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Author Topic: Logic and paganism  (Read 2375 times)

ovjanelle

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Logic and paganism
« on: June 26, 2015, 03:42:21 pm »
a lot of people argue that paganism is wishy washy new aged crap. My dad would be one of those people. I know my faith is right for me because it feels right and comfortable but I just want to be able to defend my faith when I decide to come out of the broom closet to my parents in the future. How do you make a sound logical argument for a magical religion?? My dad manages to make logical arguments for Christianity but I don't know how to even do that for Christianity. I'm not a very logical person to be honest. I just want to be able to defend myself when the time comes. I'm bad at confrontation and I tend to have no backbone toward him.

Darkhawk

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2015, 04:11:45 pm »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176498


 
Honestly, I would recommend sticking to "I'm not going to discuss this with you if you're going to be rude about it" rather than get embroiled in an argument about it?

Because as soon as you start the argument, you're agreeing that he gets to argue.
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ovjanelle

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2015, 04:37:32 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;176499
Honestly, I would recommend sticking to "I'm not going to discuss this with you if you're going to be rude about it" rather than get embroiled in an argument about it?

Because as soon as you start the argument, you're agreeing that he gets to argue.

 you've got a point.

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2015, 06:24:35 pm »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176498
I'm not a very logical person to be honest. I just want to be able to defend myself when the time comes. I'm bad at confrontation and I tend to have no backbone toward him.

 
There are a number of books out there - your local library will have lots - about how to have difficult conversations. (They're the kind of thing you can totally pick up and say "Someone at school/work/whatever else you do that your parents know about suggested that this is a good skill set to have.")

But a lot of the core of the idea is "When you're having conversations with people you care about but who really dislike the thing you are talking about, figure out what stuff is going to matter to them."

My mother (devout Catholic) found things a lot easier with me when a) I gave her an explanation of magic that wasn't particularly supernatural (I think that's an option, but I thnk a lot more of magical practice is being aware of yourself and making and opening yourself up to changes that work better for you, and that's a model that's very similar to some approaches to prayer she's familiar with.) and b) when she'd had a bunch of time to see that the basic ways I behaved weren't that different than before.

It also helps to have some answers to some practical stuff (you know your parents best, but this might be questions or fears about how it could affect your professional life, your relationships, whether you've been pressured into this, whether you've thought about it enough.) Some of them are really invasive or rude or otherwise problematic questions, but parents are like that, even if your parents are otherwise loving, good, caring people.

(If your parents are not those things, then it gets more complicated, of course.)

There's a lot of good material out there for LGBT teens and young adults on how to talk to family members and deal with those kinds of questions and recognise the difference between caring but really awkward or upsetting questions, and other kinds of interactions that you want to treat differently. (Again, your library probably has a bunch, and if you don't want to check them out, you can go and read stuff there, or get on the Kindle. Most of them aren't really big books.)

I don't have titles handy at the moment, because my books are unpacked but not at all sorted, but "difficult conversations" is in titles for a bunch of the ones I know about, somehwere. For talking to someone who also wants a very logical mode of discussion, I also really recommend Suzette Haden Elgin's books in the "Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defence" are fantastic. (The original one by that title has a 2009 updated edition, and is probably where I'd start, but there's a couple of others that might also interest you.)
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StagTracker

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2015, 03:10:34 pm »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176498
a lot of people argue that paganism is wishy washy new aged crap. My dad would be one of those people. I know my faith is right for me because it feels right and comfortable but I just want to be able to defend my faith when I decide to come out of the broom closet to my parents in the future. How do you make a sound logical argument for a magical religion?? My dad manages to make logical arguments for Christianity but I don't know how to even do that for Christianity. I'm not a very logical person to be honest. I just want to be able to defend myself when the time comes. I'm bad at confrontation and I tend to have no backbone toward him.


One book that laid Paganism out nicely for me when I first started exploring it was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by Joyce and River Higgenbotham.  It lays things out in a pretty straightforward manner and even includes topics like "do Pagans worship the devil."

In terms of magical practice, the things that helped me get around my own original skepticism were to look at magical workings from the standpoint of quantum physics and psychology.  The way I look at it, magical workings are, at their core, a way of putting out intention into the universe in order to influence events according to our will or intention but also in tandem with the natural flow of the cosmos.  It's not unlike the idea that we influence events just by observing them.  We're just observing them with a desired outcome.

