Hee! I just had an article and poem published in Witch Eye #13. I came across the Witcheye Yahoo group a month or so ago, and Storm was asking for submissions with a deadline that weekend. I cranked out two poems on Friday, and then told him I could do an article on Monday. As always, I am drawn to ethical matters like the proverbial moth; hence, I explored the idea of one particular ethic of a Faerie bloodline.
I was shocked when I looked up the role of iron in human blood to see a diagram of the heme molecule in which the Fe atom is at the center of a cross of four N's. I immediately thought of our circle casting and the role of the priestess in relation to the seven directions. What fun.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
1000th post at Ship of Fools
Nearly three years ago I was led to the forums at Ship of Fools (SoF) by Kevin Iga (kiga) and ChastMastr at the forums of an online Pagan comic, Oh My Gods. I have posted more at SoF more than I have at any other fora, and today I hit a milestone of 1000 posts.
I feel, if anything, I am less Christian than when I start posting at the predominantly Christian SoF. I'm still actively serving at St. John's Presbyterian in Berkeley, trying to insure that our congregation survives its next hundred years even as its first hundred years come to a close. But SoF has made me much more aware how few Christians would consider me a Christian, and, further, how very little I care that they would do so.
In the past three years I have served on the Pastor Nominating Committee for St. Johns and, subsequently, as an Elder and the Treasurer. But, at the same time, I helped start the legally incorporated church for the Third Road where I serve as Treasurer as well. And I just completed an article on Pagan ethics which will appear in issue #13 of the Feri zine, WitchEye.
I do not understand the need for any myth to be historical fact, but it is clear that Christianity percieves itself as essentially different from Pagan religions in its insistence that at least some of its myths are literally true. Certainly, there are large sections of Christianity which now accept that some of its myths like the seven days of creation and the flood are not historical fact, but the vast majority insist that at least three myths must be true for Christianity to be Christianity: there is one and only one God, that God incorporated exactly once in the human form of Jesus, and that Jesus rose physically from the dead in a way that is fundamentally different from medical recussitation.
My faith subsumes Christianity in ways in which Trinitarian Christianity will most likely never be comfortable. I believe in one God which manifests through myriads of beings some of which are so wise and powerful relative to we humans that they can be justifiably called Gods. I believe that the Goddess did incarnate as Jesus, but that She can and does incarnate to a lesser or greater extent through all sentient beings. I believe that Jesus did defeat the powers of death and sin, and that the physical ressurection may or may not have happened, but that the historical truth of Jesus' physical recussitation is irrelevant in comparison to the spiritual Ressurection for all sentient beings which transcends the bounds of time and space.
I can understand the historical necessity for Christian to have clung to these myths, but I do not see the need to cling to them any longer particluarly since parts of what are attached to the Christian mythos are obviously evil and wrong. Women are spiritual equals to men and equally adept as preistesses. Gays are equally capable of commitment to God and to their relationships before God as those who aren't gay. The Bible is not a good science textbook.
And so I wait patiently for Christianity to grow up. It won't completely in my lifetime, and so I work towards the religion which augment it if not supplent in the next millenium. And I shall continue to participate at SoF in order to abet that process.
I feel, if anything, I am less Christian than when I start posting at the predominantly Christian SoF. I'm still actively serving at St. John's Presbyterian in Berkeley, trying to insure that our congregation survives its next hundred years even as its first hundred years come to a close. But SoF has made me much more aware how few Christians would consider me a Christian, and, further, how very little I care that they would do so.
In the past three years I have served on the Pastor Nominating Committee for St. Johns and, subsequently, as an Elder and the Treasurer. But, at the same time, I helped start the legally incorporated church for the Third Road where I serve as Treasurer as well. And I just completed an article on Pagan ethics which will appear in issue #13 of the Feri zine, WitchEye.
I do not understand the need for any myth to be historical fact, but it is clear that Christianity percieves itself as essentially different from Pagan religions in its insistence that at least some of its myths are literally true. Certainly, there are large sections of Christianity which now accept that some of its myths like the seven days of creation and the flood are not historical fact, but the vast majority insist that at least three myths must be true for Christianity to be Christianity: there is one and only one God, that God incorporated exactly once in the human form of Jesus, and that Jesus rose physically from the dead in a way that is fundamentally different from medical recussitation.
My faith subsumes Christianity in ways in which Trinitarian Christianity will most likely never be comfortable. I believe in one God which manifests through myriads of beings some of which are so wise and powerful relative to we humans that they can be justifiably called Gods. I believe that the Goddess did incarnate as Jesus, but that She can and does incarnate to a lesser or greater extent through all sentient beings. I believe that Jesus did defeat the powers of death and sin, and that the physical ressurection may or may not have happened, but that the historical truth of Jesus' physical recussitation is irrelevant in comparison to the spiritual Ressurection for all sentient beings which transcends the bounds of time and space.
I can understand the historical necessity for Christian to have clung to these myths, but I do not see the need to cling to them any longer particluarly since parts of what are attached to the Christian mythos are obviously evil and wrong. Women are spiritual equals to men and equally adept as preistesses. Gays are equally capable of commitment to God and to their relationships before God as those who aren't gay. The Bible is not a good science textbook.
And so I wait patiently for Christianity to grow up. It won't completely in my lifetime, and so I work towards the religion which augment it if not supplent in the next millenium. And I shall continue to participate at SoF in order to abet that process.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Dr. Pandora Love
...Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love my Pandora Shame
It's pretty much inevitable. You'll build a Pandora station, and out will come this song that you really like and you've never heard it before and so you click over to the pandora page and ... oh, my, god: Cyndi Lauper ?!? How will I ever live with the shame?
I'm being harsh on Ms. Lauper. I really don't know her oevre other than her hits of two decades ago. It's just that a cut of her's is an example of the kind of personal issue that Pandora makes you confront. Are you going to let what you know or don't know about a particular band color your opinion of a particular track?
I've had to train myself not to immediate reject a track just because it's by someone, gasp, popular (or who, at least has been popular). It's hard to resist that condidtioning and just admit that you like a track.
Of course, it'll take a bit more for me to buy an album by a popular artist I did not "discover" before they were popular. However, I'm saying right now that if I hear two tracks that I like on the same album by someone like Ms. Lauper, then I'll buy that album.
Speaking of Pandora-based purchasing I bought my first two cd's this week based on Pandora supplied music. That's $20 so far that Pandora has won for the industry from me. I'll put up a post about them when I've worked my way through them.
It's pretty much inevitable. You'll build a Pandora station, and out will come this song that you really like and you've never heard it before and so you click over to the pandora page and ... oh, my, god: Cyndi Lauper ?!? How will I ever live with the shame?
