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Paganism

pinballfortress [Edit] [Delete] 103 replies 01:13 July 18th, 2007

Pretty shit?

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  • what?

    sarkyfox | 18 Jul '07, 01:21 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • it's pretty interesting in my important opinion

    after all, paganist views date back to long before most other religions, and yet i find more of the ideas and beliefs quite a lot easier to trust than a story about a man who did some stuff in the desert and then some other stuff happened, so God/allah peace be upon him or whoever is almighty

    pieces_of_reece | 18 Jul '07, 08:50 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • :(

    http://www.myspace.com/paganwandererlu

    pagan things keep being my friend. I don't have the heart to tell them... IT'S JUST A NAME.

    albeit a really shit one.

    restlessboy | 18 Jul '07, 08:58 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • Where's

    Creakyknees?

    Lucien | 18 Jul '07, 10:08 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • The whole Simpsons/Cerne Abbas thing

    does make pagans look a bit stupid, but I have to say that they're not all flaky hippy numpties. Modern paganism isn't really a religion in the vein of Judeo-Christian faiths, more a cosmology or approach to life.

    Anyway, where's Mr Knees?

    janfurnace | 18 Jul '07, 11:11 | X | ^ This | Reply

    • here I am

      I am a pagan

      but I cant really comment as I dont really know what pinballfortress is objecting to.

      I mean we're not like a doctrinal fundamentalists......so I cant really get angry at what he said ....more Hmmph!

      If he has a particular gripe or said something that I thought was particualrly wrong or hurtful to others then I would have a go, but he aint.

      Perhaps I could clear up any misgivings that pinballfortress has?

      creakyknees @janfurnace | 18 Jul '07, 12:04 | X | ^ This | Reply

      • bring it on

        yes_ @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 12:06 | X | ^ This | Reply

      • I can't see any possible reason

        why anyone could have an issue with pagans anyway - it's like when people who eat meat get angry with vegetarians...it doesn't make a lot of sense given it doesn't affect them, and it's usually more to do with the prejudices of the person saying it than anything specific complaints.

        Lucien @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 12:25 | X | ^ This | Reply

      • I'd be interested to hear

        from creaky what he actually considers paganism to be.

        From my perspective 'pagan' a fairly unhelpful term. I mean all it means is 'not Jewish, Christian, or Islamic'.

        Any attempts to turn it into 'paganism' i.e. a religion have been very recent - no earlier than the 19th century. I've always found attempts to be "reconstructing" ancient religions about which we honestly know very little to be pretty silly. Neo-druidism for instance has basically nothing to do with Celtic religious practices whatsoever, because we know fuck all about them other than a bit of Roman propaganda.

        Attempts by self-proclaimed pagans to take possession of ancient sites and construct some kind of apparently coherent narrative around them is indeed pretty irritating.

        Saying that, there is certainly something to be learnt from studying the existing non-Abrahamic religions, I just fail to see the point of wanting to systematise a new religion when that dogmatism was the problem in the first place.

        chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 12:40 | X | ^ This | Reply

        • I concur about neo-druidism

          because it is trying to recreate an alternative priesthood, and as you say because it was quite specific and yet verbal tradition, the specifics will have been confused by the disguises and subsequent generations interpretations.......I did not coin the phrase paganism, however it is a broad description, which I would define as more 'primitive' beliefs and practices, that are not based upon any dogma or texts, instead they will have arisen because of the awe in which various forces of nature are held. Thunderstorms are now explained in 'better' scientific terms, however one can still enjoy them and regard them with awe just for their own sake or close the door and windows and turn the telly up.

          A theme in paganism that reflects itself in particular ceremonies or celebrations to mark them....is that of the seasons and the years and the solar cycle.......the basis for this is logical when human societies transformed more to farming and crops.

          Previous to this the lunar cycle was important.......originally in britain it is generally accepted that at first communities would have mosly occupied costal regions where shellfish and seaweed and birds would have been abundant and easily collectable, therefore the lunar cycle was very very relevant to their activities..........dito the solar cycles to later societies.

          It is certain that coupling these human essentials with the pleasure/awe that we still get regarding the sea or the moon scudding through the sky, made humans add 2 and 2 to get more than 4. I know these things to be true, because when I remove my modern conciousness then I am the same as my ancestors, I have the same motivations and needs.