On the psychological side, magical works can be viewed as a way to retrain our thinking patterns.  It's very similar phenomenon to daily affirmations, meditative tools, mantras, and all kinds of other things that have been found to have benefits in addressing negative patterns of behavior and promoting positive patterns.

I would also think about the arguments he has made for Christianity and consider how those same statements can be made to work for Paganism.  In reality, all spiritual paths have many similarities, it just boils down to which one resonates with an individual.  Sadly, many people consider their path "logical" while dismissing others, but Christianity is in no ways more logical than another spiritual path.  It's simply more widely accepted.  Perhaps consider what points he will make in favor of Christianity and come up with counters that demonstrate why Paganism resonates more with you on those same points.

Remember, however, to remain civil.  You want to discuss it, not argue about it.

One description I have heard of spiritual paths that I like is that they are all like spokes on a wheel.  They all come from the rim to converge at the same point.  The problem is they are all different vectors.  When someone is following one vector, such as Christianity, they may view people on paths from the other side of the wheel as "going the wrong direction"... that is, traveling on an opposing vector.  What they fail to recognize is that all of the vectors converge at the same point of ultimate universal truth... something that no single vector can adequately encompass or truly know.  So just because people are on different vectors doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong.  They're just different.  It's a variation on the "many roads lead to the top of the mountain" theme.

Darkhawk

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2015, 09:10:31 pm »
:eek:
Quote from: StagTracker;176556
One book that laid Paganism out nicely for me when I first started exploring it was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by Joyce and River Higgenbotham.  It lays things out in a pretty straightforward manner and even includes topics like "do Pagans worship the devil."


I've heard good things about this book in some places?  But at the same time, "earth-centered religions" is one of those phrases that makes me cringe because it is at best misleading (if not actively false), and dear gods I wish other pagans would take the stick out of their butts about Lucifer.  (As Elfwreck put it once, "Pagans appear to fear the Abrahamic penis.")

Quote
I would also think about the arguments he has made for Christianity and consider how those same statements can be made to work for Paganism.  


THough it is worth noting that apologetics - that being the category of "arguments made for Christianity" - are much, much more relevant to religions that are seeking converts, which is reasonably uncommon among pagans.

Many people who want to have Argument About Religion are operating under the principle that one is trying to convince the other party of one's correctness; starting from "I'm happy with my thing and I don't care if you also like my thing" like many pagans do tends to make any such arguments really bloody frustrating.

Quote
What they fail to recognize is that all of the vectors converge at the same point of ultimate universal truth... something that no single vector can adequately encompass or truly know.  So just because people are on different vectors doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong.  They're just different.  It's a variation on the "many roads lead to the top of the mountain" theme.

 
Though it's worth keeping in mind that many people disagree that there are shared ultimate truths to be had.  (Consider: transcendent religion vs. embodied religion, or 'escape the wheel of reincarnation' religion vs. 'keep coming back around 'cos it's awesome' religion.)
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Louisvillian

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2015, 05:55:59 am »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176498
a lot of people argue that paganism is wishy washy new aged crap.

As a broad generalization, it's inaccurate, because the Modern Pagan movement is so varied and diverse. But I'm not going to lie, New Age spirituality has a lot of cross-pollination with Neopaganism.

Quote
How do you make a sound logical argument for a magical religion?

Look into the kind of arguments used by Western Occultists in the Renaissance up through the early 20th century. Some of it is pretty rooted in proto-science, though some of it is also pseudoscience.
Ultimately, though, a lot of it gets down to personal experience. It is mysticism, after all. And that kind of stuff is difficult to handle logically, let alone argue for. It's subjective.

Quote
My dad manages to make logical arguments for Christianity

Admittedly, Christianity has had two thousand years to build those.

ovjanelle

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #7 on: June 28, 2015, 08:05:42 am »
Quote from: StagTracker;176556


Remember, however, to remain civil.  You want to discuss it, not argue about it.


