First Pagan Carnival
Jason Pitzl-Waters over at The Wildhunt Blog has started a Pagan Carnival, a bi-weekly collection of "the best of" pagan blog articles. Go on over and check it out!
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2 comments:
Thanks for the thoughtful reply to my comment a week or so ago. No, I'm not pagan either.
Where religion is concerned, I'm more interested in its experiential than doctrinal dimension. For example, meditation in the east; contemplative prayer in the west. You mentioned everyone needs something to believe in. It's certainly true that to date, religion has emphasized competing belief systems. However, I think that when you get to the experiential aspects, you find much greater unity among people.
"The psychological aspect of religion, any religion, is in my opinion, what brings people to the practice of religion in the first place." (Your first or second post.)
I think psychology is often or usually involved. But what I'd want to call "spirituality" is also involved. I think there is a dimension to human interiority more profound than our psychologies.
Experience does tend to bring people closer together. Your meditation/prayer example is a good one, but it is, for the most part, individually experienced. I would have to say that the religious community is another way to bring people together in the realm of experience. Although people do go to Church/Synagogue/Circle to listen to or to participate in the "doctrinal dimension" of their religion, they also go for sense of togetherness and that is also a part of the religious experience.
People do not necessarily remember what was talked about on a certain day, but chances are they will remember who is there on a regular basis. I think that this helps to validate the religious experience which helps to bring about unity among people.
I would agree that spirituality is also involved. I guess I somewhat tie the aspect of spirituality to the psychological process, but that was implied, not stated. But then again, psychology is more about behavior and spirituality is more about a profound experience, so I have to learn to seperate the two.
Thanks for stopping by again and thanks for the wonderful, thoughtful comments.
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