          Perhaps if you like you could rename pagans as nature worshipers........although that probably didnt sound sinister enough for the christian church.

          we also used to be called heathens cos we worshiped upon the heath......i.e. not in a building.......of course many clandestine sects of organised religeons also might have 'worshiped upon the heath' cos if they had a building it would be easier to 'catch them'

          Lastly i have no desire to systemise a new religeon.

          It can be useful to use particular points of the year as a marked festival as it helps you to actually mentally fix what is happening to the earth/sun system.....something that might be very pertinant to a largly 'indoor dwelling populace'

          If you like just use the festivals to mark the scientific significance...I dont mind.

          All societies were at one time 'pagan' If they werent then they would not survive (they must move and acti in sync with nature....it is not sensible to sew your seeds in winter or go hunting for shellfish at the highest tide) In this every society can be linked.

          Large Centralised power based societies have managed to create conditions underwhich natural rhythms and cycles need not be followed......more and more resource is put into this effort........unfortunately quite how much we have been working against much nature has only started to become apparent to most fairly recently.

          This is mostly because most present societies grew up from very strict doctrinal 'IT IS SO BECAUSE IT IS WRITTEN SO' religeons, although some of these are in decline the flavour of the societies are still tainted.

          A more pagan......or 'nature worshiping' doctrine would be better...

          Which is why I (or someone else like me) should be the countries environmental advisor.....not someone from 'THE OTHER SIDE'

          (PS i might be being slightly mischievious)

          creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 14:29 | X | ^ This | Reply

          • Hmm

            I'm sorry to say I disagree pretty fundamentally with basically everything you're saying here. I find the idea of 'worship' as rather negative. The whole idea of a monolithic 'nature' presupposes a human 'culture' which exists in alterity to it, in a way which obfuscates rather than emphasises the fact that the idea is a human construct, and that humans are totally indivisible from their environment.

            Nowadays 'culture' is taken to emphasise our power over 'nature'. You might argue that paganism would reverse this power relation and emphasise the ultimate, unconquerable power of nature, but I think in a world that is profoundly modern, this simple serves to provide an alibi for opting out of society and of the need for change to improve the conditions on the planet. I mean you can't really 'remove your modern consciousness' can you? In any sense whatsoever. 'Paganism' is quite specifically a modern preoccupation.

            Also, the commonly expressed idea that any of these ancient belief systems were not highly regulated, hierachical knowledge systems just because they didn't (always) have written doctrine is naive 'noble savage' romanticism. I mean the kind of monumental architecture you start seeing by the Neolithic, or even before, seems to represent a concerted, even proto-industrial effort to use ritual behaviour to sediment social inequality. As far as I'm concerned, this is what ritual behaviour per se is essentially FOR.

            "Worship" is also a Western concept. If you take native Australian beliefs, there is no sense of bowing down before a beneficent (or otherwise) nature. Saying this, "even" here, access to knowledge is still selective, and used to sediment the authority of adult men.

            I'm afraid however you want to frame it, paganism as formulated by middle class westerners always seems to end up looking like some kind of strange caricature of Christianity.

            I find the whole idea of investigating non-Western or non-Abrahamic belief systems interesting, but the attempt to give them some kind of coherence from our perspective is very misguided, patronising and counterproductive. I find paganism a particularly frivolous, you might even say bourgeois, pursuit.

            chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:00 | X | ^ This | Reply

            • sorry if that sounds 'harsh'

              but there you go

              chiaroscuro @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 15:02 | X | ^ This | Reply

            • Ill break down my replies into smaller bits

              Firstly I have never distinguished humans from nature......nor simple human societies or formations.......not have I anything agains the way that human impulses direct us to behave under the 'duress of a rather anti nature/anti human nature competative and aggressive society. Humans want to do nice good things hence stuf like more organised and developed musicality and artistry and other arts, these are all wonderful.....the scientific process in humans is one born out of curiosity and exploration that is entirely natural

              creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 15:06 | X | ^ This | Reply

              • also

                Yes.....I can remove my modern conciousness.

