❝Neo-paganism has nothing to do with devaluing human life. The term neo-pagan is a recent invention and has nothing to do with morality.

Honestly, Mrs. Bookworm, have you ever known me to devalue human life? Have you ever seen me treat anyone disrespectfully unless they disrespected me or someone else first? Yet I am a neopagan under the scholarly definition. I greet the sunrise. I dance naked under the full Moon. I've written and spoken against war, blood sacrifice, and coercion.

The fact is there is no monolithic morality among neopagans. Even most neopagans can't agree what the term means except in the broadest terms.

Neopagan and pagan are not slur words. I'd be happy to answer any general questions I can, or find you someone who can if I can't. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'd appreciate it if I could expect the same.

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That may be true. But using pagan or neopagan as a way to describe low morality is unacceptable. Mrs. Bookworm and others here would not accept a slur like this against Jews or Christians.

I'm not asking anyone to participate. I'm just asking for the same respect that they themselves expect.

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For what it is worth, I'd say that modern pagans are less tolerant of others who insist that their faith/belief system/rule set must dominate.

Sometimes the trick is convincing them that the nasty ole conservative Christians aren't always or even usually the enemy.

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There we get into "no True Scottsman."

Just as an example, I can promise you that the first century Christian was a considerably different creature than his sixth century counterpart. Just as the eighteenth century version was very different. And how the early twentieth century version differed from the late twentieth, or even the twenty-first century incarnation. And that doesn't even allow for all the various sects.

The way I see it, faith is between you and the Divine. No one else.

❝I call myself pagan because I don't have a better term. I'm polytheistic and pantheistic. On alternate Thursdays and every third Tuesday I might admit to an animism bent as well. On the 13th of the month, I'll tell you (truthfully) that the label isn't really all that important, only the manifestation.❞

By most modern standards, I'm pagan. Certainly in the sense that I look for Divine manifestation outside of an official Book. Some of my stuff came by way of the new age fluffiness, sure. Some of it also came from gnosticism and the silence of a desert dawn. Does that make it less valid for me than yours is for you?

I'm not something less. I'm something else.

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But is it better than being a gun toting redneck?

See, people today like to forget, but pagans invented civilization. And trade. And philosophy.

The Visigoths weren't intent on destroying civilization as much as they were controlling it.❞

— comments from No. 4 Bookworm Room Podcast: The Second Amendment, Morality, and Kindness

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Tags: Bookworm & pagan & neopagans & cross posted & disrespect & parity & ugh-politics