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Paganism and libertarianism might seem like odd choices to bring together in a single book. One is a broad set of nature-centric religious and spiritual practices, while the other is a fairly narrow political philosophy focusing on personal freedom and responsibility. But as a member of both communities, author Logan Albright has been unable to shake the feeling that they actually have more in common than most people realize. Libertarian Paganism posits that there is a fundamental sympathy between these two apparently unrelated belief systems, and that a set of shared values might attract politically homeless pagans to libertarianism, or spiritually homeless libertarians to paganism. These values include respect for the individual, the importance of consent, the freedom to express views which are out of the mainstream, tolerance and inclusion, and a healthy skepticism towards the powerful. Libertarian paganism is, in Albright's experience, a way of life that is both personally empowering and deeply ethical, two qualities towards which the author likes to think we are all striving. It is the author's hope that readers of any political or spiritual persuasion will find something here of use, or at least thought provoking, in the development of that personal philosophy we all need to work on continually if we are to live lives of meaning and purpose.
This book is the first comprehensive examination of the ethical parameters of paganism when considered as a world religion alongside Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The issues of evil, value and idolatry from a pagan perspective are analyzed as part of the Western ethical tradition from the Sophists and Platonic schools through the philosophers Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche to such contemporary thinkers as Grayling, Mackie, MacIntyre, Habermas, Levinas, Santayana, etc. From a more practical viewpoint, a delineation of applied pagan ethics is then presented in connection with current moral issues such as same-sex union, recreational drugs, environmental awareness, abortion and terrorism. Finally, overviews of sectarian pagan ethics (Shinto, Santeria, Heathenism, Druidry, Romuva, Slavic, Kemeticism, Classical and Wicca) provide both the general and pagan reader with an understanding of the provocative range and differentiation of pagan ethical thought. The book approaches the Western ethical tradition as an historical development and a continuing dialogue. The novelty of this approach lies in its consideration of paganism as a legitimate voice of religious spirituality rather than a satanic aberration or ridiculous childish behavior. The book is aimed at both the contemporary Western pagan and anyone with an interest in the moral dilemmas of our times and the desire to engage in the global ethical discussion. Among the more important features of the book are its presentation of a re-evaluation of idolatry, the notion of the virtue value, the richness of the pagan tradition, and the expansion of Western ethics beyond its Christian heritage.
Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought are twin, core components of modern life in societies across the world. The ability to pursue one?s vision of the right and the good, coupled with liberty to pursue individual reason and enlightenment, helped produce so much of modern life that we may be apt to forget that libertarian philosophy was not dictated by Nature. Freethought and Freedom surveys the long history of religious and intellectual liberty, exploring their key ideas along the way.
'The Irish Book of Rites is unique, a dual language text that offers evocative rituals in both English and Irish. A wonderful way to connect to your spirituality across the tides of the year; truly something that all Irish pagans should have on their shelf.' Morgan Daimler, author of Irish Paganism and Gods and Goddesses of Ireland The Irish Pagan Book of Rites contains all the essential rites in an easy-to-follow format, presented in both the English and the Irish (Gaeilge) languages for those wishing to make their offerings in the beautiful indigenous Irish tongue. Here you'll find rites for regular use, blessings for water and the home, celebrations for the main Irish festivals, as well as in-depth explanations for the meaning, purpose, and lore behind each devotion.
Drawing on ethnographic research, this book explores individualized religion in and around Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. Claire Wanless demonstrates that counter to the claims of secularization theorists, the combination of informal structures and practices can provide a viable basis for socially significant religious activity that can sustain itself. The subjects of this research claim a variety of religious identities and practices, and are suspicious of religious institutions, hierarchies, rules and dogmas. Yet they participate actively in an overlapping and cross-linking informal network of practice communities and other associations. Their engagements propagate and sustain a core ideology that prioritizes subjectivity, locates authority at the level of the individual, and also predicates itself on ideals of sharing, mutuality and community. Providing a new theory of religious association, this book is a nuanced counterpoint to the secularization thesis in the UK and points the way to new research on individual religion.
This is a book about modern liberal society and its adversaries. The book rediscovers and rehabilitates much maligned, especially in America, liberalism as the ideal system of liberty in relation to anti-liberalism as one of un-freedom. It rediscovers liberal modernity as a free, equal and just social system and time, thus most compatible with and enhancing of human civilization ushering in the 21st century. It exposes anti-liberal adversaries, especially conservatism, as ideologies and systems most inappropriate with and destructive of civilization. The book rediscovers liberal modernity as the master process and destination of Western civilization, and its anti-liberal adversaries, notably conservatism, as the ghosts of a dead past. The anti-liberal rumors of the 'death' of liberalism are 'greatly exaggerated'.
Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from centuries-old patterns of Christendom to establish a political arrangement committed to secular and religiously neutral government. These novel commitments were supposedly embodied in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. But this story is largely a fairytale, Steven Smith says in this incisive examination of a much-mythologized subject. The American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and of conscience. Smith maintains that the First Amendment was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. America's distinctive contribution was, rather, a commitment to open contestation between secularist and providentialist understandings of the nation which evolved over the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, far from vindicating constitutional principles, as conventional wisdom suggests, the Supreme Court imposed secular neutrality, which effectively repudiated this commitment to open contestation. Instead of upholding what was distinctively American and constitutional, these decisions subverted it. The negative consequences are visible today in the incoherence of religion clause jurisprudence and the intense culture wars in American politics.
Provides an introduction to and compendium of libertarian scholarship via a series of brief articles on the historical, sociological, and economic aspects of libertarianism within the broader context.
DIVAn ethnographic study of the development of racist paganism in the United States during the 1990s, examining the economic, cultural, and political developments racist paganism reacts to or makes use of./div