So I pretty much agree with everything in this article. There’s several points I want to expound on, so I might write a few posts based off of this later, or at least go to the Halstead article and reference off of that because that’s really where the points I want to discuss arise.
Truth is, the Gods do not have a singular will. What Hel desires is not what Loki desires, who in turn desires something different from Thor. Each has a domain, and their domain is their primary concern. To dismiss Gods because you don’t find them “helping you save the world” is foolish. Especially since the world will continue to exist and have life on it regardless of what we humans do. To disparage at Gods like Ares, Hel, Kali, or other gods who aren’t “World savers” but instead focus on other things is the height of hubris, and shows a very shallow understanding not just of the Gods, but of the world itself.
With articles such as this, it is even more clear to me why polytheists need to speak up within and without the Pagan Umbrella.
With respect to discerning John Beckett from John Halstead, I will use their last names.
Beckett wrote a post about the future of polytheism and the importance of ‘keeping the Gods at the front’. Halstead’s article is the response to this.
‘John Beckett has recently written a post about his vision of the future of Polytheism- the future of the “polytheist revolution” -and the importance of “keeping the Gods at the front”. To me, this sounds disturbingly like the Christianity I left behind 15 years ago – with its rejection of this world or at least its relegation of the concerns of this world to a place of secondary importance. It sounds too much like the monotheistic condemnation of “idolatry” and the “gods of…
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Son of Hel 
I agree with you. I know that many Polytheists are angry at his article about why he calls himself a pagan but he doesn’t believe in gods, spirits, and so on. He also goes on, on his Allergic Pagan blog, that, basically, that what’s going on in paganism is the same as the Christianity that he left behind. I don’t remember every word of his blog post but it did make pagans upset and angry.
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well, i’ve got two posts going over the entire article coming up tomorrow and the day after, so check them out.
This does seem to be a thing of Halsteads, I recall hearing him doing stuff like this before. But in a wonderful case of Lucius’s Law, the thing he most sin he most hates is the sin he’s most guilty of. In this case, it seems because he’s mostly ignorant of both other religions and how religions actually work, as well as what the Gods are and why they do what they do.
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To be honest, I think the polytheist movement makes way too much of the atheist pagans. To drop the “pagan” label because a relative handful of vocal people don’t believe in the reality of the Gods’ existence makes as much sense as the efforts back in the 90’s to coin some new term instead of “Asatru” because there were folkish people using it.
Despite their loud mouths and wide platforms, the atheist pagans/heathens are a relative drop in the bucket, and they shouldn’t be taken as the spokesmen for mainstream paganism or heathenry. I refuse to give them the power to define my relationship with the Gods simply because they happen to share a label with me.
Halstead is a perfect example of this. He’s been beating this drum for years. But the vast majority of pagans and heathens still believe in the reality of the gods.
I submit a more effective strategy would be to get the mainstream atheists pecking at them, pushing them to drop the “pagan” label entirely. Let them defend their affiliations with the Gods-believing pagans, and their use of the “pagan” label as a modifier to their atheism, and see how many of them drift away and become regular posters over at the Friendly Atheist.
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Honestly, I think you’re right.
The main problem as I’ve seen it isn’t that “faithful” pagans are too wiling to let the “Atheist” pagans define what Paganism is, it’s just that the “AP” for whatever reason, as you said, have the wider platform. Which honestly confuses me, sometimes. They are a “drop in the bucket” and yet somehow they always manage to have the organization, resources, and connections to get their voices heard. I mean, look at Patheos and the Wild Hunt. The vast majority of Pagans I have dealt with over the years do not share the viewpoints largely expressed in either of those platforms. And while there are good authors on each, the vast majority are the more “Atheistic” Pagans.
Yet theirs are the loudest voices?
I’m still trying to figure that out. Maybe I just need to reach out to some of the other Polytheist Pagans out there and see about setting up a site for the more Religious of our Orders.
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Totally agree with you, Joe. That’s why I don’t comment on his blog. I rant on my own.
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