Thread: Why am I Pagan?
View Single Post
Old 03-17-2006, 07:24 AM   #33 (permalink)
roachboy
 
roachboy's Avatar
 
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
re. ng's earlier post about catholic rituals: the strange thing about most xtian variants/precursors--branches of the same tree--is that if you look at the practices--the enormous range of practices--people use to perform their faith, all are heterodox, all the result of syncretic processes--all are in motion, being fashioned and refashioned by communities who use them, who think about themselves and the world and themselves in the world through them. the internal ideology of these religions works at corss purposes with the dynamism of the practioners themselves. the philosphical underpinnings of xtianity has come to see being as determinate, as rituals performed as like objects which are identical with themselves and stable across time and are the same in every context---so the activities of people to adapt/change rituals is seen as little more than colorful local ornamentation.

last time i was in paris for any duration, i found myself on the bridge that spans the entrance to the overpass where diana spencer got spattered in a limo. there was a shrine built at the apex of the bridge--a kind of strange lumpy affair that had notes attached to it in various languages some of which had prayers to diana asking for her intercession written on them. "dear diana: ask god to heal my sister's leg please." at the time, i found this shrine supremely strange. and i have thought about it for a long time. i gradually realized that rituals are like this--people make them so they can think through them, they are built up from efforts to make meaning in and of the world, to think about agency in the world: and that the philosophical framework particular to catholicism does not let you thnk about this, because they see things the wrong way around.

catholicism controls for this by having a bureaucratic procedure for determining who is and is not a "real saint" and by doing that attempts to draw lines around what is and is not legitimate in order to stabilize and maintain an understanding of ritual as identical with itself and variation as local color.

the main thing that the mode of interaction with ritual and the world lumped together under the category "paganism" does is see ritual as something people make--patterned activity that enables modes of thinking about the world--thinking as cognition, thinking as performance--thinking as activity not hobbled by the ridiculous mind/body split--to unfold as they are. there is an entirely different philosophy implicit within that. this is the attraction of this way of thinking---for me at least.
the fact that i do not practice myself is a function of my disposition. i do not find personifications attractive--they do not speak to or for me. but the mode of thinking about human acitivity in general seems to me far more functional, and much closer to accurate materially, than anything xtianity, its variants and precursors, has to say.

and i think the world would be a better place--a more livable place--were the current hierarchy of established judeo-christian religions/"paganism" the reverse of what it now is. one can dream.....
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Last edited by roachboy; 03-17-2006 at 07:26 AM..
roachboy is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360