                Once again I did not coin the phrase paganism

                Also it is not I that has 'catagorised' the world into nature and non nature.......it is the centralised system culture that has done that........e.g... I go to work....I am in work.....I must not have fun or act naturally, I must act 'professionally' wear uncomfortable clothes, sit uncomfortably and stay inside whether rain or shine.........when I finish that is my 'leisure time'

                people who enjoy themselves too much at work are regarded as oddities (mostly) and those who work in their leisure time are also regarded as oddities. People Go on holiday.......out into the country to go to nature (unlaess you go to florence or summat) There are built up zones and green belts.....you cannot build or live in the country easily.
                I did not make this great division I merely comment on this division that has grown up.

                creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:13 | X | ^ This | Reply

                • by that post I meant everything is artificially and emphatically 'demarked'

                  not by me, but by systems of control and administration

                  creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:14 | X | ^ This | Reply

                  • to take the example away from nature

                    you can witness this extreme demarcation in the intense drunkening that takes place at weekends....friday and saturday nights.........'this is our time now' to mark it as such I will try to get/do as much as I can that I cant do at work in it.

                    Division/catagorisation/demarcation/disciplinisation these are facets of a control and administration system that does not want humans to be natural well rounded animals that can do all the things that your self was built and evolved to do.......instead the system wants you to become a specialised unit.......for two reasons......1) it enables the system to maintain and predict and enhance its performance for tomorrow, and 2) to make individuals feel that they cannot cope without the people that they pay the taxes to loll around on.

                    We are all capable of being many things.....most noticably we could be cerebral AND physical AND practical AND inventive and problem solving......most people are encouraged in their form of work to concentrate on only one or two.

                    creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:25 | X | ^ This | Reply

                    • Its weird really people often take my declarations of

                      'paganism' very literally, (perhaps because it is novel to you) I am often allagorical or metaphorical, many many things that people normally say (but are familiar) are actually bizarre and bonkers if you took them literally.

                      creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:27 | X | ^ This | Reply

                      • OK when you say worship

                        perhaps that was wrong of me to use that word......obviously I should have put that word 'worship' in quotes too...........do you really see me literally prostrating myself at proscribed times........do you really think I exagerate my humbleness and suplicancy and humiliate myself with my own worthlessness before nature......of course not...you are associating the meaning of the word with the meaning that you atach to organised doctrinal religeons where they enjoy 'not knowing and being non-worthy. I use the word worship casually........if someone uses the term worhipping a woman.......then you dont automatically assume that they would do it in the same extreme self debasing way as say, guntrip. why do want to see my use of this term in the horrible form that ugly religeons do?

                        Perhaps it would be more appropriate to use the term 'admire'.....no better still 'apreciate' there that is a better term.

                        creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:33 | X | ^ This | Reply

                        • I am not middle class.

                          I had many paradoxs in my life early on and so quite naturally I grew up with accrostic viewpoints that I was not even aware of. I do not classify myself as a westerner particularly other than that I live in Britain, when I was very young I had no 'life instruction/advice in its absence I explored daoist ideas.....I did not realise this was what I was doing until i later found the word daoist fitted me.

                          I did not formulate paganism.

                          I always did what I did.....I later found that the term hedgewitch fitted what I did.

                          I enjoy looking for plants and flowers and have found that without recourse to verbal instructions, i am led to find interesting plants by other indicators, indicators that are non verbal.......(to take the mumbo jumbo out of it........like an animal tracker if you like)

                          I do not meet up in coverns and stuff and do not get vicarious thrills from belonging to a more 'individual' and therefore more 'interesting' religeon.

                          If your talking about human influences on me, then Keats moves me far more than modern treatises on neo paganism.

                          creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:45 | X | ^ This | Reply

                          • with everything in our modern society there is an unfortunate sense

                            that people are always jumping on bandwagons.....because they want to be interesting, it is understandable that elements might look insincere to yourself. I will join myself to the broad modern term (that I did not coin) paganism as I feel that there is more potential for good in that than in most other movements I see around.....of course you may consider that its 'flourishing at the moment is like the flourishing of hippyness in the 60/70s.......but some people are always hippies......also they were not bad....the movement in the 60/70s did not live up to that which some suspected it was capable of.

                            creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:50 | X | ^ This | Reply

                            • I hope you appreciate

                              I don't entirely not agree with you. I'm sure there was a much greater happiness quotient at some points in the prehistoric world than there is now. It's just fundamentally at odds with the way in which society exists in the present day. It can't ever be a 'solution' to the world's ills - that old world has gone now and unless you suggest large-scale self-lobotomy and mass genocide, you're not going to bring it back.

                              chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 16:04 | X | ^ This | Reply

                              • I dont have to suggest mass genocide

                                mass human depopulation is the event that I affear that most and would like to steer us away from.....Alas it seems that the rudder is set and the present systems will steer humans precisly into enormous unthinkable anihilation.....the christians will probably want to bring back the book of enoch just so they could say they old us so

                                creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 16:59 | X | ^ This | Reply

                            • quite rightly you are sceptical

                              of things until you are convinced.

