Against Worship

When I first began reading books on Neopaganism, interactions with deities being described with words such as "communing" turned me off. As far as I could tell, religion largely consists of the worship of deities. Deities are better than us, and we ask favors of them. This is true of religions all over the world, even so-called "atheist" religions like Buddhism. Thus, I thought Wiccan descriptions of communing with the God and Goddess just as silly as Christians who talk about having a "personal relationship" with Jesus, a historically anachronistic (and thus wrong, in my view) theology if there ever was one.

But what's so great about worship? I certainly don't think much of worship in any other context. Worship of political figures disgusts me; I have to bite my tongue when I see friends fawning over Obama (or Reagan for that matter, but that's not so common now). Worship of sports heroes or movie stars is simply bizarre. The number of famous people deserving of admiration is really quite small, and I have never found anyone I thought I could adore, fawn over, or worship.

I don't think worship is healthy in any form, however mild it may seem. I realize that many people are inspired by people who are great at what they do, and that this attitude often tends toward worship. So is worship in that context a good thing? No, I say, for two reasons:

1. Even if someone becomes a great pianist or scientist or writer because they are inspired by some great figure in that field, that doesn't mean that behavior is healthy. Need I remind everyone that the highly driven type A personalities who reach the top in their field often struggle with psychological problems and/or misuse and abuse their loved ones? They are often deeply unhappy despite the obsessions that make them great; in fact, the obsession that makes them great probably leads to their misery. They often cause great harm to others. So as much as I often respect the quality of the work produced by such people, I cannot say that it justifies the hero worship.
2. Being inspired by a great person is different from worshiping them. They are separable, at least in theory. I could be inspired by a great pianist to work hard and become a great pianist myself, even though I don't think much of that great pianist personally aside from their natural talent and work ethic.

When we do see people worshiping other people in a political context, it is never a good sign. Those who seek power are corrupt, and those who actually grasp it even more so. Power in whatever form corrupts even the best of people (see a previous post of mine on how this can happen in Pagan communities). On an even stronger note, I would add that to have a leader is to ask for problems, and for similar reasons. Power by itself tends to produce admiration and worship. That is no doubt why the Occupy movement has thus far eschewed electing leaders.

If I were still a Christian and believed that God demanded worship, I would probably attempt to find a way to justify it despite my misgivings about worship in any other context. Luckily, I am not; I'm just a Pagan, and now I'm beginning to rethink my relationship with the God and Goddess in light of this newfound attitude toward worship.

To Be Spiritual Is To Act Spiritual

Due to some personal difficulties, my religious practice has waned a bit as of late, as one can see from my blog entries. I have been reading leftist literature, so my intellectual life hasn't quite dried up (I just started D'Amato's The Meaning of Marxism), but I haven't had the time or inclination to continue with what meager Wiccan practice I was doing in the first place.

I do think this is important. I suspect that many Pagans spend little of their time doing their religion. I don't actually have any evidence of this other than my online reading; I haven't really met many real-life Pagans yet. But a spirituality that isn't practiced never goes anywhere, never develops. I can call myself a Wiccan, but that won't mean anything if I don't do anything about it. Religion, like almost any aspect of life, is mostly in the doing. Can you imagine someone calling themselves a tennis player if almost all they did was occasionally watch tennis or read about it?

I've dropped the ball! I suspect some going back to some Wiccan ritual would particularly do me good right now; it is indeed a paradox that when we most need to do something is when we feel most averse to doing it!

Radical Feminism in Wicca

I recently read a blog post by a male Pagan who is upset by those radical feminists whose embrace of Neopaganism makes them the female embodiment of the sexism and misogyny of traditional religions. He is particularly disturbed by the accusation that men are robots acting out "sperm wars." I instantly recognized this phrase as either coming out of or being related to evolutionary psychology. I haven't read much specifically on that subject, but we did discuss it a bit when I took philosophy of science.

I think evolutionary psychology and evolutionary explanations for human behavior are fine, as long as they don't become reductive. Let me explain. A common explanation given for human mating behavior (= who you are likely to want to sleep with) is that men can basically give sperm away without any consequences, while a woman who has sex with a man is potentially going to be giving up, at a minimum, nine months of her life, not to mention the energy costs of childrearing. So men are, so it is alleged, "programmed" to be promiscuous, and women are "programmed" to be picky. Women may be so picky that they won't be satisfied with the husband they're stuck with, but "sleep around" to get the best sperm.

I don't find this particularly offensive, especially because this hypothesis is just dealing in trends, trends which, I assume, are fairly well-established. I've known women who loved sex and weren't particularly picky. And there are many men who are truly happy with just one woman.

Of course the assumption that these trends are well-established may be false! I don't know. I do think that this sort of thing can sound suspiciously like a just-so story. But anyway, this trend, assuming it's real, should not cause us trouble until we begin stereotyping people or excluding people from our social circles based on it.

Why? Well, let's look at other prejudices. There are all sorts of racial and cultural stereotypes, and most of them are frowned upon in modern, free societies, even when there is a factual foundation for them. After all, they just represent trends (real or false), and it is important that we approach each human being as a unique individual. She or he may belong to a group that (is alleged to) tend to be X, but prejudging them based on X is harmful and unfair, since there is a strong possibility that they aren't X at all.