 
Admittedly this is where I struggle. Just the other day I made a post about how happy I was that gay marriage has finally been made legal across the states and then got into a kind of debate thing in the comments. I didn't mean to come off as rude in the comments but apparently I did. Then when my parents confronted me they were very aggressive and I had a hard time keeping my cool and I wound up running away to my room to keep myself from getting louder about it. I get loud when I'm scared or experiencing confrontation. It's hard for me to remain civil and I really don't know how. :c


Also also thankyou for your book recommendation. The quantum physics comparison was pretty neat too. Thankyou <3

RandallS

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #8 on: June 28, 2015, 08:21:39 am »
Quote from: Darkhawk;176564
I've heard good things about this book in some places?  But at the same time, "earth-centered religions" is one of those phrases that makes me cringe because it is at best misleading (if not actively false), and dear gods I wish other pagans would take the stick out of their butts about Lucifer.  (As Elfwreck put it once, "Pagans appear to fear the Abrahamic penis.")

Here is my review of the book from our website -- I had real problems with this book when I reviewed it years ago and I still have them today. However, if one isn't a beginner and understands that Paganism is many religions, some of which do not have the Wiccish beliefs this book claims Pagans do, this book has ideas that can be used for discussion.

Quote
With Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions,  Joyce and River Higginbotham have attempted to place their decade of  experience in teaching classes on Paganism into book form. Translating  classroom teaching experience into book form is always a hard task. The  Higginbothams have managed, however, turning their classroom methods  into text form quite nicely and very readably. This book has received  rave reviews from many Pagans. Unfortunately, it will not be receiving  such a review here.

I had fairly high hopes for this book when I picked it up.  Unfortunately, they were dashed almost immediately. In the second  sentence of the first chapter, the authors state that Paganism is an  umbrella term for many different "denominations" of Paganism. My heart  froze. Paganism is indeed an umbrella term, but for many separate religions,  many of which share little in common except being under the Pagan  umbrella.  To refer to them as denominations would be like calling  Christianity and Islam "denominations" of Judaism because they are all  monotheist religions. I continued reading, thinking to myself that  perhaps this terminology was just an aberration.  

Unfortunately, it was not. The fourth page starts listing the  characteristics of Paganism with "Paganism is a religion." That's right:  one religion, not many. This fatal flaw surfaces through the book.  While Paganism occasionally mentions non-Wicca based religions  like Asatru, it still presents Paganism as a single religion that uses  the earth-centered Wheel of the Year as its holidays, believes  everything is sacred, believes in life after death, follows a Rede-like  ethics (although there is a mention of the Nine Noble Virtues used by  some Asatru), uses magick and tools like the athame, etc. While all of  this is true for most traditions of Wicca and for Pagan religions based  on Wicca, many of the facts about Paganism listed in this book simply  are not true for other Pagan religions.  

In my opinion, any introductory book on Paganism which teaches  its readers that Paganism is this single religion with basically  Wiccan-like beliefs is a book that all true beginners should be urged to  avoid. There are too many Pagans now who are shocked to discover that  not all Pagan religions are earth-centered, Goddess-oriented,  magick-using, and Rede-following. The Pagan community does not need more  introductory books that perpetuate such myths. Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions does and therefore I cannot recommend this book to those trying to find out what Paganism is.  

Despite this fatal problem for beginners, the Higginbothams' book  is an interesting resource for those teaching classes on Paganism. Many  of the exercises in this book are original and useful for getting  people to think about the various ideas about deity, religion, and  spirituality.  For example, the "God Map" in the "A Pagan View of Deity"  chapter would be a useful tool for showing the different views of deity  that various religions, both Pagan and non-Pagan, have in a simplified  and introductory way. While I cannot recommend this book for its  intended main audience of those interested in finding out about  Paganism, I believe that those teaching classes on Paganism should take a  look at this book for for its many interesting teaching methods and  exercises.  
« Last Edit: June 28, 2015, 08:33:13 am by RandallS »
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HeartShadow

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #9 on: June 28, 2015, 11:24:05 am »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176584
Admittedly this is where I struggle. Just the other day I made a post about how happy I was that gay marriage has finally been made legal across the states and then got into a kind of debate thing in the comments. I didn't mean to come off as rude in the comments but apparently I did. Then when my parents confronted me they were very aggressive and I had a hard time keeping my cool and I wound up running away to my room to keep myself from getting louder about it. I get loud when I'm scared or experiencing confrontation. It's hard for me to remain civil and I really don't know how. :c

 
It sounds like your family is giving you rules for "proper behavior" without modeling it for you.  Which sucks.