I'm being harsh on Ms. Lauper. I really don't know her oevre other than her hits of two decades ago. It's just that a cut of her's is an example of the kind of personal issue that Pandora makes you confront. Are you going to let what you know or don't know about a particular band color your opinion of a particular track?
I've had to train myself not to immediate reject a track just because it's by someone, gasp, popular (or who, at least has been popular). It's hard to resist that condidtioning and just admit that you like a track.
Of course, it'll take a bit more for me to buy an album by a popular artist I did not "discover" before they were popular. However, I'm saying right now that if I hear two tracks that I like on the same album by someone like Ms. Lauper, then I'll buy that album.
Speaking of Pandora-based purchasing I bought my first two cd's this week based on Pandora supplied music. That's $20 so far that Pandora has won for the industry from me. I'll put up a post about them when I've worked my way through them.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Pandora!
It is time for me to rave about Pandora.com. I first learned about Pandora in an article in the East Bay Express, one of several local alternative weeklies I tend to read over lunch. Pandora is a free website that streams digital music to your computer in a way that is fairly well tailored to your musical tastes.
How Pandora Works
The simple answer is that you type in a song or a band and out comes a succession of songs similar to the seed you provided. The exact methodology is known ony by those working at Pandora, and they're not telling everything. Nevertheless, they have revealed some of process.
They have apparently created a database of songs in which every song has been evaluated based upon a few hundred musical characteristics that they call "genes". I suspect that at least some of these genes are a set of binary flags indicating particular traits, and that some subsets of traits are mutually exclusive. That is, song might be considered to have the musical trait "major key tonality" or "minor key tonality" but not both at the same time.
(The application can provide a list of some of the traits used to select a particular song, and I believe I've seen "major key tonality" listed. I do not know if they lump all other tonal modes into a single category called "minor key tonality" or if they break them into seperate genes. Furthermore, I do not know how they handle cases of songs which change tonality.)
When you provide a song the application then selects a sequence of songs which are similar to that song. Pandora is not saying exactly how that selection is done, but it is possible to guess how it might work. I think that the algorithm randomly selects a set of traits for each song, and then having filtered based on those traits, it contructs a distance metric over at least some of the remaining traits and chooses a song which is within a specified radius using that metric. The radius selected is probably based on the number of songs which are considered close by the metric, so that is you're song is in a relatively sparsely populated part of the database the radius will be wider, and if the song is like a lot of other songs, the radius will be tighter.
I suspect that the initial selection of genes is not uniform distributed across all the available genes, and I'm not even certain that Pandora even reveals some of the genes that it considers important. For instance, I suspect that the release date of the track is a gene. I do not know that they even have to emphasize more recent releases over older material because I suspect the database is biased that way already. I suspect that the length of the track is a gene, as well. It would not surprise me if there were popularity genes based on sales or click-throughs to Amazon or iTunes.
When you listen to a song you may provide three forms of feedback. You may do nothing, you may give the song a thumbs-up (+), or you may give the song a thumbs-down (-). The most important of these appears to be the (-). If I understand the FAQ's correctly, a single (-) to a song will prevent that song from ever playing on that station. Two (-)'s on songs by one artist will prevent any other songs by that artist from playing on that station again. I suspect that (+)'s on the other other hand effect the distribution on the initial filtering genes. The more you (+) songs with a particular trait, the more that songs with that trait will be selected.
Why I Like Pandora
It's like having a comercial-free radio station that plays nothing but music that you like. I've never been a big fan of listening to music on the radio. My tastes just are far too broad and ecclectic to be found on any one station, or even on any one program on more adventuresome sources like college radio or public stations. One of my favorite memories was having the floor's scrounger come into my dorm room in college realize that I had a bunch of records that he could potentially borrow, having him examine my collection and watching his face fall as he realized that he recognized little if any of the records in my collection.
For me the most exciting thing about music is finding a new artist that I really like. Back in high school, someone at the local branch of a now defunct chain of record stores, Music Plus, used to put stickers with his or her comments on some of the albums. Those stickers led me to Novalis and Goblin. The first album I bought when I was in third grade was Carlos' Switched On Bach. The electronic music bin at Music Plus later led me to Synergy, Tangerine Dream and Vangelis. And so, of course, I came to more popular groups like Yes, Genesis, ELP, and Kraftwerk. Often I learned of bands before the became popular, and, I admit, I was sometimes disappointed when they did. (I still think that stance is somewhat justified when the hoi palloi acclaims the Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby" when they were doing a bit more interesting stuff in the years prior to that release, for instance.)
I do like it on those rare occasions when I can turn people onto something they never would have heard otherwise. One New Year's Eve party at Leslie's old appartment, she asked me if I had anything to put on, and I tentatively put in the Hedningarna compilation released in the US as Fire by The Heathens. To my utter and complete surprise the entire room started dancing to it! Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!
Pandora completely satisfies that need I have to explore for new material while still enjoying old favorites. I've never been that enthused by the MP3 exchange explosion and iPodery. First, there was the moral considerations of peer-to-peer copying. I want the artists I like to be compensated by my purchases. Second, I like to gain some context for an artist by hearing their music within the program defined by an album side or a cd. How would an iPod or iTunes help me find the next Hedningarna?
But the potential for Pandora's finding me groups like Hedningarna seems limitless. I have station already which streams me pop-punk, folk, techno-pop and reggae, and I love it! I already found some new bands to match my tastes, and will have to go on a cd buying mission to Berkeley here shortly (I want local record stores to stay in business).
It Could Be Better, Though
Because my house is a loft, my home computer is in the same room, essentially, as our home theater where my son spends his non-homework hours playing. And so, the first thing I did when I discovered Pandora was figure out how I could get a decent headphone system to work the Pandora stream coming through my computer. I swiftly leanred about the strange and wonderful world of Head-Fi which has grown up around portable audio. Thanks to the help folks at the Head-Fi forums I purchased a nice set of circumaural headphones (Beyerdynamic DT880's from Jan in Germany) and the second-to-last Go-Vibe v4 headamp ever produced by Norm. It's such a boutique business! It took me month to get all the equipment, but I am extremely satisfied with my set-up now.
I do, however, wish there were a way to carry Pandora with me. Right now, the Pandora application requires at least a Flash 7 player. Currently, the smallest devices with Flash 7 players are laptops which are all more than I want to carry. Adobe just released Flash Lite 2.0 which should be able to run Pandora on PDA's and cellphones, but it won't be until later this year for such devices to come available.
The second complaint that everyone has about Pandora is, of course, that the selection of music is limited. Right now, any music before the turn of the century is pretty spotty, many genres are sprasely covered and some genres like Classical in particular are not available at all. My personal preferences would put World Music on the top of the list for expansion, then probably Classical. More, broader, wider!
