God, and Stuff

I was reading an article about the military tombstone pentacle controversy and in the comments section, I found a comment containing the following words:

Being an Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagan (though non-practicing)

I don't have any idea what Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagans believe. I've never heard the term before in my life, but as a pagan myself, I can tell you that a non-practicing pagan is an animal I'm not familiar with. I'm willing to assume that that's more about my not understanding the term 'practicing', but still it seems odd.

On another, not completely unrelated note, my friend Marv, who regular readers might remember, has a long-time girlfriend. She apparently clicked me in his myspace friends list, and found my personal space to be full of pentagrams and "Blessed Be" banners. This well-meaning young lass branded me, per her churches teachings no doubt, a Satanist. So Marv, who has never expressed an interest in my or anyone else's religion that I know of, had to ask me to explain my faith so that he could relate the story to his girlfriend and assure her that I was not about to attempt to sacrifice her children to Jeff Goldblum.

Both of these things have given me a brilliant idea. I shall blog about my religion! Nothing could be safer and less controversial than religion, right? Especially an intent-based pagan religion I tend to make up as I go along. So here goes.

I worship Jeff Goldblum. Geena Davis is Evil.
Just kidding. Ha ha

I am pagan, with a definite Wiccan bent. I'm also kind of pantheistic, which meshes pretty well with the whole Wicca angle too. Basically, I believe that if you are a good person, you won't have a crappy life. I think that divine punishment, if there is such a thing, is reserved for bad people who tried to impose their will in life, regardless of who they prayed to or asked forgiveness from. I think that the preacher who tries to make you live life by his rules is about as bad as the abusive boyfriend who tried to make you live life by his rules. Both tend to use scare tactics, whether they scare you with threats of eternal hellfire or with actual beatings, they are trying to bend your will to their own and I believe it is bad.

The god aspect, an intelligent designer (Versace?), a creator. Hmmm. Well, I do believe in that, out of cowardice and simple-mindedness. See, I can't imagine anything with a pattern that wasn't created. My mind is incapable of grasping the concept, as I believe most human minds are. Also, I fear death, which is the final unknown. It gives me comfort to believe that I have a creator who will make sure that it's not lights out and who will, I secretly hope, see me in the same rosy light I tend to see myself. I do not believe any of these things with any positive certainty, rather in the same way I continue to believe in Santa Claus. I believe because it makes me happy and because I want to, no matter what anyone says.

Now, the official Wiccan philosophy, as I've come to understand it, is that in the beginning there was a female presence, the Goddess. She got lonely and so she split herself in two and created the God, a male presence to keep her company. They came together (watch out now, it gets sexy) and from that union came the planets and stars and all that goes with it, including us. (And I thought labor hurt when it was just a baby. Imagine a whole solar system!) So the Goddess and the God wanted to keep watch over all of their little babies, especially the ones who had the ability to self-propel, so they took up working in shifts, looking down at us at all times. She became the moon, calm and cool and ever-changing. (Think, the lunar month as it relates to women's fertility and mood swings.)He became the sun, fiery and powerful and also strong. (Think, life-giving energy that can blind you if you stare at it.) Now, here's where the spells and chants start to make sense. Since everything, including people, came from the God and Goddess, we should all have that same inherited power, right? So, why can't we maybe influence things? In all honesty, the spells are more along the lines of lighting a candle for a blessing in a Catholic Church, just a ritualized prayer. But there's also the theory that if we are all the same, we should have the same power. If the Earth can quake and rain and do all sorts of nifty natural things, why can't we? Look at it this way, science teaches us that everything, way down deep, is energy. You, me, this computer, a dead tree, it's all just energy. Well, Wiccan's call that energy god. Actually, since it's in everything, they call it The All. And The All is more a force than a god. "God" created the Earth, but The All is God and the Earth. Deep, huh.

So, that's what I've been told is the official party line. Do I believe it? I don't know. It's certainly no less feasible than a bored deity rotting alone in space creating everything in six days and then needing a rest. I mean, why does a god need to rest? Wouldn't God, if anyone, have unlimited stamina? But I digress. I believe that I can't know all the answers. And I believe that the people who claim to know the answers are almost universally assholish. And of all of the religions which I have studied (only maybe three but honestly most people haven't even studied that many), the pagan tend to be the only ones that don't possess two main deal-breaking flaws. 1) The belief that it, and only it, is the truth. And 2) The belief that it is a follower's duty to correct everyone else who is, by definition, wrong. See, my own brand of unschooled Wicca has only one rule, really. "And it harm none, do what ye will." No rules against gays. No rules against working on Sundays or wearing cotton with linen. Just a different wording of the Golden Rule. Don't pee on people and you'll be alright.

