this is interesting...

Well, to me it is.

Maia has become a member of Know Thyself. The ILP Maia I’m presuming. She joined yesterday and already has 50 posts.

Posting in the KT “Pagan religion” thread.

This [I believe] is her first post]:

She makes it clear right from the start that, unlike in regard to Satyr’s own dogmatic “my way or the highway” understanding of nature, she is not an objectivist here. She is not arguing that her own beliefs about Paganism are the only ones that all rational men and women are obligated to share. She’s not going to call someone a “moron”, as Satyr has, because they don’t think like she does.

But: I still grapple myself with understanding her frame of mind.

Suppose John and Mary and Jack and Molly are Pagans. They all have a spiritual connection to nature but they completely disagree about many things revolving around moral and political value judgments. From abortion and gun ownership to gender roles and social justice they often come into conflict.

So basically, it seems, one can have a spiritual connection to nature and believe practically anything at all in regard to right and wrong, good and bad behaviors. Unless, of course, I am simply not able [so far] to understand it as a Pagan does.

And if the feeling – the spiritual connection – is inherent, does that mean that one is born with it? Or, through the actual experiences that they have given the circumstances of the lives they live, do some come to this intrinsic connection while others don’t? The part I root in dasein?

I’d join the exchange there myself but am not able to. Why?

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Ironically, I was going to bring this to Maia’s thread on Paganism here at ILP. But it’s “locked”. Locked because, alas, as with many other exchanges here at ILP, it devolved into…

More irony:

The last post on the thread was from Lyssa. KT’s Lyssa. And the avatar she chose is exactly the same one that Satyr uses over at KT today.

Note to Satyr:

So Lyssa really was just someone you invented over there?!!

Did you invent camus 666 as well? :astonished: :open_mouth: :astonished:

The exchange begins…

Here, though, my own reaction would revolve more around focusing in on a context in which to explore both the wave and the flow. Now, for Satyr, whether in regard to things like race and gender and sexual orientation and any and all other moral and political value judgments, there is only grasping nature as he does. Whereas for Maia that would seem to be embodied instead in her own personal connection to nature.

Here though I would tend to get frustrated.

They are exchanging these basically abstract frames of mind that are not intertwined in the manner in which I construe such thinking as embodied “for all practical purposes” at the existential juncture of identity, conflicting goods and political economy. And given sets of circumstances in which their understanding of nature is [it seems to me] very, very different.

_
…and WendyDarling is Natalie, but most here knew that from back when she first joined. :laughing:

I don’t think that’s her only pseudonym-sock on here, of which I know that some have messaged me… to chat shit.

Then the exchange does focus in on a particular subject: gender roles.

But even here [to me] it is basically just an exchange of general points of view about men and women.

Dogma. Exactly. Isn’t that what Satyr has been spouting for years now over at KT in regard to masculinity and femininity? It’s not a “spiritual” thing for him. It’s all in the genes. In men being naturally men and women being naturally women. He and his clique/claque being the Übermensch, while all the liberal cucks are trying to turn males into “girly men”.

As for this…

“As I’ve said before…nihilistic dogmas, and ideologies, cannot survive in a world they negate intellectually, so they must contradict their own morals and convictions.”

…what on earth is that actually supposed to mean? You know, for all practical purposes.

Note to Maia:

If you are reading this, please ask him. Mention that he can choose both the context and the behaviors.

I’m always the first to acknowledge that people do things here for reasons all their own. And who am I to judge them? It’s just that for me it is always about connecting the dots between technical – serious – philosophy and the question, “how ought one to live?”. In a world bursting at the seams with conflicting goods.

That and the part about dasein. How those who come up with one answer rather than another generally fail to delve into how that is likely to be derived more from the subjective arguments I raise on this thread – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529 – than from the tools available to them in the annals of philosophy.

What mystery? Pertaining to what set of circumstances?

Instead, when I speak of mystery, I am more inclined to focus in on that gap between what Maia and Satyr and you and I think we know or believe about, well, anything and how, given our own infinitesimally tiny and insignificant existence in the vastness of “all there is”, it’s all connected to an understanding of existence itself. Where – why, how – does the Goddess and the Übermensch and dasein fit in there?

There is Satyr connecting the dots between nature, simplicity and actions, and Maia connecting them.

Sooner or later the parts that are not connected to these “general descriptions” will either collide or they won’t.

What I wouldn’t give to be inside Satyr’s head now as he reacts to Maia’s posts. :wink:

…said the spider, about the fly.

+++But: I still grapple myself with understanding her frame of mind.

Suppose John and Mary and Jack and Molly are Pagans. They all have a spiritual connection to nature but they completely disagree about many things revolving around moral and political value judgments. From abortion and gun ownership to gender roles and social justice they often come into conflict.

So basically, it seems, one can have a spiritual connection to nature and believe practically anything at all in regard to right and wrong, good and bad behaviors. Unless, of course, I am simply not able [so far] to understand it as a Pagan does.

And if the feeling – the spiritual connection – is inherent, does that mean that one is born with it? Or, through the actual experiences that they have given the circumstances of the lives they live, do some come to this intrinsic connection while others don’t? The part I root in dasein?+++

I’ve been having some interesting conversations there and I’m glad I joined.

