en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/556366 Comments by Embreis http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/dragging-out-the-spinal-tap-joke-again.html#IDComment25349638 But the Catholic Church is really rich, so whatever it does is credible per se. The important point is that guys like the clever Mr. Greenberg, who claim to be interested in fair journalistic treament of "religion," have a very narrow view of what religion constitutes: Religion means Christianity, or something so similar to Christianity as to be make distinctions pointless. (They certainly aren't willing to recognize any concept of deity that involves the use of indefinite articles.) Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:08:53 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/dragging-out-the-spinal-tap-joke-again.html#IDComment25349638 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-pantheistic-gays-are-just-like-us.html#IDComment25113771 I hate to think I'm so cynical that I can't believe the guy is really trying to do right ... but I can't help thinking the other shoe will soon drop. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:33:15 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-pantheistic-gays-are-just-like-us.html#IDComment25113771 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24717053 Perhaps not, but what evidence is there that anyone is driving, or trying to drive, religion out of the public square. It seems to me to be everywhere. Where is there any argument except for those who oppose Christian (or vaguely monotheistic) prayers being said at every government function. Otherwise, religions of all kinds seem to be flourishing. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:21:33 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24717053 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/you-arent-entitled-to-a-catholic-hosted-party.html#IDComment24706267 Under U.S. law, the church could have a problem if were operating the hall as a commercial public accomodation (British law may be different.) The principal is the same as if they wanted to exclude people on the basis of skin color. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:40:18 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/you-arent-entitled-to-a-catholic-hosted-party.html#IDComment24706267 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24705551 While it is true that right-wing propagandists routinely claim that anyone who objects to allowing Christians to declare the supremacy of their god at every government function are somehow damaging religion, that doesn't make it "common wisdom" or correct; its just another product of the noise machine. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:29:32 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24705551 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24648565 I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here, Tom: other than opposing government sanctions or favoritism for particular religions -- and we know who we're talking about -- I don't see that many Pagans "pushing religion further and further .. away from the public spheres ...." How is that true? Of course, in that "secular" means "of the world," I've always thought of Paganism as secular: a religion of the spirit of real things, of the world that can be touched. But maybe that's just me. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:04:55 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/quick-note-secular-re-enchantment.html#IDComment24648565 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24562215 You're correct, Bjorn, that you can't ever have the kind of precise knowledge that you claim to base your creed on: the information isn't there,and never will be there, so any reconstruction is equally "fantasy with appropriated names" ... unless you allow for the possibility of divine guidance, poetic inspiration and magical memory as sources of information. But if you accept those things, you must also accept that the people you so often abuse maybe receiving information from sources that you're not reaching, but which are not less valid for that. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:56:23 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24562215 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24558554 Thank you for saying all that. Wouldn't it be interesting if the many other commenters who brag about their hard-nosed, historically-sound Paganism actually had to cite sources? Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:01:19 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24558554 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/philosophers-for-a-pagan-tomorrow.html#IDComment24528967 Though I would add the kind of nationalism that Ross apparently advocates reeks of 19th Century German Romanticism, a la Hegel, and doesn't seem particularly Pagan to me. Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:50:30 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/philosophers-for-a-pagan-tomorrow.html#IDComment24528967 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24526450 Not according to my Latin-English dictionary. Anyway, that term did come into use until the early middle ages, well into the Christian era. I don't suppose it matters. Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:34:17 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24526450 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/philosophers-for-a-pagan-tomorrow.html#IDComment24525886 Kudos for Drury, whose original article I must find (and to you, Jason, for spotting this). Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:30:29 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/philosophers-for-a-pagan-tomorrow.html#IDComment24525886 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24366556 Yes, apparently his "fatherland" is "Flandria" ???? Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:44:57 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24366556 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24341995 Interestingly, the symbol on the Stormfront website looks more like the Zodiac Killer's signature symbol than a Celtic Cross to me. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:39:30 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/the-racist-appropriation-of-pagan-and-christian-symbols.html#IDComment24341995 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/heather-graham-comes-out-of-the-broom-closet.html#IDComment23931819 If you heard Megan Cavanaugh's voice, you would say "Oh, her." Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:21:34 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/heather-graham-comes-out-of-the-broom-closet.html#IDComment23931819 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/gingrich-hangover.html#IDComment23649899 I was a newspaper reporter in Gingrich's district back in the 'eighties, and I got to know him fairly well. The interesting thing was that he hardly ever mentioned religion in those days; his schtick then was that America was built for and by "the achievers," sort of a chamber of commerce version of the ubermensch. Mon, 8 Jun 2009 17:42:59 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/gingrich-hangover.html#IDComment23649899 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23451684 This is a apparently a tough concept for some here to grasp but NOT EVERYONE AGREES THAT “HISTORICALLY ACCURATE” PAGANISM IS “BETTER” PAGANISM. For that matter, the entire enterprise of attempting to define who’s a good Pagan and who’s a bad Pagan seems to be to be destructive and stupid. Historical research is useful; one can pick up important clues to the great mysteries. But there are other sources, just as valid, for such clues: memory, magic and the voice of the Gods themselves.. There is no reason to suppose that the practice of the Old Folks was superior to modern practice, and there is good reason to suppose the practices of 2,000 years ago are not entirely appropriate to modern practitioners. Furthermore, no matter how deep your research, you can’t actually duplicate the old ways. You can only produce another modern variant, only with more footnotes. Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:55:01 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23451684 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23404806 The decision to embrace the term "witch" was a considered and calculated it of bravado by Gardner and his associates: to call oneself a witch and be proud of it is still shocking to many people, and so still does its job. The image of the witch as the outsider carefully guarding the ancient and disregarded knowledge may be controversial, but it is at worst, a useful myth. The late Medieval church ideology that cast all magic users, human or not, as conspirators with the devil probably lead to the identification of the Old English word "Wicce(f.)/Wicca(m.)" with the malevolent night spirits who've come down to us as fairy tale Wicked Witches. But those ugly, relentlessly malevolent spirits were not called "wiccan (pl.)" in Old English; they were called "hæg" (that is "hag"; I can't find the plural form). Of course, the hags are probably best understood as distorted visions of the Great Mother in her Dark Moon form. Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:22:06 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23404806 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23374360 Isn't it charming that the Times chose to illustrate the story with a still of the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz? Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:09:34 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/great-for-nervous-christians-and-drama-loving-wiccans.html#IDComment23374360 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/talking-about-abortion-again.html#IDComment23100388 I'd like second Jason's remarks about the political genesis of the "right to life" movement. As young teenager attending a Southern Baptist church in Alabama in the early '70s, I heard quite a bit about the evils of abortion from preachers, Sunday School teachers, scout leaders, coaches and so on, and they were all quite clear on the nature of that evil: if abortions were legal and safe, there would be no consequences for illicit sex. If people (and obviously "people" mostly means women in that context) weren't afraid of unwanted pregnancies they would just screw everybody all over the place and God would blow his cork in disgust. I never once, in the course of many lectures on abortion and birth control (both always treated together) between 1970 and 1975, heard anyone express any concern about killing fetuses. I first heard the argument that abortion amounted to child-killing in 1976. I realize that there were then and are now people who genuinely care about the fate of the possible children who aren't born as a result of abortions, but much of the political force of the anti-abortion movement came and still comes from those whose real concern is regulating sexuality. Tue, 2 Jun 2009 20:58:24 +0000 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2009/06/talking-about-abortion-again.html#IDComment23100388