collapse

* Recent Posts

"Christ Is King" by Altair
[Today at 01:09:34 am]


Re: Cill Shift Schedule by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 11:04:57 pm]


Re: Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 11:21:37 pm]


Re: Spring Has Sprung! 2024 Edition by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 10:24:10 pm]


Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by Altair
[March 21, 2024, 02:52:34 pm]

Author Topic: General/Non-Specific: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions  (Read 4954 times)

Yei

  • Sr. Master Member
  • *******
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 593
  • Country: au
  • Total likes: 182
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Mexica Reconstructionism
  • Preferred Pronouns: He/Him/His
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2017, 11:39:00 pm »
Can any fact be looked at like that, or is it theological facts?  Obviously there many areas in life where we are expected to learn what is considered fact.  And fact exists independently of belief.

Often though, 'facts' are not actually 'facts'. Be this historical, cultural, or psychological. It is especially true in areas such as ethics and morality. It is difficult to even realise that supposed facts are really the product of convention, or even assumption, and not any revelation on objective reality.

We tend to take reality for granted. It is only when looking closely though, does this become apparent.

Faemon

  • Grand Master Member
  • *******
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • Posts: 1229
  • Total likes: 9
    • View Profile
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #16 on: September 18, 2017, 03:32:24 am »
A friend of mine is prone to noting that truth is a statement about the insides of people's heads.  It's a feeling, a resonance.  And that resonance is very intimately and personally important, but because it's about the inside of an individual person's head, that importance is very, very individual.  Truth doesn't necessarily line up with fact - there are lies that give people that warm fuzzy truth feeling, after all - and a lot of truths are completely fact-irrelevant, like the ones in myths.

I react to that with massive discomfort. There's narratives and spiritual truths that are harmless for one to continue believing as well as while another doesn't feel the resonance, fair enough, but there's the truth of a poem and then there's...

...there's creeds like "Jews will not replace us" that rely on underlying narratives that are just that, underlying.

It's harmful to shrug off some narratives with, "Well that's their truth" and leave them to it.

I don't believe someone can just keep saying "truth, truth, truth" from feelings without having earned meaningfulness for that word through evidence and reasoning.

Dogma is awful. Getting lost in moral relativism is hardly better.
The Codex of Poesy: wishcraft, faelatry, alchemy, and other slight misspellings.
the Otherfaith: Chromatic Genderbending Faery Monarchs of Technology. DeviantArt

Yei

  • Sr. Master Member
  • *******
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 593
  • Country: au
  • Total likes: 182
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Mexica Reconstructionism
  • Preferred Pronouns: He/Him/His
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #17 on: September 18, 2017, 08:38:03 am »
I react to that with massive discomfort. There's narratives and spiritual truths that are harmless for one to continue believing as well as while another doesn't feel the resonance, fair enough, but there's the truth of a poem and then there's...

...there's creeds like "Jews will not replace us" that rely on underlying narratives that are just that, underlying.

It's harmful to shrug off some narratives with, "Well that's their truth" and leave them to it.

I don't believe someone can just keep saying "truth, truth, truth" from feelings without having earned meaningfulness for that word through evidence and reasoning.

Dogma is awful. Getting lost in moral relativism is hardly better.

Nobody said that 'truth' was something that everyone has to accept. Especially when those 'truths' prevent one from accepting anyone else's.

Darkhawk

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Posts: 5219
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1123
    • View Profile
    • Suns in her Branches
  • Religion: An American Werewolf in the Akhet; Kemetic; Feri; Imaginary Baltic Heathen; Discordian; UU; CoX; Etc
  • Preferred Pronouns: any of he, they, she
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #18 on: September 18, 2017, 09:44:14 am »
Can any fact be looked at like that, or is it theological facts?  Obviously there many areas in life where we are expected to learn what is considered fact.  And fact exists independently of belief.

There is no such thing as a "theological fact".
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Posts: 5219
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1123
    • View Profile
    • Suns in her Branches
  • Religion: An American Werewolf in the Akhet; Kemetic; Feri; Imaginary Baltic Heathen; Discordian; UU; CoX; Etc
  • Preferred Pronouns: any of he, they, she
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #19 on: September 18, 2017, 09:47:46 am »
I can see spirits limited like that, but not deity.  But that's just me.

Then you're not a polytheist.

A large number of pagans are, and if you operate under the assumption that they'll share beliefs that are completely antithetical to the concept of polytheism you're going to have communication problems.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Posts: 5219
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1123
    • View Profile
    • Suns in her Branches
  • Religion: An American Werewolf in the Akhet; Kemetic; Feri; Imaginary Baltic Heathen; Discordian; UU; CoX; Etc
  • Preferred Pronouns: any of he, they, she
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #20 on: September 18, 2017, 09:56:00 am »
I react to that with massive discomfort. There's narratives and spiritual truths that are harmless for one to continue believing as well as while another doesn't feel the resonance, fair enough, but there's the truth of a poem and then there's...

...there's creeds like "Jews will not replace us" that rely on underlying narratives that are just that, underlying.

It's harmful to shrug off some narratives with, "Well that's their truth" and leave them to it.

WHo's shrugging off?  Looks like you're assuming some nonsense and throwing it out.

Those people have demonstrated that their sense of what is true has no relationship to facts, to decency, to basic humanity.  They want to make their feelings important.

I will point out to you directly that I have been actively arguing against the idea that "feelings" and "beliefs" are a good thing to organsise anything around.  Did you somehow manage to take away the impression that I am in favor of creedal logic?

When someone's feelings have no relationship to reality, and they make that clear, then you know that discussing the facts with them will not make any difference.  They don't care.  A reasoned debate is not possible.  Don't bother them with facts; their minds are made up.  They feel.  They believe.  They come from a perspective where believing is what's important.

