One of the important ways in which pagan religions differ from non-pagan ones lies in the pagan understanding that non-human beings, as well as human beings, have rights.
These rights are inherent, not bestowed.
Animals have rights.
Trees have rights.
Rivers have rights.
Mountains have rights.
Oceans have rights.
Planets have rights.
Stars have rights.
The rights of non-human beings, of course, are not the same rights as those of human beings, although there is certainly some overlap. To every people, its own law; to every being, its own rights.
Modern pagans pride ourselves on being a tolerant people.
In this we are wholly true to the ways of our ancestors, and it seems to me that we live up to this ideal often enough to claim it as one of the pagan virtues.
The dilemma arises when tolerance meets with intolerance, as the historic paganisms learned to their great disadvantage. Tolerance extended indefinitely must invariably end in ethnosuicide.
Tolerance may well be a virtue, but any virtue carried to extremes ceases to be virtuous. What, then, are the acceptable limits of tolerance? How much intolerance can we tolerate?
Part I of this essay was needed so we can know what liberalism and conservatism have meant historically and begin to grasp how they are changing. In addition, to understand their relations with one another and with the world I added a third pole, Power, and claimed we can understand neither liberalism nor conservatism without it. We can now delve more deeply, and begin to appreciate how Paganism can deepen our understanding and appreciation of both liberalism and conservatism.
Despite its now being almost always defended in purely secular terms liberalism is more in keeping with Jesus’s teaching that all are equal in God’s eyesthan is any other modern ideology. John Locke derived human rights from his Christian belief that we were God’s creations and in His eyes equal. Consider Matthew 25:34-40.
South Africa has come a long way in the last twenty years. In 1994 we had our first free elections, and from it we left Apartheid where it belonged- in the past. Then in 1996 we adopted a new Constitution; one which is heralded by many first world countries as being progressive. However, as liberal as our Constitution may be, South Africa is still a very conservative nation; especially when it comes to the topic of religion.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
If you believe David Wilcock; one of those "Ancient Aliens" guys, then we already have a secret space program with colonies beyond
Thanks Jamie: your cost-benefit analysis has me entirely convinced (as one heretic to another). For more or less the same reasons
I wish you were wrong, but deep down inside I think we're living at the dawn of a dark and terrifying new age. That which is not s
