Matters of Belief
Jul. 22nd, 2021 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipThis Saturday I am giving an online presentation to SoFiA (Sea of Faith in Australia) entitled, "Pantheism: Beyond Atheism and Theism" and will provide the Zoom link and passcode to those were want to hear me talk about the subject. As a backgrounder, I have previously presented to the Melbourne Atheist Society n on the subject, several years ago now. By preparing for the presentation has given me the opportunity to consider my own searches along this path. Whilst I was initially raised in a fairly orthodox welfare-working class Catholic environment, and would soon find myself under the direct care of the Sisters of Mercy. During my childhood, I was a voracious reader of the Christian bible but had also been sufficiently exposed to Hellenic mythology, which I adored. In my adolescence, it must be said, participation in fantasy RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and especially RuneQuest gave me a wider knowledge of the polytheistic cultures of the world in the former, and how mythology is its own Weltanschauung in the latter. Later in my teen-aged years, as I became more influenced by Marxism, I would become an atheist and carried a degree of antitheist anger at the deception carried out by religious institutions, yet also sympathetic to the healing properties expressed as "the opium of the people" and the fascinating union in "liberation theology". I have fond memories of organising a meeting at Murdoch University on the latter subject where I designed a logo based on the cross and the sickle which caused a bit of a stir.
After moving to Melbourne I initially became interested in Buddhism (and much later, Engaged Buddhism in particular) and journeyed with my housemate, Glenn K., to Woolongong's temple for the Year of the Rat, a fascinating combination of an Australian hitch-hiker story and pilgramage which I covered in an address to the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship. It was during that journey, becoming close to the natural environs and mixing it with an interest in the European enlightenment that I found myself attracted to paganism in general and Celtic paganism in particular for a while, and my time in Timor-Leste reignited an anthropological interest in animism, along with encounters with Hinduism in Bali and syncretic Islam in Java. Soon afterward I would join the Melbourne Unitarian Church where I was an active member for more than a decade and, for my sins, even spent time in the turgid environment of their committee of management. For a short period, I was even enrolled at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York, until it became clear that they carried no academic standing. Whilst I do not attend often, I am also a member of the Christian Uniting Church through the very liberal St Michael's Church and when I can, attend the equally liberal Knox Presbyterian Church in Dunedin. Over these many years, however, all of these journeys and reflections have narrowed down to naturalistic pantheism as a metaphysic. It suits my idea of the universe being both prosaic and also magical at the same time, expressed in Ludwig Wittgenstein's comment in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921): "Nicht wie die Welt ist, ist das Mystische, sondern dass sie ist" ("Not how the world is, is mystical, but that it is"), which certainly accords with my lived experience.
After moving to Melbourne I initially became interested in Buddhism (and much later, Engaged Buddhism in particular) and journeyed with my housemate, Glenn K., to Woolongong's temple for the Year of the Rat, a fascinating combination of an Australian hitch-hiker story and pilgramage which I covered in an address to the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship. It was during that journey, becoming close to the natural environs and mixing it with an interest in the European enlightenment that I found myself attracted to paganism in general and Celtic paganism in particular for a while, and my time in Timor-Leste reignited an anthropological interest in animism, along with encounters with Hinduism in Bali and syncretic Islam in Java. Soon afterward I would join the Melbourne Unitarian Church where I was an active member for more than a decade and, for my sins, even spent time in the turgid environment of their committee of management. For a short period, I was even enrolled at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York, until it became clear that they carried no academic standing. Whilst I do not attend often, I am also a member of the Christian Uniting Church through the very liberal St Michael's Church and when I can, attend the equally liberal Knox Presbyterian Church in Dunedin. Over these many years, however, all of these journeys and reflections have narrowed down to naturalistic pantheism as a metaphysic. It suits my idea of the universe being both prosaic and also magical at the same time, expressed in Ludwig Wittgenstein's comment in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921): "Nicht wie die Welt ist, ist das Mystische, sondern dass sie ist" ("Not how the world is, is mystical, but that it is"), which certainly accords with my lived experience.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-22 10:41 am (UTC)Lev Lafayette will present the topic and lead the discussion.
ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81635710680?pwd=SHdLblRBTm15d1JZSEo5M3R3WEljZz09
Meeting ID: 816 3571 0680 - - - Passcode: 275299