Scientific Pantheism and Humanistic Heathenry

Greetings!


I was active in the WPM (World Pantheist Movement) a few years ago
before my job got crazy and I had to move to go up that career ladder.
My wife and I will probably get active/rejoin (we let our dues
lapse...) again although we are
now in the Antelope Valley (Lancaster) area of California and wonder 
if there are any of you out there. We also have two small children 
ages 3 1/2 and 5.

I have floated around various freethinker groups for years - like the 
Unitarian Universalists (unfortunately the UU's in Lancaster seem 
predominantly theistic), Ethical Culture member-at-large, the 
American Humanist Association, the Atheists United (part of the 
Atheist Alliance), et al.

Right now I have been developing Humanistic Heathenry which is simply 
a nontheistic celebration of indigenous, pre-Christian Northern 
European cultural traditions and practices (including nontheistic 
seasonal celebrations and ceremonies like blots and sumbels which 
have more flavor than a generic Winter Solstice celebration). It is 
basically Asatru interpreted through the lens of humanism. I put the 
WPM faqs and credos up on my discussion group for discussion so you 
are welcome also to join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASHH/ if 
you are interested. There is a file on Humanistic Heathenry in MS 
Word format in the Files section.

Personally I don't think that the different nontheistic movements 
should be in "competition" and have always favored multiple 
memberships if it meets the needs of the individual. How many members 
of the WPM are also members of the UUA? I remember giving a 
presentation on scientific pantheism at the Monte Vista UU 
Congregation in Montclair.

For myself, I view Scientific Pantheist, atheist, humanist as terms 
all referring to the same thing. Probably the only difference is the 
emphasis. It is just approaching it from a different angle. We do 
like fighting over our labels though. ;-) Of course, I disagree with 
Paul that humanism is too anthropocentric - that is a common popular 
fallacy. In fact, the most vigorous group within humanism is 
ecohumanism (which has an emphasis very close to Scientific 
Pantheism). I use all of these terms to describe myself - it depends 
on the context in which I am in. On the other hand, I am one of those 
people who has a strong disagreement with the use of 
religious/"spiritual" terminology using fuzzy redefinitions (which 
are basically not accurate) to make them "acceptable" to nontheists 
while making us SOUND like theists. That always seems like we are 
having to apologize for not being theistic.

Wassail!

Ashheathen


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASHH/