Great link, Midi! I would call myself an "atheist pagan" – although I'm more a carnal person than a spiritual person. I appreciate the beauty of nature, but I also tend to view Mother Nature as being a cruel mother. I don't worship nature – in fact, there are times when I find it rather unpleasant to get nature on me, on my shoes, on my clothes, etc. Ick. Nature and I have this "understanding" and often keep a respectful distance from each other. lol

Btw, I'm doing anagrammed pagan names over at PaganSpace. For anyone here who would like a pagan name acquired through the mystery of anagrams, clicky here.

-- Nephele

I'm not sure that atheists can be pagans using the definitions I'm aware of. The aforementioned atheist with respect for nature would be a natural philosopher rather than a pagan, as I find it difficult to let go of the rather entrenched "non-Abrahamic" meaning of the word. Thus none of the "neo-pagan" faiths would qualify, and are instead spiritualist movements. Obviously nothing prevents an atheist from being spiritual, but at a certain point in that spectrum the atheist/agnostic line in the sand appears and that's been hard to pin down for some time.

I guess I find the idea of atheists being pagan somewhat cute, since it smacks of inoffensive middle class religious crusading in some ways.

Atheists can indeed be pagan, I know some and their practice is virtually the same as that of theistic pagans only the gods are removed. They still honour the elements, nature, the directions, utilise personal power to both bless and curse, etc... one of the women I know has a regular ritual schedule with the Wheel of the Year - I don't do that (I don't celebrate the wheel personally and I'm a theist).

Assuming that atheism means lack of belief in some sort of an actual being with its own mind and will. So it is even accepted in nontheistic religion where there is no god. However, many people also understand it as a lack of belief in any supernatural properties of the world including beliefs in energy, spirits and widely understood "powers of nature". So it depends if you understand atheism in its original meaning (not believing in god/s) or include all other supernatural "things" in the definition

However, you can be "an atheistic pagan" - depends to what extent, if any, to which you make a personification of the nature.

Personally I'm absolutely fascinated by nature and all its aspects - including the less charming ones. I take it as it is with all its potentially destructive power. We can't fight it, so we might as well love it and learn to live with it, not "despite" it trying our best to avoid it. It always ends in disaster for both people and the nature itself.

And there is nothing spiritual in my views, I think nature is so powerful and we so little understood about it that I don't think I need any theology for it to inspire feelings of awe.

My brand of paganism is that same brand of paganism practiced and celebrated by Dorothy Parker. (Who recognized its not-so-fatal flaw):

THE FLAW IN PAGANISM
by Dorothy Parker

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through.
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)

I guess I would be a pantheist. My motto when I talk to other people about religion or spirituality is that personally to me "All gods are one and the One is All." For me it is the personality I identify with and the energy that I "worship". But i am still confused because I might be getting that wrong. So aside from pagan I really have no idea what to call myself, everything perhaps.

btw, have anyone come across The Book of 5000 Spells?

The one written by Judika Illes? I own it and find it quite entertaining... I've never used anything out of it myself (I'm not a spellworker)... but I have passed on some of the protection spells to a friend, and he told me that they worked

It's on my wish list. The few spells that I have written down from a friends copy have worked pretty well.

I think reincarnation, like Karma, is a greatly misunderstood concept. From what I have experienced in life I would have to guess that when you die the individual thread of consciousness that is 'you' dissipates however, that energy doesn't just vanish it is absorbed by other life forms. So, yes, you are reincarnated but 'you' don't exist so it doesn't do 'you' any good.

Just like Karma, or the Rule of Three. There is this concept that if I hit you, I am going to be hit or be hit three times as worse. This is a kind of silly concept. We are all made of the same thing, all connected and will become even more connected eventually, so if I hit you, I am hitting me. You are me, I am you, we are part of life. In my experience it would seem things like Karma, sin, and the rule of three are just ideas to keep people in line. Every time I see someone do something stupid I just roll my eyes and hope that me grow out of being that stupid one day, before I hurt myself or other myselves. It makes it very hard to be angry at people when you understand they are also you.