                              Quite wrongly you seem to be oversceptical of people in the popular upsurge 'pagan movement' because they are only trying to piece together what happened in the past......that it is a modern phenomenan.......well yes and no...........quite obviously people in the past in britain did have other belief systems.......quite obviously this was heavily suppressed by chritianity and the state, and the fact that it was mostly a verbal rather than text oriented tradition......It is hardly therefore, a suprise that now in more liberal times there will be a resurgance in interest.....as much as anything these modern neo pagans are kind of re-enactment historians (since the sources have been supressed and wiped out) (similarly people have been trying to 'back evolve' some now extinct breeds/varietys of animals or plants....like aurochs)

                              Until the last 2 decades or so people with children who were outwardly 'pagan' or 'non abrahimic/hindu/buddhist and celebrated were still at risk from being hounded and persecuted.

                              It is more of a supprise that you are not against the 'refusal of british schooling to teach native beliefs or culture 'pre roman invasion' in history.
                              (we learn about other ancient cultures)
                              I suspect that the modern upsurge in neo 'paganism' (musnt forget the quotes must I?) that you arnt comfy with is also largely a subconcious reaction against this absense, this void, this feeling of culturelessness that british people might feel in light of this schooling.........specially when John major and the tories try to associate themselves with vilage greens and warm beer and cricket and 'fair play'

                              People get Nelson and churchill and battle of britain and brunel rammed down their throats by the tories (which is a shame, because these sort of historical figures should not belong to a party......yet nevertheless for some people this is how it feels. People want a cultural history that they feel comfy with........the 'paganist' revival you are uncomfy with may be more of this.

                              creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 16:20 | X | ^ This | Reply

                              • with reference to neolithic

                                monuments such as stonehenge........this obviously required some organisation........still I dont really remember many of my posts banging on about stonehenge........do you? Do any of you?

                                That is a more organised structure trying to mark itself, the society had obviously grown larger and thus other forms of control and administration are being introduced.........did I claim that we suddenly went from utopia to dystopia, no I did not, it is a gradual process........the problem is when humans start to band together in tribal groupings of more than about 30 or so, other....less natural less obvious controls need to be used.........I am not blaming humans for their nature.......I do not propose to suddenly divide every community into small tribal groups, I cannot uninvent inventions.....do you really think I think that I believe that you can? However the world cannot contiunue in its present mentality. I believe that a more animist basis for philosophy could be a far better basis for us. ........ you can put a different sort of hat on without removing your head.

                                creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 16:28 | X | ^ This | Reply

                                • but

                                  No, you didn't specifically refer to Stonehenge - I was using it as an example.

                                  Another problem here is that you're using some kind of basically 19th century version of anthropology to talk about other cultures/religions. I mean, nobody talks about 'animism' anymore - it was one of these pejorative colonial methods of classifying people that people stay away from now. Likewise, you may put the word 'primitive' in inverted commas, but you still used it!

                                  The idea that we can somehow capture or describe the alterity of another culture as a true 'alternative' is not possible. We can't teach 'pre-Roman' beliefs in school. Even talking about something like Islam turns it into some kind of weird deformed twin of Christianity.

                                  The way in which we 'learn about' ancient cultures is negative, because it denies the fact that we are essentially creating fictions in, and for, the present. We need to realise that we are not digging up some kind of 'facts' from the past, and that archaeology and science are modern political projects.

                                  You have just basically undone your argument, surely? I couldn't agree more that if we lived in some kind of much more low-intensity format, people would be a lot happier, but we aren't going to get back to that, especially not by hanging on some kind of long-outdated fantasy about the prehistoric past. We need to recognise our modernity and look forwards.

                                  Yeah you can try and put another hat on, but it's probably just the same hat that someone took away and decorated a bit to make you think you had something different (or rather, old). And you still have to try and jam it over the first hat. I'm trying to remove the hat and use an umbrella instead.

                                  chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 17:01 | X | ^ This | Reply

                                  • here is my shoe horn

                                    I dont refer to any megalithic structures. I do not have an alternative religeon, I just do what I do........sorry to have used an out of favour word.....'animism' it was introduced to me by others who had used to describe me......perhaps it is wrong to use many kinds of words, because many come loaded with different meaning for diferent people.

