Agnostic Pagans And Athiest Pagans

[willybilly30]

is their any websites or anything were i can learn more about this?

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

is their any websites or anything were i can learn more about this?

 

You won't find much out there on this since Paganism and Agnosticism conflict no matter what anyone says. Paganism, in all its forms, is a religion based upon the belief of god(s)(esses) regardless of whether it is paleopaganism, mesopaganism, or neopaganism. It requires theism. Agnosticism is more a philosophical standpoint and is, as pointed out on various posts here, about as varied as individuals, but it cannot confirm nor deny theism because one "cannot know." An Agnostic Pagan is, by definition from my perspective, a view that holds to the practices but not the not the theistic beliefs of Paganism, which would rule out Paganism as being the belief. I would just have to say that Agnostic Pagans are nothing but Ritualists who hope someone or something is listening on the other end.

[Astreja]

My definition of 'agnostic pagan' is a bit different.

 

I've encountered phenomena that seem to be connected to beings in my ancestral mythos.

 

However, I have no idea what these beings are. Are they gods? Not in a position to determine this. I don't really know what a god is "supposed to" be, let alone if the beings I've encountered match the criteria. They could just as easily be advanced life-forms from halfway across the galaxy.

 

So, because I really don't know who or what I'm dealing with, I consider myself to be an agnostic pagan.

 

But the concept of an atheist pagan does make my head hurt something fierce.

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

I agree, anyone who calls themselves an atheist pagan is probably in dire need of attention. Ancestral spirit worship isn't paganism though, it's more like Shintoism. "Paganism" being a Christian created label for anyone who believes in any diety other than the Christian god could have a variety of philosophical meanings but the "official" definition makes it VERY difficult to reconcile it with agnosticism. Being educated in religious studies makes me more apt to use the official definitions of agnostic, atheist, pagan, wiccan, and the like and less apt to use philosophical ones where opinions vary. The whole problem with religion throughout history has been individual interpretation, Christians can't agree on what being Christian is, which versus of their authoritative body is official and literal or figurative. Islam is the same way, Hinduism, and Buddhism have their splinters as well. Not all pagans are the same. The problem here is that if we keep coming up with definitions everytime someone shoots off the main and creates their own view there will never be standardization. No one will be able to call themselves just plain Christian, Pagan, or whatever.

 

Willybilly, you are what you are, your own practitioner. If you really need a label then look hard at all of them, otherwise just be your own man and if anyone asks what you are tell them you are an individual.

 

Astreja, the great thing about personal experience is that it is personal, you can't prove it and no one can take it away from you, make your own interpretation of what you have encountered, you don't really need a label because they just make yours and everyone else's head hurt. Hell, I don't even know what I am anymore, at least what I am to everyone else. I know that I'm not a follower of any known religion, as for the existence of a Supreme Being, I don't need it, I don't really want to know, and just hope for oblivion. I've never encountered spirits, demons, ghosts, angels, miracles, and the like, don't need them, don't want them. I suppose you could say I don't require the super-natural in my life. But what really gets me is when people say that since I am not open to them, I don't encounter them. That is as bad as saying, "You don't have enough faith" or "Maybe you didn't pray hard enough." It requires a judgement based upon experience that they have no knowledge of. The same goes with these spirits you say you encounter, I didn't have your experience so I can't make a judgement, or at least I should not. If people say God talks to them then it is fine by me, just don't expect me to believe it as fact, but I will believe it as a "personal experience."

[Asimov]

what the hell is an atheist pagan? Isn't that kind of a contradiction?

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

what the hell is an atheist pagan? Isn't that kind of a contradiction?

 

Which is why our heads hurt, it is a complete contradiction. It's a person who believes in god/s and goddess/es who don't believe in them. Which is why I cannot accept an agnostic pagan as well.

[Shadoe]

Atheist Pagan.... That could refer to someone who uses a deity or deities as a focus for ritual but believes that deity or deities are no more than human-created symbols. Many Pagans do believe this. Though these Pagans would believe the "real" deity is something else - the spirit of the Earth, for instance.