Pagans can indeed have many different opinions about pretty much everything. That’s the nature of Paganism.

I tend to think that most Pagans are probably born with an innate connection to nature, but I’m just basing that in my own experience, so I can’t say for sure with regard to others, and it no doubt varies from person to person.

On and on it goes in much the same vein…

and…

Satyr with his more drawn out general description intellectual contraptions and Maia with her own considerably shorter renditions of the same.

Nothing at all like the exchanges I wished to pursue with them. But then the whole point for me is to engage in discussions that might manage to bring me closer to pulling myself up out of the “fractured and fragmented” hole I have dug myself down into. And that has almost nothing at all to do with general description intellectual contraptions. Philosophically, morally, spiritually or otherwise.

Unless of course it’s the other way around. :sunglasses:

Iambiguous, I’m worried you have an unhealthy obsession about some people, some community, that doesn’t have any good reason to matter to you. If they didn’t block you from their forum, do you think your life would be better? Do you think your life might be better if you just forget about these people entirely? I’m willing to bet they would have forgotten about you by now, if you didn’t keep endlessly making posts here about them.

Note to godot:

You explain it to him. :laughing:

I believe you’ve made a mistake.
I’m quite sure Wendy is her own person and Natalie is someone else.

If you are glad to be there, fine.

Besides, what can I really know about that? What can I truly, truly know about those like you who live lives very different from mine? Those who have had experiences, sustained relationships and accumulated information, knowledge and ideas very different from mine?

No, instead, I always focus the beam here on what we think we know about ourselves. How, the deeper we go in grappling with our moral and political and spiritual values, the more we catch glimpses of just how profoundly problematic and precarious the existential fabrication we call “I” can be. The psychological anchor that we root our comfort and our consolation in. Again, there are hundreds and hundreds of True Paths to choose from out there. Your particular life led you to Paganism. Had that life been different it might have been something else altogether different. Re the arguments I make on other threads.

Then the trade off: with one or another “ism” you sustain the crucial comfort and the consolation of believing you are on your own True Path. On the other hand, with a more fractured and fragmented “self”, you have so many more choices in life. Then the part – the options, the circumstances — where you can choose one or the other. Or, for some, are forced to choose.

That’s the part that objectivists of Satyr’s ilk steer clear of. And, in my opinion, it’s the part that you steer clear of as well. You may not be an objectivist, but you still seem committed to the belief that there is this “spiritual self”, this “core self” or “real me” inside you that, through this [to me] unfathomable relationship with the Goddess, allows you to anchor “I” [through rituals among other things] to a belief that what you think and feel and say and do is a necessary part of your life. It grounds you to necessity. And I know this in part because [twice] I grappled with it myself.

Now [for me] it’s about how, with the help of others, I might pull myself up out of the philosophical hole I have dug myself into. Or, if not that, I can convince others to come down into the hole with me. Recognizing that the hole itself can be both glum and gladdening.

Though you can bet that hardcore objectivists like Satyr and others there won’t be focusing the beam on the points I raised above.

Then the part where Pagans create their own personal path to nature through the Gods and Goddesses – learnreligions.com/pagan-go … es-2561985 But then nature itself allows for them to anchor their moral and political values/commitments to, well, anything, right?

It is almost as though in regard to value judgments, nature itself is a moral nihilist. It all comes down to whatever you, personally, adventitiously, come to believe about all the conflicting goods that rend the species.

The part that I root in dasein instead.

I find terms like “true path” and similar very off-putting. I’m on my path, and that’s all it is, mine. It may well take many turns, and indeed, it would be very strange if it didn’t.

I don’t think I steer clear of anything. I’m not committed to any sort of belief in a “spiritual core” or whatever you wish to call it. I just do what seems right to me. It’s a necessary part of my life only in the sense that it is a part of my life. If it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t be. You’re right to say that it grounds me, of course. In a very literal sense, because it connects me with the earth.

I think you’re coming at it the wrong way, to be honest. It seems, to me at least, that you’re expecting Paganism to have some coherent moral stance on things and then being confused when it doesn’t. But the fact is that it just doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, though, and assume that because of this, Pagans have no moral values derived from their Pagan worldview, because they do. I know I certainly do, anyway. But Paganism as a whole has no moral stance on anything. How could it? It’s not a religion and it’s not even a single body of practice.

I am curious - what we call paganism these days - is it paganism or neo-paganism? For it to be paganism in Europe or the Isles, that would be impressive to me…

Technically with an answer to this question, either way, I would be happy to see it be called paganism once again - I am just curious to a specific answer so I can decide whether this thread is interesting to me.

There are names for different pagan groups.

Some people call it Neo-paganism, especially, I think, those who study it as outsiders. I’ve never heard any actual Pagan call it Neo-paganism, though I suppose some might.

There are indeed some ancient Pagan survivals from pre-Christian times in the British Isles, and one that springs to mind in particular is the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance every September, which has been conducted by the same family for untold generations, almost certainly since at least the Middle Ages. I’ve been there quite a few times and spoken to them, and they call what they do Pagan.

Yes, there are a whole multitude of different names for different groups and practices within Paganism.

Thank you, Maia.

I appreciate the effort you put into your answer. I will look up the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance that you mentioned.

Kindest regards, encode.

You’re very welcome. There’s loads of stuff online about it.