Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Do Animals Have Religion?
A friend of mine insists that her dog is pagan.
Well, if one defines “pagan” as “following the thews (customs, life-ways, religion) of one's thede (= tribe, people),” I guess I could buy it. Witches (insofar as we follow anything) follow the Witch religion, dogs follow the Dog religion. I would imagine that the Dog religion is a pretty basic biological religion, with an ethical code strongly based on loyalty.
Rather like human paganism at its best, actually.
Then, of course, there's the Kitty-Cat religion. I'm certainly not privy to the inner mysteries here, but so far as I can tell, Cat religion is monotheistic.
There's one god, and it's Me.
Maybe that's where the Abrahamics got it from. This would fit with my theory that monotheism is essentially narcissism writ large.
I'm playing here, of course, but the question is a serious one: can animals—let me be specific and say non-human animals here—be said to have religion? The answer, of course, would depend on how one defines “religion.”
I'll hazard a guess and say that, according to most pagan definitions of the word, one could say that they do.
Photo: Paul B. Rucker
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