As for the application itself, I have some minor suggestions. I really wish that the three station edit tabs were sortable alphabetically by title and artist. In particular, the second (-) for an artist is a pretty big decision for a station, and so it would be nice to warn you when your about to do so. I wish there was a way to delete songs from your favorites page as well. When I create a station, I often want to be able to publish that station and so I just pick a song as a favorite on that station to get it posted to the favorites page.
Finally, I wish there was a message board community around Pandora to share stations and station building techniques and to talk about music and Pandora.
All in all, however, Pandora has been the best thing in music to enter my life in a long, long time. I am looking forward to discovering new music and enjoying old favorites through it. I hope that it remains free, but that the company achieves financial success. I look forward to seeing how the product will evolve. I think that Pandora will be an important part of my life, hopefully for years to come.
How Pandora Works
The simple answer is that you type in a song or a band and out comes a succession of songs similar to the seed you provided. The exact methodology is known ony by those working at Pandora, and they're not telling everything. Nevertheless, they have revealed some of process.
They have apparently created a database of songs in which every song has been evaluated based upon a few hundred musical characteristics that they call "genes". I suspect that at least some of these genes are a set of binary flags indicating particular traits, and that some subsets of traits are mutually exclusive. That is, song might be considered to have the musical trait "major key tonality" or "minor key tonality" but not both at the same time.
(The application can provide a list of some of the traits used to select a particular song, and I believe I've seen "major key tonality" listed. I do not know if they lump all other tonal modes into a single category called "minor key tonality" or if they break them into seperate genes. Furthermore, I do not know how they handle cases of songs which change tonality.)
When you provide a song the application then selects a sequence of songs which are similar to that song. Pandora is not saying exactly how that selection is done, but it is possible to guess how it might work. I think that the algorithm randomly selects a set of traits for each song, and then having filtered based on those traits, it contructs a distance metric over at least some of the remaining traits and chooses a song which is within a specified radius using that metric. The radius selected is probably based on the number of songs which are considered close by the metric, so that is you're song is in a relatively sparsely populated part of the database the radius will be wider, and if the song is like a lot of other songs, the radius will be tighter.
I suspect that the initial selection of genes is not uniform distributed across all the available genes, and I'm not even certain that Pandora even reveals some of the genes that it considers important. For instance, I suspect that the release date of the track is a gene. I do not know that they even have to emphasize more recent releases over older material because I suspect the database is biased that way already. I suspect that the length of the track is a gene, as well. It would not surprise me if there were popularity genes based on sales or click-throughs to Amazon or iTunes.
When you listen to a song you may provide three forms of feedback. You may do nothing, you may give the song a thumbs-up (+), or you may give the song a thumbs-down (-). The most important of these appears to be the (-). If I understand the FAQ's correctly, a single (-) to a song will prevent that song from ever playing on that station. Two (-)'s on songs by one artist will prevent any other songs by that artist from playing on that station again. I suspect that (+)'s on the other other hand effect the distribution on the initial filtering genes. The more you (+) songs with a particular trait, the more that songs with that trait will be selected.
Why I Like Pandora
It's like having a comercial-free radio station that plays nothing but music that you like. I've never been a big fan of listening to music on the radio. My tastes just are far too broad and ecclectic to be found on any one station, or even on any one program on more adventuresome sources like college radio or public stations. One of my favorite memories was having the floor's scrounger come into my dorm room in college realize that I had a bunch of records that he could potentially borrow, having him examine my collection and watching his face fall as he realized that he recognized little if any of the records in my collection.
For me the most exciting thing about music is finding a new artist that I really like. Back in high school, someone at the local branch of a now defunct chain of record stores, Music Plus, used to put stickers with his or her comments on some of the albums. Those stickers led me to Novalis and Goblin. The first album I bought when I was in third grade was Carlos' Switched On Bach. The electronic music bin at Music Plus later led me to Synergy, Tangerine Dream and Vangelis. And so, of course, I came to more popular groups like Yes, Genesis, ELP, and Kraftwerk. Often I learned of bands before the became popular, and, I admit, I was sometimes disappointed when they did. (I still think that stance is somewhat justified when the hoi palloi acclaims the Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby" when they were doing a bit more interesting stuff in the years prior to that release, for instance.)
I do like it on those rare occasions when I can turn people onto something they never would have heard otherwise. One New Year's Eve party at Leslie's old appartment, she asked me if I had anything to put on, and I tentatively put in the Hedningarna compilation released in the US as Fire by The Heathens. To my utter and complete surprise the entire room started dancing to it! Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!
Pandora completely satisfies that need I have to explore for new material while still enjoying old favorites. I've never been that enthused by the MP3 exchange explosion and iPodery. First, there was the moral considerations of peer-to-peer copying. I want the artists I like to be compensated by my purchases. Second, I like to gain some context for an artist by hearing their music within the program defined by an album side or a cd. How would an iPod or iTunes help me find the next Hedningarna?
But the potential for Pandora's finding me groups like Hedningarna seems limitless. I have station already which streams me pop-punk, folk, techno-pop and reggae, and I love it! I already found some new bands to match my tastes, and will have to go on a cd buying mission to Berkeley here shortly (I want local record stores to stay in business).
It Could Be Better, Though
Because my house is a loft, my home computer is in the same room, essentially, as our home theater where my son spends his non-homework hours playing. And so, the first thing I did when I discovered Pandora was figure out how I could get a decent headphone system to work the Pandora stream coming through my computer. I swiftly leanred about the strange and wonderful world of Head-Fi which has grown up around portable audio. Thanks to the help folks at the Head-Fi forums I purchased a nice set of circumaural headphones (Beyerdynamic DT880's from Jan in Germany) and the second-to-last Go-Vibe v4 headamp ever produced by Norm. It's such a boutique business! It took me month to get all the equipment, but I am extremely satisfied with my set-up now.
I do, however, wish there were a way to carry Pandora with me. Right now, the Pandora application requires at least a Flash 7 player. Currently, the smallest devices with Flash 7 players are laptops which are all more than I want to carry. Adobe just released Flash Lite 2.0 which should be able to run Pandora on PDA's and cellphones, but it won't be until later this year for such devices to come available.
The second complaint that everyone has about Pandora is, of course, that the selection of music is limited. Right now, any music before the turn of the century is pretty spotty, many genres are sprasely covered and some genres like Classical in particular are not available at all. My personal preferences would put World Music on the top of the list for expansion, then probably Classical. More, broader, wider!
