Neo-Pagan Apologetics

  • Thread starter Thread starter IanCorrigan
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I

IanCorrigan

Guest
Hello all

My name is Ian Corrigan, and I am a nearly life-long Pagan, having been studying, practicing and leading Pagan, Wiccan and neo-Druidic ways for some 30 years.

In my web-searching, I ran across this site’s Anti-Neo-Pagan Apologetics article [. Let me say at the outset that I was pleased to see our ways given a thoughtful and unsensational treatment. For that you have my thanks.

I am a devout Pagan, but also rather a hobbyist of religion and theology. Unlike many modern Pagans I actually enjoy theological reasoning, and the work of apologetics. I was moved to write a short answer to the critique in your article. I ran it past some of my Pagan colleagues, and several thought I should post it to you folks, here. However, it is too long to fit in a message, and, of course, attachments aren’t permitted.

I’d love to show it to those who are interested in such things. Should I post it here in sections? any interest? Thanks again for your sane and sensible responses to one of the fastest growing new religious movements in the english-speaking world.

Sincerely
Ian Corrigan](http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305bt.asp)
 
Yep, I think that you should ask a mod to move your thread over to Non Catholic Religions. For myself, as a Catholic anthropologist and medieval historian, I wait to hear your explanations of how one reconstructs a largely oral tradition which has not been seen upon this earth for over a thousand years.
 
I’ve moved this thread here, rather than to NCR, since the OP indicates that his comments are in reply to an article in This Rock.

Joe Monahan
 
Modern subscribers to superstition cults should not equate themselves with ancient so-called pagans. Educated people among the ancients (particularly in Greece and Rome) were largely agnostic if not downright atheistic and only wished they could find an intellectual path to a greater meaning. Many of them concluded that there was no such thing, and they were at least more honest than moderns who practice such nonsense as Wicca.
 
IanCorrigan said:
Hello all

My name is Ian Corrigan, and I am a nearly life-long Pagan, having been studying, practicing and leading Pagan, Wiccan and neo-Druidic ways for some 30 years.

In my web-searching, I ran across this site’s Anti-Neo-Pagan Apologetics article [. Let me say at the outset that I was pleased to see our ways given a thoughtful and unsensational treatment. For that you have my thanks.

I am a devout Pagan, but also rather a hobbyist of religion and theology. Unlike many modern Pagans I actually enjoy theological reasoning, and the work of apologetics. I was moved to write a short answer to the critique in your article. I ran it past some of my Pagan colleagues, and several thought I should post it to you folks, here. However, it is too long to fit in a message, and, of course, attachments aren’t permitted.

I’d love to show it to those who are interested in such things. Should I post it here in sections? any interest? Thanks again for your sane and sensible responses to one of the fastest growing new religious movements in the english-speaking world.

Sincerely
Ian Corrigan](http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305bt.asp)

Send it to me in a Private Message. I’m very interested. If it won’t fit there I’ll send along my email.
Thank you for writing it in the first place.
Click to expand...
 
jbuck919 said:
Modern subscribers to superstition cults should not equate themselves with ancient so-called pagans. Educated people among the ancients (particularly in Greece and Rome) were largely agnostic if not downright atheistic and only wished they could find an intellectual path to a greater meaning. Many of them concluded that there was no such thing, and they were at least more honest than moderns who practice such nonsense as Wicca.
Click to expand...
Wicca is the fastest growing religion in America. Please refrain from calling another person’s faith nonsense.
I have been ridiculed for my devotion to our Blessed Mother.
Words can hurt and yours have.
 
Karianne said:
Wicca is the fastest growing religion in America. Please refrain from calling another person’s faith nonsense.
I have been ridiculed for my devotion to our Blessed Mother.
Words can hurt and yours have.
Click to expand...
There are religious positions that are so apart from reality, that they are “non-sense”. That may not be PC, but it is accurate. A person from a radicaly different religion posting on an opposing site had better have thick skin.
 
