Comments on: Okay, I’ll Play Along…

By: Aladar

Aladar — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:48:00 +0000

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One of the things I’ve been kicking around in my head as of late is the idea that we (not just pagans) create religion (and, by extension in many cases, values) out of whatever comforts us. We may not consciously realize we’re creating religion, and as most people view religions primarily in a literal sense, some may be offended by the idea that their experiences are anything other than direct contact with the Divine/spirits/other intermediaries. Still, people seem to match their religious beliefs pretty well; the structures within which they interact with the Powers That Be connect to things that give them some form of comfort and security. (And I’ll most likely write about this more later when I’ve brought together my thoughts on it more cohesively.)
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I have to express my skepticism in regards to this idea. Consider the example of many of the Catholic saints(Mother Theresa is a good person to point to for this. She was very religiously devout but it did not give her comfort or security, quite the opposite), the idea of the “Dark Night of the Soul” or the “Chapel Perilous”, or that all of those individuals for whom their religion is noted in what they do not do. I would even venture to say that for many people religion is a “Truth” that they suffer under a la the “sinners in the hands of an angry God” than something that they gain security or comfort from.

By: Riverwolf

Riverwolf — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:14:27 +0000

Lupa, I, too, was comforted by nature as a child. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but I always knew I could retreat to the woods and find safety. It seemed the trees were watching over me, welcoming me and even rejoiced when I noticed and studied them.

Like your own woods, “my woods” were also bulldozed when I was 17. It was heartbreaking, and it inspired one of the few poems I’ve ever written.

While I quite the newbie to paganism, it was my desire to return to something authentic that led me here. I’m still working out what those values, ethics and morals are. But nature somehow embodies value, ethics and morality—even if it at first appears quite different than our human ways of living.

Great post, as always.

By: syncreticmystic

syncreticmystic — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:29:11 +0000

thereere are numerous pagans who will deny that their paganism is Nature-based, instead saying that their religion is “based on the worship of the Gods” (never mind that their gods are personifications of natural phenomena)

This is one of my biggest gripes with a lot of recon folks. ESPECIALLY when one breath later they talk about leaving out offerings for the local wights or netjeri. Worship is a loaded word, yes, but like you said, so many Gods are indeed rooted in aspects of the natural world. Like saying Dua Set or Hail Thor during a Thunderstorm, or keeping a phallic stone on your shrine to Freyr, Min or Shiva. You can’t divorce one from the other, it becomes irrelevant then.

By: Alfrecht

Alfrecht — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:38:13 +0000

Thank you for this!

It might be worth writing something up in my own LJ on the difference between values, morals, and ethics (and I think of them, in that order, as going from the most basic and gut-felt to the most action-based, with “morals” in the middle as a kind of mediating principle that puts it in slightly more mental, abstract, often intellectual terms). Anyway…