As for the application itself, I have some minor suggestions. I really wish that the three station edit tabs were sortable alphabetically by title and artist. In particular, the second (-) for an artist is a pretty big decision for a station, and so it would be nice to warn you when your about to do so. I wish there was a way to delete songs from your favorites page as well. When I create a station, I often want to be able to publish that station and so I just pick a song as a favorite on that station to get it posted to the favorites page.
Finally, I wish there was a message board community around Pandora to share stations and station building techniques and to talk about music and Pandora.
All in all, however, Pandora has been the best thing in music to enter my life in a long, long time. I am looking forward to discovering new music and enjoying old favorites through it. I hope that it remains free, but that the company achieves financial success. I look forward to seeing how the product will evolve. I think that Pandora will be an important part of my life, hopefully for years to come.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Brigid
I should write a poem today. It's my favorite holiday, and I was initiated on this day. Instead, let me do the blog thing, and post my thoughts on the various things I incountered on the web today.
Ship Of Fools had a discussion of the variations used in English language services on the Lord's Prayer. The discussion reminded me to read the version I wrote for the Goddess:
Our Mother who art the Earth,
Hollowed be thy name.
Thy community come,
Thy cycle be done
In us as it is
In Your seasons.
Give us this day
Our daily bread,
And heal our hurts
As we try to heal
the hurts of others.
Lead us away from pollution,
And bring us all joy,
For Thou art the World,
The wonder and the glory
Forever.
Amen.
I sent that to Pastor Max once, but he never made a comment.
Looking for inspiriration I read one of my favorite Discordian pieces: Crazy Hassan and his Clearing House of Delights. I did a search on Crazy Hassan, but that meme has not gone much further than this brilliant piece. But a short chain of links led me to this wonderfully blasphemous thread.
My BART reading this week is John Daido Loori's The Zen of Creativity in which he mentions that the literal meaning of chi is breath.
Chi is breath.
Spirit is breath.
Ha is breath.
A Ha Prayer is a Chi Prayer.
We breathe mana.
We are breathed into life by God.
We breathe the Goddess into life.
We breathe together.
We conspire.
It's all a conspiracy, you know.
Your subjectivity is that of a still life being painted into being by God.
You are a work of art.
You are a work of art that can create works of art.
You honor the Goddess with your beauty and your passion.
Be adored.
Be.
Breathe.
Chi.
Ha!
So, I decided not to write a poem today.
Blessed Brigid.
Ship Of Fools had a discussion of the variations used in English language services on the Lord's Prayer. The discussion reminded me to read the version I wrote for the Goddess:
Our Lady's Prayer
Friday the 13th of March, 1992
Our Mother who art the Earth,
Hollowed be thy name.
Thy community come,
Thy cycle be done
In us as it is
In Your seasons.
Give us this day
Our daily bread,
And heal our hurts
As we try to heal
the hurts of others.
Lead us away from pollution,
And bring us all joy,
For Thou art the World,
The wonder and the glory
Forever.
Amen.
I sent that to Pastor Max once, but he never made a comment.
Looking for inspiriration I read one of my favorite Discordian pieces: Crazy Hassan and his Clearing House of Delights. I did a search on Crazy Hassan, but that meme has not gone much further than this brilliant piece. But a short chain of links led me to this wonderfully blasphemous thread.
My BART reading this week is John Daido Loori's The Zen of Creativity in which he mentions that the literal meaning of chi is breath.
Chi is breath.
Spirit is breath.
Ha is breath.
A Ha Prayer is a Chi Prayer.
We breathe mana.
We are breathed into life by God.
We breathe the Goddess into life.
We breathe together.
We conspire.
It's all a conspiracy, you know.
Your subjectivity is that of a still life being painted into being by God.
You are a work of art.
You are a work of art that can create works of art.
You honor the Goddess with your beauty and your passion.
Be adored.
Be.
Breathe.
Chi.
Ha!
So, I decided not to write a poem today.
Blessed Brigid.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The Rise of Early Christianity
This is my response to this post at the Wildhunt Blog.
I just finished slogging my way through Robin Lane Fox's book Pagans and Christians and so I'm pretty fresh on the arguments. Fox's book is highly frustrating in that while it is exceedingly boring, long, boring, thorough and boring it nevertheless never really manages to answer the question it purports to address namely why Christianity managed to supplant classical paganism in the Mediterranean between 150 and 350 CE. Nevertheless, what conclusions it does point towards do not entirely match the six points of Chutney's summary.
"..bewildering array of new gods and cults.": not much evidence for this in Fox's book at least. Ever since Herodotus five centuries earlier people and known of many gods and pantheons. The families in power in the Roman Empire and regionally tended to be quite conservative, and so the longevity of any particular practice tended to give it authenticity. Early Christianity was dismissed out of hand precisely because it was new by the rulers of 2nd Century who also had a difficult time understanding that this new religion was anything other than a branch of Judaism.
"Conversion": Undoubtedly important, but understates how important the possibility for overachievement and perfectionism was for the movement. Christianity offered a select, dedicated few the opportunity to achieve glory through strict asceticism and civil disobedience. The teachings of Jesus pointed towards a self-control and self-denial that was both novel and quite attractive for some personalities. Thus, every wave of persecution allowed a new set of martyrs to step forward to actively assert their fanaticism and create the stories that attracted others to the faith.
Christian priests vs. pagan: nope, this is a bit off too. Christian priests did offer personal wisdom, but, more important, they provided a judicial role that was otherwise solely available through the relatively rare circuit of roman governors. Christian priests were anointed for their lifetimes, while pagan priesthoods were generally held through family lines and terms of service were generally limited to a few years. Some pagan oracular methods were co-opted whole cloth by the ensuing Christians and these oracles were generally seen as sources of wisdom before and after Christianity. It certainly true that Christian priests were more involved in people’s day to day lives.
Egalitarianism in the Christian priesthood: almost certainly true, but I'm not sure how important it was to the spread of the movement. Christianity did focus its attention on meeting the needs of Christian poor providing a role for both the rich and the poor in the community, and that delineation of roles might have been more important to Christianity’s spread.
Donations: well, particularly after the 2nd Century there were definitely some wealthy Christians already. More to the point, however, was the fact that donation to a pagan cult became a duty of an increasingly smaller set of families. There was a growing concentration of wealth in fewer families during this period which made the cultic acts become more acts of ostentation for the few than a universal service of the gods.
Mass movement: Christian leaders generally hid out in the hills during the persecutions. The biggest thing that allowed Christianity to flourish was the fact that it was eventually decided that Christianity could include more than just the overachievers and the perfectionists. You could lapse and offer the required incense to the gods during the persecutions, and Christianity would take you back after an appropriate act and period of contrition. Thus, it became fairly common for people to postpone baptism so that they could still insure their salvation while they knew they were still likely to willingly sin. Constantine was, by no means, alone in that particular tactic.
