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Nekromanda β Stamp: Pagan/Atheist
Published: 2012-04-30 14:31:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 1823; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 5
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Description
Edit EditSince making this stamp, I don't really consider myself Pagan in any way anymore. Haha.. Funny how people change, right?
Anyway I'll leave it here, just like I left my old Wiccan stamps around, just in case some people might find it interesting.
Edit:
~TrickyCreature explains this very well in their journal Atheist Paganism for me :
"So a Jungian interpretation of magical rituals can help to understand. It is a way of solving conflicts a psychological way, to open doors for the unconscious to cope with situations and to restore harmony. So shamanism and witchcraft can still be used, but not in a literal sense anymore. It's just a kind of depth psychology and autosuggestion. No fear of karma or such stuff. No fear of punishings by a mob of angry deities if you botch a ritual or else. It's psychology and symbolism now, triggering the archaic consciousness."
read the journal here:
Atheist Paganism for meHow I did become an atheist... but..!
My mother grew up in a far away very small village where people practised a strange kind of Lutheranism mixed with folklore and superstitions. My father grew up in a family that was half part Catholic and half part Communist. My granddad himself had fought in the Spanish Civil War and was imprisoned for about ten years after the fascists destroyed the republican dream.
My parents decided that they wouldn't go to getting me baptized and that later I should decide for myself. As a small kid I grew up with the Easter Bunny, Santa and βGod" who sees everything, especially when I was being naughty.
I b
It's likely that I'm going to catch a lot of flak from this, but this is for fellow Pagans who also tend to identify themselves as Atheist - in the sense of not believing in or worshiping gods/goddesses/deities of any sort. Other terms could be Atheistic Pagan, or Spiritual Atheist. I really dislike titles, but these are the closest ones that I personally identify with.
I know I'm not the only one out there.
If you are, please feel free to speak up! I don't want to be the only one standing naked out here, haha.
Side note: I wish I could make a pendant out of that design I used. I have a pentacle like this at the moment, but I feel something closer to the design in the stamp would be a muuuuch better representative of my personal beliefs.
Journal of mine
Template
Atheism Symbol via Google, :/ Mashed it together with a pentacle in Photoshop.
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Comments: 54
I would say it's an unusual combination, but as a Buddhist Christian I am not one to criticize.
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Hey! I was browsing stamps and I found you! Looky there! 
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Okay! And yeah, I am a Christian.
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We should get to know each other some! Note me maybe! (that's what it's called, right? Sorry, I'm pretty new here.)
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oh, ok. So that's what the yellow thing does *laughs* very fun indeed. I think I'm really going to like this website! ^^
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IT is a fun site.
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I like this stamp, I consider myself Atheist, as I don't believe any religion has got it correct, I am sort of universe worshiping. I have always been in to "different" ideas like Taoism, Wicca and Druidism and my family takes on 'pagan' traditions. so this stamp may work for me
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I know there are quite a few significations to the five-pointed star pentagram (which is "prehistory old"). Does your "pagan" pentagram mean something particularly? like the five senses? Nature's creation? The "positive man"? ... or the membership to the disciples of the greek mathematician Pythagore 
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The pagan pentacle is used to show the 5 elements
fire
water
earth
air
spiritΒ
its actually a lot more in depth than that but that's the basic meaning
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Hmm... To be honest I hadn't really thought about that - I always used to look at the pentagram as sort of a symbol of balance between the elements and one's spirit, but in an atheistic sense I suppose it could mean something like this, going clockwise, with the elements in parentheses for reference: 
I bet with some more thought that could be better refined, but for now it sounds alright I think, haha XD
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I really enjoyed reading this. The way you explained it at the end, it's so straightforward and just the way I feel. I envy your way with words!
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Thank you very much for your kind words! I am very pleased to be of help and inspiration.
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I love the idea of the gods and goddesses as representations of forces of nature. I don't believe they are actual deities that exist in a supernatural plane, but praying to them often does me a lot of good, emotionally at least.