Lion_of_Narnia said:
There are religious positions that are so apart from reality, that they are “non-sense”. That may not be PC, but it is accurate. A person from a radicaly different religion posting on an opposing site had better have thick skin.
Click to expand...
Oh please! Catholics have been on the receiving end of some of the cruel words and it’s just wrong to turn around and do it to someone else.
Do you realize that a lot of folks think that we’re nuts because some Catholics believe that Bernadette actually spoke with the Mother of God?
Do you realize that folks call Catholics cannibals because we consume the Body of Christ at Mass?
Of course, some folks can blow off cruel words, but when you’re talking about another person’s spiritual beliefs, especially in a CATHOLIC forum one should at least TRY to be civil.
There’s enough unkindness and ridicule from the world.
Just stop.
 
Karianne said:
but when you’re talking about another person’s spiritual beliefs, especially in a CATHOLIC forum one should at least TRY to be civil.
Just stop.
Click to expand...
No we shouldn’t. It’s this “I’m ok you’re ok” attitude that hurts people in their faith. Was Jesus “civil” with those people? No he was very blunt and straight forward. It’s time Catholics went back to basics and stop handling these people with kid gloves. His word tells us that homosexuality is wrong, that abortion is wrong, that sex out side of marriage is wrong,
that paganisim/wiccan is wrong ok? (thats another thing i have against the nativity story Mary and joesph both appear to heed the words of a fortune teller, thats a sin and Mary was sinless). So it’s time we as followers of the Lord start heeding his words and tell them what is wrong and what is right. I for one will not compromise my faith corrupt Jesus teachings just so i won’t hurt someones feelings.
 
HI all - thanks for finding a place for this material. I’ll post my answers to the anti-neo-pagan apologetics article in bits, so they’ll fit.
here’s the first:
The Nature of the Gods
Some comments from www.catholic.com’s neopaganism pages, answered.

Many neo-pagans advance the claim that there should not be a single world religion with a single deity or set of deities to be worshiped by all mankind, but rather each group should worship the gods of their ancestors or of their preference.

To be more specific, neopaganism asserts that there is plainly not a single deity or set of deities that is worshiped by all mankind. Simple observation of human interaction with the divine shows that the divine always manifests as multiple persons, forms and beings. In the same way, the core and universal principles of physical nature always produce multiple physical entities. As always, neopagans look to the facts of nature as a model for what the facts of spiritual existence will be.

The plain fact of the multiplicity of divine manifestations has led monotheism into some pretty wild assertions. The notion that all forms of the divine except those described in whoever’s revealed scripture are either simply fantasy or demons has been the traditional resort of the argument. Again, observation fails to support this idea. Descriptions of human relationships with the many-armed, skull-wearing deities of India, or the Gods of Voudoun and West African religion, or the still-simmering Neopagan relationships with the Deities all make it clear that such beings bless and aid their worshippers as surely as the deities of the Bible or Quran ever have.

When we look at material nature, we see a nearly infinite variety of forms and local expressions. In the same way the spiritual world has a riot of gods, local spirits, flows of energy and sacred potentials, which are expressed locally.
 
Karianne said:
Oh please! Catholics have been on the receiving end of some of the cruel words and it’s just wrong to turn around and do it to someone else…(edited for brevity)…Of course, some folks can blow off cruel words, but when you’re talking about another person’s spiritual beliefs, especially in a CATHOLIC forum one should at least TRY to be civil.
There’s enough unkindness and ridicule from the world.
Just stop.
Click to expand...
It is up any religious apologist to justify his particular beliefs, to show them to be reasonable (in accordance to the rules of reason), to make sense–i.e. to be believable by the standards of logic, example, and evidence. The beliefs that are more in accordance to this standard are to be held in higher regard than those that do not–this is not (per se) a value judgement on the believer who espouses an irrational statement–though a person who consistently make egregious errors that violate logic and evidence may quickly find himself being disregarded and labeled as a person who should be disregarded.

A statement or position (religious or non religious) can make “sense” (in accordance to reality) or “non-sense” (not in accordance to reality). There it is, flat, unambigious, unemotional, NOT personal or degrading.

