RE: Opinions on paganism?
August 17, 2023 at 3:45 pm
(This post was last modified: August 17, 2023 at 3:53 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(August 17, 2023 at 1:43 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:(August 17, 2023 at 1:39 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Some varieties of paganism don’t require interventionist supernatural forces, but view the non-natural world as existing side-by-side with the natural one (the pages of a book analogy). In these views, supernatural forces are not interventionist, but immanent.Even more to the point, nature intervenes, and the sacred is immanent. Gods, even for those who believe in them, tend not to be supernatural. A god isn't over nature or in nature and beyond nature. It -is- nature. When a god blows, that's the wind at work.
Boru
if god was nature then there is no need to or purpose in talking to it, or practice any separate ritual to venerate it or appease it beyond normal productive interaction with it. The reason why it is called god and not nature is because there is a supposition of emotionally sensitive agent beyond the tangible nature.
I doubt “you should plant a tree for every one you cut down” would have been considered pagan even by the church. it is when you have to make an offering to a tree spirit that might be considered pagan.