So evolutionary psychology is pretty worthless when it comes to the battle of the sexes. Even if men are as a rule more likely to have certain undesirable traits, that doesn't mean all or even most men have those traits. This particular male Pagan is really upset by the radical feminists in e.g. Dianic Wicca or other Neopagan groups who "don't need men" and are extremely sexist, in the same way that traditional religions were sexist against women. I don't know what to think about that. I have seen and heard about so many idiots in my life that I don't have any strong hope that ideals, like male-female polarity and equality in Wicca, will actually translate into real behavior. It certainly was hardly the case in the Christian communities I frequently for a decade or so. Why should it be any better among Neopagans? The radical feminists who despise men probably have some reason for their hatred. I'll be blunt and say that such hatred is just as idiotic and myopic as the misogyny a friend of mine clings to. But I can't control anyone, and if Paganism is truly a free approach to religious values, then I can't get personally miffed about the stupidity of other Pagans -- certainly not the way I used to get angry when I saw bad Christians.

Dinner and a Show

Apologies in advance for any offense I cause here. Let me state at the outset that I have no conscious bias against or even dislike of non-heterosexuals. I just had a friend out himself to me and nothing has changed between us. My concern is purely about the consistency of Wiccan cosmology and theology. I haven't written about this topic anywhere before and realize that I might come off as callous or worse.

The other night I went to dinner with some friends. One person at a table not far from us dropped a plate, and someone at another table began making comments, getting louder with "kids these days are worthless." A woman at the same table where the plate was dropped took umbrage, and an argument ensued. At one point I thought it might get violent. The guy who started it went into a strange tirade featuring the usual social conservative talking points about how "no one teaches kids morals these days," etc. He and his companions eventually left in a huff.

Anyway, that was the "show," since it was briefly entertaining before it got ugly.

Afterwards it took us a little while to figure out what had really happened, since dropping a plate hardly seems to be evidence of the moral decay of society. At first we thought it was a woman defending her children. We saw that she was with another woman, who had a "butch" haircut and, well... so we decided it was a same-sex couple and their kids. Eventually we realized that it was an "LGBT club" or something.

Anyway, we finally figured out that the guy who started the whole mess was a homophobe (he had a seat facing the group and had figured things out before us), and that his real beef was seeing a bunch of gay people congregating. One of my friends who had not been facing this guy had thought he was a woman with a raspy voice, and that made me ponder the idea that homophobes are often repressed homosexuals, a claim backed up by one study from 1996. That's obviously not enough evidence by itself, but it certainly explains this case. Of course who knows if it's true, but the homophobia we're sure about.

We wondered at the time why the woman didn't pick up on the homophobia, but later we realized she did. She must have dealt with this kind of thing before, which explains her immediate and strong reaction as well.

Although homophobia is certainly rampant in conservative Christianity, I find it interesting that Gardner's Wicca also considered homosexuality a deviant form of behavior at first, in keeping with the times in which it developed. And it seems to make sense as well, since Wiccan cosmology and myth deals in polarities, in fact with the coupling of a male and a female deity. But things have changed, and now most or all Wiccans seem to accept that same-sex couples can instantiate the cosmic polarity of the God and Goddess just as well as straight couples.

Given the God-Goddess polarity, this is a little puzzling to me if we assume that there weren't political motivations to this change of heart. I mean, I wonder how Wiccans would handle this separation of the physical (male-female) from the spiritual and theological (polarities) were it not for the progressive movement pushing them to do so. Suppose the movement for greater tolerance of LGBT people had never taken off. Would Wicca have become a gay-friendly religion? I just have to doubt that. Am I wrong?

My Current Religious Practice

I am quite new to Paganism, but I find Wicca the best fit for me at the moment. I like that it is a modern religion and that most Wiccans nowadays realize that. It thus beats Heathanism and reconstructionist pagan religions for my religious affections. I briefly flirted with Asatru, but it didn't work for me, for reasons I may go into later.

Wicca is a mix of 19th century Romanticism, suspect anthropology (Margaret Murray), and Ceremonial Magic, and yet I really like it. Its ethos of individualism and self-discovery appeal to my personality. Its well-established ritual base and Wheel of the Year appeal to my need for order and for its attention to the Earth. I feel comfortable with its duotheism.

Although I don't think about the deeper philosophical foundations of it the way I did as a philosopher and Christian, I am inclined toward panentheism.

Finally, I am agnostic on the magic, pathworking, and other less scientifically verifiable aspects, though I have had a handful of experiences (prior to coming to Neopaganism) that could be described as shamanic.

A relative of mine in my house has a statue to Guanyin. That statue has been my personal Goddess. I don't have an appropriate statue to represent the God, but I have been burning Chinese incense sticks to the God and Goddess in front of that altar each morning with a brief prayer of sorts -- Wiccan-flavored, you might say, not Buddhist or Christian.

I haven't gotten into the ceremonial or ritual aspects very much yet, or even the Wheel of the Year. I am trying first and foremost to incorporate more compassion into my life toward my friends, family, living beings, and the Earth. For me, re-sacralizing my relationship with the Earth and the cosmos is the best thing about Earth-centered religions like Wicca, so my practice has centered on that, but I will move on to other things as time goes on.