Blah, blah, blah, that's just your stomach talking.

lol at least it's consistant....

I've never really understood why there's such a bias against evolution being a part of Creation. Why this need for humans to have emerged in this precise configuration, anyway?

I don't think evolution and the notion of Creation need to be mutually exclusive, but people who don't see a relationship sure do feel strongly about it.

By the way...I don't think I intimated anywhere that what I was saying was representative of *all* Pagan thinking or belief (not stated toward you, OC...I think you and I understand each other pretty well :D ).

Elspode:

I really enjoy listening to you. You have an easy conversational style of writing that draws the listener into your point of view. I want to compliment you on your consistently skillful writing.

As to the subject of your recent post in this thread, and considering your previously noted eloquence, we share considerable ground. The labels, names, attributions may vary. Some are human contrivances and conveniences, some have been portrayed as divine inspiration. I believe the content matters more than the packaging. What's more valueable the wine or the bottle?

I wonder if you know about http://www.religioustolerance.org/ . I suspect you may, but if it's new to you or not, I suggest that you'll find much here encouraging.

Thanks for writing. Please continue.

are you asking Robert Mondavi or N!xau ?

I also feel the connection with the natural world, but I think much of it comes from not having our concrete shelters all around us. When you're standing out in the middle of nowhere, there's shit that can EAT you out there. Gets the blood pumping, you start smelling smells and hearing things and catching movement with the eye. Suddenly things that used to be incidental -- rain, wind, animal behavior, seasons changing -- are now much more important. They govern the world around you, but you never noticed it as much from inside your artificial, climate-controlled environment.

Pfft. I sound like you live in a tent in the Gobi. But still, you're closer to that way of thinking when you're far away from subways and oil refineries.

My point exactly, MN. Now, take those elevated, quickened senses and awareness and wrap the superlative human mind around it all. The attempt to comprehend and respect all that Is will sooner or later result in either a true, underlying connection to the All, or a nifty series of creative stories to explain it all to one's satisfaction so that one can get on with the hunting and harvesting without further distraction. ;)

Wow, thank you for your post, Elspode. This thread is becoming very helpful for me.

The festival would be excellent. It might be something I can attend. I will have to see. We might be traveling that direction that weekend, anyway, so I hope we can work it out. It truly sounds like an excellent time, anyway. I am glad it is in Kansas! Unfortunately, I am on the other side of the state.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread. I appreciate your insight. (Even challenges brought forth by Troubleshooter.)

Yeah, that's me, challenged, I mean challenging.

Just doing my part for the cognitive arts.

Sometimes I think god/faith/spiritualism can actually impede one's appreciation of the world.
I am an absolutely non-spiritual person. People seem to assume that means that I have a very cynical take on the world, but it's really the opposite. The universe is such an amazing place! Look at a Hubble image. Or a Kansas rainstorm. Or a falcon. Why can't they be amazing by themselves?
To search for some sort of "deeper meaning" in life (or nature) is to ignore what it really is.
Isn't the truth, stark unalloyed truth, the most beautiful thing there is? Then why make things up?
- Pie

Have you tried The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark World by Sagan?

Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues.

Emphasis mine.

I read that when it came out. I may have to try to unearth it from the pile and look it over again. Up until the frighteningly stupid novel, I really loved reading Carl Sagan.

re: pie

That's just it. Appreciation of the stark, unalloyed truth is sometimes richer when you aim for the WHOLE truth, and not just the first surface glance. That doesn't have to mean worshipping God, but it does mean having an open mind that there might be things in the universe that the human mind lacks the ability to comprehend.

I think that's the first step in a logical progression to belief in God, but that's just me. No, TS, I'm not going to list the rest of the steps ;)

step 1: collect underpants
step 2:
step 3: profit

By definition, then, you are making up the rest of it. That means it has diverged from truth.
- Pie

If there are no other steps then it is neither logical nor a progression. QED