Paganism - the ancient religion of our ancestors
- Thread starter Vereya
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How do you figure?
Stopping a moment to admire a beautiful sunset is a spiritual moment.
Reading a bit of poetry that causes me to pause and reflect upon its meaning is spiritual...
Every fall I go to a wildlife refuge where wounded hawks, falcons and owls have been mended and then released back into the wild...this is a spiritual moment for me as well...
None of these things have anything to do with religion...
Nor do I believe that paganism is any different than your bag, just has a different and varied face to the superstition...
Very nice article Vereya. I can tell this is something near to your heart. Thank you for posting it here for us to read.:smile:
MHz,
That is a cross with a Neanderthal goddess crucified on it. There are Celtic Runes and a Yin/Yang symbol on the chalice and a native ceremonial pipe. It is about religious symbols and how they are graven images trying to represent the eternal. I hold no symbol sacred, no path above another. Life is a journey. Where it goes nobody knows, but it is the journey of our life and I fail to see how wasting my time reading about someone else's journey over and over is contributing to mine. To me the spiritual path is one where I rise each day and seek out the wonder and beauty of it all. Having my face stuck in a dusty old book would just prevent me from experiencing my journey.
I had a lot of respect for my Cree teacher. He never once sat me down and said this is the way things are, this is how you worship your creator, this is how ... to do anything. What he taught me by example was that the most important thing to remember on my journey is integrity, honesty and compassion for my fellow journeyers.
As Allan Watts once said, "The mistake most religious people make is that they see the finger pointing the way, and instead of going off in the direction it is pointing, they suck on it in vain hope of gaining nourishment and end up stagnating." They miss the point and the journey altogether.
That is a cross with a Neanderthal goddess crucified on it. There are Celtic Runes and a Yin/Yang symbol on the chalice and a native ceremonial pipe. It is about religious symbols and how they are graven images trying to represent the eternal. I hold no symbol sacred, no path above another. Life is a journey. Where it goes nobody knows, but it is the journey of our life and I fail to see how wasting my time reading about someone else's journey over and over is contributing to mine. To me the spiritual path is one where I rise each day and seek out the wonder and beauty of it all. Having my face stuck in a dusty old book would just prevent me from experiencing my journey.
I had a lot of respect for my Cree teacher. He never once sat me down and said this is the way things are, this is how you worship your creator, this is how ... to do anything. What he taught me by example was that the most important thing to remember on my journey is integrity, honesty and compassion for my fellow journeyers.
As Allan Watts once said, "The mistake most religious people make is that they see the finger pointing the way, and instead of going off in the direction it is pointing, they suck on it in vain hope of gaining nourishment and end up stagnating." They miss the point and the journey altogether.
I'm not sure that it can be said that the Bible teaches cultural ecology. It certainly allows for the taming of some beasts to ease the burden of men for certain chores, like packing heavy loads or pulling plows. Within that area they are still supposed to be treated with a certain amount care and respect. I don't believe the Bible taught that the land should be left the way it was found either. The Bible certainly allows for development of fields and cities (with all that is entailed with that) that would almost certainly be in conflict with cultural ecology in that it call for changes to the natural land. Not planting every 7th year would be seen as giving the land a bit of a rest.
Trying to separate spirituality from religion is an attempt to distance it from some of the less desirable things done in the name of religion. For Christianity it would be the conduct of the Church (not just the RCC) during the last 1,900 years, or the way God did certain things in the OT.
Trying to separate spirituality from religion is an attempt to distance it from some of the less desirable things done in the name of religion. For Christianity it would be the conduct of the Church (not just the RCC) during the last 1,900 years, or the way God did certain things in the OT.
How many hours would be 'not overdoing it' over the course of about 20Yrs?
Really,
Most of your post I would have simply agreed with but this post, like most, if not all, of your posts just has to have some little dig in it. Now the rebuttal, no doubt if you had a copy of the Bible it would be dusty, very dusty. One that is read without all the skepticism and denial and mockery that sums up your view of the Bible is quite alive actually, even timeless in that the morals taught still hold true for living today. (even the same consequences hold true for most acts of immorality). Scripture also has the ability to make one go through emotions just through words alone, disgust might be more what you feel but with me it creates a wide range, right from, "Yes" to "Oh no, that's gotta hurt."
