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Post by Sìle on Jan 29, 2010 19:32:14 GMT -1
" The Big Questions" will be debating "Is Paganism more relevant today than Christianity?", amongst other things, this weekend in Southampton. The programme will go to air on BBC2 at 10.00 a.m. on Sunday, 31st January 2010.
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Post by deiniol on Jan 29, 2010 20:12:18 GMT -1
" The Big Question" will be debating "Is Paganism more relevant today than Christianity?", amongst other things, this weekend in Southampton. The programme will go to air on BBC2 at 10.00 a.m. on Sunday, 31st January 2010. Sounds interesting! I'll definitely be watching.
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Post by Adam on Jan 31, 2010 11:17:11 GMT -1
I spent the whole bit on paganism with my head in my hands muttering "don't let the witch speak, don't let the witch speak" We were supplanted by Christianity We are trying to reclaim the old ways I don't need law...
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Post by Sìle on Jan 31, 2010 16:13:34 GMT -1
Pagans are nature-worshippers; Paganism is not a religion because it has no moral/etchical code;
These were statements I saw argued ineffectually from the pagan side. When Mr Harvey tried to speak, Nicky Campbell, narrowed his field of topic, thus making the whole question sound ridiculous.
My particular path was certainly not represented, nor were the heathens, who do have strict moral guidelines to follow within their texts. ERO did try to make the point that paganism has many different branches, but it just wasn't put across effectively and the topic reverted to the assumption pagans are all nature-worshippers.
Frustrating. No wonder so many are moving away from identifying themselves as pagan and using other words to describe themselves instead.
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Post by Adam on Jan 31, 2010 16:41:43 GMT -1
I thought ERO did alright given the narrow confines of the discussion... Mr Campbell's various shows over the years have not been noted for their depth and rigour... it was only ever going to be a tabloid article on TV ;D
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Post by deiniol on Jan 31, 2010 22:30:12 GMT -1
Well. It might have been a Big Question, but the answers were certainly rather small.
I think that the main problem with most of the debators was that none of them had the first clue of what they were arguing against. Dodgy history from all sides, coupled with a myopic and stereotyped view of the "opposing" faiths. The witch was irritating in particular: I'm as much up for a bit of papist-bashing as the next disillusioned ex-Catholic, but confounding all the perceived evils of Christianity at the Vatican's door is just intellectually lazy. I also have to question the BBC's choice of speakers: an unthreatening prototypical witch (with her pentacle earrings, no less), an evangelical Christian and an angry young British Muslim. How can this grab-bag of stereotypes even hope to address the complexity of paganism, Christianity or Islam? They hardly presented an inducement to follow any of their respective religions.
I do think that ERO was nicely eloquent: no matter what we might think of her from the "inside", she does make for an intelligent, lucid public face. I particularly appreciated her shooting down the idea that all pagans "worship" nature, or even see it as some kind of theophany (I certainly don't). And kudos to Cristina Odone for referring to ERO's religion as "druidry" (the woman also looks uncannily like one of my lecturers).
I think that one of the most challenging points was made by Rabbi Jonathan Romain: given the capriciousness of Nature (with a capital N), how can it serve as a moral guide? Too many pagans see Nature as something wonderful and inherently Good: a source of "exquisite inspiration" far removed from ERO's original meaning of the term. Nature, to me at least, is not Good. It is not a theophany. It is not something to be worshipped, or even neccessarily "communed with". It's inspiring, certainly, but ultimately it just Is. That's its point.
And, as if to underline the tabloid nature of the programme, it was all rounded off with the Voice of the Silent Majority (Major General Tom Cross, who I suspect is better known in the letters pages of the Daily Mail as "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells"). Am I the only one who found both him and the dude in the black jumper insufferably "Smug Tory"?
I daren't look at how the "debate" is being continued on the message boards, however. I can foresee the earnestness and the citing of the "Threefold Law" already.
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Post by megli on Feb 1, 2010 10:17:33 GMT -1
Wierdly, don't Odone and ERO look and sound alike!? Or did, before the later lost all that weight.
Just realised I think I probably DO see nature as a theophany personally. But then I'm really a kind of funny Buddho-Orthodox-poetical type, and not a pagan at all.
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Post by deiniol on Feb 1, 2010 14:58:24 GMT -1
Just realised I think I probably DO see nature as a theophany personally. But then I'm really a kind of funny Buddho-Orthodox-poetical type, and not a pagan at all. From an exegetical point of view, I remain heavily influenced by all the neoplatonist stuff I read as a teenager, so nature is to me a theophany in the same way that everything else is. I just don't see "Nature" as being somehow inherently more sacred than anything else in the world.
