On my last account, I made a post about how pagans who aren't swimming in religious trauma and are just trying to have a religion aren't equipped to, nor should they have to, deal with people who are having an abrahamic hissy fit in pagan spaces. Pissed a few people off, but I never took it farther than that because I ADHD'ed in another direction.
Recently, another friend who christian > atheist > pagan > atheist >pagatheist (as we call ourselves) and I were talking about the experience of constantly fluctuating faith levels and how we tend to cling to orthodoxy in uncertainty. There's something so appealing about the burden of faith being removed and just being able to act through the steps of being a pagan, with the security of knowing faith doesn't matter. I was HelPol, she was Norse. Neither of us particularly ascribe to a structured religion anymore, which has brought back a lot of interesting thoughts.
Our conversation wrapped back around to what I'd said a few years ago on tumblr, about pagans deserving to be pagans and have a religion in peace, and there needing to be a connected-but-separate place for processing leaving christianity. Both from my own experiences and from observations, I very strongly feel that people need to actually process and heal from leaving christianity before jumping ten toes into any other religion. Most people leave christianity because they're angry, and that isn't a healthy way to dive into a new religion - for you, or for the people of that religion. It tends to end in people just reenacting christianity but with sick statues and different names.
She brought up deconstructionism - the process of identifying what YOU believe separate from your religion, identifying what your religion ACTUALLY SAYS, and identifying the ways you do or do not agree with the religion and how much it's going to influence your life. We decided to get to work and start with specifically identifying our own beliefs, stripped of all labels and dogma. It's a fascinating process. I don't recommend starting it alone, because it can be pretty confusing, but there are resources available (mostly geared towards christians because deconstructionism is an exvangelical philosophy) and they're pretty helpful to at least get you started.
Our latest conversation stemmed from tumblr. She's much more active on paganblr than I am, and she started showing me a ton of posts that essentially boil down to "The gods have the exact same political beliefs that I have with 100% overlap and no deviation and therefore if you don't have the same beliefs that I have with 100% overlap and no deviation you don't get to be a pagan and the gods hate you." So began the conversation: what do we believe is true, what do we want to believe is true, and how important is that to having this faith?
So here's just a quick example of how we're using deconstruction:
What do I believe about ________?
What do I want (deity) to believe about ______?
What does the evidence say or suggest (deity) believes about _____?
In what ways does that correspond to what I believe? In what ways does that differ from what I believe?
How can I consider _____ differently to see it from (deity)'s perspective so that I have a better understanding of how (deity)'s views correspond to and differ from mine?
How important is it to me that (deity) and I share the same belief about _____?
Do I believe that I should believe what (deity) believes about ____? If so, why? If not, why not?
Of course the real questions at the heart of these questions is a bit more painful:
Do I feel that in order to be worthy of worship, my god has to believe what I believe?
Would I continue to worship this god if they came to me and told me that they feel the opposite of how I feel on this matter?
Do I trust myself or do I trust this god?
So yeah. That's what me and my friend do for fun.