For me, one thing missing on the list is the point that Christianity managed to integrate philosophy with religion. Many pagan philosophers were not religious when compared to their contemporaries and conversely most cults had no philosophy whatsoever. Most pagan philosophers, for instance, had reached the conclusion that infant exposure was wrong. Christianity also said exposure was wrong and had a framework into which that ethic fit quite nicely. The integration was far from perfect, but it was more appealing and universal than anything that came before.
Certainly, the promotion of Christianity by Constantine mattered a lot as well. Fox seems to suggest that the growth of Christianity prior to Constantine has been overestimated by prior historians. He seems to believe that it was largely the money Constantine and his family poured into the Church that fueled its greatest period of growth.
I just finished slogging my way through Robin Lane Fox's book Pagans and Christians and so I'm pretty fresh on the arguments. Fox's book is highly frustrating in that while it is exceedingly boring, long, boring, thorough and boring it nevertheless never really manages to answer the question it purports to address namely why Christianity managed to supplant classical paganism in the Mediterranean between 150 and 350 CE. Nevertheless, what conclusions it does point towards do not entirely match the six points of Chutney's summary.
"..bewildering array of new gods and cults.": not much evidence for this in Fox's book at least. Ever since Herodotus five centuries earlier people and known of many gods and pantheons. The families in power in the Roman Empire and regionally tended to be quite conservative, and so the longevity of any particular practice tended to give it authenticity. Early Christianity was dismissed out of hand precisely because it was new by the rulers of 2nd Century who also had a difficult time understanding that this new religion was anything other than a branch of Judaism.
"Conversion": Undoubtedly important, but understates how important the possibility for overachievement and perfectionism was for the movement. Christianity offered a select, dedicated few the opportunity to achieve glory through strict asceticism and civil disobedience. The teachings of Jesus pointed towards a self-control and self-denial that was both novel and quite attractive for some personalities. Thus, every wave of persecution allowed a new set of martyrs to step forward to actively assert their fanaticism and create the stories that attracted others to the faith.
Christian priests vs. pagan: nope, this is a bit off too. Christian priests did offer personal wisdom, but, more important, they provided a judicial role that was otherwise solely available through the relatively rare circuit of roman governors. Christian priests were anointed for their lifetimes, while pagan priesthoods were generally held through family lines and terms of service were generally limited to a few years. Some pagan oracular methods were co-opted whole cloth by the ensuing Christians and these oracles were generally seen as sources of wisdom before and after Christianity. It certainly true that Christian priests were more involved in people’s day to day lives.
Egalitarianism in the Christian priesthood: almost certainly true, but I'm not sure how important it was to the spread of the movement. Christianity did focus its attention on meeting the needs of Christian poor providing a role for both the rich and the poor in the community, and that delineation of roles might have been more important to Christianity’s spread.
Donations: well, particularly after the 2nd Century there were definitely some wealthy Christians already. More to the point, however, was the fact that donation to a pagan cult became a duty of an increasingly smaller set of families. There was a growing concentration of wealth in fewer families during this period which made the cultic acts become more acts of ostentation for the few than a universal service of the gods.
Mass movement: Christian leaders generally hid out in the hills during the persecutions. The biggest thing that allowed Christianity to flourish was the fact that it was eventually decided that Christianity could include more than just the overachievers and the perfectionists. You could lapse and offer the required incense to the gods during the persecutions, and Christianity would take you back after an appropriate act and period of contrition. Thus, it became fairly common for people to postpone baptism so that they could still insure their salvation while they knew they were still likely to willingly sin. Constantine was, by no means, alone in that particular tactic.
For me, one thing missing on the list is the point that Christianity managed to integrate philosophy with religion. Many pagan philosophers were not religious when compared to their contemporaries and conversely most cults had no philosophy whatsoever. Most pagan philosophers, for instance, had reached the conclusion that infant exposure was wrong. Christianity also said exposure was wrong and had a framework into which that ethic fit quite nicely. The integration was far from perfect, but it was more appealing and universal than anything that came before.
Certainly, the promotion of Christianity by Constantine mattered a lot as well. Fox seems to suggest that the growth of Christianity prior to Constantine has been overestimated by prior historians. He seems to believe that it was largely the money Constantine and his family poured into the Church that fueled its greatest period of growth.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Ranting Against the UPG
I recently went shopping for a healthy Pagan message-board community, and tried out ecauldron.net for a month or so until I ran smack into the term UPG which had become vogue there. I had to do a web-search to find out what it means. Unverified Personal Gnosis: what a patronizing piece of vacuous bullshit. Put on your waders and join me as I examine this pernicious bit of effluvium.
First of all, there's a horrid redundancy in the term as it smirks behind its in-crowd initials. Are there Verified Impersonal Gnoses out there which need to be distinguished from the Unverified Personal ones? Of course not. Then why not just say “gnosis”? Idiots.
The whole point of the "Unverified" part seems to be to evoke the ghostly chains of the Vienna Circle. It's a Modernist empiricist thing: you wouldn't understand. Goddess, what bullshit. It seems to me that one of the major points of Neo-Pagan movement was go beyond Modernism and return to placing value on and acknowledging the reality of subjective, magical experiences particularly in the interplay between human and the divine. People in general do not dismiss, for instance, someone's saying "I'm in love." merely because the experience of being in love is subjective and, therefore, unverified and, indeed, unverifiable. But under the rubric of UPG we can tidily partition of all religious experiences and say "well, you may have experienced something, but that has nothing to do with me."
To be fair, I suppose that the "Personal" part is meant to distinguish UPG's from all those collective gnoses which are out there, but again I still have problem with the usage even there. Another part of what Neo-Paganism is about is the development of an intersubjective experience that brings us into a healthier, balance relationship to the world as an ecological system of interrelated sentient beings. The use of "Personal" emphasizes the individualism of our paths to the point that the emergent phenomenon of a collective sensibility gets reduced to a bunch of fruitcakes squawking about their inherently disparate trance experiences.
So I fail to see how UPG is anything other than a desiccated Modernist dismissal of everything of value in Neo-Paganism as a whole.
First of all, there's a horrid redundancy in the term as it smirks behind its in-crowd initials. Are there Verified Impersonal Gnoses out there which need to be distinguished from the Unverified Personal ones? Of course not. Then why not just say “gnosis”? Idiots.
The whole point of the "Unverified" part seems to be to evoke the ghostly chains of the Vienna Circle. It's a Modernist empiricist thing: you wouldn't understand. Goddess, what bullshit. It seems to me that one of the major points of Neo-Pagan movement was go beyond Modernism and return to placing value on and acknowledging the reality of subjective, magical experiences particularly in the interplay between human and the divine. People in general do not dismiss, for instance, someone's saying "I'm in love." merely because the experience of being in love is subjective and, therefore, unverified and, indeed, unverifiable. But under the rubric of UPG we can tidily partition of all religious experiences and say "well, you may have experienced something, but that has nothing to do with me."
