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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in belief

 

One of the things that astounds me about the human animal is our stubborn will to believe, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Case in point: the Turin “Shroud.”

Dating to the mid-14th century, the so-called shroud is a 14-foot piece of linen displaying what appears to be the imprint of a man's naked body, fore and aft. As a quick web search will show you, many, many people continue to believe that this is the actual burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.

They continue to believe this in spite of the fact that three separate C-14 tests performed in three different laboratories in 1988 proved the cloth to be of medieval origin.

They continue to believe this in spite of the fact that, counter to all historical likelihood, the figure shown on the cloth looks exactly like conventional Western representations of Jesus.

They continue to believe this despite the fact that an actual human body laid out on a cloth wouldn't produce an imprint looking anything like what we see on the “shroud.”

 

 

Take a look at the image's “butt,” (lower right). Looks like a (skinny) butt, right?

(“I've seen Jesus' butt. Now I can die happy,” a Christian friend recently quipped.)

 

 

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Here it is: http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-culture-blogs/paganistan/stories-that-tell-themselves.html
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    ...who, as he was burning at the stake, turned his face toward the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, beneath which (as we now know
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    In "The Second Messiah" by Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas the authors argue that the figure on the shroud is actually Jacques d
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    Love it!
When It Comes to Corona Virus, Your Magic Will Not Protect You

Gods. Pagans.

I've been hearing stories. So, I'm just going to say it.

Magic will not protect you from corona virus.

Magic will not protect you from corona virus.

Magic will not protect you from corona virus.

Not your magic. Not nobody's.

Magic will not protect you from corona virus because that's not how magic works. Magic is a finger on the scales of possibility, not a headlock that wrestles reality into submission.

For gods' sakes, hear the voice of experience. Back in the early days of the last Great Plague, I can remember hearing from a number of Radical Faeries that “Faeries can't get AIDS.”

Well, they were wrong. Faeries did indeed get AIDS, just like anybody else. Their Faerie magic did not protect them from the AIDS virus, just as your magic alone (whatever its variety and vintage) will not protect you from corona virus.

Let me add that every single one of those guys is dead now. They all died—predictably—of AIDS.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Theological Emergency

A few years back, I spent the Spring holidays with my cousin and his family in Germany.

I was standing in the kitchen eating a piece of Easter candy when little Anja walked in. As usual, she didn't miss much.

She immediately took in the bag of candy—exactly the same kind of candy that she'd found in her basket a few days earlier—and you could see lights going on behind her eyes.

Her chin began to wobble.

“But I thought...I thought the Bunny brought the candy!”

Being myself neither a parent nor a believer, I was clearly out of my depth here. I said something mollifying and went to get my cousin.

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When Does Belief Become Superstition?

My undergrad Philosophy of Religion prof defined “superstition” by breaking it down into its component parts: Latin super, “over” + stitio, “standing” (< stare, “to stand”).

“A superstition is just an old belief that has 'stood over' from the past,” he said.

...
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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Blessed Are the Doubters

If, as they say, belief is a gift, I didn't get much.

Fortunately, I'm a pagan, so it doesn't matter.

Of course, there are believing pagans out there. Well, better an honest believer than a dishonest unbeliever.

But I suspect that most of us straddle that hedge, with one foot in belief and the other in doubt. And that I can respect.

I reached the crisis of faith early on in my pagan career. I loved the Old Gods passionately, but I realized that I couldn't be intellectually honest with myself and say that I actually believed in them.

I was working as a night watchman that summer, so I had many opportunities for dark nights of the soul. Finally, one night, the hag came down and we wrestled.

All night we wrestled.

In the morning, the Sun came up. Out of that struggle, I had won myself a realization.

Belief is moot.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Blessed be They.
  • Kile Martz
    Kile Martz says #
    Brother speaks my mind. And this: Sun, Moon, Earth do not require belief to make them real, or, for that matter, mythical and divi
  • Mark Green
    Mark Green says #
    YES!

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Sabbat-Field of the Buck

Gods, pagans.

Some of us are polytheists, some bitheists. Among our people, we may also variously number monotheists, monists, atheists, polyatheists, and agnostics as well.

We see here the brilliance of the paganisms, the genius of definition by praxis, not belief.

When, later this summer, the Midwest Tribe of Witches foregathers in our immemorial Grand Sabbat, chances are that what we do there may well mean something different to every single one of us.

And there we'll be anyway—theist with atheist, gnostic and agnostic alike—joining once again in the eternal dance on the Sabbat-Field of the Buck.

Really, it doesn't matter what you believe.

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Viewing the World through Pagan Eyes, IV: The trance of belief

 

This section follows part I,   part II  And part III.

...
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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • M.T. Noah
    M.T. Noah says #
    I deeply appreciate your work here. I'm planning some deep reading of your series. And to share this series, if permitted. I ho
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Feel free to share!
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Two other brief points. You use 'trance' negatively. I do not. So you are not addressing my argument here. Look at my two exampl
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Notice I never wrote "uneducated cave person." I certainly do not consider that implied in the term "Trump supporter." I was mak
  • Virginia Carper
    Virginia Carper says #
    I have a question about meme trances and brains. I have a traumatic brain injury which doesn't seem to allow me to hold memes. I e

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