time. I'd better keep an eye on that.)

Next post: Wednesday, October 17

Playing with sharp objects

I like the symbolism of blades. Some people I know are disturbed by this, but hear me out. We live in this one whole universe. And as warm and fuzzy as it might make us to contemplate the oneness of the universe, think what it would be like to try to live with that perspective all the time. It would just be the universe - what do you do with that? How do you decide? That's where the blade comes in.

Blades are the opposite of warm and fuzzy. They are cold and sharp. But to successfully navigate this universe, distinctions must be made. They may ultimately be artificial distinctions, but those artificial distinctions can make the difference between life and death. Life and death is one such distinction. They may be two parts of the same thing, but that distinction has significance for us. Understanding requires that you separate the thing to be understood from that which it is not. The line that separates them is thin - razor-thin, to be exact.

This truth has even crept into our language. The Latin word for knowledge, "scientia," is related to the word "scindere," meaning "to cut or divide." This is also where we got the word "science." (Source: Online Etymolgy Dictionary)

Not that dealing with blades is easy. It involves judgment - cutting out the bullshit. And much as people might claim to be anti-bullshit, it can be pretty comforting sometimes. The suit of swords in the Tarot deck is an excellent example of blade symbolism. The suit of swords has no tolerance for bullshit, and the answers it offers are not comforting. It can tell you to be still when it would be more comfortable to move. It can tell you to walk away when it would be more satisfying to fight. It can urge you to face truths you would rather ignore.

So go forth! Enjoy life - but don't get too comfortable.

Next post: Tuesday, October 9th

The "F" word

It's time to talk about the "F" word. I enjoy the "F" word. It's so expressive and evocative. People get so many different ideas about what you mean when you use it. And it seems to have different connotations depending upon your cultural background.

Right, I'm talking about faith. That mysterious little word; it seems to make some people cringe while others rejoice. In my experience, and I admit that I don't talk to a lot of other pagans, I don't hear the word faith in conjunction with paganism nearly as much as I do when talking about the other religions. In fact, "faith" is another word for "religion" in some contexts, but rarely is it used in that context to describe paganism.

Why? Probably because so many pagans are fed up with the institutionalized religions that they don't want to be lumped in with them through that context. This is probably a subconscious choice, since the conscious choice is to simply eschew religion.

I think that's a mistake. I'm a pagan and I have as much faith as anyone in an Abrahamic religion. The problem is something I mentioned before. Pagans have worked so hard to distance themselves from institutionalized religion that they've marginalized themselves. I know that with neopagans representing only 0.02% of the world population, it's pretty easy for the rest of the world to marginalize us as well. However, that less than insignificant percentage will never increase unless we stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

Alright, so there's the problem. How do we fix it? Pagans are such a fractured, intractable, bunch that I'm not sure how well this could ever be resolved. Groups like Unitarian Universalism are close to the answer, but with roots in the Abrahamic religions it doesn't suit all pagans.

Personally, I think pagans should take a page from the Hindu playbook. We need an evocative label that encompasses our faith, and isn't based on a derogatory term. We need a label that we can rally under, but doesn't limit our individual expression of faith.

I had originally intended to write about the way I experience faith. It seems as though this desire to label my faith prevailed. I'm sure this bears greater examination. I'll have to think some on it and I'll post my thoughts later.

Identity

I'm conflicted about how to use the term "pagan." Historically, it was a Latin word referring to rural people and was used by the Roman military to refer to civilians. Up until the 20th century, it had been used for the previous 16 centuries as a pejorative label for anyone who wasn't Christian.

During the 20th century, believers in polytheistic traditions began to refer to themselves as pagan. However, I'm concerned that this word could become a term reserved for use only amongst those to whom it applies. Like other words that have taken that peculiar etymological journey, it could end up becoming an albatross around our cultural neck.

I have to admit, it is the easiest way to get a monotheist to understand my spirituality. At the same time, it limits me. By telling someone that "I'm a pagan" pigeon-holes me as just another rebellious Gen-X slacker who can't commit to the status quo. There's no ideal to the word. It doesn't express anything.

On the other hand, what else do I have? Polytheists don't typically apply labels to themselves. Sure, there are specific traditions such as Wicca, but I'm hard pressed to name any others. How can I identify myself to others in as expressive and succinct a term as Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew? "Pagan" is how my beliefs are easily summarized and conveyed to another person through language.

Personally, I've come to think of myself as a Viridian. Hence this site's name. For me, Viridian describes a symbol of life via the color. Green is easily associated with nature, and, as a polytheist, nature is associated with animism. Animistic belief holds that everything is sacred bringing us back to the sanctity of life which is symbolized for me by the color green. A nice neat circle -- which is why the ouroboros is also one of my favorite symbols.