To be fair, I suppose that the "Personal" part is meant to distinguish UPG's from all those collective gnoses which are out there, but again I still have problem with the usage even there. Another part of what Neo-Paganism is about is the development of an intersubjective experience that brings us into a healthier, balance relationship to the world as an ecological system of interrelated sentient beings. The use of "Personal" emphasizes the individualism of our paths to the point that the emergent phenomenon of a collective sensibility gets reduced to a bunch of fruitcakes squawking about their inherently disparate trance experiences.
So I fail to see how UPG is anything other than a desiccated Modernist dismissal of everything of value in Neo-Paganism as a whole.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Mertseger In Doll Maker
We all started doing self-portraits in the Circus over at SoF. Couldn't find a mustache, though.
Monday, October 31, 2005
My Memories of Rabbit Choir.
Via the new Rabbit Choir Blog:
Yes?
Well, actually I had just moved down to Southern California to teach at Cal State Fullerton while I finished up my Ph.D. from Stanford.
Oh, yeah: I remember exactly the place. It was on the southern steps of the ASUC building at Cal.
I had played with a band called the Troubadours for a month on the streets of Berkeley at a pivotal month of my life some four or five years earlier. I was always returning to Sproul Plaza where we'd played most of our gigs to see if I would run into one of them again. The location was and remains a touchstone for me.
And so when I heard the Rabbit Choir for the first time, I had this overwhelming sense that the same spirit of the place was speaking through them that had spoken through us. I felt like this spirit had preceded us and would continue speaking groups like Rabbit Choir long into the future.
And so I instantly fell in love with the group. I'm certain they played Full of Love and One Love that day. The religious universalism of the latter song was in full accord with my own philosphy, and so I was hooked.
I still regret not buying the EP that first day: I never got another chance. I did get High Fidelity Hare Cut at Rasputin's, I think, a couple of years later.
Well, no. Being in So. Cal., I never made the phone list. Instead, the first thing I'd do whenever I was up for a visit was walk Telegraph looking for Rabbit spoor: the precious adverts indicating that there was a show that week.
I still managed to see the band a surprising number of times. Two I documented with poetry at the time were the I-Beam and the Berkeley Square. In addition, I also caught a show at some dive on Broadway in the City where the band wore marching band jackets (!). I think I caught shows at the Starry Plough at least twice, because I know my fiance (then and now wife) got to see the Choir at least once there. I drug my best friend from highschool to a gig at a pizza place in the Oakland hills a couple of miles from where I now live. (Jim talked to us before a show gave us tickets: how cool!) And, certainly, once at the Bison Brewery.
Well, of course: everything She touches changes.
But Rabbit Choir was special. The songs were hopefull, probably overly ernest and possibly dweeby. But, man, that's me too. I embrace that.
Certainly, beer. I did get invited to one after party. Good times!
And after the uncertain disolution I saw Stacie working in the Brewery. Lan embarassed me by saying we were the Rabbit Choir's biggest fans. Lan's English was not as good then, and what she meant was that Rabbit Choir was our favorite band. Stacie told us about the Love Props, but basically blew us off prefering to read a travel guide (probably just a bad day). We did check out the Love Props but the energy was so much darker, cynical and even violent. We mourned the loss of Rabbit Choir.
Hey all you Rabbit Choir fans out there.
Yes?
Come-on, you remember - it was when you were in college.
Well, actually I had just moved down to Southern California to teach at Cal State Fullerton while I finished up my Ph.D. from Stanford.
You met the bunch of hippies playing music on the street, selling their tapes and CDs, getting hassled by the man.
Oh, yeah: I remember exactly the place. It was on the southern steps of the ASUC building at Cal.
I had played with a band called the Troubadours for a month on the streets of Berkeley at a pivotal month of my life some four or five years earlier. I was always returning to Sproul Plaza where we'd played most of our gigs to see if I would run into one of them again. The location was and remains a touchstone for me.
And so when I heard the Rabbit Choir for the first time, I had this overwhelming sense that the same spirit of the place was speaking through them that had spoken through us. I felt like this spirit had preceded us and would continue speaking groups like Rabbit Choir long into the future.
And so I instantly fell in love with the group. I'm certain they played Full of Love and One Love that day. The religious universalism of the latter song was in full accord with my own philosphy, and so I was hooked.
You bought a tape, gave them a buck when they passed the hat and told your friends you just met a great band that is playing this Thursday (or Friday, or Sat.) at some bar or maybe some coffee house.
I still regret not buying the EP that first day: I never got another chance. I did get High Fidelity Hare Cut at Rasputin's, I think, a couple of years later.
The day of the show, you got a call from Doc, the drummer, so you decided you just had to go to the show. When you got there, you found that this hippie street band actually rocked.
Well, no. Being in So. Cal., I never made the phone list. Instead, the first thing I'd do whenever I was up for a visit was walk Telegraph looking for Rabbit spoor: the precious adverts indicating that there was a show that week.
I still managed to see the band a surprising number of times. Two I documented with poetry at the time were the I-Beam and the Berkeley Square. In addition, I also caught a show at some dive on Broadway in the City where the band wore marching band jackets (!). I think I caught shows at the Starry Plough at least twice, because I know my fiance (then and now wife) got to see the Choir at least once there. I drug my best friend from highschool to a gig at a pizza place in the Oakland hills a couple of miles from where I now live. (Jim talked to us before a show gave us tickets: how cool!) And, certainly, once at the Bison Brewery.
Your life was changed forever...
Well, of course: everything She touches changes.
But Rabbit Choir was special. The songs were hopefull, probably overly ernest and possibly dweeby. But, man, that's me too. I embrace that.
Or maybe you just drank a little too much beer, smoked a little too much weed and ended up inviting the band back to your house.
Certainly, beer. I did get invited to one after party. Good times!
And after the uncertain disolution I saw Stacie working in the Brewery. Lan embarassed me by saying we were the Rabbit Choir's biggest fans. Lan's English was not as good then, and what she meant was that Rabbit Choir was our favorite band. Stacie told us about the Love Props, but basically blew us off prefering to read a travel guide (probably just a bad day). We did check out the Love Props but the energy was so much darker, cynical and even violent. We mourned the loss of Rabbit Choir.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Ian's Initiate's Instructions
Over at Ship of Fools today a young Christian was asking for prayers that the girl he had just fallen in love with would not go through with a Pagan initiation. He reported that it was her firends idea and she was just going along with it.