                                    I suppose I do not advocate teaching history like it is taught in schools (you can witness my sincerity in this from my other posts in other threads where I have expressed disquiet ....not at the content necessarily, bu the manner of the teaching)

                                    In my previous post I was merely trying to indicate an inconsistancy, not on my behalf but on history teaching, in schools.....I was suggesting that would be just as worthy of your scorn as the harmless but nice 'neo pagans' .....i.e. that the neo paganns 'niaivity is no greater than that which is taught in state schools..........

                                    although it is not a point i wish to make I have to point it out because when we get to this level of debate many seeming holes will appear in out arguments....although we do not actually care about the idea greatly......I would like to point out that in your last post that you said 'we cant teach pre roman beliefs'

                                    If you look carefully.....I didnt actually advocae this......what I did was I excused the 'simple neo pagans' because of the gap/inconsistancy they might percieve in their schooling'...........

                                    apart from which.....to be bluntly literal.....if we cant teach pre roman beliefs, then what pray tell, was my school doing forcing us to read the old testiment.....why do I hear of school projects refering to eygptians and Bast Anubus, Set Osirus Horus Isis etc
                                    why do people get taught about the olympian pantheon.

                                    (That wasnt really a point ^ I really wanted to make)

                                    Im not against you....and I dont think that you are really against me. But I do think that you are missing that which I am trying to convey, this probably isnt helped by my unstructured language.....it would be easier in the flesh

                                    creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 17:29 | X | ^ This | Reply

                                    • maybe we should thrash this out at Truck

                                      ultimately, nobody disagrees with each other! If we take it down the the fundamental tautology that me and restlessboy both expressed above, that fundamentally, everybody wants to be happy, and that if everybody was happy, then everybody would be happy etc. etc. then nobody can really deny it. The question is how to build this back up into a new system of thought that exists in and for the present.

                                      This is why I always try and get back to basic principles, because its only here that we can find a common ground which everyone shares.

                                      It isn't a profound statement but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was, because people have become so obsessed with profundity, transcendence, validity, identity, legitimacy, truth, reality, and all sorts of other entirely pointless and meaningless concepts.

                                      If you want me to clarify what I said about teaching 'other beliefs' - the only way in which you can teach somebody 'another belief' is by making them believe it. Otherwise, they are simply construing it as an external fact: 'a belief', which is essentially entirely determined by their own pre-existing beliefs. You can't somehow 'know' a belief: the notion of "a belief" is the arbitrary attempt to give a conscious, discursive identity to what is effectively a subconscious process.

                                      When school was forcing you to read the Old Testament, it was attempting to legitimise Christian doctrine by grounding it in a notion of 'transcendence': as something ancient and eternal, it becomes unquestionable. This is how all religions work - by using certain pretty standard methods of legitimation: "this is old, so it must be true", "this is from far away, so it must be true", "an all powerful deity said this, so it must be true".

                                      Ultimately its all about, "you don't understand this, so it must be true". And what does 'true' really mean other than 'good'?

                                      chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 17:54 | X | ^ This | Reply

                          • so ultimately

                            why call yourself a pagan?

                            chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:53 | X | ^ This | Reply

                    • I agree to an extent

                      in the sense that I feel uncomfortable with society as it exists in its present state. As you imply, modern industrial society has created a kind of collective, masochistic psychosis, in which the people at the fringes are excluded and the people in the centre only keep themselves afloat by buying into his mechanical ritual of self-anaesthesia,

                      But the only way in which we can get to an appreciation of our 'animalness', is by recognising ourselves for what we are - momentarily conscious emergent phenomena that use consciousness to construct bizarre conceptual edifices and perpetual tournaments to assuage our anxieties about our own utter insignificance. This realisation, again, is a modern one, which needs a modern solution.

                      chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:36 | X | ^ This | Reply

                      • as you know

                        i think the solution to that is to accept that it's just as much of a 'conceptual edifice' as anything else. 'insignificance' being an invented/subjective conept in itself. tied entirely to human emotion and perception. Therefore why worry? It's the whole 'football is pointless' non-discussion all over again.

                        restlessboy @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 15:47 | X | ^ This | Reply

                        • because

                          "not worrying" is an ultimately unsustainable approach. Somebody needs to think fundamentally about where we're going, so people stop killing each other and destroying the planet, if we accept that it's something worth saving.

                          Fair enough, this probably isn't going to happen in our lifetime, so does it matter?

