Naturalistic Paganism
What to look forward to in September at HP
This month at HP, we conclude our late summer theme of “Emotion” and begin our early autumn theme “Life and Death”.
New Column: Druidry Without Deity by Ryan Cronin
HP is pleased to announce our newest columnist, Ryan Cronin. Ryan is a former Catholic who spent almost a year living in a monastery, got a degree in theology, and is now an atheist with an interest in earth-based paganism and nature-centred spirituality. His journey has led him to explore the ideas, symbols and practices of modern druidry, as an effective framework for expressing a sense of the sacred in nature and forming connections with the other-than-human world. He is a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids as well as a Dedicant member of Ar n’Draiocht Fein, but tends to practice druidry in a solitary context. He is interested in evolution, philosophy, anthropology and the psychology of religion as well as creating secular spirituality without supernatural claims. Ryan writes about his ongoing druidic exploration at Room of Roots. He is also fascinated by people’s relationship with death and its role in society, and he discusses those themes on the blog Deathly Ponderings, where he is a regular contributor. He is due to begin studying for an MA in Death, Religion and Culture with the University of Winchester in January 2015. Read More
“Compassion as Foundation” by DT Strain
This essay was originally published at The Spiritual Naturalist Society.
Compassion is under assault in our media, entertainment, and politics. Meanwhile the faceless nature of the internet often encourages even greater levels of meanness and vitriol than would normally occur in human interactions, and this negativity unavoidably spills into other parts of our lives.
Yet, compassion is an essential part of our nature as social animals and moral beings. Thomas Merton wrote that compassion is, “the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things”. Called Rahmah in Islam, compassion is considered a major trait of God, who they call “the merciful and compassionate”. Hinduism has a principle of doing no harm called Ahimsa and their word for compassion is Daya. In Buddhism, you have the notion of wishing a release from suffering in others, called Karuna, and the notion of wishing happiness for others – loving kindness – calledMetta. When asked if cultivation of compassion and loving-kindness is part of their practice, the Buddha replied, ‘no… [it is] all of our practice.” The life of Jesus exemplifies the very essence of compassion to Christians. Judaism lists 13 attributes of compassion and leading Rabbi Hillel the Elder in the 1st Century stated that the whole Torah could be summed up as, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow” adding that all the rest is merely commentary on that principle. Read More
“Unitarian Universalism and Paganism” by Crafter Yearly
I first learned about Unitarian Universalism and Paganism at roughly the same time in my life. I was 16. And I knew, at that point, exactly two Pagan families: one, the family of the woman who mentored me in the Goddess religion; the other, the family of a girl I danced with in a ballet company. The women in both families encouraged me and supported me in my interest in Paganism. They were both strong women with big personalities and full, earthy bodies. And they were both convinced that their religion—our religion—was dangerous and must be kept secret. Or, rather, that bigots and fundamentalists were dangerous, and so we must keep our religion secret in order to stay safe. Read More
The Centrality of Emotion, Part 2: An Ancient Approach to Modern Science
“The Thinker in The Gates of Hell” at the Musée Rodin
How can we bring our emotions into right relationship with reality?
This is a key question today, not only for Naturalistic Pagans, but also Secular Buddhists, Humanistic Jews, and other naturalists. Since we hold science in high esteem, a natural place to begin is academia. However, ask this question to nearly any modern scientist or philosopher, and you won’t get a very coherent response.
Emotion is largely peripheral to modern higher learning. As we saw in Part 1, however, it was central to ancient philosophy. At the same time, ancient philosophy suffers from one major flaw: its theories are rooted in outdated models of the mind and world.
It seems the ancient and modern worlds each hold different parts of the puzzle. So the question becomes: how can we discover a path that makes emotion genuinely central, but which is also rooted in today’s best scientific evidence? Read More
“The Centrality of Emotion, Part 1: What Ancient Philosophy Offers Modern Naturalists” by B. T. Newberg
“The Scream of Nature” by Edvard Munch
Emotion is central. As much as we naturalists embrace objective science, the reason we do so is for the sake of the subjective. If it were not for the emotional response to nature, community, and the depths of our own minds – in short, the re-enchantment of our world – there would be little point to Naturalistic Paganism at all.
This is something I’ve realized as I’ve been working to create an online educational course for the Spiritual Naturalist Society. In order to make it applicable to all paths of Spiritual Naturalism, not just Pagan ones, I’ve had to drill down into the core of what we do. What I’ve discovered is that emotion is central, but a principled approach to cultivating it is hardly to be found in the science we so cherish. Rather, we must return to ancient philosophy for a model. Part 1 of this article explores this issue, while Part 2 attempts to integrate ancient philosophy and modern science. Read More
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Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2nd
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