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Post by potia on Feb 1, 2010 15:41:08 GMT -1
Just realised I think I probably DO see nature as a theophany personally. But then I'm really a kind of funny Buddho-Orthodox-poetical type, and not a pagan at all. From an exegetical point of view, I remain heavily influenced by all the neoplatonist stuff I read as a teenager, so nature is to me a theophany in the same way that everything else is. I just don't see "Nature" as being somehow inherently more sacred than anything else in the world. I know we have some incredibly clever people on this forum but can I make a plea that incredibly clever people use nice simple words please I hate needing to use a dictionary to understand forum posts!
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Post by potia on Feb 1, 2010 15:49:59 GMT -1
On the topic in hand I thought ERO did well under the circumstances. The black clad, silver bejewelled witch pissed me off just on looks never mind on what she said. Graham Harvey came across as sensible and not wanting to get caught out in a them and us debate.
I do know that the audience members present only had a couple of days of notice for attending as researchers were contacting various groups late last week about it all. Presumably ERO had much more notice on attending but not sure how much notice about the questions she would have received.
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Post by megli on Feb 1, 2010 16:10:57 GMT -1
From an exegetical point of view, I remain heavily influenced by all the neoplatonist stuff I read as a teenager, so nature is to me a theophany in the same way that everything else is. I just don't see "Nature" as being somehow inherently more sacred than anything else in the world. I know we have some incredibly clever people on this forum but can I make a plea that incredibly clever people use nice simple words please I hate needing to use a dictionary to understand forum posts! Soz, Potia!
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Post by Francis on Feb 1, 2010 17:51:48 GMT -1
From an exegetical point of view, I remain heavily influenced by all the neoplatonist stuff I read as a teenager, so nature is to me a theophany in the same way that everything else is. I just don't see "Nature" as being somehow inherently more sacred than anything else in the world. I know we have some incredibly clever people on this forum but can I make a plea that incredibly clever people use nice simple words please I hate needing to use a dictionary to understand forum posts! Hear, hear! I flatter myself with the belief that I've got a reasonable wordhoard myself, and thought I was familiar with the vocab. and concepts in the post - but Deiniol what on Earth did you mean?
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Post by Francis on Feb 1, 2010 17:57:01 GMT -1
Is it worth me taking the time to watch this on I-player? I'm guessing not but please let me know if you think there's something I'd gain from it...
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Post by Francis on Feb 1, 2010 17:59:32 GMT -1
Presumably ERO had much more notice on attending but not sure how much notice about the questions she would have received. I know that on a previous occasion she was told who the other guests would be a fortnight before the show - and had the questions for 5 days or so.
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Post by arth_frown on Feb 1, 2010 18:01:27 GMT -1
If pagans have a reverence for nature, I wonder where natural disasters fit in?
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Post by deiniol on Feb 1, 2010 20:29:47 GMT -1
If anyone wants to catch this on iPlayer, but isn't interested in the debates of paedophiles having a right to privacy or whether Blair was right to go to war in Iraq, the pagansim segment is basically the final 18 or so minutes of the programme.
Arth: a very good point made by the rabbi mush.
Potia, Francis: my apologies! If you spend too much time reading academic texts you end up sounding like them. Basically, what I meant was that from the point of view of explaining things philosophically (like "what is the nature of the gods?" or "where does the soul come from?"- stuff which doesn't neccessarily have an impact on the day-to-day living of religion), I see everything as a manifestation of the Divine (that's what "theophany" means). It's not exactly pantheism or panentheism, though.
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Post by arth_frown on Feb 1, 2010 20:41:33 GMT -1
Arth: a very good point made by the rabbi mush. Just watched it on iplayer. Glad to see the question being asked BC saying that pagans live with nature is very simplistic. This could easily describe bushcraft as well or anyone. I noticed BC stumble about were our morals come from. My morals don't come from religion and don't need to. My morals come from our society.
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Post by Francis on Feb 1, 2010 21:01:09 GMT -1
I see everything as a manifestation of the Divine (that's what "theophany" means). Thanks Deiniol. Again my Catholic background lets me down! I'd misunderstood Theophany to be specific to the manifestation of Deity when that Deity had some specific message to impart to us mortals - having a natter with a burning bush etc.
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Post by megli on Feb 1, 2010 21:08:49 GMT -1
It's just 'god-showing' literally, the blazing of God's being through the world in unfolding self-revelation. (In Christian terms; each one of us wd also be a theophany as we are created in God's image, again in Christian terms.) so yes, a specific incicent in salvific history can be A theophany, but equally legitimately a panentheist might see the whole world as THE theophany.
Lovely name for a girl too. (I always said that if I had twin daughters they would be Parsimony and Telephony.)
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