In Christian & Jewish theologies a lot of time is spent on theodicy, or “the problem of evil/suffering”. That is, why would a good, loving and all-powerful God allow suffering? Since polytheists generally don’t believe their deities are all-powerful we don’t have this theological problem in the same way. That doesn’t mean we don’t struggle [...]
Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category
Leadership Resources
Posted in Pagan Community, tagged community organizing, leadership, organization, psychology, sociology on November 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have long observed that in groups there is often a tendency for a few people to do most of the work and be “super-volunteers” while the rest just show up but don’t get more involved. Granted, some people have more time than others, and are more passionate and dedicated. But still it can be [...]
Slaves to the Gods?
Posted in Class, Ethics, Pagan Community, Race/Ethnicity, Theology, tagged bdsm, freedom, humanism, philosophy, slavery on October 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This is a post I made in June and never finished
Lately I’ve been noticing a small but growing number of people calling themselves “godslaves”. These individuals are generally of a mystic bent, Norse or Hellenic, and have a strong devotion to a particular deity, to the point where they see themselves as being “owned” by [...]
A Hawk Wind Blows
Posted in Ethics, Nature/Ecology, Pagan Community, tagged nature, ecology, birds, poaching, law, Ethics, totemism, travel on September 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I just returned last night from a weekend trip with my partner to the Iron Range and Duluth, Minnesota. We had a wonderful time biking on the Mesabi Trail (20 miles in total!) through the deep pine and birch forests and saw a painted turtle on the trail. Yesterday in Duluth we went up to [...]
Iris
Posted in Mythology, Theology on July 15, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Last summer when I visited Bozeman for the first in a long time, I noticed how many rainbows appeared in the sky. At home, seeing a rainbow is a relatively rare occurrence. But it seems that in the Gallatin Valley, the mountains blocking clouds result in the short rainstorms that tend to produce rainbows. As [...]
Independence from Politics
Posted in Civil Liberties, Holidays, Politics/Culture on July 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I spent Independence Day enjoying my country’s natural beauty at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Later in the evening I enjoyed watching the firework display coming from the county fairgrounds. It was fun being in Montana for the Fourth as they allow much more kinds of firecrackers than Minnesota does, and you can [...]
On the Value of Democracy
Posted in Ethics, Pagan Community, Politics/Culture, tagged democracy, leadership, politics on June 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Democracy, the revolutionary idea of choosing ones’ own leaders as a community, originated in polytheistic societies. The most obvious of course being Athens, Greece but Iceland had the Althing, and the Founding Fathers of the United States took inspiration from the Iroquois Confederacy in forming a system of government and writing the Constitution. Now, technically, [...]
Sources of Values
Posted in Ethics, Unitarian Universalism on June 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I just found out that June was declared International Pagan Values Month, unfortunately rather close to leaving on vacation. Ethics is something I enjoy writing, discussing and debating about, so I’ll see if I can squeeze in a couple posts before I leave.
First, I thought I’d take a step back and look at the sources [...]
Flag Day and Patriotism
Posted in Holidays, Politics/Culture on June 14, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Today is Flag Day here in the United States. So, what does that have to do with Paganism? Well, I am part of a small movement called Religio Americana or American Paganism which grew out of a discussion on the Beliefnet Hellenismos & Religio Romana forum sometime around 2002. Erik Dutton and some others were [...]
Christo-Paganism
Posted in Christianity, Concepts & Definitions, Ethics, Pagan Community on May 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »
For some time now, I’ve been noticing a growing number of people calling themselves Christo-Pagans, Christian Witches and the like, combining these religions in some way. Judeo-Pagans and Jewitches have also been popping up. While many Western Pagans draw inspiration from Buddhism and Hinduism, Eastern religions give themselves a lot more easily to syncretism than [...]