If more of me could see how awesome I am there would be no need for war or suffering. We could all just be copacetic, happy me.

Um.. I hate to be the voice of reason here but.. most magic is just things happening that would have happened anyway. I wanted, I mean -really- wanted to believe in magic and for it to be real but in all my travels I have never seen any proof of anything more than probability playing itself out.

Magic is a lot like prayer. You hear all the time how people pray and they survive cancer or pray and their child survives a life threatening illness. The reason these stories are so common is simple logic. If one out of 10 people survive a specific type of cancer, and they all pray, the one guy who lives will say "It's a miracle!!!" and the nine dead guys will say nothing, because they are dead. You never hear the dead complaining about how their prayers went unanswered.

I would like to hear more about the pagan practices. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just being pessimistic. I would love to be proven wrong. You can't call yourself a good scientist unless the idea of being proven wrong gives you just a little woodie.

Yup, that's the one - I find herbal magic quite interesting, so I loved this one. Another good one is Solitary Witch

I hate to sound like a prick or the unreasonable one (because I rely on science) but I don't think you should tell someone that magic is 'just things happening that would have happened anyway'. You can't possibly know that. If they or we, believe that magic can alter things, rather than say it has no effect, I'd just let them believe it, rather than putting it down. Magic is real to me, and one day science will prove it. I'm sorry it's never worked for you, but you shouldn't go into a paganism thread and complete be against the possibility of magic simply because you've had no experience in it.

In all likelihood it is probability, but you can't say that for sure. No one can. It's like the god vs. no god debate. Neither side can win so its best to simply let it be and give people their beliefs so long as those beliefs to no deny people their civil rights.



Instead of saying it's a miracle when people beat cancer and the like, people need to thank the real cause: Science, Medication, Technology, and Doctors et al. Prayer can work, I suppose, and I do not deny that prayer is like magic. However if you rely strictly on prayer then I'd wouldn't be shocked if you lived or died. I did hear an interesting study that people who depended on prayer did worse than those who did not pray.



The thing about paganism, at least my walk, is that I don't have to prove anyone wrong or right. I have no desire to do that. You believe what you like. Now I like to consider myself a scientist and if this weren't a paganism thread I would really care, but as it is a paganism thread I will defend the religion to the best of my ability according to my own beliefs, which as pretty atheistic.

I call myself a good scientist when the idea of new discoveries, and the possibility and new questions and answers makes my heart flutter and my mind race.

I guess my point is that if you want to learn or talk about paganism, that's great. If not, then please don't be a troll or ask questions like 'prove it'. The Burden or Proof fallacy is a horrible one and I don't look on it favorably. I can't prove it any more than you can really disprove it. Let's move on from that and just talk paganism.

My personal outlook on paganism is this. Celebrate life, what I call magic is a practice of putting energy into the universe towards a goal and putting all of my intent behind that goal. By performing a spell I am making a commitment to myself and the universe that I will do what I can to achieve that goal. When a spell works for me it is because it was able to help me achieve my Alpha State, an actual state that your brain enters when you perform certain actions, this state allows me to communicate with all the individual parts of my psyche.

I thank you for your opinion, Usdom. Every interaction with those around me have a lesson that I, or they, need to learn. i acknowledge that you have certain beliefs as well as things that you are trying to understand. The only thing that I can think to say to possibly help you is this, magic is what you want it to be. It is powered by belief, if you believe that it is a mystical power that cannot be studied then that is what it is. But also there are those, like me, who believe that magic is a scientific system that functions on the Quantum Theory and therefore works on the sub-atomic connection that bind all that is contained within the universe together.

I hope I was able to clear up, at the least, my own views on magic. May your path in this life be filled with Love, Light, Happiness, and Peace.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Not intended to defend or refute anyone's belief in magic. I just seized an excuse to quote Arthur C. Clarke.

-- Nephele