That doesn't mean "oh, well, they don't talk, so just walk away and leave them to it" like the handwringing liberal-centrist sorts would like to put forward.

It means oppose them by means that will actually register to them.

You can't fight someone who has their teeth in a Truth with narrative.  They already have a story that makes them happy.  You can't take away a story that someone has, it's in their heads.

Care about action.  Do action, do behaviour.  Pretending that once people are set on their narrative the only thing to do is walk away is bullshit and beneath you.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Faemon

  • Grand Master Member
  • *******
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • Posts: 1229
  • Total likes: 9
    • View Profile
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #21 on: September 20, 2017, 08:16:17 pm »
Nobody said that 'truth' was something that everyone has to accept. Especially when those 'truths' prevent one from accepting anyone else's.
Wouldn't agreement to acceptable conduct between people of different truths, itself be a truth in the sense used here? (To sustain a quality of a space, then, those in it would ideally be subject to the assertion of that truth.) Or being aware of the standard of what is a different enough truth in the sense and direction of being especially unaccepting, unacceptable and harmful—not just that it's annoying, confounding, unfamiliar and therefore untrue pithily because it's different.

Those people have demonstrated that their sense of what is true has no relationship to facts, to decency, to basic humanity.  They want to make their feelings important.
This is well put despite my continued disagreement with your truth/fact dichotomy, but I just want to clarify with the abovequoted in relation to the thread: Feelings, or personal spiritual experiences can be held as important, under the condition that: 1. It matches the facts (more benignly but still wrong, no "ancient potato goddess" of the Old World), 2. It is expressed with decency 3. It relates to basic humanity.

To the original poster—Would this be closer to what you were asking?

Quote
I will point out to you directly that I have been actively arguing against the idea that "feelings" and "beliefs" are a good thing to organsise anything around.  Did you somehow manage to take away the impression that I am in favor of creedal logic?
Yes. Not with those specific creeds, necessarily. But I stand corrected.

Quote
You can't fight someone who has their teeth in a Truth with narrative.  They already have a story that makes them happy.  You can't take away a story that someone has, it's in their heads.

Care about action.  Do action, do behaviour.  Pretending that once people are set on their narrative the only thing to do is walk away is bullshit and beneath you.
Why thank you. But no, I nope out like Rincewind.
The Codex of Poesy: wishcraft, faelatry, alchemy, and other slight misspellings.
the Otherfaith: Chromatic Genderbending Faery Monarchs of Technology. DeviantArt

Darkhawk

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Posts: 5219
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1123
    • View Profile
    • Suns in her Branches
  • Religion: An American Werewolf in the Akhet; Kemetic; Feri; Imaginary Baltic Heathen; Discordian; UU; CoX; Etc
  • Preferred Pronouns: any of he, they, she
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2017, 10:40:45 pm »
Wouldn't agreement to acceptable conduct between people of different truths, itself be a truth in the sense used here?

I don't see how it could be a truth in any sense.  It's just an agreement to particular behaviour.  There's nothing true or false about it.

I genuinely cannot figure out what it would mean for an agreement to be true.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Yei

  • Sr. Master Member
  • *******
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 593
  • Country: au
  • Total likes: 182
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Mexica Reconstructionism
  • Preferred Pronouns: He/Him/His
Re: Wicca vs. Shaminism belief questions
« Reply #23 on: September 21, 2017, 07:27:28 am »
Wouldn't agreement to acceptable conduct between people of different truths, itself be a truth in the sense used here? (To sustain a quality of a space, then, those in it would ideally be subject to the assertion of that truth.) Or being aware of the standard of what is a different enough truth in the sense and direction of being especially unaccepting, unacceptable and harmful—not just that it's annoying, confounding, unfamiliar and therefore untrue pithily because it's different.

I don't see how it could be a truth in any sense.  It's just an agreement to particular behaviour.  There's nothing true or false about it.

I genuinely cannot figure out what it would mean for an agreement to be true.

I don't think any response I could make would be more on point than the above.

Tags:
 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
8 Replies
2783 Views
Last post November 14, 2011, 08:09:31 am
by RandallS
0 Replies
1247 Views
Last post January 27, 2012, 07:38:37 pm
by Tryphena
8 Replies
2118 Views
Last post July 02, 2012, 04:33:04 pm
by Serpent
10 Replies
1667 Views
Last post April 01, 2013, 09:56:57 pm
by Emma Eldritch
1 Replies
1393 Views
Last post July 14, 2016, 07:07:14 pm
by Jenett

Beginner Area

Warning: You are currently in a Beginner Friendly area of the message board.

* Who's Online

  • Dot Guests: 199
  • Dot Hidden: 0
  • Dot Users: 1
  • Dot Users Online:

* Please Donate!

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

* Shop & Support TC

The links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links you will go to the listed shopping site with The Cauldron's affiliate code. Any purchases you make during your visit will earn TC a tiny percentage of your purchase price at no extra cost to you.

* In Memoriam

Chavi (2006)
Elspeth (2010)
Marilyn (2013)

* Cauldron Staff

Host:
Sunflower

Message Board Staff
Board Coordinator:
Darkhawk

Assistant Board Coordinator:
Aster Breo

Senior Staff:
Aisling, Allaya, Jenett, Sefiru

Staff:
Ashmire, EclecticWheel, HarpingHawke, Kylara, PerditaPickle, rocquelaire

Discord Chat Staff
Chat Coordinator:
Morag

'Up All Night' Coordinator:
Altair

Cauldron Council:
Bob, Catja, Chatelaine, Emma-Eldritch, Fausta, Jubes, Kelly, LyricFox, Phouka, Sperran, Star, Steve, Tana

Site Administrator:
Randall

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal