Naturalistic Paganism
The HPedia: Agency
Your help is needed! Please critique this entry from the HPedia: An encyclopedia of key concepts in Naturalistic Paganism. Please leave your constructive criticism in the comments below.
Agency is a characteristic distinguishing most naturalistic views of deity from other views. Generally speaking, naturalistic views do not attribute independent causal agency to deities; other views may.
Pascal Boyer writes:
Agency is that set of characteristics by which we infer the existence and action of an agent; that is, a living (or lifelike) entity whose behavior indicates that it has intentions and can act upon them. Agents are purposeful, and purposeful (i.e., teleological) action is the hallmark of agency.
Note the emphasis on intention and purpose. There are plenty of causes in nature, but not all causes are cases of purposeful intention.
So, in other words, naturalistic deities generally do not act with purposeful intention. Within the narrative of a myth, they might be portrayed as such, but this is typically understood as metaphor, poetry, etc., crafted by human intention.
A significant exception may be cases where living creatures such as animals or humans are deified, as in naturalistic pantheism which views nature and all entities within it as divine.
Robert McCauley observes that the general direction of science throughout history has been toward decreasing attribution of agency to phenomena, though we still refer to agents in psychology, economics, sociology, and a few other fields.
A common postulate in the Cognitive Science of Religion is that our brains are equipped with hyperactive agency detection devices (HADD), the evolutionary fitness value of which is evident: it is better to err in assuming a predator in each movement of grass than to assume no predator when there is one. Errors of the former type matter little, but even a single mistake of the latter type is deadly. Thus, evolution would select for hyperactive detection of agents. The consequence for religion is, of course, that we are predisposed to perceive agents everywhere, in every storm or dry spell, whether or not they are really present.
See also “Deity” and “HADD.”
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Call for submissions: “Beginnings”
Our early winter theme is “Beginnings”.
Each of us has a story about how we got to where we are now. Stories are the way that we orient ourselves in the world and in history. But we frequently look at our past only as something that we are leaving behind or reacting to. How does your past continue to play a role in your Naturalistic Pagan spirituality today? In what way will your past always be a part of your spiritual journey?
Send your writing and art to humanisticpaganism [at] gmail.com. Submissions need to be received by December 21.
Just 5 days left to contribute to HP’s Indiegogo campaign
Yesterday, Courtney York posted this on the HP Facebook page:
Hello! I’m very new to Paganism. I’m a naturalistic pagan and for all of my life, I thought that I was just not going to ever discover a religion to be a part of. After I described my beliefs to my sister, she linked me the website HumanisticPaganism and I was blown away. I have never EVER found a belief system that even remotely was like mine but naturalistic paganism is a perfect fit. I cried after reading the blog and ever since then I recognize as a Naturalistic Pagan — since I already was one!
I remember feeling the same way when I first discovered this site. This is why this site is so important. We are providing a spiritual home, albeit a virtual one, for Humanistic and Naturalistic Pagans who might otherwise be unable to find a home in Paganism or other forms of Religious Naturalism. This is why I think it is important that HP expand its outreach. There are many more people who might join our community, but have never heard of us or even conceived that we might exist.
We have five days left in our Indiegogo campaign. We are about half way to our goal. If we can raise $538, we will be able to place an add at The Wild Hunt (and help support The Wild Hunt at the same time). A contribution of $10 or more will earn you a shout out at HP. A contribution of $25 or more will get you a link to the website or blog of your choice.
Thank you for your support.
John Halstead, Managing Editor
Seasons and heartbeats, by Brock Haussamen
Just 6 days left for you to help HP place an ad at The Wild Hunt! Go to HP’s Indiegogo campaign to contribute.
Today we continue with our late autumn theme of “Death and Life”with Brock Haussamen’s thoughts on aging. In the comments below, share your thoughts about how the aging process has affected your spirituality.
“My heart pumps in, pumps out, pumps in, while the seasons pump the life of the planet, year in, year out. The globe’s temperature, moisture, and light pass by in a rotation that brings forth sprouting, blooming, fading, dormancy, sprouting—the cardiac coordination between the planet and its life.”
Age: 68. These days the seasons are less like a perfume to me and more like a clock.
When I was young, autumns were my favorite–painfully romantic, full of yearning and the future, life-enhancing and lonely at the same time. The smoke in the air and the cold freshness made me want to run around, run anywhere. I loved playing football because it required running around fast and then falling on the ground, a favorite activity of boys which I think remains the basic appeal of the sport.
Each season had its flavor and power. Winter’s were perhaps the mildest—cozy, private, a little claustrophobic. Spring could be “the cruelest month”—I think it depended on how my love life was going—but the renewal everywhere made me lightly happy. Summer brought its sex appeal, but the absence of school was a real emptiness. I couldn’t live up to summer’s fullness and high expectations. When the Beach Boys sang, “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues,” I was relieved to know I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
These days, decades later, either my senses are declining or sheer repetition has taken the intensity out of each season, or both. Though autumn is still my favorite and summer still less than idyllic, now I’m more caught up in watching the plants grow and fade and feeling in awe, not so much of the season itself, but of the inescapability of the changes, the daylight lengthening or shrinking, the air turning warmer or cooler. Lovely as it all is, it’s the relentlessness of the cycle that gets to me now.
Sometimes I think, one less summer left, one less autumn to go.
The other rhythm I’m aware of these days is my heart’s. It has been irregular for periods, enough so that I no longer take it for granted when it’s regular. As this autumn was coming in, it struck me that the seasons also are a heartbeat. My heart pumps in, pumps out, pumps in, while the seasons pump the life of the planet, year in, year out. The globe’s temperature, moisture, and light pass by in a rotation that brings forth sprouting, blooming, fading, dormancy, sprouting—the cardiac coordination between the planet and its life.
My heart will run down—is running down—my seasons will run down and run out, but my inclusion in the endless beat of the seasons all these years—the inclusion of every living thing in the rhythm that carries us along—has been a taste of immortality.
The Author
Brock Haussamen: I grew up in New York City and now live in New Jersey, where I taught English for four decades at a community college, a profession I found varied and rewarding. I’m married, with family in the area.
I retired in 2006 in part to fight poverty as best I could, at every level I could–locally, nationally, and in Africa. I’ve become a local volunteer and on-line advocate and along the way have learned fast about the economic, political, and legal issues that accompany poverty.
I also found myself thinking more about the central questions that catch up with us sooner or later: What is my purpose? How will I face death? What do I believe in? I have always liked the descriptions from science about how living things work, about the history of the earth, about the nature of the cosmos. But I could not put those pictures together with my questions. Gradually I came to see that life’s history over 3.8 billion years stood inside and throughout my being and constituted my livingness at its core. In my blog at threepointeightbillionyears.com, I’ve been exploring the variety of ways in which our experience is anchored not just in our evolution from primates but in the much longer lifespan of life itself.
Next Sunday
Next Sunday, we continue our theme of “Death and Life” with NaturalPantheist: “Thoughts on Death and the Afterlife”.
The HPedia: Energy
Your help is needed! Please critique this entry from the HPedia: An encyclopedia of key concepts in Naturalistic Paganism. Please leave your constructive criticism in the comments below.
In Contemporary Paganism, “energy” typically refers to a vaguely-defined metaphysical or pseudo-metaphysical force connecting various objects in the cosmos. It often plays a role in describing ritual experiences or explaining how magic is thought to work.
This notion of “energy” has little, if anything, to do with the concept in physics, other than a very loose analogy. It probably is more worth comparing and contrasting with concepts of subtle forces in other cultures such as mana, prana, chi, and so on.
From a naturalistic standpoint, there seems to be little evidence supporting such subtle forces, yet “energy” might still be used in a loose, colloquial way to describe a “powerful” or “moving” empirical sensation.
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