Rambling Part 1
I'm sure I'm going to be rambling more than this one time. I've been thinking about paganism a lot recently...which isn't new, I think about paganism a lot in general, I'm incredibly devout. But I just wanted to kind of ramble on with no structure.
Important Note: This is going to be a lot of talk about religious beliefs and I need people to be aware that I do not think my beliefs are "correct". I don't want to debate you. It's fine to think different things than me. My believing one thing doesn't imply that I think other beliefs are bad or wrong or whatever. I also make fun of Tumblr in here. I'm a relatively active Tumblr user, I'm begging people not to take anything too personally. Please.
I feel like people in real life are always shocked to learn that I'm not an atheist. Some people have insultingly said that it surprised them because I "seem so rational" or just...not like a zealot? People say that nobody "logics" themself into religious belief, but I definitely did. I used to be an edgy annoying atheist. It was honestly bordering on being an anthitheist. But the more I thought about things, the more I was like "this makes more sense to me".
I was an atheist because the idea of one God felt...incorrect. The idea of many gods just felt right. I don't think pagan deities inherently have interest in humanity. I think some definitely do (ie Hermes), but I think it definitely depends. I never really vibed with people posting like "the gods love everybody and love humanity and always want to help" because...like, no judgment, peace and love, but I think they probably prefer to help those who have gone through the effort of connecting with them.
There's exceptions to this (ie The Dagda, he's known to be pretty responsive), but it's definitely been my experience that deities I've prayed to and offered to are more responsive.
I also have incredible beef with people who present UPG as just...fact? I think UPG is correct, just to be clear. I just think it isn't necessarily correct for everyone. That is information from your deity about how they want you to worship them. As an example, I have UPG about Apollon enjoying lavender. I haven't seen anybody else talk about it, nor have I seen any historical sources mentioning lavender in connection with him. Lavender grows in the Mediterranean, I'm pretty sure, so I guess it's possible. If I had to guess Why Apollon prefers lavender, it's probably both because he genuinely enjoys it and it has the side benefit of also being good for stress and anxiety and, boy. I am always stressed and I just straight up have an anxiety disorder. It probably helps calm me down while praying to him. I guess I could do divination, but my cards hate my ass. I think that's a topic for another time though lmao.
I think people need to be more mindful in sourcing their information. A lot of misinformation is just accepted as fact in pagan and witch spaces. This is also a topic for another time though.
I was also thinking about a post I saw years ago on Tumblr (my first mistake) from a Levantine pagan saying that ancient people from the Levant (region including Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Libya...Greece?) viewed deities from other places as "blasphemous" and said, for example, that they would have viewed the Greeks worshiping Ares as them worshiping a fake, blasphemous version of whatever war god they picked as the one and only Levantine War God.
The thing is, "religion" wasn't a think in ancient times. It was just stuff people did. There was no concept of being part of a religion or not part of a religion. Different regions just had different gods and cultural practices because they were simply Not You. The opposite was kind of true. As people traveled and cultures came into contact with each other, they would borrow practices and gods from each other. Romans got Epona from the Gauls, Hittites got Anu from the Mesopotamians, The Romans and Greeks got Isis from the Egyptians...et cetera. Religion just...wasn't a thing. Not in the way it is in the modern world. There were definitely people who didn't believe in the gods in the way their community did, but it wasn't really seen as having a different religion. It was just seen the same way as any rejection of tradition/cultural norms would be viewed. The amount of hostility probably depended on a lot of factors.
I'd say, it's kind of like how most people in the United States are kind of Christian even if they aren't actually Christian. The way we talk is impacted by the majority of the country being Christian. My partner's family is Buddhist and they still say stuff like "oh, I swear to god" and "Jesus Christ". People generally assume other religions work the same way -- hence the way people talk to me after learning I'm religious. Some people (who weren't Christian) even got frustrated and said I thought I was better than other people when I explained that their assumptions just did not apply here and I can't even address any of it because it is irrelevant to me. Pagans don't care about the same things, from a theological perspective. It isn't something said to be judgmental, it's just true.
I do think part of it is that people just see paganism as people LARPing or doing whatever the fuck they want with no real underlying beliefs. Pagans have varying beliefs, of course, but there's definitely a collection of beliefs that are incredibly common that aren't necessarily shared with other religions (at least not in the same way for the same reasons).
But, like. Paganism is a real religion...religions? I think paganism is hard to categorize, but this is a whole other topic for another time.
I genuinely believe in my gods. I genuinely believe in spirits. I genuinely believe in everything I do. That's why I do it. I also believe in science, medicine, et cetera. There's no conflict. I don't really understand why people think there would be, but people have definitely assumed some strange things about me after finding out I'm a pagan.
Unrelated to the previous few things I said, but I think pagans are really bad at understanding syncretism.
Also, people don't seem to understand that...not everything needs to be made public. It's fine to keep your experiences to yourself. This isn't to say you should never talk about your practice, but it does feel like a lot of people are doing everything they do for social media. I typically don't share pictures of my altars or talk about spells I've done or anything because my practice is for me. I have shared pictures before (ie on my page discussing setting up altars, I share a picture of our Norse altar), but it's not very common. The picture is actually somewhat outdated because we recently added new things and moved stuff around. I won't be updating the pictures though, because the point was to explain altars, not to invite the general public into our sacred spaces.
I love learning what other people do, but I think people are sharing...too much? I don't know if I'm explaining this well, I don't want to sound like I'm against sharing your practices and experiences with people. I just feel like some people are kind of getting pulled into a weird thing where they feel the need to share Everything with the internet and aren't really having the space to have their own experiences.
I've had multiple powerful experiences that I'd be opening to sharing now that it's been a while, but I just prefer to be in the moment with everything. I dunno.
I was gonna talk about an Apollon experience, but it happened during a very intense moment that has given me PTSD symptoms and it can still be very hard for me to talk about it. I have permanent nerve damage and my back fuckin hurts all the time because of it. And it happened when I was 20. Dude, my entire life is going to be impacted by a single thing that happened when I was 20 years old. I'm getting too in my head about this and it's making me feel off and weird and not great so I really relally need to move on.
Actually, on that note, I'm gonna be done. None of this served any purpose, it's fully a stream of consciousness. Sorry about that!