When Paganism Ends...

[kevyn]

My deep philosophical question for the season:

Is it possible to be an Atheist (or Agnostic), and be a Pagan at the same time?

I don't have an answer, I'm just mulling it over in my mind. I used to think "yes," and identified as such, but since then I've had Pagan friends I trust and respect tell me I can't be both at the same time.

Sorting out belief...

-Hagrid

Comments

[kadyg.livejournal.com]

I'm falling into the No category.

An atheist is someone who believes in no higher power (to borrow an AA phrase) at all. They think that when you die, that's it. No afterlife, what you do here doesn't matter on any other plane, etc. An agnostic believes that there is a higher power (maybe), but is withholding judgement on what or who it might be.

Pagans - to me, anyway - don't tend to fall into either category. They believe in multiple, or at least dual, gods and goddesses, the Power of Three is a guiding tenent, etc. I think pagans tend to be MORE spiritual than other religions I've been in contact with, just because they spend so much time thinking about it and how they fit in.

Atheists and Agnostics don't seem to have the same concerns.

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting question, isn't it? I've been asking this question in multiple forums, and the responses I'm getting back are definitely mixed.

I know a lot of pagans who dont believe in an afterlife, so that's not incompatible with atheistic beliefs. I know I've never particularly believed in a life after death... "Summerlands" was always a metaphor for me, not a real place.

Believing in dual gods and goddesses strikes me as more of a Wiccan idea than necessarily a Pagan one. I've always bellieved - even when working with gods like Pan, or The Lord & Lady, or The Horned One, or Raven, or Bear, or even The Queer God - that I wasn't dealing with "actual" incranate spiritual beings, but rather archetypes, or, as Joseph Campbell put it in "The Power of Myth," masks that The Divine (however you define it) wears... ways we interact with The Universal Mysteries.