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This blog post is about the modern religion Asatru. It's not about science and so it's not about when life begins. This is about when Asatru teaches that a being becomes a person. A person is a member of a society with rights. This is about souls and the way society recognizes human rights and the rights of other types of beings. 

Asatru is one of several modern Heathen religions based on the historical Heathen cultures, which are generally the cultures spanning the areas and time periods of Germania, Scandinavia, and Scandinavian colonies such as Iceland. Iceland has a unique place in Asatru as the culture that wrote down many oral traditions and gave us a lot of the literature on which we base our collectively decided canon we call The Lore. 

Of all forms of government, theocracy has got to be the worst.

If you haven't noticed yet that a Kreesh-chun America is the Great Evangelical-American Wet Dream, you're not paying attention.

What do you call it when a power-driven and dictatorial religious minority bullies, lies, and stacks courts, in order to legislate its own religious values onto others?

Sure sounds like tyranny to me.

Well, the Trump Court of partisan hacks has overturned Roe v. Wade, as we all knew it would.

For me personally, the hardest part of all has been hearing the smug, sanctimonious voices crowing about their victory, and vaunting about what they're going to do next to shove their hate-filled religion even further down everyone else's craws.

(Make no mistake, the war over abortion is at heart religious. Anti-abortionism is a specifically Christian movement embraced almost exclusively by certain forms of Christian conservatism, both Catholic and Protestant. When it comes to abortion, Jewish and Islamic religious law tends to be both more pragmatic and more nuanced. Nuance, of course, has never been an Evangelical strong suit, and Catholicism threw it out with Vatican II.)

So here's what we need to remember when it's our turn—as it eventually will be, because the Evangelical cause has already failed; having to legislate your religion onto others is already a concession of defeat—and the shoe is on the other foot.

Win graciously.

Acknowledge that this triumph is painful for others.

Acknowledge the humanity of the other side.

Acknowledge that their positions are as deeply-held, and honestly-held, as ours.

Affirm that we go forward together into a shared future.

Washington D. C. (Reuters)

For the first time in its history, the US Supreme Court building was struck by lightning last night, less than 24 hours after, in a controversial split ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the right to reproductive freedom guaranteed by Roe. v. Wade.

While no injuries were reported, and structural damage to the building was minimal, according to building manager Letitia Robinson, “The building's entire electrical system is fried. We may not have it up and working again until late next week.”

When asked by reporters, senior justice Clarence Thomas denied any significance to the timing of the lightning-strike.

“God had nothing to do with this,” he said. “This is meteorological coincidence, pure and simple.”

Dr. Melanie Powers, high priestess emerita of Washington, D. C., had a different perspective.

“In 1966, the heathens of Iceland petitioned the Althing—parliament—to have their religion formally recognized. Parliamentarians thought it was a joke, and denied the petition. Next day, the Ministry of Religion was struck by lightning,” she told reporters. “The day after that, Parliament reversed itself and granted the petition unanimously.

“It remains to be seen,” she added, “whether the partisan hacks of SCOTUS will have the wisdom, not to mention the humility, to do the same.”

Oppressors, we defy you.

The word of the Horned, God of Witches:

When the law is unjust, break it:

for mine is the law against law.

He is Free, and the Father of Freedom: the Liberator, breaker of shackles.

Unjust law is no law.

Oppressors: we are the witches, and we defy you.

There was once a kingdom in which certain people decided that amputation was immoral.

The gods made us to have two arms and two legs, ten fingers and ten toes, they said. Amputations should be made illegal!

No one wants to have an amputation, said others, but sometimes they become medically necessary.

When amputation is made criminal, only criminals will have amputations! cried the anti-amputation crowd.

But accidents happen; some people will die if they don't have amputations, the others pointed out.

Criminalize amputation! The gods will it! replied the Whole-Bodiers.

But surely, when an amputation is needed, each individual should have the right to decide for herself whether or not she wants one, said the Pro-Deciders.

Your bodies are not your own! replied the others. We have the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own body! The gods have given us this right!

No they didn't, said some. Your gods are not our gods, said others; but no one was listening.

Backed by powerful political and business interests, the Whole-Body movement—a small minority in the kingdom—nonetheless passed stringent laws against amputation, imprisoning amputees and doctors who performed amputations.

They even encouraged neighbors to spy on one another, and to report secret amputees; and to each such informer, they promised to pay 10,000 gold ducats.

Dear State Legislators of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama:

You've made your position clear. Your anti-choice legislation constitutes nothing less than a War on Freedom, and a War on Women.

Is there wisdom in anger? A Hindu magazine honors its "Hindu of the Year." And the plight of Muslim immigrants in the United States is considered. It's Faithful Friday, our news segment about faiths and religious communities around the world. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!