[Lycorth]

Yes, the term "Atheist Pagan" does make the brain ache a little, but as we can assume, the definition would be different coming from someone who would call him or herself this. I think greygirl is one, and there are a few others on the board, I've noticed.

 

It's all good, to me. Better an Atheist Pagan than a Babble-thumper. You can actually talk to an Atheist Pagan about things.

 

To me, it would seem than an Atheist Pagan is someone who colors their overall disbelief in the idea of a god or gods with Pagan spirituality. Many Atheists I've known are spiritual, despite their denial of the existence of any god.

 

I can be very well described as an "Deistic Heathen" (of course, Heathen and Pagan are interchangeable), but that isn't too hard to explain away. I color my Deism with Heathenism, and find much of it personally believeable. I find personal meaning in many "Pagan" things, and while I still maintain, like a Deist, that the Creator(s) of the universe is beyond our knowledge (for now, perhaps) and does not (and very likely is unable to) interfere in universal affairs, I do not deny there could possibly be other spiritual beings, other "lesser gods", and it is perhaps these beings that form the pantheons of so many of the non-Abrahamic religions of the world. But that's going way off topic; suffice it to say that is how I reconcile the two viewpoints.

 

I think an Agnostic Pagan is much the same, except doubting the existence of a Creator(s) where I would affirm the same. I've met plenty of very Agnostic Pagans. The beauty of ditching dogmatic belief systems is that you are free to decide what you wish to believe and are free to be honest with yourself, and some people need to use more than one label to be honest with themselves. It's all good, in the end.

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

What's next? Agnostic Christians, Atheist Christians? If you can have an Atheist Pagan you can have an Atheist Christian and an Atheist Muslim.

[Toxic]

What's next? Agnostic Christians, Atheist Christians? If you can have an Atheist Pagan you can have an Atheist Christian and an Atheist Muslim.

Well, in fact I met someone once who did claim to be a christian atheist

[greasemonkey]

What's next? Agnostic Christians, Atheist Christians? If you can have an Atheist Pagan you can have an Atheist Christian and an Atheist Muslim.

Well, in fact I met someone once who did claim to be a christian atheist

 

come to think of it, almost every Christian who comes to this site says "I used to be just like you..."

 

...I guess if that were true, the lobotomy helped them immensely.

[greygirl]

I don't get what the big deal is. I consider myself a pagan. I believe that there a lot of things in the universe that science has yet to explain. I believe that there's an energy in the universe that anyone can tap into. It's that energy (or whatever you want to call it) that causes *life* to happen. It's the reason plants grow. It's the force that makes all life possible. It's the force that started that first little spark of life that everything else evolved from. "Magic(k)" or spellcasting or prayer are really all just forms of meditation to help focus our personal energy to tap into that universal energy. I have no idea how that universal energy came to be. I'm aware that the same arguments used against the christian god (If it created everything, what created it?) also apply to the universal energy. I have no answer. I just believe that it's there, even though I don't fully understand it. I have reasons that I'm aware would sound ridiculous to someone who doesn't share that belief, so I won't go into them. That belief is why I call myself a pagan.

 

However, I don't believe that universal energy is an invisible person in the sky who knows or cares what anyone does. The deities are metaphors, teaching tools, not real. As they are not real, invisible people, they have no need to be worshipped. That, to me, would be as logical as worshipping the air and asking its permission to breathe it. The air doesn't care one way or the other if I breathe it, just as the universal energy doesn't care if I know it's there, or if I try to learn how to use it. As such, I am also an atheist.

 

It makes perfect sense to me.