Initiation should be so much more than that, and it reminded me of the piece that Lurking Bear wrote while the Third Road was discussing the conundrums of multiple initiations. I need to read it more often.
Initiation should be so much more than that, and it reminded me of the piece that Lurking Bear wrote while the Third Road was discussing the conundrums of multiple initiations. I need to read it more often.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
What I did for Beltane
I wrote the following for a private board over at Ship of Fools, and so I can't link to it. It's a report of what I did for Beltane using the format they use to review churches:
Mystery Worshipper: Mertseger
The church: Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve
Denomination: The site itself hosts a wise variety of creation centered spirituality. The Tradition of the MW is the Third Road.
The building: The central feature of this ritual was a labyrinth (be sure to scroll down to see the picture) at the bottom on old rock quary.
The neighbourhood: This regional park contains many trails many of which pass into an area in which cows graze.
The cast: This was a solitary ritual walk.
What was the name of the service?
Beltane sunset ritual walk.
How full was the building?
I encountered maybe a dozen people, two dogs, two cottontail bunny rabbits, and I heard at least one quail.
Did anyone welcome you personally?
South-East of Round Top (lower right quadrant of the map) I was arrested by the unexpected sound of a door creaking open. As I walked on I heard it again. Finally, I saw a distant, tall stand of eucalyptis creaking in the wind. I fell quite naturallly into trance and briefly went deeply in to Faerie. I thanked the spirits and moved on.
Was your pew comfortable?
I did sit twice. First I sat at the center of the main labyrinth. That location is a bit cramped, and you can basically only sit there cross-legged. Later I sat on a boulder still warm from the afternoon sun which was quite nice.
How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere?
I felt excited and expectant wondering what strange and mysterious events might occur in this ritual. I was not be disappointed.
What were the exact opening words of the service?
When I was due east of Round Top, I saw the bone white remains of some more eucalyptis that had been killed in wild fire maybe seven years ago. The trunks were glowing white in the late afternoon sun and my heart gasped at their beauty. I said, "Hello Lady."
What books did the congregation use during the service?
I used no formal ritual script, though I did invoke the Goddess and the God by singing a composition my teacher has written for such purposes. I thank them when the walk was done.
What musical instruments were played?
I sang the invocation, and much to my surprise and delight, someone had left a plastic recorder on the altar at the center of the first labryrinth. I accompanied the call of the quail with an improvised tune which matched the improvised song I sang earlier as I walked the labyrinth.
Did anything distract you?
Well, there were the usual worries that someone might interupt my private ritual as I walked the labyrinth or that I looked ridiculous. But those thoughts were fleeting, and people are generally polite and unobtrusive at Sibley.
Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?
The ritual was deeply meditative and experienced within a deep trance state.
Exactly how long was the sermon?
I did not have a watch, of course, and there was no sermon per se. However, I probably spent fifteen minutes at the heart of the labyrinth playing the recorder, appreciating the the various offerings on the altar, and writing a poem to leave behind.
On a scale of 1-10, how good was the preacher?
I'd say an 6. I flubbed several notes at the top of the range of the instrument, and both the improvised song as I walked the labyrinth and the poem I wrote were probably pretty cliched. It's hard to do top notch stuff when you're whacked out in trance.
In a nutshell, what was the sermon about?
This being Beltane, I had several prayers for my love life with my wife who is in China on business. There was also a deep joy at being to reconnect with this location and doing rituals after several years of not being able to find time to do so with work and being a father to a young boy.
Which part of the service was like being in heaven?
First as I descended into the quarry, I saw a cottontail when I had never seen one in these hills before. Next, the altar at the center of the main labyrinth included a lovely decorated goard, a white yarn dolly for the goddess and a little pewter Horned God. Finally, I later stood beneath a young oak as I watched the sun go down a bit north of the peak of Mt. Tamalpais across the Bay.
And which part was like being in... er... the other place?
I wanted to go the top of my favorite wind-swept faerie hill top (due north of Round Top at the place marked 27 on the map), but a couple headed up there as I approached. As this was Beltane I didn't want to disturb them, and so stopped at a boulder for a bit. I saw them coming down the trail a few mintues latter, and so I climbed back up only to find a nother couple already watching the light fall on Mt Diablo. I quietly walked away, disappointed that I would not be able to watch the sunset from my favorite spot.
What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost?
Well, I did try a new path at one point but I didn't get lost.
How would you describe the after-service coffee?
Cafeine does not mix well with trance work at all. I did have a rich Cabernet and some Nibisco Chocolate Chunk Cookies and listened to my teacher's album for the first time in years when I got home.
How would you feel about making this church your regular (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)?
I'd say a 9. The ritual was certainly ecstatic as they tend to be in this Trad, and the place is certainly convenient to my home. But I do like more formal ritual and regular corporate worship.
Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian?
Yes. I like that I can experience a deeply Pagan relationship to the amazing wild and fey places hidden even amidst civilization, but nothing about that negates my love of Christ.
What one thing will you remember about all this in seven days' time?
The shear delight of finding all the marvelous items at the altar at the center of the labyrinth. It's truly wonderful to know that there are others like me connected through this amazing location.
Mystery Worshipper: Mertseger
The church: Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve
Denomination: The site itself hosts a wise variety of creation centered spirituality. The Tradition of the MW is the Third Road.
The building: The central feature of this ritual was a labyrinth (be sure to scroll down to see the picture) at the bottom on old rock quary.
The neighbourhood: This regional park contains many trails many of which pass into an area in which cows graze.
The cast: This was a solitary ritual walk.
What was the name of the service?
Beltane sunset ritual walk.
How full was the building?
I encountered maybe a dozen people, two dogs, two cottontail bunny rabbits, and I heard at least one quail.
Did anyone welcome you personally?
South-East of Round Top (lower right quadrant of the map) I was arrested by the unexpected sound of a door creaking open. As I walked on I heard it again. Finally, I saw a distant, tall stand of eucalyptis creaking in the wind. I fell quite naturallly into trance and briefly went deeply in to Faerie. I thanked the spirits and moved on.
Was your pew comfortable?
I did sit twice. First I sat at the center of the main labyrinth. That location is a bit cramped, and you can basically only sit there cross-legged. Later I sat on a boulder still warm from the afternoon sun which was quite nice.
How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere?
I felt excited and expectant wondering what strange and mysterious events might occur in this ritual. I was not be disappointed.
What were the exact opening words of the service?
When I was due east of Round Top, I saw the bone white remains of some more eucalyptis that had been killed in wild fire maybe seven years ago. The trunks were glowing white in the late afternoon sun and my heart gasped at their beauty. I said, "Hello Lady."
