14-year old Pakistani girl activist shot by Taliban

[Maximus]

I don't think I would say organized religion is bad. Its dominance is bad, as are most cases where an area is dominated by a particular viewpoint.

[Valmy]

Fair enough but I do as its clearly done a lot of harm.

It has done alot of good as well.  It is almost like it is a human institution, doing both harm and good.

[merithyn]

Fair enough but I do as its clearly done a lot of harm.

It has done alot of good as well.  It is almost like it is a human institution, doing both harm and good.

[Valmy]

"That''s just your opinion, man."

In effect they accept anybody who is not confrontational. They completely live within their own self contained subjective truth. The Hippy lifestyle lasts until they have to deal with the consequences of their invented truths. In effect they are so open minded that their brains have dropped out.

The facts they are abandoning are any facts that conflict with their own invented truths. Just getting along only works when there is a shared common set of values and view of reality, you can't just get along with hitler or charles manson.

Wait so being open minded actually means you are incredibly dogmatic?  I don't know the hippies I see work and hang out with their friends and grow old and die just like everybody else.  They just have a little subculture.  I haven't notice their worlds collapsing as their dogmatic beliefs fail in the face of rampaging Hitlers and Mansons.

[dps]

15 years later, and it's still a source of deep personal shame that at some point all of my ancestors abandoned the faith of Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost and good, sensible Upstate New York Puritan values for a book that can charitably be described as sub-par Conan the Barbarian fanfiction.  I have zero respect for Mormonism as a faith and the entire Mormon religious hierarchy.  It's a complete perversion of Christianity, and nearly completely devoid of intellectual and cultural heft. 

This reminds me:  Waaaaay back, we had a thread about whether or not Mormons are Christians.  As part of that thread, it was proposed that anyone who could read the Nicene Creed and mean it should count as a Christian, but we weren't sure if Mormons could do so or not.  We thought you would, but AFAIK, you never posted anything in that thread.  So, what is the answer to the question, "Can Mormons read the Nicene Creed and sincerely mean it?".

[mongers]

"That''s just your opinion, man."

In effect they accept anybody who is not confrontational. They completely live within their own self contained subjective truth. The Hippy lifestyle lasts until they have to deal with the consequences of their invented truths. In effect they are so open minded that their brains have dropped out.

The facts they are abandoning are any facts that conflict with their own invented truths. Just getting along only works when there is a shared common set of values and view of reality, you can't just get along with hitler or charles manson.

Wait so being open minded actually means you are incredibly dogmatic?  I don't know the hippies I see work and hang out with their friends and grow old and die just like everybody else.  They just have a little subculture.  I haven't notice their worlds collapsing as their dogmatic beliefs collapse in the face of rampaging Hitlers and Mansons.

Yeah, I'm not getting where Viking is coming from with that, I think maybe he was rejected by what he saw as some form of in crowd ?

Personally I don't see what's especially wrong with being "mostly harmless", it's almost something to aspire to ?

I've know more than a few 'hippies' in my time and as with all sub-cultures there's good and bad in all of them. 

[Neil]

Yeah I was amused when we visited Salem that there was this pro-Wicca thing acting like their people were presecuted at the Witch Trials.  Um none of the people who were killed were actual witches people.  That is the whole meaning of a Witch Hunt.

Not to mention that Wicca came some 250 years later.

Not to mention that it would be hard to see the burning of wiccans as a bad thing.

[Viking]

"That''s just your opinion, man."

In effect they accept anybody who is not confrontational. They completely live within their own self contained subjective truth. The Hippy lifestyle lasts until they have to deal with the consequences of their invented truths. In effect they are so open minded that their brains have dropped out.

The facts they are abandoning are any facts that conflict with their own invented truths. Just getting along only works when there is a shared common set of values and view of reality, you can't just get along with hitler or charles manson.

Wait so being open minded actually means you are incredibly dogmatic?  I don't know the hippies I see work and hang out with their friends and grow old and die just like everybody else.  They just have a little subculture.  I haven't notice their worlds collapsing as their dogmatic beliefs fail in the face of rampaging Hitlers and Mansons.

Well yes. The statements "My dogma is right" and "All dogmas are equally right" are equally dogmatic. The fact that their society doesn't collapse is because it is a sub-culture with policemen, firemen, soldiers and tax payers to fund their social security and jobs teaching bongos at community colleges.

[Valmy]

Well yes. The statements "My dogma is right" and "All dogmas are equally right" are equally dogmatic. The fact that their society doesn't collapse is because it is a sub-culture with policemen, firemen, soldiers and tax payers to fund their social security and jobs teaching bongos at community colleges.

I have never ever heard a hippie say "all dogmas are equally right" before.  In fact I don't think anybody in the history of the world has said that, except out of nihilism.  They are not exactly high social climbers as a group but they work.  You need cash to buy all that weed and bongos.

[Razgovory]

Yes, actually I do.  I met several, and I've taken courses on classical culture (which included religion).  I've even read books by neo-pagans.  So yeah, I'm familiar with this bullshit.  If you are finding "a spiritual path that resonated" with you personally, or found a "correct path" for yourself, then it's not really hard is it?  You are finding a path of things you want to do or want to believe. 