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That was always something I was fond of. It's easy to pray to the forces in nature, I agree, and I often found myself doing the same in the past. Emotionally it's very comforting and I think prayer tends to do that, because it's nice to think that there's something out there keeping eye over you. I don't pray to anything anymore, but I still do recognize that it does have a powerful emotional effect on people
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I'm an atheist, but I have this great love of nature, animals, and positive ... IDK, "energy"? I used to identify as a pagan who happened to also be atheist, but these other pagans all gave me all kinds of crap over it. They were pretty darned mean about it. So I finally just gave up on that, and stuck with atheist. It's really bad, because I did love celebrating the equinoxes and the like with my Druid BFF.
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That's terrible! For a group of people who are supposed to be tolerant of other belief systems, they sure aren't at times.
I'm still considering using the term Pagan Atheist, because on one hand I still view myself as Pagan because I still on some degree celebrate, like you said, the equinoxes and such, as well as having a fondness for as you said 'energy' and nature and such. I've thought about the term Spiritual Atheist as well. I'm still torn on the issue, grr I hate titles haha.
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Pardon me, but...
aren't the pagans theists of one kind of another? Or is it a cultural identification as well, similar to Jews who still identify as jews even though they are atheistic?
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Well, Paganism is an umbrella term that covers hundreds and possibly thousands of belief systems. Like how not all Pagans are Wiccans, not all Pagans are theistic. To my knowledge it's not a cultural identification like with Jews.
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I do know that, but aren't the various pagans theists of some kind? How could you be a believer in some pagan deity and an atheist?
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Most are, but certainly not all. I identify as pagan but I don't believe in deities. I mean, when you get down to it, isn't the definition of atheism the disbelief in higher beings, such as gods/deities? If I do not believe in such things, does that not make me an atheist?
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Wait- if you identify as pagan, yet consider yourself an atheist, is there any possible route to non-contradiction not to say it's a cultural identity?
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Well, to be technical the term "pagan" means any non-Abrahamic religion. So technically, Buddhism can be classified as pagan - and as I understand it, many Buddhists (if not all) are atheists. So it's possible to be spiritual, but still not believe in a god.
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That is very iffy. Yes, Buddhism is a non-religious philosophy (although many buddhist manage to miss the point and worship Buddha anyway), but every pagan religion I know of worships some deity or entity of some kind. If most pagan religions are this theistic, how can one call oneself "pagan atheist" without appealing to cultural idenitity?
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I guess I really couldn't tell ya. I don't worship an entity of any sort, but I hold several of the different ideas that I've picked up through my experiences in studying paganism to be true. I view the differing gods and goddesses as metaphors rather than literal facts. I believe in an interconnectedness between all things, and that it is completely natural. I deeply appreciate nature (not worship), I celebrate some pagan holidays, I meditate, etc. The culture I came from was Christian. I converted to Wicca, then fiddled with my beliefs until I came up with one that suited me - something that isn't uncommon for many solitary pagans. Only difference is I fiddled until I accepted a spiritual "philosophy" that didn't include worshipping gods. As I mentioned in the description, I'm not the only one who's ever come to this conclusion. People who tend to call themselves both pagan and atheist end up catching a lot of flak for it, so I understand where you're coming from.
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I've seen you make a lot of good stamps previously, but... this one I don't get. You identify as a pagan, yet you are an atheist? Especially when paganism is an umbrella term for various old religions almost without fault worshipping some deity or other... I don't really understand. It sounds like you're an atheist who likes pagan values and identifies with them, but does that really make you a pagan?
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I'm not sure, does following Christian values and identifying as a Christian make someone Christian? I consider myself Pagan because I follow and identify with Pagan values as you said. I consider myself an Atheist because I do not believe in a god. It's just what I consider myself to be. You might just as easily call me a spiritual atheist. I hate titles, which is why I so rarely assign them to myself, but this is the closest one I have found thus far to identify myself as, so that is the reason I have used it.
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Well, let me put it like this: Richard Dawkins grew up in a social environment that was explicitly christian, and he has a fondness for biblical poetry. He identifies himself as a cultural christian, though an atheist.
I wonder if "cultural pagan" wouldn't be equally applicable to you, then?
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Maybe, though I wasn't raised in a pagan culture.