[Asimov]

I don't get what the big deal is. I consider myself a pagan. I believe that there a lot of things in the universe that science has yet to explain. I believe that there's an energy in the universe that anyone can tap into. It's that energy (or whatever you want to call it) that causes *life* to happen. It's the reason plants grow. It's the force that makes all life possible. It's the force that started that first little spark of life that everything else evolved from. "Magic(k)" or spellcasting or prayer are really all just forms of meditation to help focus our personal energy to tap into that universal energy. I have no idea how that universal energy came to be. I'm aware that the same arguments used against the christian god (If it created everything, what created it?) also apply to the universal energy. I have no answer. I just believe that it's there, even though I don't fully understand it. I have reasons that I'm aware would sound ridiculous to someone who doesn't share that belief, so I won't go into them. That belief is why I call myself a pagan.

 

However, I don't believe that universal energy is an invisible person in the sky who knows or cares what anyone does. The deities are metaphors, teaching tools, not real. As they are not real, invisible people, they have no need to be worshipped. That, to me, would be as logical as worshipping the air and asking its permission to breathe it. The air doesn't care one way or the other if I breathe it, just as the universal energy doesn't care if I know it's there, or if I try to learn how to use it. As such, I am also an atheist.

 

It makes perfect sense to me.

 

Ah...ok, that does make sense.

 

I'm a naturalist.

[Ouroboros]

What's next? Agnostic Christians, Atheist Christians? If you can have an Atheist Pagan you can have an Atheist Christian and an Atheist Muslim.

I think my favorite would be an Atheist Theist.

 

But I think the original meaning of Pagan (like you said) was all religions other than Christians. Labeled so by the early Christian Church. Now, there could be atheists mixed into that group as well. If Pagan only means Non-Christian, then Atheists are by that definition Pagan.

 

 

It makes perfect sense to me.

To me too. I guess I should amend my profile with Agnostic Pagan Atheist...

[willybilly30]

this makes me think about somethings. i was on a new age yahoo group once and i said i like to study diffrent religions coming up with my own ideas. well this guy invited me to his group saying he did the same thing. it was a complete mess he had 57 diffrent religions he claimed he was he had 57 diffrent gods, rules, afterlifes i remember 57 cause he said he was like heins 57 or something like that. i mean damn it was a confusing mess. ok if i say im pagan then stick agnostic on their just cause i see im agnostic about it then what? were do i stop? what if i see im a little bit buddhist next well eventually im gonna become like the person i talked about. i accept the fact theirs no proof of a god theirs no proof of anything i believe this doesnt mean i got to add to my label. some pagans claim their religion as the ultimate truth and would probally bite my head off about this. i have my own beliefs alot of them would fit in paganism some wouldnt but putting labels on myself is just more confusion than it needs to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree, anyone who calls themselves an atheist pagan is probably in dire need of attention. Ancestral spirit worship isn't paganism though, it's more like Shintoism. "Paganism" being a Christian created label for anyone who believes in any diety other than the Christian god could have a variety of philosophical meanings but the "official" definition makes it VERY difficult to reconcile it with agnosticism. Being educated in religious studies makes me more apt to use the official definitions of agnostic, atheist, pagan, wiccan, and the like and less apt to use philosophical ones where opinions vary. The whole problem with religion throughout history has been individual interpretation, Christians can't agree on what being Christian is, which versus of their authoritative body is official and literal or figurative. Islam is the same way, Hinduism, and Buddhism have their splinters as well. Not all pagans are the same. The problem here is that if we keep coming up with definitions everytime someone shoots off the main and creates their own view there will never be standardization. No one will be able to call themselves just plain Christian, Pagan, or whatever.

 

Willybilly, you are what you are, your own practitioner. If you really need a label then look hard at all of them, otherwise just be your own man and if anyone asks what you are tell them you are an individual.

