Let’s sell our souls to the man above...

[purplerabbits]

If any militant atheists have been confused by my talk of gods recently, I should point out that I am an atheist as well as a pagan. Paul is the most militant atheist I know, and he seems not too confused by this, but he knows me.



I had some moments of realisation on Calton Hill, which is what it's there for, I suppose, and one of them was that Dionysios is too strong a wine to drink every day. He needs someone to balance him out, just as he serves to provide essential imbalance in his turn. So...

This year I will be mostly following Dionysios/Apollo.

I must stress that this does *not* mean that I have to become either a Nietzschian or a Rush fan, just to make that perfectly clear.

I looked them up, and Dionysios is supposed to rule in December to March when Apollo is away, but I'm not a member of an agricultural society, so I'll keep it more flexible. I think the proportions are about right, though - no-one needs more than about 33% of either madness or ecstasy. I suspect that in my case it's less. So Dionysios will be in charge of holidays and at least every other weekend. I'm not letting him out at work unless I'm in a *very* funny mood.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Only not confused due to knowing the detailed, non-obvious explanation though!

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

This is interesting, actually - I must ask you (you, PurpleRabbits) about it sometime.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to try to explain. Me and Paul kept meaning to write a guide to Magick for Materialists, but we never quite got round to it (surprise). Paganism for Atheists would be related, but possibly even harder to summarise...

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Ah - is this Chaos Magick related, or similar?

It's a hobby...

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Keeps you off the streets, I s'pose.

[duranorak.livejournal.com]

If/when you've got time, I'd love to hear more...

E.
x

[ex-pipistre.livejournal.com]

i'm an atheist and a pagan too. i understand perfectly ~^..^~

[lizw.livejournal.com]

One of the most active members of the Asatru Hearth I go to is an Asatru atheist, so no surprise here. I've come across more people with a worldview along those lines in Asatru than in paganism generally, but then it's been a long time since I spent much time in general pagan circles.

Atheism & Paganism

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

I'm a fairly militant atheist too, but I have less problems with paganistic beliefs than some of the more "modern" religions (Judeo-Christianity, Islam). At least with paganism you can see that it was our fore-bearers trying to explain changing seasons and so on. And the stories they spun were full of imagination and colour, esp. some of the Celtic and Norse ones. If some people want to lap up Hollywood's latest offerings, then I have little problem with others enjoying the stories of old. It's when people start linking arms in front of abortion clinics, stoping genomic/stem-cell research and buying political influence that I start to get hot under the collar.