Gaelic Polytheist

[Shaker]

And very little time for you to start whining about it, as usual.

[BashfulAnthony]

And very little time for you to start whining about it, as usual.

I'm not whining; I'm merely pointing out how disreputable your language is.

[Shaker]

Only to you, Bashers.

[BashfulAnthony]

Only to you, Bashers.

Really?  Don't be so stupid.  If such language is acceptable, why are we warned of it before certain tv programmes;  why do we not hear it in Parliamentary discussion; why is it even apologised for by commentators when microphones pick up bad language on sports fields, etc, etc?  It is not every one who resides in the gutters of language as you do  -  I did not miss your use of the "c" word the other day.  You have no control and only a sparse vocabulary.

[Shaker]

Really?  Don't be so stupid.  If such language is acceptable, why are we warned of it before certain tv programmes

I've yet to hear an announcement before any TV programme: "The following programme contains the word bloody."

Otherwise, TV channels still have to pander to the prudish, often elderly, nearly always with scant experience of a wide variety of different kinds of people in different social settings.

[BashfulAnthony]

Really?  Don't be so stupid.  If such language is acceptable, why are we warned of it before certain tv programmes

I've yet to hear an announcement before any TV programme: "The following programme contains the word bloody."

Otherwise, TV channels still have to pander to the prudish, often elderly, nearly always with scant experience of a wide variety of different kinds of people in different social settings.

"Be warned, the following programme contains bad language," is quite common.

 You ignore my other points, I note.  It is not prudish to avoid foul language, it is common decency;  and it is the elderly who are most likely to have had experience of different people in different social settings, so it is not pandering to them, or anyone, to avoid foul language; it is being decent and controlled

Only the unintelligent argue in favour of the right to use foul language as a matter of course, as you do and in particular with your most abusive use of the "c" word the other day, and that is because they, and you, don't appreciate what it is to have standards.

[Owlswing]

Really?  Don't be so stupid.  If such language is acceptable, why are we warned of it before certain tv programmes

I've yet to hear an announcement before any TV programme: "The following programme contains the word bloody."

Otherwise, TV channels still have to pander to the prudish, often elderly, nearly always with scant experience of a wide variety of different kinds of people in different social settings.

Shades of that prudish (elderly) old tart Mary Whitehouse - sitting watching documentaries on the tribes of Africa counting tits and cocks!

[BashfulAnthony]

Really?  Don't be so stupid.  If such language is acceptable, why are we warned of it before certain tv programmes

I've yet to hear an announcement before any TV programme: "The following programme contains the word bloody."

Otherwise, TV channels still have to pander to the prudish, often elderly, nearly always with scant experience of a wide variety of different kinds of people in different social settings.

Shades of that prudish (elderly) old tart Mary Whitehouse - sitting watching documentaries on the tribes of Africa counting tits and cocks!

I don't remember that, but I expect you've got it on video, or something.

[Rhiannon]

How come, then, if your beliefs are so obviously the right path, so few people are adherents?  Some 50,000 out of a population of 65,000,000?

My impression of pagans is that they tend to be very much more comfortable and at home with the concept of subjective truth - "Right for me, but not necessarily you" - than acolytes of monotheistic faiths. Owlswing states this openly on a fairly regular basis. Christianity and other monotheistic religions make putative truth claims which purport to be absolutely and universally true for everyone at all times in all places. Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the father except through me. There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. And so on. These are absolutist, dogmatic statements that leave no room for subjective interpretation.

Many pagans on the other hand - not all, but by far the great majority I've encountered in person and online - find this sort of thing (if they are honest) every bit as foolish and limited and narrow as I do, though they may put it more diplomatically than that. They don't seem to mind talking about subjective truth and personal/individual paths.

The best that I can do is 'true for me for now'. I said somewhere recently that it's the land , the trees, the stars and sky that I can rely on, not myself.

[BashfulAnthony]

How come, then, if your beliefs are so obviously the right path, so few people are adherents?  Some 50,000 out of a population of 65,000,000?

My impression of pagans is that they tend to be very much more comfortable and at home with the concept of subjective truth - "Right for me, but not necessarily you" - than acolytes of monotheistic faiths. Owlswing states this openly on a fairly regular basis. Christianity and other monotheistic religions make putative truth claims which purport to be absolutely and universally true for everyone at all times in all places. Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the father except through me. There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. And so on. These are absolutist, dogmatic statements that leave no room for subjective interpretation.