 

Astreja, the great thing about personal experience is that it is personal, you can't prove it and no one can take it away from you, make your own interpretation of what you have encountered, you don't really need a label because they just make yours and everyone else's head hurt. Hell, I don't even know what I am anymore, at least what I am to everyone else. I know that I'm not a follower of any known religion, as for the existence of a Supreme Being, I don't need it, I don't really want to know, and just hope for oblivion. I've never encountered spirits, demons, ghosts, angels, miracles, and the like, don't need them, don't want them. I suppose you could say I don't require the super-natural in my life. But what really gets me is when people say that since I am not open to them, I don't encounter them. That is as bad as saying, "You don't have enough faith" or "Maybe you didn't pray hard enough." It requires a judgement based upon experience that they have no knowledge of. The same goes with these spirits you say you encounter, I didn't have your experience so I can't make a judgement, or at least I should not. If people say God talks to them then it is fine by me, just don't expect me to believe it as fact, but I will believe it as a "personal experience."

 

 

what the hell is an atheist pagan? Isn't that kind of a contradiction?

 

i dont know i have just heard the term used.

[willybilly30]

i like the deist view of god i think it is unknowable its unknown who or what it is. and that it never gave us a religion. i think if the creator creates then everthings how it wanted it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, the term "Atheist Pagan" does make the brain ache a little, but as we can assume, the definition would be different coming from someone who would call him or herself this. I think greygirl is one, and there are a few others on the board, I've noticed.

 

It's all good, to me. Better an Atheist Pagan than a Babble-thumper. You can actually talk to an Atheist Pagan about things.

 

To me, it would seem than an Atheist Pagan is someone who colors their overall disbelief in the idea of a god or gods with Pagan spirituality. Many Atheists I've known are spiritual, despite their denial of the existence of any god.

 

I can be very well described as an "Deistic Heathen" (of course, Heathen and Pagan are interchangeable), but that isn't too hard to explain away. I color my Deism with Heathenism, and find much of it personally believeable. I find personal meaning in many "Pagan" things, and while I still maintain, like a Deist, that the Creator(s) of the universe is beyond our knowledge (for now, perhaps) and does not (and very likely is unable to) interfere in universal affairs, I do not deny there could possibly be other spiritual beings, other "lesser gods", and it is perhaps these beings that form the pantheons of so many of the non-Abrahamic religions of the world. But that's going way off topic; suffice it to say that is how I reconcile the two viewpoints.

 

I think an Agnostic Pagan is much the same, except doubting the existence of a Creator(s) where I would affirm the same. I've met plenty of very Agnostic Pagans. The beauty of ditching dogmatic belief systems is that you are free to decide what you wish to believe and are free to be honest with yourself, and some people need to use more than one label to be honest with themselves. It's all good, in the end.

[Antlerman]

Atheist Pagan.... That could refer to someone who uses a deity or deities as a focus for ritual but believes that deity or deities are no more than human-created symbols. Many Pagans do believe this. Though these Pagans would believe the "real" deity is something else - the spirit of the Earth, for instance.

You know, you've just stated that magic equation that seems so elusive for people to wrap their minds around: Most people who practice a religion are not literalists.

 

I could choose to totally immerse myself in the mythology of Paul Bunyan, wearing plaid shirts with suspenders, big boots, have a blue ox statue and everything; totally celebrate the mythology as a culture of sorts, a way to become one with the Great North Woods and the early pioneers of Minnesota. That doesn't necessary mean I would argue that the big fella' actually lived and that the Mississippi River was formed from his axe dragging behind him! Yet he really lives as a symbol of a culture.

 

Most people are Christians through culture, and the mythology of Jesus and company are symbols of that culture. Modern paganism is a new culture and has its symbols and mythologies also. Some are literalists, others are not.

 

[willybilly30]

