Panthea con9/25/2023 ![]() Writers, like Jon Cleland-Host, Lupa, and others who have contributed to this site, have advocated for a more positive understanding of non-theist spirituality, one focused on a Sagan-esque wonder evoked by the natural universe. And a negation will never inspire people the way an affirmation will. It proceeds by disproving hypotheses, not by proving them. Now, you might argue that non-theists are bound by a “belief in science”, but the scientific method is a methodology, not a belief system. In contrast, non-theists are bound by a negation of that belief. Polytheists, despite their diversity, are bound by a belief in the reality of the gods and the significance of their worship, which motivates them to worship both privately and publicly. But the real defining characteristic of contemporary non-theistic Paganism, as I see it, is a low level of commitment, bordering on the blasé. Non-theistic Pagans are divided - by belief (some reject theism while embracing other unscientific beliefs), by ritual (some embrace ritual, while others eschew it), and by symbol (some use theistic language and symbols pragmatically, while many reject them). Polytheists today tend to be energetic, focused, and organized - everything that non-theists Pagans are not. I suspect it is also because of a qualitative difference between theistic and non-theistic Pagans. Part of it may be relative numbers, but I’m not convinced that is the only explanation. There is a reason for the disproportionate representation. ![]() Pride of place was given to myriad permutations of polytheistic devotion, while Atheopagans contented themselves with having established a beachhead on the contemporary Pagan scene: two explicitly non-theistic events, a forum and a ritual, both during respectable time slots. This was manifest in the Pantheacon programming this year. The various factions of polytheists have settled into the territory they have claimed - a substantial swath of the contemporary Pagan landscape - while the loose confederation of non-theistic Pagans rejoices over its small gains. Since then, something of a truce has been reached in the hot war between the evangelical polytheist community and the non-theistic community. The more outspoken and cantankerous advocates on both sides (myself among them) frequently engaged in heated, public debates about the place of theism and non-theism in Paganism. This was partly in reaction to the perceived domination of Paganism by polytheists. Some non-theists left Paganism during this period.Ībout 10 years later, various groups of non-theistic Pagans began to form, including the creation of this site. And it became commonplace to hear other Pagans say that one could not be Pagan if one did not believe in literal gods. Literal theism increasingly came to be seen as the sin qua non of Paganism. This was accompanied by an increase in dogmatism and evangelism among many polytheists. As a result, Paganism experienced a kind of dilution from the time when most Pagans belonged to small, secret, initiatory groups.Īround the turn of the millennium, there was a reaction to this dilution, in the form of “hard” or devotional polytheism, which grew rapidly. In the 1990s, access to World Wide Web grew exponentially, which led to the unprecedented spread of information about contemporary Paganism. In order to understand the significance of having explicitly non-theistic Pagan events at PantheaCon this year, it’s necessary to put it in the context of the history of the wider Pagan community. But I have some reservations about the experience. I had a great time and I appreciate everyone who participated in the Atheopagan events. ![]() Mark Green has written a good review of the event here. And this year, there were two Atheopagan events on the official schedule. About 2000 Pagans gather in the Doubletree hotel in San Jose, CA every year to converse, do ritual, party, drink, sing, dance, and build community. I just returned from PantheaCon, the largest annual Pagan gathering in the US.
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