(BTW, per Peter Kreeft, via CS Lewis and Aristotle: “One speaks the truth when one says of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not; one does not speak the truth when one says of what is that is not and of what is not that it is.”)
 
latin_rite said:
No we shouldn’t. It’s this “I’m ok you’re ok” attitude that hurts people in their faith. Was Jesus “civil” with those people? No he was very blunt and straight forward. It’s time Catholics went back to basics and stop handling these people with kid gloves. His word tells us that homosexuality is wrong, that abortion is wrong, that sex out side of marriage is wrong,
that paganisim/wiccan is wrong ok? (thats another thing i have against the nativity story Mary and joesph both appear to heed the words of a fortune teller, thats a sin and Mary was sinless). So it’s time we as followers of the Lord start heeding his words and tell them what is wrong and what is right. I for one will not compromise my faith corrupt Jesus teachings just so i won’t hurt someones feelings.
Click to expand...
You don’t have be rude and or crule to speak the truth and to be firm. Remember we Christ came to call sinners–not the righteous–when you a rude are you modeling Christ to others? Christ spoke the truth yes–but not in an unkind way to sinners. You will not draw people to God with unkind words. You are not speaking to Pharisees on this thread. Jesus was civil with people and the truth spoken in love is always far more powerful than the truth spoken in hate or contempt or in self-righteousness. We need to plant seeds and soften the hearts of unbelivers to Christs call and message–not harden their hearts and drive them away.
If you speak the truth but drive someone away from Christ and harden their heart against his call–do you think you’ve done right and good?

I for one think we can speak the truth in a civil manner and would encouage us to do so.

The peace of Christ
Mark
 
brotherhrolf said:
For myself, as a Catholic anthropologist and medieval historian, I wait to hear your explanations of how one reconstructs a largely oral tradition which has not been seen upon this earth for over a thousand years.
Click to expand...
Yes, we struggle with that ourselves. (I assume you refer especially to the ‘Druidic’ approach, since those wishing to revive, say, Athenian religion would have pretty firm pre-Christian documentation.) The formulaic answer is to cite up to 4 scholastic sources from which we draw. First, there are the comments of Greek and Roman writers. Second there are vernacular literatures, written down early in the christianization process. Third there is archeology, and fourth there are the remnants of folklore and customs in Celtic and Norse cultures. To these, we add comparative mythography and study of comparative ritual systems, especially from better-preserved branches of the Indo-European family, such as the Brahminic or Graeco-Roman religions.

Each of these presents only scraps and bits of the Old Ways. We entirely understand (despite the unscholastic excesses of some of our more poetical or popular writers) that what we end up with is a modern construct, that can only vaguely resemble what the ancients probably did. It isn’t unfair to suppose that, had the Old Ways not been extinguished by fire and the sword, their expression in our age would, itself, be greatly different from that of 2300 years ago. Nevertheless we hold as a goal for ourselves creating systems that the ancients would recognize as religion like their own, if they could see it.

Religion depends, always, upon inspiration. It is the flow of the divine spirit into human society through the words, images and deeds of humans that creates each and every religion. Paganism values that human power, and reverences the deities that we find through it. We even have a little term - Unverifiable Personal Gnosis (UPG ; ) that we use to refer to what we often resort to, to build flesh onto the bits of bone that scholarship offers. Such constructions are then verified by experiment - we try our ideas, in ritual, art and life, and if the results seem good, and it fits our aesthetic and intellectual preferences, it stays.

Neopaganism is a new religious movement, even though we seek our inspiration in the Old Ways. While we do have our legends of ancient origins, based mainly in the scholarship of 100 years or so ago, most all Neopagans today know that we’re doing something new, and making it ourselves, with the aid of the Gods and Spirits.

Ian
 
MarkInOregon said:
You don’t have be rude and or crule to speak the truth and to be firm. Remember we Christ came to call sinners–not the righteous–when you a rude are you modeling Christ to others? Christ spoke the truth yes–but not in an unkind way to sinners. You will not draw people to God with unkind words. You are not speaking to Pharisees on this thread. Jesus was civil with people and the truth spoken in love is always far more powerful than the truth spoken in hate or contempt or in self-righteousness. We need to plant seeds and soften the hearts of unbelivers to Christs call and message–not harden their hearts and drive them away.
If you speak the truth but drive someone away from Christ and harden their heart against his call–do you think you’ve done right and good?

I for one think we can speak the truth in a civil manner and would encouage us to do so.

The peace of Christ
Mark
Click to expand...
Who is being rude? These people are going to hell. And this is not by my judgment, but Jesus’s
 
IanCorrigan said:
HI all - thanks for finding a place for this material. I’ll post my answers to the anti-neo-pagan apologetics article in bits, so they’ll fit.
here’s the second:
Click to expand...
**This claim creates a problem for the neo-pagan understanding of the gods, and it is fair for the Catholic apologist to point it out. Consider the implications that arise, depending on how the gods were interpreted.

