NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality quotes: May 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: ata 01 May 2010 05:48AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (288)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 May 2010 08:18:57PM 2 points [-]

I'm a somewhat casual Neo-pagan-- I enjoy the rituals.

As far as I can tell, the four elements are viewed as a convenient source of symbolism, but not believed in literally.

I don't know about Wiccans, but Neo-paganism is a community of practice, not belief. Neo-pagans cover the range from atheism to literal belief.

Comment author: Jack 05 May 2010 08:25:47PM 4 points [-]

I shouldn't speak for actual Wiccans, my experience was mostly love spells and giggling. I did sit in a circle once and "call" the air element after which people did the same for fire, earth and water. Then someone stole some of my hair to make me fall in love with them and we all smoked cinnamon sticks.

Comment author: arundelo 05 May 2010 08:49:08PM *  2 points [-]

Another example: I don't know if Eric Raymond would self-describe as atheist, but he is a neopagan with, as far as I can tell, a naturalistic worldview.

Edit -- a key quote:

One great virtue of this dual explanation is that it removes the need for what William James, in his remarkable "The Varieties of Religious Experience", called the "objective correlative". By identifying the Gods with shared features of our psychological and inter-subjective experience, but being willing to dance with them on their own terms in the ritual circle, we can explain religious experience in respectful and non-reductive ways without making any anti-rational commitments about history or cosmology. Scientific method cannot ultimately be reconciled with religious faith, but it can get along with experiential mysticism just fine.