                          chiaroscuro @restlessboy | 18 Jul '07, 15:52 | X | ^ This | Reply

                          • well

                            I meant 'not worrying' about it is a philosophical question rather than from a practical viewpoint.

                            but yes if people accept that a lot of what they care about it nonsense that's a good step towards getting their priorities right.

                            In my opinion one of the few things we know for sure is that it's nice to be happy and not nice to be unhappy. To pursue happiness for as many other people you can is, indirectly, the most reliable way to secure your own happiness.

                            anything else is nonsense and distraction.

                            of course the way to actually achieve this is a whole new world of differing perspectives. I reckon not believing in magical men in the sky/reading Hello magazine are two good places to start though.

                            restlessboy @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 16:00 | X | ^ This | Reply

                            • and so it emerges

                              that fundamentally we do agree!

                              I also think happiness should be the ultimate goal. And not some kind of utilitarian aggregate happiness, but a kind of universal emotional sustainability.

                              And its sustainability that's the key - finding a way to stop people running away with abstract concepts and fatuous goals in such a way that they start making other people unhappy.

                              I think the only way of doing this is a totally fundamental upheaval of our basic epistemological/ethical system, and as I've said in the past, this can't be achieved by avoiding any of the achievements of modern philosophy.

                              chiaroscuro @restlessboy | 18 Jul '07, 16:11 | X | ^ This | Reply

                              • shhh!!!

                                we're not supposed to agree!

                                I actually think the highest achievement anyone can aspire to is to own an iPod. The reason people in the third world are incapable of doing so is because God hates them.

                                phew! that was close.

                                restlessboy @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 16:23 | X | ^ This | Reply

                • but the whole idea

                  of 'worshipping' nature, as I said, automatically distances 'us' from 'it', as a transcendent elemental force, functionally indistinguishable from God. 'Nature' is like the post-Christian God.

                  Its current formulation is quite specifically a product of the POST-Christian concern with rampant industrialisation and the environmental movement. And really, the idea that you can remove your modern consciousness is such an easily refutable, counter-intuitive idea. Your attempts to 'remove your modern consciousness' are fundamentally a preoccupation of your situation in, and reaction against 'the modern world'. Everything is necessarily 'modern'. 'Modern' is just what's happening now.

                  I don't think that solely looking backwards is ever a productive way of looking at the world. It necessarily becomes exlusive and ultimately anti-social.

                  chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 15:25 | X | ^ This | Reply

                  • OK

                    like I said I dont 'worship' nature......If I remove my modern conciousness.....I apprciate it in a much bigger sense, because I am aware that I am part of it, my body and mind feel bigger because I am connected to something much bigger, Iam bigger, and older, I am an animal, much of my brains functioning is not just human, it is also animal.....evolved at a pre human stage of evolution (OK Im conciously trying to rationalise and explain to you now) I am something that has connections that you cannot normally concieve.

                    Human senses might be much less than many animals due to physical receptors......but part of the sensory difference is also in how much of your brain activity is devoted to your senses.........despite regions of the brain being specialised, other parts of the brain can also be used to perform different functions......you actually only use a real small fraction......your senses are far bigger than you can guess.....normally this requires training and practice but if you remove modern human conciousness then it is easier....many substances can knock out some of this conciousness, but they also knock out your reasoning....i.e. they affect other animal functioning too. .......anyway where was I ....ah yes .....senses......we actually have enough capability to totally get immerssed in a tast e or a smell......the problem is for humans we need more 'human' felxible thought to survive....if we got totally imersed/lost in taste/smell then we wouldnt last long......or wouldnt bother to evolve.......dogs arnt dumb they just think......'evolve? why would I want to? when I can smell this fantastic smell' (thats not serious by the way)

                    OK lost my point........cant type fast enough, getting interupted........anyway I dont worship......I 'rejoin' from my 'disconnected' state.

                    This in itself is not entirely natural as it is 'novel' and therefore I can witness the wonderful difference and transformation (of myself) between mundanity and awsomeness ....i.e. part of me using such an exreme term as awsomeness....is probably reallu only because I notice the contrast.......