What books did the congregation use during the service?
I used no formal ritual script, though I did invoke the Goddess and the God by singing a composition my teacher has written for such purposes. I thank them when the walk was done.
What musical instruments were played?
I sang the invocation, and much to my surprise and delight, someone had left a plastic recorder on the altar at the center of the first labryrinth. I accompanied the call of the quail with an improvised tune which matched the improvised song I sang earlier as I walked the labyrinth.
Did anything distract you?
Well, there were the usual worries that someone might interupt my private ritual as I walked the labyrinth or that I looked ridiculous. But those thoughts were fleeting, and people are generally polite and unobtrusive at Sibley.
Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?
The ritual was deeply meditative and experienced within a deep trance state.
Exactly how long was the sermon?
I did not have a watch, of course, and there was no sermon per se. However, I probably spent fifteen minutes at the heart of the labyrinth playing the recorder, appreciating the the various offerings on the altar, and writing a poem to leave behind.
On a scale of 1-10, how good was the preacher?
I'd say an 6. I flubbed several notes at the top of the range of the instrument, and both the improvised song as I walked the labyrinth and the poem I wrote were probably pretty cliched. It's hard to do top notch stuff when you're whacked out in trance.
In a nutshell, what was the sermon about?
This being Beltane, I had several prayers for my love life with my wife who is in China on business. There was also a deep joy at being to reconnect with this location and doing rituals after several years of not being able to find time to do so with work and being a father to a young boy.
Which part of the service was like being in heaven?
First as I descended into the quarry, I saw a cottontail when I had never seen one in these hills before. Next, the altar at the center of the main labyrinth included a lovely decorated goard, a white yarn dolly for the goddess and a little pewter Horned God. Finally, I later stood beneath a young oak as I watched the sun go down a bit north of the peak of Mt. Tamalpais across the Bay.
And which part was like being in... er... the other place?
I wanted to go the top of my favorite wind-swept faerie hill top (due north of Round Top at the place marked 27 on the map), but a couple headed up there as I approached. As this was Beltane I didn't want to disturb them, and so stopped at a boulder for a bit. I saw them coming down the trail a few mintues latter, and so I climbed back up only to find a nother couple already watching the light fall on Mt Diablo. I quietly walked away, disappointed that I would not be able to watch the sunset from my favorite spot.
What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost?
Well, I did try a new path at one point but I didn't get lost.
How would you describe the after-service coffee?
Cafeine does not mix well with trance work at all. I did have a rich Cabernet and some Nibisco Chocolate Chunk Cookies and listened to my teacher's album for the first time in years when I got home.
How would you feel about making this church your regular (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)?
I'd say a 9. The ritual was certainly ecstatic as they tend to be in this Trad, and the place is certainly convenient to my home. But I do like more formal ritual and regular corporate worship.
Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian?
Yes. I like that I can experience a deeply Pagan relationship to the amazing wild and fey places hidden even amidst civilization, but nothing about that negates my love of Christ.
What one thing will you remember about all this in seven days' time?
The shear delight of finding all the marvelous items at the altar at the center of the labyrinth. It's truly wonderful to know that there are others like me connected through this amazing location.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Authority
We've recently been discussing the use of inclusive language over at the Ship of Fools. I've said my piece there, but the topic has led me to grapple a bit more with the conumdrums of authority in thealogical matters.
I find the orthodox Christian positions on authority to be vexing. I can understand and respect (though I don't believe in) a view of the universe in which the Divine never communicates to the sentient beings in the universe. And I can understand nd believe in a view in which the Divine continually communicates to the sentient beings in the universe. But I cannot fathom a view that the Divine spoke once and no longer does so.
This inconsistency is related to "the scandal of particularity". Jesus' death in ancient Jerusalem saves all the intellegent lifeforms throughout the universe? And all such beings, if they exist, must follow the Word as written by a bunch of humans living around that time? Either Jesus' death represents something bigger which is not tied to that time and location and, thus, transcends the particular in ways that manifest to all those other beings and in ways that they can know and understand in the contexts of their own lives and cultures, or Jesus' death is matters only for humanity.
I prefer for the sake of consistency a universe where God never ceases to speak to all beings everywhere throughout time. But on what basis can this preference of mine have authority? You might look to Wesley's Bar Stool of Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience. Each of these on their own have obvious flaws. What counts as Scripture? What about subjective experience which is not rational? Is the oldest religion really the closet to God. If so, wouldn't we all be animists?
I question that there can be only one absolute authority for any less than omniscient being. I think that there is a lot of wisdom in a wide variety of traditions. The fact that a religious idea has stood the test of time idicates that it has some value. The fact that a religion coordinates with your experience of the divine has some value. The fact that the religion conforms to what we understand about the world in purly scientific terms has some value.
Therefore, the authority that I trust is that of a collective working-things-out that adapts to science and culture, that has room for the passionate interaction between Self and Other which is our living in this universe, and that hears the Goddess speaking more clearly over time.
I find the orthodox Christian positions on authority to be vexing. I can understand and respect (though I don't believe in) a view of the universe in which the Divine never communicates to the sentient beings in the universe. And I can understand nd believe in a view in which the Divine continually communicates to the sentient beings in the universe. But I cannot fathom a view that the Divine spoke once and no longer does so.
This inconsistency is related to "the scandal of particularity". Jesus' death in ancient Jerusalem saves all the intellegent lifeforms throughout the universe? And all such beings, if they exist, must follow the Word as written by a bunch of humans living around that time? Either Jesus' death represents something bigger which is not tied to that time and location and, thus, transcends the particular in ways that manifest to all those other beings and in ways that they can know and understand in the contexts of their own lives and cultures, or Jesus' death is matters only for humanity.
I prefer for the sake of consistency a universe where God never ceases to speak to all beings everywhere throughout time. But on what basis can this preference of mine have authority? You might look to Wesley's Bar Stool of Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience. Each of these on their own have obvious flaws. What counts as Scripture? What about subjective experience which is not rational? Is the oldest religion really the closet to God. If so, wouldn't we all be animists?
I question that there can be only one absolute authority for any less than omniscient being. I think that there is a lot of wisdom in a wide variety of traditions. The fact that a religious idea has stood the test of time idicates that it has some value. The fact that a religion coordinates with your experience of the divine has some value. The fact that the religion conforms to what we understand about the world in purly scientific terms has some value.
Therefore, the authority that I trust is that of a collective working-things-out that adapts to science and culture, that has room for the passionate interaction between Self and Other which is our living in this universe, and that hears the Goddess speaking more clearly over time.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Welcome to The Manifest Song
I created this blog to post a comment at Query Letters I Love. Who knows if it will ever see another post.
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