Well, you might say, how convenient to choose a religion with no consequence. But, no, there's consequence. We have the Law Of Three. It's like Karma squared. Whatever energy you put out into the universe, negative or positive, you get back times three. Good person, does charity work, good life. Cynical thieving adulterer, bad life. No penance to erase it here. No asking for forgiveness or human-gods dying to save your ass. Nope, if you do the crime you will do the time. Guaranteed. I know I've earned the bad shit that's happened to me. And I sure as hell know I have more coming to me. And, if you max out your lifetime's allotment of retribution, there's always next time. Yes, even Wiccans have an afterlife. See, you're born and then you die and then you're born again. Lather, rinse repeat. After you die all your former lives are made clear to you and you get to set a goal, a lesson to learn that perhaps you never quite got before. Then maybe you hang around for a while, watching your kids grow up or whatever, until you decide to jump back into the game and be reborn. After a while you might run out of lessons to learn, and then you go back into the God-Goddess combination you came from in the first place. I picture it being kind of like those Hubble telescope pictures. I also find it explains a lot about how this guy and this guy can be the same species. I'm thinking Mr Tyson might have been around this block a few more times, or at least finished the job more often, than the guy who taped himself. For an even clearer comparison, click here and here.

Now, why does the lady who claimed to be a non-practicing Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagan baffle me? Because I'm pretty sure Hellenic Reconstructionist Paganism isn't something your parents drag you to every Sunday like, say, Catholicism. I can understand a non-practicing Jew or a non-practicing Catholic. Your parents tell you from birth on that this is truth and fact, and you believe them the same way you believe things like that the sky is blue and that four follows three. Mom and Dad said it so it's real. (By the way, don't teach your kid pi during the formative years. It totally screws them up when they go off to preschool and they're the only kid who counts one, two, three, pi, four. I learned that one the hard way. Poor Ryan.) So to me, non-practicing means that they believe it, whatever "it" is, because it is a universal fact in their life, but they don't necessarily attend all of the functions or pray a lot, or maybe they eat beef on Fridays or whatever they're technically not supposed to do. But with the pagan religions, usually if you claim it you chose it. Very few people have been raised pagan, so far. So it's not like there's some twenty-something computer tech telling his friends "Well, I was raised Neo-Druid, but I've kind of strayed since high school." How can you, if you've personally looked for a religion, sought out what made sense to you, and then found it and learned it, can you then cease to practice?

I guess I could be considered a non-practicing pagan. I don't do ritual more than once or twice a year and the closest I have to an altar is a sage stick I keep unlit because I think it smells like pot. Maybe I am non-practicing, but I wouldn't identify as such. I just say I'm a solitary witch and leave it at that. I really need a better title. Maybe I could be a Brigidic Neo-Pagan Sabbatist. But, despite sounding fancy, that just means I follow a relatively new incarnation of an old religion with holidays, and that it all revolves around the goddess Brigid.

Ahh, goddesses. That's another thing I left out. How, if I personally have the Goddess (moon) and the God (sun) and all of everything is the All, do I somehow squeeze in gods and goddesses? The answer is simple. Delegation! See, the All is a force, Nature if you will. And the God and the Goddess are really kind of busy with things like karma and being all stuck to each other forever. The ones who anser the lottery requests and such are a little lower on the totem pole. So, the minor deities are more along the lines of the Christian saints. Christian or Catholic? I can't tell. Either way, if Francis can protect your dog and Christopher can keep you safe on vacation, then there's no reason why any number of Celtic or Roman or Egyptian deities can't attempt to do the same.

Well, hopefully I have educated the people (person) who may have wondered about my religious beliefs. Personally , I just think that good is rewarded and bad is punished, in life rather than after it. The rest is just to make me feel better and after all, isn't that what religion is for? To serve as a crutch for the only species unfortunate enough to be aware of its own mortality?




PS. Maybe it's a stretch to believe that getting charged twice for the same sweater is punishment from God for cheating on a seventh grade spelling test, but is it really any worse than believing that if I lied to my mother once, about anything, and forgot to ask forgiveness that I will burn in Hell for eternity? Really?