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No, no, no. That sort of reductionism is not only itself pure cope, but a serious cop-out. What isn't a cope, by such a vague standard? I was using cope not vaguely but in the broadest possible sense. Any mentation directed at understanding Nature is a cope by definition, because Nature's mystery is way beyond the reach of our feeble neuronal capacities. But we wouldn't be human without the attempt to describe and fathom and reconcile ourselves to the awful mystery. It's not an attempt to reduce the importance of religion, pagan or otherwise, but to describe its motivational origins. I suggest your analysis of "cope" is in turn your mode of "coping" with harsh realities that religion encounters, realities that are difficult to cope with. They way I've defined "cope", I wouldn't dispute the first half of this. But my pagan religiosity confronts the very same harsh realities Christianity does. And I would maintain it involves less "avoidance" of those realities than does Christianity. "To cope" means convenient avoidance of what is uncomfortable Not at all! One can cope by confronting the most brutal, uncomfortable truths, accepting them as part of Nature, as something that can't be wished away or outlawed, while also believing in ameliorating those realities through civilised life. The derangement of feminism comes, I think, from their worldview being a derived perversion of the Christian worldview. Once they went secular, they should have rediscovered paganism to get in touch with Nature. If they had, kids today might have more confidence in what a woman is. "To cope" ... should mean confrontation, defiance, and possibly even defeat of what is being "coped" with. This is the Christian strategy. Defeat of Nature through belief in a God existing outside of Nature, offering hope of salvation, transcendence. I certainly believe in confronting and, Ahab-like, defying Nature—but the idea of possibly defeating her is a pipe-dream. Then again, I'm the beneficiary of an advanced civilisation whose riches were in part created by men gripped by this pipe-dream. So I'm not denigrating it—at least, not in its past form where it was heavily involved in good works. There is overlap between paganism and Christianity, between your belief that Nature rests imperfectly upon the supernatural, and my belief there is only Nature but her mysteries are bottomless. Could the bottomless mystery contain something approximating your "supernatural"? Aspects of it, who knows, but one thing I believe absolutely—if we did discover such a thing, it would be part of Nature, not outside it. And it would not be anthropomorphic. Nature's impersonality and indifference is perhaps her harshest feature. All religions, including paganism but especially Christianity, try to lesson the cruelty of that truth. My saying there is ONLY Nature, sure, it's a belief, but it does mean I'm confronting Nature in a more hands-on and honest way because I'm confronting only Nature, not diverting into some mind-bound logical extension therefrom. The ancient Great Mother that Judeo-Christianity replaced with God the Father: I think it's fair to say the former represented the forces of Nature much more directly and honestly than did the latter. She was a means of communing with and reconciling us to Nature. Having a male deity speak the universe into existence — well, let's face it, that's a mighty big anxiety defence mechanism! A desire to cleanse the filth from Nature was there from the start, with the early hermits sitting up poles, the starving and flagellating in an attempt defeat the wretched body's vile lusts. This mindset, with accompanying sex-phobias, has always been a source of energy for Christians. Sublimation is real and Christianity harnessed a mighty reservoir—but at a cost. The mindset eventually gave us WASP puritanism, Christianity's most pernicious love-child and the progenitor of today's runaway mutant. Just because Christianity is more dishonest about Nature, doesn't make it a less worthy civilizational enterprise—in fact it's an essential part of its success. And it's had a good run. Seems a bit exhausted now. But then nothing is permanent in Nature, not the Great Mother, not the Father, not civilisations, not Homo sapiens, not even, God forbid, boys! ...the awfulness is almost too much to bear! Pray to Antinous before it's too late! ["Dishonest" is not really the right word...maybe something like Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence is better—Judeo-Christianity imaginatively misread Nature and paganism in order to create their new and original book of poetry] |