i really like the universal energie idea. i never could believe in mythology id rather say their just stories to teach lessons or ideas of what the energie might be but no proof their true. i also like the idea the energie dont care what everyone does. i have a real hard time thinking of a god sitting on earth watching our ever move and judging us. i think everythings made just how whatever made it wanted it. im beginning to think were pretty much on our own and like you said prayer and magick is us using our personal energie to tap into the universal energie. i used to think a god had something to do with this and a gaurdian spirit was guiding us but it just seems more and more that im my own guardian, and since im the one always answering my spells or prayers and no god has yet to be proven to help in any of this i think its just me using my personal power and calling it god just to put a name on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't get what the big deal is. I consider myself a pagan. I believe that there a lot of things in the universe that science has yet to explain. I believe that there's an energy in the universe that anyone can tap into. It's that energy (or whatever you want to call it) that causes *life* to happen. It's the reason plants grow. It's the force that makes all life possible. It's the force that started that first little spark of life that everything else evolved from. "Magic(k)" or spellcasting or prayer are really all just forms of meditation to help focus our personal energy to tap into that universal energy. I have no idea how that universal energy came to be. I'm aware that the same arguments used against the christian god (If it created everything, what created it?) also apply to the universal energy. I have no answer. I just believe that it's there, even though I don't fully understand it. I have reasons that I'm aware would sound ridiculous to someone who doesn't share that belief, so I won't go into them. That belief is why I call myself a pagan.

 

However, I don't believe that universal energy is an invisible person in the sky who knows or cares what anyone does. The deities are metaphors, teaching tools, not real. As they are not real, invisible people, they have no need to be worshipped. That, to me, would be as logical as worshipping the air and asking its permission to breathe it. The air doesn't care one way or the other if I breathe it, just as the universal energy doesn't care if I know it's there, or if I try to learn how to use it. As such, I am also an atheist.

 

It makes perfect sense to me.

[Lycorth]

Like greygirl said, I have been thinking for some time that the whole thrust behind the reputed "effectiveness" of prayer is that it's all in the one doing the praying. Many religions can claim that their form of prayer is effective and claim to have results, etc, and while I believe many of them are spurious, they can't all be. If any are indeed true, then the only way to make sense of it is to posit that when we pray or meditate or conduct a magical ritual, we are tapping into the energy of the universe and/or summoning up personal spiritual energy from within us, and then focusing it on a certain goal or whatever. It's not the gods one prays to so much as the fact that one is praying to start with, if you follow. This basic rule would apply to any human being, despite their religious affiliation. A Xian and an Atheist could perhaps produce the same results through "prayer" though it probably also depends much on the innate skills and abilities of the one praying.

 

Reconciling spirituality with freethinking, be it Atheism or Agnosticism or Deism, is far from an impossible task. Insisting the two must always and forever be separate is just closing one's mind to the possibilities that exist in the universe.

[willybilly30]

i agree with them their. theirs alot of strange people out their. i know some people like that who think their literal beings.

 

there are plenty of pagans who don't believe the gods are literal beings. In fact a LOT of pagans, believe those pagans who DO believe the gods and myths are in any way supposed to be taken literally are strange.

 

 

i agree i dont think religion really matters in it.

 

 

 

Like greygirl said, I have been thinking for some time that the whole thrust behind the reputed "effectiveness" of prayer is that it's all in the one doing the praying. Many religions can claim that their form of prayer is effective and claim to have results, etc, and while I believe many of them are spurious, they can't all be. If any are indeed true, then the only way to make sense of it is to posit that when we pray or meditate or conduct a magical ritual, we are tapping into the energy of the universe and/or summoning up personal spiritual energy from within us, and then focusing it on a certain goal or whatever. It's not the gods one prays to so much as the fact that one is praying to start with, if you follow. This basic rule would apply to any human being, despite their religious affiliation. A Xian and an Atheist could perhaps produce the same results through "prayer" though it probably also depends much on the innate skills and abilities of the one praying.

 

Reconciling spirituality with freethinking, be it Atheism or Agnosticism or Deism, is far from an impossible task. Insisting the two must always and forever be separate is just closing one's mind to the possibilities that exist in the universe.

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

Let's see how many people I can tick off. This is the Lion's Den after all.

 

I could choose to totally immerse myself in the mythology of Paul Bunyan, wearing plaid shirts with suspenders, big boots, have a blue ox statue and everything; totally celebrate the mythology as a culture of sorts, a way to become one with the Great North Woods and the early pioneers of Minnesota. That doesn't necessary mean I would argue that the big fella' actually lived and that the Mississippi River was formed from his axe dragging behind him! Yet he really lives as a symbol of a culture.

