A Gift for Her Lady

I love this!

I think (some) pagans don’t realise that Deanists aren’t pagan. We’re Deanists. Therefore when you try to see us through a Pagan lens a lot of our beliefs aren’t going to make sense. Yes, some of us align ourselves with paganism (likely because a lot of Deanists are witches, etc) but Deanism as a whole, especially Filianism, isn’t pagan.

Out of curiosity, what forms of paganism are there that are not pantheistic or polytheistic? In my mind those were the two types of pagan religions that exist. But yes, wonderful addition, thank you sorella <3

I think (some) pagans don’t realise that Deanists aren’t pagan. We’re Deanists. Therefore when you try to see us through a Pagan lens a lot of our beliefs aren’t going to make sense. Yes, some of us align ourselves with paganism (likely because a lot of Deanists are witches, etc) but Deanism as a whole, especially Filianism, isn’t pagan.

Would just like to give a shout-out to whoever runs @gospel-of-our-lady. It’s so nice to have a constant stream of scripture in the tags. Keep up the good work <3

I had no idea it was you Rose! I was wondering :') And I just might ❤️

Amadéa.

Questions though about seven and eight? Like, what if you just can’t (or don’t) believe in an all good AND all powerful Being?

Hmmm…My guess is since those are the last requirements listed, they are the least to worry about so to speak.

I would consider seven and eight essential. They are expounded in both Scripture and Matristic tradition but, moreover (from the standpoint of the general Déanist) they are universally part of the formal, “orthodox” theology of all the major theistic world religions. Outside the work of a relatively small number of avant garde, postwar Western theologians, an entity that is not both omnipotent and omnibenevolent is, definitionally, not God.

What @blessedishername said, pretty much. It’s another point which separates Déanism from just general “goddess worshipper”. If you can’t or don’t believe that Déa is wholly good then you’re not a Déanist - and that’s okay! :)

But Filianists follow the scripture…..not all Deanists do? Tell me if I have this wrong, but I was under the impression that Deanism was an umbrella term, and some traditions under it follow the scripture, but not all of them?

@sophia-is-love I am often grateful for the experiences I had growing up around a Jewish community, where the tradition has long stressed that we grow closer to God not so much by having answers as by coming together to seek them earnestly. It has always reassured me to see the same spirit honoured in the Matristic writings and I hope that we, as a community, will continue to be able to maintain it.

Amadéa.

Questions though about seven and eight? Like, what if you just can’t (or don’t) believe in an all good AND all powerful Being?

Hmmm…My guess is since those are the last requirements listed, they are the least to worry about so to speak.

I would consider seven and eight essential. They are expounded in both Scripture and Matristic tradition but, moreover (from the standpoint of the general Déanist) they are universally part of the formal, “orthodox” theology of all the major theistic world religions. Outside the work of a relatively small number of avant garde, postwar Western theologians, an entity that is not both omnipotent and omnibenevolent is, definitionally, not God.

What @blessedishername said, pretty much. It’s another point which separates Déanism from just general “goddess worshipper”. If you can’t or don’t believe that Déa is wholly good then you’re not a Déanist - and that’s okay! :)

If you don’t mind me asking, why do you worship the sun, but not the earth? Is there any part of Deanism (or a similar tradition/belief, like the kind people keep confusing with Deanism) which considers dark on par with light, e.g. with equal awe/consideration for night, the rest of space, etc. ?

We don’t actually worship the physical sun or anything in the universe, but we do believe that the sun was created to represent God the Mother, so it’s a symbol rather than actually being Her, as She is pure Spirit and exists beyond time and space, beyond the universe as our Heavenly Mother.

I think one of the biggest misunderstandings between ourselves and earth worshipping goddessians/pagans is that we do not worship the earth, the sun, or the moon. Because that is such a big part of the aforementioned religions a lot of people seem to have a hard time grasping that we view them in a symbolic manner rather than actually believing they are our deities.

So considering many of us use the ECE version of the scriptures now, is it appropriate to refer to Dea as ‘The Goddess’ more frequently? Is that considered Orthodox? Not really sure what I’m asking. Just that I consider myself somewhere in between being Chapel Orthodox and somewhat Madrian (as much as I can be considering I wasn’t there at its conception and it’s not really a thing any more) so I was wondering which version of the Scriptures I should be using. I don’t know. Thoughts?

Which version of the Scriptures to use is a personal choice, of course. I will say that the 4th edition ECE (due out this month) removes all instances of ‘the Goddess’ in favour of 'Dea’, because evidence obtained since the 3rd edition was published indicates that use of 'the Goddess’ was almost certainly not original in the text.

That’s interesting. Do you know why the Madrians changed God to The Goddess? Was it to appeal to a wider audience (pagans)?