Many pagans on the other hand - not all, but by far the great majority I've encountered in person and online - find this sort of thing (if they are honest) every bit as foolish and limited and narrow as I do, though they may put it more diplomatically than that. They don't seem to mind talking about subjective truth and personal/individual paths.

The best that I can do is 'true for me for now'. I said somewhere recently that it's the land , the trees, the stars and sky that I can rely on, not myself.

What do you mean by, "rely on"?

[Rhiannon]

Depend on, BA.

[BashfulAnthony]

Depend on, BA.

I'm interested.  How do you rely on the stars, for example?

[Rhiannon]

Because they are always there. I don't ask them for anything or read them, if that is what you are asking. They are just constant.

[BashfulAnthony]

Because they are always there. I don't ask them for anything or read them, if that is what you are asking. They are just constant.

How does that help you?  In any event, they are not constant, they just appear to be: they are irrevocably dying, as all things do, and frequently undergo dramatic change.

[Shaker]

Because they are always there. I don't ask them for anything or read them, if that is what you are asking. They are just constant.

How does that help you?  In any event, they are not constant, they just appear to be: they are irrevocably dying, as all things do, and frequently undergo dramatic change.

We know that they are not ultimately constant any more than are mountains; but on the scale of the individual human lifetime they are, also like mountains. If you draw emotional sustenance from or invest spiritual significance in the things of the natural world, they offer constancy.

[Rhiannon]

Yes, that's it exactly - it's about the scale both of our lifetimes and our entire existence. I gain perspective from them because I find that myself and my concerns are very small.

[BashfulAnthony]

Because they are always there. I don't ask them for anything or read them, if that is what you are asking. They are just constant.

How does that help you?  In any event, they are not constant, they just appear to be: they are irrevocably dying, as all things do, and frequently undergo dramatic change.

We know that they are not ultimately constant any more than are mountains; but on the scale of the individual human lifetime they are, also like mountains. If you draw emotional sustenance from or invest spiritual significance in the things of the natural world, they offer constancy.

But surely, if you attribute to them a constancy that you know they do not in reality possess, you are deceiving yourself.

[Rhiannon]

There are always stars visible from the earth and I anticipate that won't change during my lifetime. Collectively they are constant.

[Shaker]

No, nobody's ascribing anything not actually possessed. Stars explode and mountains erode over vast timescales and we all know this, but as I said, on the scale of the individual human lifetime - in fact many, many, many, many, many, many human lifetimes - they are stable and constant.

[Shaker]

There are always stars visible from the earth and I anticipate that won't change during my lifetime. Collectively they are constant.

You can get computer programs that can show you - backwards in history, forwards into the future - how the constellations have changed and will change over many hundreds of thousands or millions of years, but no human with at most a century of observation can see such changes.

[Rhiannon]

There are always stars visible from the earth and I anticipate that won't change during my lifetime. Collectively they are constant.

You can get computer programs that can show you - backwards in history, forwards into the future - how the constellations have changed and will change over many hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

 

For there to be self-deception I would have to be unaware of this.

[BashfulAnthony]

There are always stars visible from the earth and I anticipate that won't change during my lifetime. Collectively they are constant.

You can get computer programs that can show you - backwards in history, forwards into the future - how the constellations have changed and will change over many hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

Indeed, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are not, in reality, constant; they may appear so, but we know it is not the case:  Nothing in the Universe, in life, is constant

[Rhiannon]

So Jesus isn't a constant presence in your life?

[BashfulAnthony]

So Jesus isn't a constant presence in your life?

Yes He is, the only constant: but that is not a pagan belief is it?  It is for me.

[Shaker]

There are always stars visible from the earth and I anticipate that won't change during my lifetime. Collectively they are constant.

You can get computer programs that can show you - backwards in history, forwards into the future - how the constellations have changed and will change over many hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

Indeed, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are not, in reality, constant; they may appear so, but we know it is not the case:  Nothing in the Universe, in life, is constant

Indeed and nobody is denying this or saying otherwise; but the pace of change is so grindingly slow to the individual observer that they are constant to all appearances.

A million years from now Orion won't look the same as it does now. This of interest to astronomers, but realistically, who else cares?