 

That's not religion, that's culture.

 

I don't get what the big deal is. I consider myself a pagan. I believe that there a lot of things in the universe that science has yet to explain. I believe that there's an energy in the universe that anyone can tap into. It's that energy (or whatever you want to call it) that causes *life* to happen. It's the reason plants grow. It's the force that makes all life possible. It's the force that started that first little spark of life that everything else evolved from. "Magic(k)" or spellcasting or prayer are really all just forms of meditation to help focus our personal energy to tap into that universal energy. I have no idea how that universal energy came to be.

 

That's not religion, magic, or even spiritual. It's chemistry, biology, and physics. It's how ions react to charges. There is nothing mystical about life, it is an interaction of molecules. Even moving your pinky is just changes in the polarization of the plasma membrane and the influx of and outflux of ions caused by electrical impulses sent to the neuromuscular junction by the brain. I can't see how anyone could worship cellular mitosis.

 

A Xian and an Atheist could perhaps produce the same results through "prayer" though it probably also depends much on the innate skills and abilities of the one praying.

 

That's sounds familiar, kind of like the "Maybe you're not praying enough" line the fundies use. What in the hell makes anyone think that there is a skill required to pray? Is the diety, or whatever, grading you on your performance? Is there an Oscar at the end?

 

i have my own beliefs alot of them would fit in paganism some wouldnt but putting labels on myself is just more confusion than it needs to be.

 

Now you're talking willybilly, if only more people thought like you. People who think they are part this and that are not what they are labeling themselves at all. They are just trying to fit in, one on those Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs steps. You can be half Irish, but you can't be half Buddhist.

 

But I think the original meaning of Pagan (like you said) was all religions other than Christians. Labeled so by the early Christian Church. Now, there could be atheists mixed into that group as well. If Pagan only means Non-Christian, then Atheists are by that definition Pagan.

 

Paganism isn't any non-Christian, it is any worship of a diety (in any form) other than the Christian God, Atheists cannot be Pagan. Paganism requires worship of something other than the Christian God. An Agnostic Pagan/Pagan Agnostic is like watching the TV while it's unplugged. Your worshipping something that is unknowable, therefore you have no idea what you are worshipping.

 

 

there are plenty of pagans who don't believe the gods are literal beings. In fact a LOT of pagans, believe those pagans who DO believe the gods and myths are in any way supposed to be taken literally are strange.

 

Then they are just labeling themselves as Pagan, but are not true Pagans unless they worship something.

 

i agree i dont think religion really matters in it (Paganism).

 

Paganism is a religion, it has to figure in. Paganism includes Hinduism, Shintoism, Shamanism, Wicca, Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Scientology, and a host of others. Damn, willybilly, just when I thought things were looking up for you.

[willybilly30]

that post i was replying to was about prayer and magick not paganism. all the damn replys go together making nothing but confusion but its how the forum works what are ya gonna do.

prayer and magic have nothing to do with religion anybody can do magick. that was a reply to vorokar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

i agree i dont think religion really matters in it (Paganism).

 

Paganism is a religion, it has to figure in. Paganism includes Hinduism, Shintoism, Shamanism, Wicca, Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Scientology, and a host of others. Damn, willybilly, just when I thought things were looking up for you.

[JGJ@ReligionisBullshit]

that post i was replying to was about prayer and magick not paganism. all the damn replys go together making nothing but confusion but its how the forum works what are ya gonna do.

prayer and magic have nothing to do with religion anybody can do magick.

 

My faith in you has been restored

[willybilly30]

ok i see what the problem is. how do you put the box around the message and persons name your replying too. no wait it did do that. wered the confusion come from?

[greygirl]

Let's see how many people I can tick off. This is the Lion's Den after all.

 

Didn't piss me off. My beliefs don't require your approval, nor does my status as a "true pagan".