                    One suspects that the euphoric state that one can get is very similar to some people who say they have had euphoric religeous experiance (e.g. like abrahimic ones or eastern transcendental ones)

                    I would like to point out that not everyone has these extreme transformative states.....perhaps others are better balanced? many people just like sitting in a wood.....and for most of the time this is what its like for me........I am talking about the extremes times when I truly do manage to exist not in my modern conciousness.....no its not mumbo jumbo.......imagine trying to wiggle your ear......or just your forth toe and no other.......(its not like that, other than that you cant just will yourself to get there its probably practice)

                    creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 16:49 | X | ^ This | Reply

                    • this is all great

                      and I'm sure you get great fulfilment from it. I'm not taking issue with the process itself. I'd love to be able to learn to meditate or to alter my consciousness more effectively in a way that didn't involve getting drunk.

                      What I'm taking issue with is the way in which it's framed, as some kind of 'return to nature'/'pre-modernity'/'animality' etc.

                      This is about you, in the present, and you should celebrate that, rather than trying to justify it by appealing to the past. I mean this is all that is - a rhetorical strategy to try and make people accept it as 'valid'. It ends up being very ethnocentric though.

                      You're in effect justifying something that's positive and progressive in terms of something retrospective, or regressive. It dresses it up in a lot of unnecessary mumbo-jumbo. It's good because it makes you feel good, not because it gets you 'back' into an 'animal state'. Ultimately, it totally chimes with what I was saying above about emotional sustainability.

                      chiaroscuro @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 17:18 | X | ^ This | Reply

                      • again I cant disagree with you

                        really......perhaps it is because I am older I am arguing the toss, perhaps it is my memories that are decieving me, but it does seem that even within a few decades, possibilities have dried up.....i am not always harking back to a goldern age 2 milennia ago.....in fact it is a common folly and tendancy to do that (even 2 millenia ago some people harged back to mythical goldern ages)

                        Not everything can be undone....in fact much/most cant, science and further progress in some areas indeed might be the only possibility to save mass fatalities.

                        It seems to me that modern contol and administration systems perpetuate a kind of mindset/philosophy/insane belief that is just as mad. I love the premise that we can go on having 2% economic growth, the presumption by democracys that we should expect to be 'better off' in the future and that the worlds population is ever increasing, whilst many resources are depleting.....or at least that the distibution is wofully out of step..............with this in mind, in the cold hard light of reason........it is actually quite mad to think that giving to international aid charities is the best way to use your resources to stop human tradegy.

                        I would wish your cold hard non belief system luck in convincing the world that we should limit our families to have 1 or 2 children. I believe that your cold hard non belief system is exactly accurate, I do not disbelieve anything that you say chiaroscuro, I just doubt its ability to be effective, praps mine aint either.......I think i may have already explored cold hard reason (though probably not as thoroughly or accurately as you, which may be why I found it unlikely that it would work.....maybe I am too unstructured for that to totally work in my modelling of it in my mind)

                        creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 17:50 | X | ^ This | Reply

                        • however

                          on the subject of 'harking back'....it is not just going back in history....most babies are animals who are 'broken' (as in a horse...not a glass) to some extent.......this animal past is in them.

                          Also what I experiance is not just 'personal' you too have areas and functionings of the brains that evolved pre homo sapiens.........part of growing up involves learning to ignore/overide many of those impulses/functionings.......the past IS present in every human, it is not me fondly imagining. (its just that many dont bypass their overides)

                          creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 17:55 | X | ^ This | Reply

                          • It is also not just personal

                            because every single human can be, and do, a lot more than society will geneally be happy with them doing...........you may say that truely reasonably sane liberalism would encourage people to BE more......but thats the point....it doesnt need liberalism to 'encourage' people to be more......human animals want to 'BE' more anyway, sure reasonably liberalism might be their ally in face of restrictin doctrine, but the reasonable liberalism would only be freeing that which was naturally there as potential within humans anyway.

                            Society and modern culture does not CREATE the potential in human beings......natural forces did that.

                            Society and modern culture provides some different and new mediums in which (A selected few) are encouraged to explore and express themselves.

                            (I dont know why im posting this post......it just feels a bit like this might be turning into a 'then' vs 'now' thing.......im also quite impressed that chiaroscuro keeps going, he really has more stamina than anypone else Ive ever met, whilst talking sense)

                            creakyknees @creakyknees | 18 Jul '07, 18:17 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • Summary please

    In no more than 5 words

    Lucien | 18 Jul '07, 16:01 | X | ^ This | Reply

    • controversy

      over paganism divides boards.

      restlessboy @Lucien | 18 Jul '07, 16:07 | X | ^ This | Reply

    • "creakynees worships trees and stuff"

      or thereabouts.

