For everyone who eschews supernatural mythology       This site is for all people who believe in nature, science, and reason, and who value ethics, aesthetics, compassion, and truth    Are You a Heathen? * Why most modern Heathens are "Born-Again" * On being a Heathen * Whose truth is truly true? WHY MOST MODERN HEATHENS ARE "BORN-AGAIN" All human beings, like all other animals, are born as Heathens. That is to say without any sense of, or belief in, anything supernatural. Almost instantly, however, most human beings become the victims of evangelical inculcation on behalf of neo-pagan religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam or quasi-religious cults such as Scientology. Such efforts frequently begin with such non-consensual barbaric practices as baptism and circumcision. And brainwashing activities continue throughout the young human's formative years so that by the time the individual reaches puberty, whichever instilled mythology is fostered by parents and community in which the young person is raised is firmly entrenched. There is a biblical passage that says "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons even unto the seventh generation." But this is not true. What is true is that the supernatural fantasies of the ancestors shall burden their descendents unto the 182 generation - and counting. Thus it is that humans who are born Heathens are subverted to become "believers" in some form of religious mythology, and most remain believers throughout their lives. Until one considers how tedious is would actually be, the promise of "eternal life" - the stock in trade of most religions - is quite beguiling. The delusion persists because most people, unthinking, would like it to be true and engage in some form of willing suspension of disbelief. Eventually a few of those humans - typically the more intelligent, better educated, more worldly wise - realize that the beliefs in the supernatural with which they've been imbued are simply nonsense, that they have been misled by their parents who, themselves, were similarly misled. With that realization, the individual's Heathen status is restored and he or she is then properly characterized as a "born-again" Heathen. Note that one does not "become" a Heathen. There is no process nor any ritual. One simply is a Heathen when he or she realizes that such status is theirs. Christians have Christianity, Jews have Judaism, Muslims have Islam, Humanists have Humanism, and - yes - even Atheists have Atheism. But Heathens are simply Heathens. They have no conceptual, theological, philosophical, metaphysical or evangelical counterpart to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Humanism, or Atheism with which to be connected or identified. Virtually by default, Heathens believe in nature, science, and truth - realities that neither require nor countenance institutional infrastructuring. ----------------------- ON BEING A HEATHEN Being a Heathen can be lonely. There is no organization to join and no community, so it is not possible to be a member. There is no hierarchy and no evangelists. There is no one to defer to and no one from whom to expect deference. There are no edifices and no meetings. There are no costumes and no rituals. There is no Creed and no Confession of Faith. There is no Book and no tradition. It is not possible for a person to "become" a Heathen: one either is a Heathen or isn't, and that's all there is to it. A person is a Heathen when he or she recognizes within self an abiding belief in nature, science, and truth coupled with an abiding disbelief in anything supernatural. Heathens tend to be pragmatic and, therefore, many Heathens would subscribe to at least some of the following precepts: 1. First do no gratuitous harm to anyone or thing. 2. Cause no gratuitous anxiety. 3. Don't coerce, intimidate, manipulate, mislead, or defraud. 4. Reciprocate both kindness and unkindness; do not turn the other cheek. 5. Seek not merely truth but the whole truth. 6. Speak the truth with compassion. 7. Be rational. 8. Be equitable. 9. Give and require full value for value received. 10. Neither seek nor accept privilege. 11. Eschew greed in all its forms. 12. Tend your own garden while insisting that others tend theirs. 13. Seek the greatest good for the greatest number. 14. It is more important to do the right thing than to do something right. 15. Do as you think best. --------------------- WHOSE TRUTH IS TRULY TRUE? Some folks cannot contented be if others live lives differently. They need us all their clones to be - in faith, and hope and charity. Who knows why some folks feel that way, that all must see the self-same light and threatened feel when others stray? Perhaps deep down they doubt they're right. I am as happy as can be: to be, no doubt, the me that's ME! And all of us ourselves must be if we're to live contentedly. Sometimes I wonder if one's faith in God and in democracy depends on who raised them and where, and not on truth eternally. My mother was a Christian sure Not Catholic but Protestant She raised me up as she believed with all that Bible cant and rant. My father, on the other hand a skeptic Unitarian, taught me to question ceaselessly so I grew up a thinking man. If I'd been raised by other hands what might, indeed, I be today? a Buddhist? Pagan? Atheist? or something else? I cannot say! Suppose my parents had been Jews or maybe Muslims, so I muse. What parts of me might then I lose? What different cues might shape my views? And if my mother were a Jew, would I have turned out Jewish, too? Or if my dad taught me Koran, would I have been a Muslim man? Suppose my mom liked royalty, where then would lie my loyalty? Or if my dad backed tyranny, where then would my allegiance be? What if my birth were long ago? What different people would I know? How would that change the way I grow? Or mold the way my feelings flow? If I'd grown up in land afar, where good and bad quite different are, would values same still be my par? Or would such slants my vision mar? Would I still be the same or what? Would then my same convictions shine? Or might I then be one of them, and hold their one true faith as mine What parents teach depends always on what their parents thought was truth; but truth's not proved by faith alone, and truth believed is sometimes myth. So, if the faith of everyone is thus determined by events, then who can say which faith is true without objective evidence? Since this is how most get their faith, it's wrong to argue and offend. Whose faith is true and whose is not cannot be proven in the end. Yet still, for faith, our wars are fought. We kill to prove whose faith is true because we're sure what's true for us must also be the truth for you. In ages past there were crusades where infidels fought 'gainst their foes, but what was true and what was false depended on whose views you chose. The rules of war are different now than long ago they were, you see. Then only those who carried arms were cannon fodder thought to be. But now as targets all appear - the old, infirm, and babes in arms - with women, children, all alike, no longer spared wars dreadful harms. A hundred thousand souls dispatched when shock and awe rained from the sky. Thus innocents, some forty fold, repaid our loss, based on a lie. Like them were others long before. In Dresden eighty thousand burned, at Hiroshima twice that lot, though innocents, like demons spurned. Now in the streets of Israel a Muslim bomber kills himself, protesting Jewish myth that God gave Canaan's land for Jewish wealth. So, who is truly evil then? The conquerors or conquered folk? Now in Iraq that question burns, for each side heeds what its God spoke. Perhaps a monarch of some sort would do an even better job of bringing peace and justice here than folks elected by our mob. Our way of life, and only it, is good and true, so we've been told by those who wrote in ages past. Should we believe those men of old? Known errors in their work abound: they didn't know the earth is round. Now everyday new truths are found. Like facts, should faith not be unbound? Now secular not clerical but still crusade indeed you see This time the truth we aim to prove: the one true faith's democracy. How can one truth alone be true? The issue causes such a fuss! Can't we make room for other views? Must everyone now be like us? (c)2005 Tom Billings, All Rights Reserved