Maybe there’s hope for us yet.
A bunch of crackpots in costumes acting like they live in a Tolkien novel represents hope to you?
Yes.
Interesting. Have you done these sorts of things?
I’ve taken part in rituals and similar events. Nothing on such a grand scale though.
hey this represents something very important to humans…spiritual and natural all wrapped up in one…
What good do you think these sorts of events do?
It bonds the community and is a communing with nature and each other.
I suppose I understand how it could bring certain types of people together. I don’t buy the communicating with nature bit though.
Maybe you’ve never tried it. Just found this though, which I think is as hilarious as it is pathetic. They are obviously running scared, but I know exactly what Pagans are going to think of it.
telegraph.co.uk/news/religio … rs.html?fb
+++Church of England creating ‘pagan church’ to recruit members
The Church of England is trying to recruit pagans and spiritual believers as part of a drive to retain congregation numbers.
The church is training ministers to create “a pagan church where Christianity [is] very much in the centre” to attract spiritual believers.
Ministers are being trained to create new forms of Anglicanism suitable for people of alternative beliefs as part of a Church of England drive to retain congregation numbers.
Reverend Steve Hollinghurst, a researcher and adviser in new religious movements told the BBC: “I would be looking to formulate an exploration of the Christian faith that would be at home in their culture.”
He said it would be “almost to create a pagan church where Christianity was very much in the centre.”
The Church Mission Society, which is training ministers to “break new ground”, hopes to see a number of spiritual people align themselves with Christianity.+++
I’ve tried it in my own way I think. I’ve admittedly never tried pagan ritual or spells or anything. I just don’t think all that is necessary in the least. It makes about as much sense as carrying on a conversation with a tree. That’s fine if you want to talk to nature and believe it can understand you, but why dress it up in all of the goofy rituals? I think there are better ways to show that we care about nature.
You’re right about that article too. Quite pathetic.
The rituals are good fun, and create a sense of shared feeling.
I can see that. But is that why people do them, or do these folks generally believe they are doing magic and whatnot?
Magic works, I’ve experienced it.
How does magic work?
I don’t know. There are quite a few different theories.
Have you actually observed magic working, or do you just see the results?
What is it that you experienced specifically?
Can I add a question to the list: How do you distinguish between white magic and black magic? Or do you make such a distinction in your religion?
Well, it is a participation ritual hinged to the planet in relation to the solar system/sun. So we have people consciously acknowledging being a part of nature, a part of the World, rather than say participating in a Monsanto shareholders meeting or other gathering where people ritually assume they are disconnected from nature, should be and will be in total command of it, whose fate is not inextricably tied to it. It’s not a ritual where tens of thousands root for ‘their’ ‘local’ football team, made up of players from everywhere, playing a great game that should have Little significance beyond the joy of those playing it. This last ritual one where people are consumers of fantasies that really have nothing to do with them, and rituals that are state supported to nice Little bills for the public.
Even if one does not have pagan tendencies and/or sees the whole thing as including beliefs based on poor epistemology, it seems at the very, mean-spirited worst harmless, and actually rather a decent thing, I should Think, even for atheistic naturalists.