Gallimaufry to Fill Space
Back from a week on the road to a full inbox and a desk covered with bills to pay, I offer a few links for your kind attention:
¶ Attention Kemetic reconstructionists: Don't let your temple-builders become anemic.
¶ A list of things that offend Muslims. Anyone want to try the Pagan equivalent? I think it would be a lot shorter. Piggy banks and Easter eggs don't bother me. Can you imagine Pagans rioting in the streets over the crappy remake of The Wicker Man and giving director Neil LaBute the Theo Van Gogh treatment? I can't either. We prefer to just make fun of it.
¶ This will go onto my must-see list: Jason Pitzl-Waters notes an upcoming movie about the philosopher Hypatia. An uncompromising Neoplatonist, from what I understand, she was murdered by a Christian mob after some bishop put out a fatwa against her.
¶ Attention Kemetic reconstructionists: Don't let your temple-builders become anemic.
¶ A list of things that offend Muslims. Anyone want to try the Pagan equivalent? I think it would be a lot shorter. Piggy banks and Easter eggs don't bother me. Can you imagine Pagans rioting in the streets over the crappy remake of The Wicker Man and giving director Neil LaBute the Theo Van Gogh treatment? I can't either. We prefer to just make fun of it.
¶ This will go onto my must-see list: Jason Pitzl-Waters notes an upcoming movie about the philosopher Hypatia. An uncompromising Neoplatonist, from what I understand, she was murdered by a Christian mob after some bishop put out a fatwa against her.
Labels: blogging, Christianity, Islam, movies
posted by Chas S. Clifton at 2:20 PM Permalink
6 Comments:
The Pagans I know are pretty live-and-let-live. I'm trying to think of something that would offend my religious sensibilities. I mean, there's environmental degradation and abuse and neglect of animals...but those things concern me as a human being, not just as a Wiccan, and those things are a Big Deal. It seems silly to say they offend me. No, taking offense seems much more ego-driven, and hence trivial, really. I'm not offended by green-faced, warty witches or...jeez, I can't even think of anything else. I'm not even offended by people assuming I practice a trendy or new age religion. I mean, what do they know?
Anyway Islam, as a faith tradition, hardly has a monopoly on its adherents taking offense.
"Anyway Islam, as a faith tradition, hardly has a monopoly on its adherents taking offense."
It does, however, at this time have a monopoly on its adherents expressing their offense by flying airplanes into office buildings.
I have noted, however, that it would do wonders for book sales in Pagan Studies if some of us would do that.
<⁄cynical humor>
Apparently Monty Python were advised to make wills in case they got assassinated by Christians offended by The Life of Brian (but on the whole, Christians confined themselves to non-violent protest on that one). Artists depicting a gay or queer Jesus have had death-threats against them, though, and their work has been vandalised. Then there was the uproar over the chocolate Jesus sculpture...
Things that offend Pagans... erm... intolerance?
I am offended by warty witch depictions and the like (and the remake of The Wicker Man), but I'm more likely to shrug and walk on by than to complain, and I certainly can't imagine getting violent about it. As you say, making fun of it is the most sensible response.
Oh, by the way, a Sufi friend told me that a fatwa is simply an opinion or interpretation of a Koranic verse. So our tendency to think of it as a decree is rather incorrect.
Things that offend Pagans . . .
1. the former HPS
2. the current HPS
3. whoever is 'in charge'
4. that other tradition which is doing it all WRONG
5. Pagans that wear too much bling
6. Closet Pagans
7. Organized Religion
8. Pagans that do drugs
9. Pagans that don't do drugs
10. The Secret
LOL Jane. I stand corrected.
Yvonne, Sufis are mild, heterodox mystics.
This is what a fatwa looks like. If someone on the receiving end of a fatwa feels compelled to go into hiding, then the fatwa is more than "an opinion or an interpretation," wouldn't you say?
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