And - coming across as aggressive in FB comments?  that's also tone-policing to a crazy extent.  It's hard to NOT come across as /insert emotion here/ if people are looking for it.

As far as telling your parents about being pagan - Stop a minute.  WHY do you want to tell them?  What's the goal?  Start with what you're looking for out of the discussion and work backwards.

If there's no good answers, there's no reason to start trouble you don't have to.  Especially when you're still living under their roof.

veggiewolf

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2015, 02:20:14 pm »
Quote from: HeartShadow;176590
...

As far as telling your parents about being pagan - Stop a minute.  WHY do you want to tell them?  What's the goal?  Start with what you're looking for out of the discussion and work backwards.

If there's no good answers, there's no reason to start trouble you don't have to.  Especially when you're still living under their roof.


I tend to operate from a "need to know" perspective, which is largely why I am out as non-Christian (and other things) to most people but not my parents.  There's no reason for them to know, and a lot of turmoil and hurt would come out of it, so I refrain from mentioning.

I do recognize, though, that this doesn't work for everyone in every situation.
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Louisvillian

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #11 on: July 01, 2015, 02:44:39 am »
Quote from: RandallS;176586
However, if one isn't a beginner and understands that Paganism is many religions, some of which do not have the Wiccish beliefs this book claims Pagans do, this book has ideas that can be used for discussion.

I agree. It was one of the first books I read when I was exploring Paganism, but I also was a heavy reader on the internet of various sites and web encyclopaedia articles on Wicca and Paganism. So I knew enough to take not all of it seriously.
It's a sensible book if you go in knowing that the Higginbothams are solidly in the Eclectic Neopagan/Wiccanate intellectual tradition, and that their books reflect this.

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2015, 06:40:28 pm »
Quote from: ovjanelle;176498
a lot of people argue that paganism is wishy washy new aged crap. My dad would be one of those people. I know my faith is right for me because it feels right and comfortable but I just want to be able to defend my faith when I decide to come out of the broom closet to my parents in the future. How do you make a sound logical argument for a magical religion??

 
I'd focus less on the magic part. I think *way* too much energy gets wasted on presenting Paganism with the "but magic is really good/not Harry Potter" "witch actually means X" stuff.

Honestly a lot of folk magic is practiced along side Christianity & Judaism. But mostly it's a "slot" that doesn't exist mentally for a lot of people. Instead, I'd talk about how it's about connecting with the Divine thru nature. (Yes, I know Not All Paganisms are "nature-y" but if you're talking about Wicca...) Nothing wrong with adjusting your "elevator speech" for people who don't really care anyway. Save good explanations for people who actually are interested in knowing good information. If your Dad is mostly the skeptical type, that might end up being easier to deal with than the fundamentalist. If he's not actually worried about you joining a cult/going to hell etc. and just thinks its weird or silly, it's insulting but at least not actively hostile.

Freesia

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2015, 05:33:44 pm »
Quote from: veggiewolf;176708
I tend to operate from a "need to know" perspective, which is largely why I am out as non-Christian (and other things) to most people but not my parents.  There's no reason for them to know, and a lot of turmoil and hurt would come out of it, so I refrain from mentioning.

I do recognize, though, that this doesn't work for everyone in every situation.

 
I concur. I think belief and practice does not need to be open for public scrutiny even if it is family. You have no reason to feel guilty for having thoughts and ideas that are different from your parents.

As for your Facebook posts, most adults understand that young people feel strong emotions and fewer qualms about displaying them online. Your parents are experiencing control issues over your online presence and they don't seem to be rational at speaking to you without blowing up. These people do not seem to be rational enough to talk to about your personal beliefs at this time or ever.

As a side note, you may need to be less social on Facebook in order to preserve your sanity.

Lux Nocturnalis

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Re: Logic and paganism
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2015, 05:40:13 am »
Quote from: veggiewolf;176708
I tend to operate from a "need to know" perspective

Same with me. I don't go out of my way to make it obvious, but I don't go out of my way to hide it, either.

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