There would seem to be four basic ways of making sense of the claim that different people should worship different pagan pantheons: 1. The gods of different peoples really aren’t different but should be identified with each other (e.g., Zeus = Jupiter = Odin). 2. There are a great many individual gods governing different peoples. 3. The gods are projections created in some sense by the peoples that worship them. 4. The gods are merely symbols or aspects of something else. **

These questions were examined by the ancients as well. It’s worth pointing out that neopaganism, like its ancient models, does not depend on or require doctrinal unity for its cohesion. Pagan ways depend on ritual, vision and myth to produce experiences that are plainly true at the time. These experiences are not required to fit neatly into a doctrinal structure, and doctrine is more likely to be shaped by such experiences than the reverse. Paganism spends a great deal of time teaching how to achieve these experiences, and rather less time on apologetics and doctrine.

Devout Pagans are not all expected to believe the same things about the Gods, though we are expected to be willing to join together around the traditional forms and practices. So in any Pagan congregation (or party…) you will be likely to find folks with any of the above opinions, and lots of folks who haven’t decided on any one opinion about what the Gods are. There might be rather more agreement about what the Gods do – provide blessings of bounty, love and wisdom, open our hearts to the spirit, help us grow closer to the spirit of the world we live in, etc.
 
IanCorrigan said:
…
Neopaganism is a new religious movement, even though we seek our inspiration in the Old Ways. While we do have our legends of ancient origins, based mainly in the scholarship of 100 years or so ago, most all Neopagans today know that we’re doing something new, and making it ourselves, with the aid of the Gods and Spirits.

Ian
Click to expand...
Thank you for that qualifier. Some of us here, both on the Forum and “real” life have encountered some neo-pagans who don’t recognize that reality (most of them young and very arrogant)–and aggresivly reject any evidence to the contrary, even when it comes from Wiccan sources, like Ronald Hutton
 
latin_rite said:
No we shouldn’t. It’s this “I’m ok you’re ok” attitude that hurts people in their faith. Was Jesus “civil” with those people? No he was very blunt and straight forward. It’s time Catholics went back to basics and stop handling these people with kid gloves. His word tells us that homosexuality is wrong, that abortion is wrong, that sex out side of marriage is wrong,
that paganisim/wiccan is wrong ok? (thats another thing i have against the nativity story Mary and joesph both appear to heed the words of a fortune teller, thats a sin and Mary was sinless). So it’s time we as followers of the Lord start heeding his words and tell them what is wrong and what is right. I for one will not compromise my faith corrupt Jesus teachings just so i won’t hurt someones feelings.
Click to expand...
You cannot be serious.
FYI, you don’t have to hurt someone’s feelings just because you disagree with them.
The Church doesn’t teach that homosexuality is wrong, btw. The Church teaches that it is a morally neutral position.
Engaging in homosexual sex in what the Church forbids.
So before you get all puffed up get your facts straight, especially if you are speaking on behalf of Catholicism.

Going back to basics does not necessarily losing your good manners.
 
IanCorrigan said:
Hello all

My name is Ian Corrigan, and I am a nearly life-long Pagan, having been studying, practicing and leading Pagan, Wiccan and neo-Druidic ways for some 30 years.

In my web-searching, I ran across this site’s Anti-Neo-Pagan Apologetics article [. Let me say at the outset that I was pleased to see our ways given a thoughtful and unsensational treatment. For that you have my thanks.

I am a devout Pagan, but also rather a hobbyist of religion and theology. Unlike many modern Pagans I actually enjoy theological reasoning, and the work of apologetics. I was moved to write a short answer to the critique in your article. I ran it past some of my Pagan colleagues, and several thought I should post it to you folks, here. However, it is too long to fit in a message, and, of course, attachments aren’t permitted.

I’d love to show it to those who are interested in such things. Should I post it here in sections? any interest? Thanks again for your sane and sensible responses to one of the fastest growing new religious movements in the english-speaking world.

Sincerely
Ian Corrigan](http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305bt.asp)

if you’re a apologist, you must have the easiest job in the world . Since…Well i’m apprantly not allowed to say why .
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top