Archive for the 'Bible' Category

The Future of Neopaganism in the West, Part II: Going Organic

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

In the previous post, I outlined a model of prestige and stigma which predicts whether a language or religion will grow or wither in a society. Now let’s take the prestige/stigma model and look at Neopaganism today. By these measures, Neopaganism is in trouble.

Stigmatized Neopaganism

Imagine trying to revive the Latin language. Imagine speaking it at home, teaching it to your children, seeking out Latin translations of modern works, and using it instead of English whenever you could. What would your friends and neighbors think? Do you think lots of people would jump on the bandwagon with you? Do you think that the revived Latin movement — “Neolatinism” — would have much of a future in your society? There are no celebrities speaking Latin on TV. There are no government officials speaking Latin in press conferences. Latin is stigmatized as a dead language with no future; why would anyone want to learn it?

If the analogy between religion and language holds, Neopaganism is in exactly the same situation as Neolatinism would be. (more…)

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Europe, Latin, Massachusetts, Odin, Zeus, atheism, children as natural pagans, holidays, linguistics, monotheism, paganism, polytheism, religion, shamanism | 13 Comments »

Hearing the Song of the World

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

A couple of days ago I read one of those books that reaches deep into your heart and wrenches you. I was in my daughter’s brand-new first grade classroom, and the first big meeting between the class parents and the teacher was over, and people were milling around and talking and getting to know each other. In Waldorf education, a single teacher stays with a class without interruption from the first grade through the eighth grade, so at this meeting everyone knew that they were laying the groundwork for relationships that had to stand the test of time. Of course, many of us parents knew each other already from last year’s Kindergarten, and most of us knew our class teacher from earlier work she’d done with the school, and the informal parties and gatherings we’d had over the summer — but still…

I found myself over by the bookshelf. I wondered what books my daughter’s teacher had picked out to get started with — no doubt books with beautiful pictures and simple words for early readers… Here was a magnificent ancient edition of the Billy Goats Gruff, with a neat pop-up mechanism that allowed the reader to see the troll encountering each of the goats one at a time. The biggest billy goat Gruff looked so terrifying that I felt absolutely sorry for the troll.

My eye was drawn to a small paper book called Komo the Shepherd Boy, by Martha Hackman (Green Tiger Press, 1982). The illustrations were stunning — bright watercolors in a sort of “Yellow Submarine” late-60’s style, by Aura Cesari. I thumbed through the pages, and saw that there was quite a bit of text. Obviously, our teacher intended this to be a book that she would read aloud to the class. I was surprised, because in our experience Waldorf teachers tell stories completely from memory, for a number of reasons — perhaps most importantly to allow the children to form their own pictures in their heads, uninfluenced by pictures in a book, and to allow themselves to fully engage the children as they’re speaking…

My eye was caught by a few key phrases. I immediately read the whole thing in two minutes. (more…)

Posted in Bible, Waldorf education, child raising, evolution, linguistics, my children, teaching | 11 Comments »

The Plight of the Honey Bee

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

Almost everyone is aware by now that honey bees are having a very, very difficult year. Bee colonies are dying all over the United States, imperiling not only the supply of honey, but also crops that depend on the bee for pollination, such as almonds, strawberries, blueberries, apples, watermelons, cranberries, and soybeans. While there are other pollinators out there, the honey bee is the only domesticated pollinator — it is the only pollinator that can be moved from crop to crop as necessary, and the only pollinator that can be depended on to serve crops that are not native to North America. As such it is essential to the large-scale agribusiness of the United States.

The death of a colony is frightful. First, the older adult worker bees begin to disappear, until only the younger ones are left. The workforce grows smaller gradually, becoming too small to care for the bees’ young. The Queen begins appearing outside the hive more frequently than normal. The bees seem reluctant to eat the food provided by the beekeeper.

Within a week or two, all the workers have disappeared entirely. They have gone away, and do not return. There are very few dead bees found near the hive. Food stores are abandoned uneaten. The babies are left growing in their hexagonal chambers, and they quickly die with no adults to feed them.

BUT WHY? (more…)

Posted in Bible, anima, beekeeping, biodynamic agriculture, evolution, linguistics, meditation, organic farming | 25 Comments »

Don’t You Go to Church?

Thursday, January 11th, 2007

Zen and the Art of Childhood

Being a non-Christian in the United States is not always easy. I know, because I grew up here, and I’ve never been Christian.

I was raised essentially Zen Buddhist in the southeast, a region not known for its tolerance and open-mindedness. My mother was Zen; my father and his family were Baptist.

When I was in kindergarten, in 1979, my teacher used to lead the students in Christian prayer before lunchtime. She would do it surreptitiously in the classroom, not in the cafeteria, because prayer in a public school was illegal. When my mother found out, she was irate; she demanded that the school put a stop to it. They didn’t. But in a small southern town, you can’t raise too many waves. My mother dropped it.

In fourth grade, I remember my teacher reading stories to the class – Bible stories. Again, there was nothing we could do.

As I approached puberty, the emotion I most frequently associated with religion was incredulity. Whenever the other children found out that I didn’t go to church, or that I didn’t believe in God, they were incredulous. Aren’t you afraid you’ll go to hell? they’d ask. No, I don’t believe in hell. But the Bible says… I don’t believe the Bible, either. But the Bible says… Why do you believe the Bible? The Bible says… (I’m not making this up.)

For my part, I was incredulous about their beliefs, as well. I was amazed that people could just completely believe every word of a two-thousand-year-old self-contradictory book, without, as it seemed, thought or question. Especially when the Bible had so many things in it that were obviously just wrong — things that contradicted evolution, geology, astronomy, etc.

We were children; we couldn’t argue these things out properly. I couldn’t explain my point of view, and they couldn’t explain theirs. The upshot was that I was just too weird to be friends with them. That was ok with me, though, because I thought they were weird. (more…)

Posted in African Americans, Bible, Christianity, Massachusetts, Zen, homosexuality, paganism | 11 Comments »