Editor,
The recent front-page article highlighting the rise of historical paganism and shamanistic folk religion, “Fall’s pagan pride festival fills pantry,” precisely demonstrates the decline of intellectualism in Western society.
Namely, various worldviews and ideologies, such as Shamanism and animism, are blindly being espoused and promoted, yet none of these folk’s religious views are being challenged intellectually and scholastically. Neopaganism represents a philosophically bankrupt worldview by which nonsense metaphysical positions, foundationless ethics and irrational “magic” are espoused. Where is there any sense of scholarship or intellectualism within these traditions?
Some in our contemporary culture consider traditional religious positions, such as that of Christian theism, to be foolish or nonsensical, yet where is the intellectual strife against such senseless and illogical Neopaganistic religious movements? Modern and historic academia has hosted a considerably immense number of Christian scholars (philosophers, theologians, natural scientists), yet few, if any, Paganistic scholars are present today. These hollow religious and philosophical positions within Paganism provide no coherent theories of knowledge, complex studies of metaphysics and ontology, as well as rational arguments pertaining to reality and existence.
Where is the concern for seeking any sort of truth whatsoever in our culture? What principals are there regarding knowledge of reality, and where’s the intellectual dialogue concerning Paganism? There is none because there cannot be any. Such baseless religious movements as Paganism cannot be intellectually defended, or even rationally articulated for that matter. Joy Davidman, the prolific poet and wife of the late philosopher and writer C.S. Lewis so accurately concludes:
“The old pagans had to choose between a brilliant, jangling, irresponsible, chaotic universe, alive with lawless powers and the serene and ordered universe of God and law. We modern pagans have to choose between that divine order and the gray, dead, irresponsible, chaotic universe of atheism. And the tragedy is that we may make that choice without knowing it — not by clear conviction but by vague drifting, not by denying God, but by losing interest in him.”
Perhaps this is the status of modern Western culture. That is, that atheism and Neopaganism is a result of losing interest in the pursuit of truth. One would think that intellectualism and truth-seeking are not as highly viewed endeavors as they once were, especially considering the rise of such foundationless movements as contemporary Paganism and folk religion.
Western society has become one of reciprocation, where previously held values concerning reason, logic, objective ethics and cogent metaphysics and ontology were once esteemed are now no longer. Romans 1:21-23 properly situates humanity’s condition and foolishness: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
Sincerely,
Mac Morin,
Philosophy student
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