Wouldn't the easier path be to just follow the crowd and do what they do? How many Christians actually follow their faiths edicts by contributing to help the poor or by being accepting of those different or less fortunate like Christ was? Yet, as a person finding their own personal way, it requires a lot more education, effort, and general work to find what works for them to find the peace they seek. When discussing Pagans, in general, most have to write their own rituals, following symbolism that they found through trial and error that worked for them, and generally figure out which of the thousands of possibilities actually affect their soul while they practice their faith. It would be much easier to just go along with what someone else came up with and take their rules instead of starting over from scratch.

Take Wicca for example.  It's no coincidence that majority of it's practitioners are feminists.  Since Wicca is predicated on the idea there was was an ancient prehistoric pro-socialist matriarchy, people inclined toward feminism would find this idea attractive.  They feel empowered by it, they want to believe it.  Even if it's not true.  I believe the term is "ennobling lie".  Most of the pagans I've met don't know shit.  One chick claimed that the Catholic Church murdered 20 million witches during the middle ages (which would be about the population of 18th century France).  It's actually a common idea that bounces around pagan circles.  It's bullshit of course (it's based on really bizarre methodology), but it "resonates" with them.

Wicca, according to Gardener, was never meant to be a feminist religion. It was created in order to have an egalitarian religion where both men and women have an equal part to play in the running, growth, and spiritual happenings. It was based on a poorly written and even worse researched anthropolgical study called "Drawing Down the Moon" by Margo Adler from the turn of the last century. Gardner took the book to be a faithful account of the history of paganism and using his experience as a member of the cabalistic magical lodge The Golden Dawn, created Wicca.

At some point in the 1960s or 1970s, a woman took over the religion and altered it completely, focusing entirely on the Priestesses and goddess and leaving out the part the men and gods had to play. (I can't remember her name off the top of my head.) By this time, Margot Adler's book had been thoroughly denounced as more fancy than history, but the Wicca movement was pretty big by this time, as were a lot of other Pagan movements. Rather than adjust their practices after 25 years, they decided to disregard the facts surrounding Adler's book. Instead, they ended up tenatiously defending the book, trying very hard to make it true by sheer force of will. Obviously, that didn't work, but it persists to this day.

Wicca is, in my opinion, a blight in the Pagan community. Many of their members intentionally distort facts to make their cases, alter history as they feel the need, and completely disregard anything that doesn't fit with their world view. In other words, they've become more like the mainstream religions they used to fight against. Again, I refuse to paint the entire religion as bad because of the few that I've met or read, but it is a constant struggle for me.

So if you're basing your entire opinion of Pagans on this one religion, you're doing a huge disservice to a much larger community of people who are no less reasonable, logic, and intelligent than you are. Of course, given to whom I'm speaking, more than you are.

No it wouldn't be easier.  Let us say, I want to rape goats.  But my religion says raping goats is wrong.  It's much easier for me to go my own way, and rape goats.  Even better if I can create my own moral code where raping goats is a virtue rather then a vice.  I'm not basing my opinions just on Wiccans, also druids (who were a hateful bunch), and of course Nazis and other right wing pagans.

Oh and by the way, Margo Adler post dates Wicca by a lot.  I think are thinking of Margret Murray.  Interestingly, Gardner's association with the Golden Dawn means that Wicca has a sort of "cousin" religion.  Another alumni of that group was none other then L. Ron Hubbard who went on to found his own religion, Scientology.

[Razgovory]

What about India?  They are essentially Indo-European paganism. If someone were really serious about paganism they'd go that route.

Why the hell would that be true? Surely following your own religion is more serious than one someone else defines?

Cause it's the height of hubris?  "I know better then anyone else."  It's this kind of thinking that has people rejecting vaccines cause they aren't "natural" or whatever.

I think what you mean is: I know better than anyone else how to find personal fullfillment for myself. How that's the height of hubris, I don't know. Shouldn't the individual be the best judge of finding that fullfillment for his or herself?

Not really.  Some things are true whether or not you want to believe them or not.  You don't try to find your own personal fulfillment in mathematics.  "2+2=4 just doesn't feel right to me.  I prefer 2+2=5".  Hubris was the Greek Vice of thinking you were better or knew better then the Gods.  I would say that picking your own religious practices because of personal fulfillment would neatly fall into that category.

[Viking]

Well yes. The statements "My dogma is right" and "All dogmas are equally right" are equally dogmatic. The fact that their society doesn't collapse is because it is a sub-culture with policemen, firemen, soldiers and tax payers to fund their social security and jobs teaching bongos at community colleges.

I have never ever heard a hippie say "all dogmas are equally right" before.  In fact I don't think anybody in the history of the world has said that, except out of nihilism.  They are not exactly high social climbers as a group but they work.  You need cash to buy all that weed and bongos.

Thats probably because the hippies which have thought this issue through have tenure at continental departments of philosophy, or found something productive to do.

[Razgovory]

I don't think I would say organized religion is bad. Its dominance is bad, as are most cases where an area is dominated by a particular viewpoint.

Why?

[Razgovory]

I don't think so. I think people choosing what they feel like believing move us further from being dominated by organized religion. I don't see an issue with that.

I suppose you wouldn't if bought into the idea that "Organized religion" was really bad.

Fair enough but I do as its clearly done a lot of harm.

Perhaps, but less then it has good.

[garbon]

I don't think I would say organized religion is bad. Its dominance is bad, as are most cases where an area is dominated by a particular viewpoint.

Well, of course, but I think in large part those two have been intertwined throughout history.