On Not Being a Textual Religion
People who think that a "real religion" has holy books often do not understand Paganism, whether old or now.
Gus diZerega, who is now blogging at BeliefNet, takes on that attitude in his latest post, "A Pagan View on Sacred Authority."
Fundamentally we are an oral and experiential tradition. We Wiccans have Books of Shadows, but they are more like ritual cookbooks that sacred texts along Biblical or even theological lines. Similar texts dominate in Brazil among the African Diasporic traditions. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. This also appears to have been the case in [ancient] Rome.
Read the whole thing.
Incidentally, it is good to see that BeliefNet has a Pagan blogger again. It used to be me, but I was purged along with other non-monotheists. Now the site's owners seem to be trying to broaden its blogroll once again. You still have to scroll to the very very bottom to find the Pagan blogger.
Gus diZerega, who is now blogging at BeliefNet, takes on that attitude in his latest post, "A Pagan View on Sacred Authority."
Fundamentally we are an oral and experiential tradition. We Wiccans have Books of Shadows, but they are more like ritual cookbooks that sacred texts along Biblical or even theological lines. Similar texts dominate in Brazil among the African Diasporic traditions. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. This also appears to have been the case in [ancient] Rome.
Read the whole thing.
Incidentally, it is good to see that BeliefNet has a Pagan blogger again. It used to be me, but I was purged along with other non-monotheists. Now the site's owners seem to be trying to broaden its blogroll once again. You still have to scroll to the very very bottom to find the Pagan blogger.
posted by Chas S. Clifton at 11:59 AM Permalink
2 Comments:
Well, there certainly are more Pagan-flavored blogs than I can keep up with. And I try. So, no, we Pagans do not need any one host/site to get our words shared.
Writing this comment, I realized that I couldn't communicate like this in an exclusively oral tradition. Text stuff works for today's Pagans, who don't rely on any one reading of texts for everything.
Glad to have Gus diZerega posting where lots of folks can read his stuff.
Big themed blog hosting sites seem very flukey about what viewpoints they will support from their bloggers. One day "diversity," the next "white line fever." A binge of bloggers, then a purge.
Reminds me of the great cycles of life and party lines...
Don't get me wrong, Pitch. We have plenty of texts. What we do not have are authoritative texts that we hold sacred.
There, is that better?
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