Only Endless Memory

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

My beliefs

I saw something on another blog about the Mother God, and religious beliefs and thought I would touch some on what I believe. I like to believe that I am very open and accepting of other people's beliefs, and in that when I formed my own spirituality, I left it open in such a way that it allowed for others beliefs to fit into it.

One of the things I think I should start with is some of my personal definitions of spirituality and religion. I see spirituality is a person's personal connection with a power outside of themselves. I leave the definition of that power very fuzzy on purpose. I define religion as a community that gathers together and hold a similar creed, doctrine, or belief system to connect with that which is divine.

Now, with religion, the people gathering do not all have to share the same belief in the same form of this external form of divinity. In fact, in most cases, I think many people have very different ways in which they see a supreme being or beings. Some may see Jesus, some may see Mary, some may see a trinity, and there are those who may see the Greek or Roman pantheon of deities. If their belief is that all people are equal and that all people deserve to worship their God or Gods in the way that they chose, then that is a religion.

Okay, now to my own beliefs I belong to a Unitarian Universalist Church. There was a time in my life not long ago that I never though I would belong to a church again, but the UU church actually was something that I could accept because it allowed me to keep my beliefs. The basic premise in the UU church is that we are tolerant of other people no matter thier race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and what thier personal beliefs are. they invite people to continue to search for thier own beliefs and grow spiritually without telling you what you *should* believe. It stands for justice and acceptance of others, telling us that we are all connected.

Well, it is all well and good that I belong to a church that is accepting of what I believe in, but what do I actually believe? I use the word pagan to describe myself. I suppose neo-pagan is a more accurate description. The word pagan originally meant "country-dweller." The religious meaning of it being a non-Christian came from the fact that those who lived further from the cities (in rural areas) were more spread out, so it was harder to teach them Christianity and convert them from a polytheistic religion.

Neo-paganism today often have people who practice various forms of wicca (also called witchcraft or wiccacraft). Wicca is not a form of harmful magics, in fact one of its main rules is "And ye harm none, do as ye will." A brief translation meaning, you can do as you want as long as you don't do anything harmful to anyone, this includes things like the imfamous love spells that are so often spoken of, because you are trying to force your will on someone else.

So, as a pagan, I believe in more then one deity. Many pagans will believe in deities from one pantheon (ie Egyptian deities like Bast, Anubis, Horus, Isis, etc) or will chose deities from several, or even from all of them. Many also chose patron deities that they feel more of a connection towards. I have formed a Pantheon that consists of archetypes. Most Pantheons have archetypes that are repeated themes. One of the easiests examples of this would be death; Egyptians have Anubis, Greeks have Thanatos, Celts have the Morrigan.

I take these repeated themes and make that my pantheon. From the dieties that repeat, I believe that there are male and female aspects of each one. Now, I also believe that religion is very personal, my deities have personal names. So, Death has names that I have given to Death. Justice has names that I have given to Justice. Now that does not mean that the name Thanatos or Anubis or Tyr or Odin or Hecate or Jesus is not a valid name for a deity. I just means that is the name I use personally in my mind. I can also do a ritual in a group and use other names, but hold the form of my deity in my mind.

Now to my pantheon, and there is a balance in my pantheon of male and female. Now these male and female are also able to join together into a sort of hermaphrodite form as another balance, and from there all the balance can join together and become One God who is many but one. So, we have something that fits in the many God and the one God theories. Now, as for the no God theory, this one God is everything, s/he is science and nature and life.

Okay, now that I have said something about my beliefs. There is one thing I will say about some of the pagans that I have met that have bothered me. Actually, let me take that back a step. Some people of all religions that bother me, and there is one thing specific to pagans. One thing about all religions that bothers me is fundamentalism. I do understand holding to your beliefs. I understand working for your beliefs. It bothers me when a person does not respect another persons beliefs though, and when a person is so closed that they will not see any other possibility, As soon as a person believes they have all the answers, they stop learning. In case anyone is wondering, yes, I have met fundamentalist pagans.

As to my little gripe with pagans specifically, I believe in the balance between God and Goddess. I think that the balance between them is important. One of the things that I have seen in some cases is that the Goddess is heavily honored and the God is just sort of there. I do understand that for many people part of paganism is taking back power as women, or being in touch with feminine nature, but it should not be at the cost of balance. I have used the reasoning that the existence of a Goddess makes sense on the creation of life and the world, because you need both female and male to create life. Let's not forget that it does take both.

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