      zxcvbnm- @Lucien | 18 Jul '07, 16:08 | X | ^ This | Reply

    • The brilliant thing is that guntrip gets a mention in the middle of all that

      Personally, I don't consider myself a pagan, but I am very drawn to and interested in the strands of 'indigenous' Northern European culture that have continued to permeate our calendar and religious establishment (because the Early Church knew from the Roman example that the easiest way to convert and placate a population is to assimilate). In this materialistic moden society, so distanced from nature (and increasingly this distance is accepted as being complicit in contemporary or predicted societal and resource-scarcity ills) and as someone very attached to the land (brought up in rural Cornwall, where older rituals are still observed (admittedly some after a Victorian revival, but many just continuously observed as tradition)) I find much more sense in this outlook, which seems to have developed much more universally than the now more accepted cosmologies of monotheism or post-Enlightenment scientific fact.

      The word 'pagan' just means a 'country person' and it isn't the preserve of bourgeois suburbanites in crushed velvet mumbling into crystals in a room thick with incense: try telling that to the villagers where I come from, who 'cry the neck' at harvest-time, tie votives to trees at holy sites or pass through the Men-an-Tol in the hope of bearing children. It's easy to stereotype (not helped by very apparent and vocal neo-pagans who readily reinforce the stereotypes) and easy to ridicule pagans (at least they're not burned at the stake anymore), but why shouldn't they have the same claim to legitimacy and acceptance that other cultural groups do (e.g. Wales's large Hindu contingent and their sacred health-risk bullock)? After all: they were here first.

      janfurnace @Lucien | 18 Jul '07, 17:11 | X | ^ This | Reply

      • in short: because 'culture' as a notion sucks

        It doesn't make people happy, it turns them into repetitive machines, and divides people.

        If people were more concerned with finding sustainable ways to make themselves content with life, rather than thinking they need to continually justify their existence by finding some kind of 'identity', then....finishing this sentence would be an unnecessary tautology.

        chiaroscuro @janfurnace | 18 Jul '07, 17:34 | X | ^ This | Reply

        • but culture can (I emphasise CAN)

          be a useful social interchange mechanism.......not everyone is at the 'sitting under a bo tree' stage of life at the same time, some people wont know what that means, other people might be damaged or shell shocked and need convalescing....need other human reassurance.....when I was talking about humans BEing everything they could I did not mean every second of everyday.

          ALso

          Here it comes

          the forces that range against people having sustainable happy lives are co-ordinated......if you were happy you would not be motivated to do that which you dont want to....you would not do what the centralised power structiures want you to.........therefore to combat a whole raft of anti human influences and messages one must sometimes accept compromise and band together somehow.......I guess that my 'bizarre' dream is that i percieve, that which is described as 'paganism is not exclusive to anyone, it is inclusive of everyone, since every human is an offspring of the earth, there are no chosen ones, also there are no priests, similarly there should really be far less words.......except that we all live in a wordy rappinghood.

          It is not I that decrees that humans seem to need belief systems to exist in a world that doesnt offer them the hope they need (because human relationships are broken down...on the whole)

          It is the actuality of the news and the way that large groupings of peoples interact that seems to indicate to me that humans DO need a belief system (not necessarily religeous) Many western secularists believe in the great god 'Freemarket' (its just the old daemon mammon)
          Alex Zane believes in the new catchphrase god of 'Newmusic' (its not really that new an idea, just bands 'that they hopw will make it big but havnt yet, but they've spotted them ahead of the market)

          creakyknees @chiaroscuro | 18 Jul '07, 20:50 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • I thought creekyknees was going to let us down

    but no, he delivered his longest post, covering the most reply boxes ever.

    Salute.

    yes_ | 18 Jul '07, 16:15 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • I haven't got time to read all this

    but I'm really tempted to print the whole thread out for perusal on the train home.

    joeymahone | 18 Jul '07, 16:56 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • How did this happen?

    pinballfortress | 18 Jul '07, 19:35 | X | ^ This | Reply

  • wow

    this is an epic. im going to put the kettle on..

    bigmanwithagun | 18 Jul '07, 19:37 | X | ^ This | Reply

    • don`t slag off panaganism

      unless you know about it from reasearch rather than watching the wickerman

      i am a wiccan and a pagan and i find the faith suits me i can aruge floors in other a faths if i wanted but i don`t as i respect other faiths

      moonwolf @bigmanwithagun | 30 Jul '08, 20:48 | X | ^ This | Reply
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