AND A

BAH HUMBUG, TOO!!

RAISE THE GOBLET HIGH!!

An Upsetting Incident

I had an upsetting incident happen yesterday evening.  As some of my readers are aware my husband and I have been attending (and belong to) a local Unitarian-Universalist Church.  In fact, the minister who was here twenty-nine years ago presided over our marriage ceremony, which I wrote.  The next minister presided over the memorial service for our baby daughter, a much wanted child who died at eight days.  Over the years I served this church on the Programme Committee and on the Board of Directors.  Therefore, what happened was even more bitter, because I was welcomed as a polytheist.
For approximately 14 years we have attended flittingly because of  the massive amounts of sleep deprivation I suffered due to the closure of Norwich Hospital and my having to "take to the road" for daily commutes of up to 200 miles per day in order to maintain medical insurance for my husband, who needed weekly psychiatric appointments.  In addition to the sleep deprivation, I underwent several knee surgeries leading to complete knee replacements.  My Father, also, needed my additional attention as my Mother had died in 2001, so we would meet him at a pre-arranged restaurant on a Sunday morning, which was always inconvenient for attendance.  However, now I treasure those Sundays as my Father died in March of 2013.  
During all this time apparently certain members pushed for banning personal scents in the building.  So, yesterday I get up and do my usual morning ablutions and finish off with a quick spray of Chloe.  The Craft Group isn't meeting until 7:00 P.M.  I remember nada about this "new rule."  However, apparently I "reeked" to two of the so-called ladies.  I was accused of being the source of one's migraine from the previous week, though she is a librarian and works at the local public library.  I don't even remember what I wore!  So, instead of being this "welcoming" group, I am being ganged up on by two untrained pit bulls.  Now, I have a rhetorical question:  I know that scent diminishes throughout the day, so how could I still be "reeking" when another woman said that she could not smell me?  I do believe that some of this has to be a  hypochondriacal response to a small stimuli, exaggerating it beyond its proper proportions.
I know that this is only the tip of a bigger iceberg which has been building.  Another person I know is also upset about the way things are going.  I also did not see another at either at the two meetings which I attended (I used to go frequently as a devotion to Athena Ergane).  Ah, well, the content of the talks has gone down hill horribly.  I really need to put more energy into the Proto-Demos and getting a round-table philosophy discussion group started. 

When Bloggers Don't Permit Replies When Having Problems

It has been a long time since I have posted -- and there have been many things on which I have wanted to post.  However, I have been a bit depressed recently, so I do not want to jump into any flame wars or to create any by mistake.  I realize that our individual egos can be tender things.
This leads me to the subject of this particular blog post:  bloggers who do not permit replies to their posts.  Now, I am sure that there may be a few Yahoos out there who willingly put both their feet into their mouth up to their hips in idiocy and make fun of the blogger and worse.  On you may the Furies be released to cause everlasting confusion and pain.  These DO NOT need to be re-posted by the blog owner except to keep other readers amused that such rudeness and stupidity exists.  There are many people who read a person's blog and start to know them a bit through their writing.  This is not quite the old-fashioned type of friendship that all of us wish that we could have; however, some of us do reach out over the radio waves with virtual support and suggestions.  By cutting these things off, the blogger creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that they have no community with which to cling.
Some of you can possibly guess the blogger to whom I am referring (Star Foster).  She had left the Hellenic organizations to which she had belonged for unknown reasons while still claiming Hellenism.  Now, she is blogging as a re-converted Christian.  I do not understand her thought processes as she has not made them very clear.  I knew that All the Gods existed when I was still a child over 50 years ago (I will be 64 come November).  The Gods tell you to worship them -- you don't leave because there might not be "enough" people yet in your town because you have closeted yourself off from the groups who would be able to help you.      

An Open Question to BTWs: Does Not There Ever Come a Time When You Have to Say No?