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Well, if it is the values you identify with the most now...
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I cant "bravely, nakedly stand by your side here"..... but if ya get cold n lonely.....
LOL
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I'm not one, but my first Pagan friend was a Therian. No deities, just animal spirits and a respect for nature. I enjoyed our conversations back when we kept touch.
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That's really interesting, I'll have to do some googling to learn more about that one!
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I'd call myself more of a Pantheist because I prefer to work with energies and elemental spirits rather than with deities. I am trying to branch out and experiment, though, and I pay homage regularly to Artemis Diana and the Green Man already.
If you ask me, the strength of Paganism lies in its diversity, but that also means that "Pagan" can mean just about anything. On the one hand, I think labels are generally bad, but we could probably use a few more labels for Paganism so we don't have to sit someone down for 5 minutes to explain what we mean when we call ourselves Pagans.
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That's true, there are soo many different types of Pagans out there, so it's pretty much always confusing when you ask, 'oh, what is your religion?' and they respond with "I'm Pagan." Then you gotta ask, oh, what...flavor of paganism are you? And then it takes forever to explain... Haha.
I've always been fascinated by the concept gods and goddesses, but I've never really been able to incorporate them comfortably into my practices. It's sort of a shame, but they're all still very interesting to learn about, and to hear about through people talking of their personal experiences.
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Hey, if you don't feel comfortable working with them, don't. No one says you have to. I'm open to working with just about any deities, as long as I can communicate with them and approach them without feeling like I would be in danger. (The Judeo-Christian god, for example, seems too temperamental to me.)
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Even if I did work with deities, I don't think I'd be able to work with the Judeo-Christian god, either. From what I've gathered from the bible, he comes off as a big jerk, lol... :/
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I'm not sure if I'm an Atheist or not (My mind is messed up xD) but I am definitely favouriting this for the amazing artwork
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basically Atheist= no belief in any gods at all, and a rejection of those claims until proven correct. Nothing else.
So, if you don't believe in a god, you are an atheist. That's all. It's just a label for something.
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Thank you!
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Oh very cool! I love the combination of these two different symbols. It looks great. I like borrowing from pagan symbolism, especially as a means to separate myself from mainstream religions (Christianity), but still identify as atheist. Really pagans have the cooler designs and a little more creative streak perhaps.
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Haha this is true. I wear my pentacle whenever I can, though I still keep it under-the-shirt so I don't have to deal with people staring at me awkwardly while pretending not to. It always gives me a little sense of comfort, I suppose, and reminds me to keep grounded, especially when I'm feeling particularly anxious out in public. I'm completely head over heels in love with the symbolism from pagan faiths though. Its so cool and creative as you say, and surprisingly effective when used.
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Funny isn't it, how people see a symbol and automatically associate it with something? For you and me that pagan symbol might be a sign of freedom and individuality, even beauty, yet to others it represents evil and fills them fear or even anger. Symbols have a lot of power, though it seems most (if not all) of it comes from how much people give it. I'd like to get something like that myself, besides the symbolism I enjoy jewellery, and I already get plenty of looks so that won't bother me haha.
What do you mean by it's effective?
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It is pretty interesting how symbols can evoke such powerful feelings within us. Seeing a swastika might invoke feelings of anger and disgust, while a cross to a Christian might bring on feelings of love and humility. I too enjoy jewelry, though I rarely have a chance to sport it now that I think of it, haha.
As for symbols being effective - well, take the symbolism of the moon for example. The moon has different stages which some pagans equate to different stages of life (or the goddess' life): maiden, mother, crone. I also consider the effect the moon has on the sea, bringing in the tides and letting them go, sort of like a breath. So while the seas are rolling in and out day and night, the moon continues to visually change from young to old, with everything working in a beautiful rhythm. I use these to invoke calmness while reminding myself that there's a healthy rhythm for everything, that one day I too will be a mother and an old woman, and it helps me to feel calm considering that my life is just one little speck in the constant crashing of the waves that is life. It's humbling in its own way, powerful and effective, without needing to feel like some dude suffered on a cross for my supposed sins.
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That's awesome!
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