John Beckett
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Do you fear death?
Read more: Do you fear death?Another excellent piece from John Beckett on how Pagans think about death. Do you fear death? I don’t fear death because I don’t believe in heaven or hell, which is a pernicious doctrine designed to cause fear. I believe in the Summerlands, which is a completely different place. I also have reasonable belief in the…
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Rapping about the rapture
Read more: Rapping about the raptureI’m thankful that I was not brought up with the nonsense about the rapture, but I recognize that it is still traumatic to think about for a lot of people.
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Unpacking religious baggage
Read more: Unpacking religious baggageJohn Beckett is offering an online course, Unpacking Your Religious Baggage So You Can Live a Magical Life.
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Dealing with door knockers
Read more: Dealing with door knockersMy best ever riposte to some doorstep evangelists was when they asked me “who do you believe is the ruler of this Earth?” And I replied “I don’t believe the Earth can be ruled, I believe that she’s a goddess in her own right”. The doorstep evangelists practically ran away down the front path. The…
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Inspirations
Read more: InspirationsChanging Paths challenge day 29: inspirations Many writers worry about being inspired by other writers, in case inspiration comes off as plagiarism. But true inspiration is not plagiarism, it just references its source and then does something completely different.
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ExVangelical solidarity
Read more: ExVangelical solidarityFantastic article from John Beckett (polytheist UU Druid) on the rise of the ExVangelical movement and how to get the tentacles of Christianity out of your brain.
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Undermining Christian hegemony
Read more: Undermining Christian hegemonyI think it’s important to challenge the hegemony of Christianity in our culture and promote tolerance of all religions that want to live in harmony with each other and with atheists. The way to get to that point is not by insisting that we should all read the Bible so we can use it to…
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Reverting to your old path
Read more: Reverting to your old pathA helpful article from John Beckett on the type of people who revert out of Pagan traditions and back to their original path. John urges compassion and empathy for people who leave Pagan paths for another religion, and offers suggestions for deepening your understanding of Pagan ideas so that you can avoid reverting.
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Religions evolve
Read more: Religions evolveOh dear: the evangelicals are spouting rubbish about Paganism again — ably debunked by John Beckett. The idea of evangelicals claiming that Paganisms don’t have continuity with ancient paganisms is hilarious when you consider the lack of continuity between evangelical Christianity and early Christianity.
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Wibbly wobbly
Read more: Wibbly wobblyChanging Paths challenge day 14: changing paths. Changing paths is a wibbly-wobbly thing. During the process, I was all over the place. It was like having the bends (you know, the thing where a diver rises too quickly to the surface and gets cramps) or being on a giant scary roller coaster ride. That’s why…
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Smash that Protestant lens
Read more: Smash that Protestant lensGreat piece from John Beckett this morning which covers some really good points about how to write about different religions, why the word “religion” should not be used as a synonym for Christianity, and how not all religions fit the “Protestant lens” (the way people tend to use the Protestant paradigm as a way to…
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Patron deities
Read more: Patron deitiesThe concept of patron deities in polytheism caused me a lot of trouble back in the day. I was on a polytheist mailing list and it seemed like everyone on the list had a patron deity who had approached them personally. They were also adamant that the deity approached them and not the other way…
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De-baptism
Read more: De-baptismThere’s been a discussion on the internet recently about de-baptism. Here’s an excellent article about it from John Beckett over at Patheos: Debaptism: You Probably Don’t Need It, But It Can Be Done …you can’t unpour water. The baptism happened and we can’t pretend it didn’t.But we can reverse its effects. John Beckett Further thoughts…
Changing Paths 