Absence of right answers

(The following is some writing I did today for a forthcoming book. I thought it was worth sharing.)

In order to be Pagan, you have to feel comfortable with an absence of right answers. There are many right ways to do things, and there are definitely wrong way to do things, but if you are convinced that there’s one truth that overrides all other truths, and that anything that contradicts truth must be false, well, Paganism is probably not for you.

Pagans have to be comfortable with many gods, many ways, many possibilities. We have to be able to know that Wicca is right, and Asatru is also right, and Christianity is also right (although there are definitely some Christians who are dead wrong, especially when they talk about killing Pagans). We have to be able to say that Thor is the thunder god, and Chango is the thunder god, and not be freaked out by two “the”s that seem to contradict each other.

Some Pagans believe that “all paths lead to the same place.” I don’t happen to feel that way. Many paths lead to very similar places, but I don’t care to mush them all together. What’s necessary to be Pagan is simply to believe that there is more than one true path.

3 comments

  1. Roberta says:

    This pervades my life, and my way of thinking. I was just contemplating it yesterday… how I have so many different ways of viewing things, so many truths, and that I am (finally) comfortable with that. Comfortable meaning, these different paradigms all live in me, not as contradiction, but simply as coexistence.
    So I believe in total coincidence and a conspiring, magical universe. Shit happens and I create my own reality. The gods brought us together and we’re two people who happen to dig each other.
    Yup. That’s my life.

  2. deblipp says:

    Very well said.

  3. Roberta says:

    Thanks! It felt all incoherent.