This has been a question which has been bothering me for close to two weeks.  I am specifically asking it of BTWs -- and Blue Stars in particular -- in light of what has finally come to public knowledge:  the immoral sexual peccadillos of Kenny Klein which include the confessed crimes of possession of child pornography, which may be just the top of an iceberg.  Apparently it was open knowledge among people to keep their children away from him at pagan festivals.  The type of manipulative person he is comes straight out of psychiatric/psychological textbooks describing the psychopathic personality.  {Note: Yes, I do have experience with the psychiatric literature as I am a retired medical/psychiatric librarian from a teaching hospital and attended the same lectures that the residents did.}  Did not the first coven notice or did he manipulate the HP?  What sort of CV did he even have before "creating" his tradition of BTW?  Why now are these followers not burning their so-called degrees and all the paperwork associated with it?  I say it is GREED, that you don't want to give up your supposed status, and I suggest that you really look within your hearts and pray to the Gods and not that flimsy rag of ethical advice (Wiccan Rede) for the selfish advice that it gives.

Nihilism: The Infection, The Sickness Unto Death, The Problem of Neo-Paganism (It Isn't a Religion)

Yes, readers, they are flailing about again in a quagmire of their own making because they cannot abide to acknowledge that there are standards in living a virtuous life.  When all moorings are cut away the only thing left are the reefs, which will eat up the boat you are trying to sail, casting you to the bottom of the sea.  It is positively sickening to hear these people wail over that psychopath Kenny Klein, who has used the veil of Wicca or whatever in the perpetuation of how many crimes we may never know.  They BLAME the VICTIMS of these crimes!!!!  They absolutely have NO SHAME whatsoever.  The BS over language was small-stuff compared to this.  They never understood that -- or the use of rhetorical language, either ;-).  
Some of you may recognize the reference to Kierkegaard in the title of the post.  He was a theologian who was writing in the time period of the original nihilists.  You know them:  Lenin and those types.  Monsters.  Now, don't try to excuse them because then I will really be angry with you.  As I have been seeing it, society over the past century has become sick.  Maybe it has always been this way; but, in some ways nihilism has highlighted it more.  Sick because it questions virtue.  Sick because it allows the psychopath to thrive (Wall Street, etc.).  Sick because it gives excuses to those who perpetrate the worst behaviours and crimes.  
Finally, I have come to the realization that neo-paganism is not a religion at all.  It has tried to amalgamate various folkways; however, it has failed.  The folkways exist separately for those who are truly interested in developing relationships with the deities of those traditions.  Worship happens more than 8 times a year.  Its synthetic roots in Wicca are showing.  There may be a few who have a truly religious bone in their bodies; but, they are rare.  Anyway, they have no traditions of sages and philosophers from whom to draw.  They just do not want to be told what to do.  Well, isn't that just special.  This is antisocial to the extreme.  I definitely do NOT want them playing in my sandbox.

P.S. How You Use Language DOES Count (Even Though You Were Not Taught, You Are Still Responsible to Learn)

Yes, I know, I cannot let it go.  I was lucky -- I missed the Great Dumbing Down in American education. (This started a few years after the Apollo programme put our astronauts on the moon in 1969.  We did it -- now we don't need to do anything anymore mentality.)  Teachers knew when you read Cliff's Notes instead of the novel -- and, there was no internet to buy a term paper.  It was hard to get away with things.  I am sure it happened; but, most of it got caught.  Anyway, within 5 years of my graduating from college (9 from high school), secondary prep had so eroded that high ranking universities were having to teach new students how to read, write and cipher.  So the Fact that Mr. Halstead is just generally ignorant to the first degree in the humanities should really come as no surprise.  However, it is unethical to allow him to continue to let him slather his ignorance over minds as equally ignorant as his own.  There have been enough so-called pagan crises of faith over the years with the dreck being published from Llewellyn (ya know -- the crescent moon logo).  My particular favourite (looks around to make sure there are no rabid fluff bunnies on patrol) has the so-called "reference" to an "Irish Potato Goddess."  (Need to go to the barf, sorry, bathroom now.)  The bloggers on Patheos are above this, I would like to believe; but, you, sir, make things up like that woman did, out of whole cloth.  Obviously you did not use a dictionary of the English language or ask a former English teacher how your essay would read.  I am a former English teacher.  As a gift, I would grade it a D-.  You whine, trying to make your faults the world's.  Poor, poor, pitiful you.  Wrong!  I do not like whiners.  Whiners are lazy.  You probably did not take Philosophy or Religion (yes, it is studied generically, you may hit yourself on your head now) when you were in college, thus decreasing your knowledge base exponentially.  Instead, you are the well-squared off orange and are only now seeing that you have lost something.  However, rules are rules for a reason.  You need to go back to square one and take or retake those intro courses to logic, philosophy, religion, and maybe even art and music. ---- And, don't let me ever see you stealing again.  

