Saturday, August 26, 2006

I want a pagan box to tick


I'm starting to get excited by paganism. Not the dancing naked at midnight round a tree sort of thing (although it does sound more fun than communion). It's just the idea of god without religion. What I can understand is this. The universe is HUGE. It's amazing. We can't even begin to imagine how it got there. So there's a possibility that something or someone lit the match to set off that big bang. All that I get. What I don't get is this religious stuff. It just doesn't make sense (I know, I know, faith isn't supposed to make sense, but that's such an easy cop-out).

If a god figure had created this whole wonderful and hugely complex universe over 14 billion years ago, why would he wait til just 2,000 years ago, choose an obscure little backwater planet, appear to primitive nomadic tribes (surprise, surprise, all in the same region), and tell them stuff which even a 12 year old basic science student nowerdays would know is just so wrong? (world created in 6 days, earth going round the sun, that sort of basic thing). Why would he do that? It would be stupid. Surely he might have dropped a hint or two (like "hey, there's this really useful force I created called electricity ....check it out")

And what's more, all this stuff that's been put into these 2 books (I'm thinking Bible and Koran here) just happens to be exactly what the people running these primitive tribes believed about how the earth and stars and society works at the time - funny that. It just leaves an inkling of a thought that maybe these people just made it up themselves. I'm sure they thought it was divine at the time, but then we all have inspired thoughts but we don't all believe it's god given.

So, I get confused when I have to fill in official forms. I get the choice of boxes to tick - catholic, protestant, muslim, hindu, agnostic, atheist. But what if you believe that there's a possibility that there might be a god, but not one that the religions have us believe..... ? So I want to tick pagan.

The great thing about pagan gods is that they didn't tell you what to do. No sins, no "Thou must..." or "Thou shalt not...". They just lived somewhere nice, controlling the universe ("think we'll have a bit of thunder over London today") and you just had to keep them happy (the odd sacrifice every now and then). That seems to be a much more likely scenario if you believe there has to be a creator.

I want a "pagan" box on all official forms please.

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