LOL, makes me wonder what they have been smoking.
But many cultures tied their spiritual beliefs to the earth and universe - as you said the bible is full of verses about respect for the land etc, which is Christian cultural ecology, as limited as the bible may be on the topic. In response to Cliffy, I thought you were saying they were the same, but I guess you meant Religion and Spirituality alone, were the same?
True, trying to separate them is often self-serving. I have my own beliefs, they serve me well and I loath to get into debates with others about mine and theirs for some reason.
The odds are most of those can cause some sort of emotion, even if it is just relaxing your body and mind for a few moments it isn't spiritualism.
If you observe a cat go over and lay beside another cat and put their front paw over the other cat (same as humans do) then you are observing spirituality in a cat. Demonstrating an act of love and compassion that causes emotions in both cats.
So is anything that causes an emotion also spiritual? If you tear up while reading some passage is that an emotional reaction to what the words are describing (something very nice or something very wrong, both work in this situation) or are you having a spiritual moment. Most of the time I would classify that as emotional, spiritual would be reading a passage and understanding it for the first time, which means you are actually re-reading it more than once, maybe even many times but something new is clear that wasn't there before.
Spiritualism is a response to emotional stimuli...nothing more, nothing less, and has absolutely no ties to religion or god.
That's just ridiculous...if you assert that they are capable of spirituality, then why then do we not see cats, or even more intelligent creatures offering prayers to their creator???
Yep, you gotter...
That's because you're biased towards your own system of beliefs, and can't conceive of spirituality deriving from something other than your own narrow view...
Ah, you're looking for the thread-killer post, LOL, aren't we all.
When you have said everything you have to say that is the last word, repeating the same thing doesn't add to the argument.
I can understand why somebody who doesn't believe in God would still want to be able to say they are spiritual rather than just being called an emotional person.
They do not know the difference between good and evil, they have no knowledge of God, they certainly trust their owners though (to treat them properly). They acknowledge that man is a higher authority than them, that might change if they saw a big cat in action.
Cats don't understand why they love but they are capable of doing that, that is a natural ability to most forms of life.
Would a very large hungry cat make you want to run to a safe place, is that spiritual or emotional?
My narrow view probably covers all the examples you could put forward and more.
This is nothing more than conditioned response...find a feral cat and see how cuddly it is...
When I was a kid we had a cat that give birth to at least two identical kittens (we only found one at birth). They were born outside, and one got separated from its mother somehow and we didn't find it until about a year after it was born. We tried to bring it back into the house, but it was far too feral and nasty, and because it looked identical to the lovable one, we never knew which one we were dealing with...chewed the hell outta me a few times before I took it waaaaaay out to the woods to fend for itself...
That would be Buster the dog, an opportunist to the nth degree. There have usually been some sort of pets around my whole life, I have to admit that my neighbors are starting to look at all the black cats though. So far they don't mind as they pretty much control the whole neighborhood.
Good essay Vereya, but... paganism is a pretty broad category, I don't think you can legitimately claim it's *the* religion of our ancestors, it really just means any religious belief system that's outside the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That's a lot of territory, covers everything from the old Norse, Greek and Roman mythologies to contemporary Wicca (which actually dates from only the 1940s), the Great Mooja Up The Mountain to the Spaghetti Monster and Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot. The word Pagan derives from Latin, and just means a country dweller, somebody uneducated and unsophisticated, a bumpkin in modern terminology. Which I think is about right; there's no good evidence in support of any religious belief system, they're all just human inventions and have not much to do with reality.
I think that Paganism is often more of a world-view than a religion. It doesn't require to observe commandments to treat the World and its people with respect. It doesn't require Gods to feel interest for your own inner world and for what is going on around you.
They are indeed a total anthithesis of Paganism in more than one way. Freedom, knowledge and happiness are the priviledge of very few followers of monotheistic religions, while they are open to every Pagan. Besides, the goals of the monotheistic and polytheistic religions could be compared. The results would be quite striking.