Mr. Halstead, Part 2 (a few needed added touches!)

So, yesterday, after wrapping up my post, I said to myself, "Yikes!  There are still so many other things that I wish to discuss." 
The most important things which struck me on his blog over on Patheos are first, the title of the Blog itself:  The Allergic Pagan; the second thing was within the recent posting itself which I pointed out in my first posting, where Mr. Halstead was comparing himself to almost every form of spirituality and non-spirituality available, including the kitchen sink, there-by erasing from history good and pious people's understandings of themselves.  Way to go, Mr. Halstead.  You are probably one if not THE MOST ARROGANT "insert expletive of choice here" under your gee-whizz exterior (no one can say that such a cute fellow as you are could possibly be certainly one of the most VISIBLY IGNORANT FAUX MENTORS of the community).  Yet, there it is.  Your main identification is as an atheist.  You have stated so yourself.  There is nothing wrong in being an atheist.  However, to then cloak yourself in the language of the spiritual and/or religious is specious.  It is bait-and-switch, it is fraud.  I know that it is possible to stand in awe before Nature without having to call upon or pray to the deities and spirits.  You should try it -- at least you would not be a hypocrite. Carl Sagan was an atheist -- buy the DVDs of the original Cosmos if you want to see how it is done.  Stay with your New Atheist friends, including Dawkins, laughing up your sleeves at the poor polytheists (oh, we're now multi-deists because of your troublesome meddling).  Sometimes I wish that metal edged rulers hitting certain fingers are called for at this point.  I do not call myself a pagan -- and my religion does not start with the letter "P", either.  Obviously, you are not really educated in the how or why of developing a relationship with the divine.  However, that's just the thing.  You are an atheist, so you cannot develop a relationship to the divine -- or with Nature, because of the spirits.  You cannot develop a relationship to a group of cells or molecules. You really are rather pathetic, yet, you have so many eyes and ears turned to what you say.  Eventually people will see you for the hollowman you are.  Go Away Now.

Oh, Dear, the Neos Are Causing Trouble, Again

Has it really come down to this?  We now have to use Latin instead of Greek to identify our type of religiosity because some nitwit who calls himself both a "pagan" and an "atheist" has also decided that the adjectival form of polytheist sounds just fine to describe himself with as he wishes with no regard as to it's definition (Halstead).  How can someone be both an atheist and a polytheist -- or even a monist, as he claims?  That is really a feat of imagination -- and offensive.  He is not the one who should be "using" our words and definitions, words which have had centuries of use and understanding, and creating his own out of them.  He should have the brains to articulate what he means with his own words.   
Already on the internets (HuffPost) I have come out in favour of bringing back public humiliation punishments, ie. placing the offender in stocks for a period of time.  This is especially good for forms of  egregious stupidity.   
I think that it would be just better if religious/pious people of the new religions split away from these people who are just as ignorant of Christianity or whatever religion they are running away from.  We who are attempting authentic worship already know most of this.  Some of us have stepped away.  I include myself here, though I really do leave myself open to the sincere seeker.  All religions have forms -- in Greek, threskia -- of worship.  These have been handed down through time.  This it to MAKE IT EASIER!!!!   DUH!!!!  Religion is the Gods.  The  philosophers speak of ethics, which I really wish that every one possesses.  I still think I need to keep my virtual baseball bat at the ready for -- has it been 50 years of stupid already? Sigh......

Theodosius I: A Most Evil Man

Reblogged from The Edithorial: The Man Who Abolished Classics

Everyone interested in history or Classics needs to be able to drop the name ‘Theodosius I.’   It’s the 1,667th anniversary of his birth today, but I’ve been meaning to share my grudge against him for a while. If we want to identify an individual responsible for abolishing pagan antiquity, Theodosius is a prime candidate. His portrait needs to glower at the reader from the last page of any history of the classical world.  .   .   .    .     .     .

http://edithorial.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-man-who-abolished-classics.html