Eternal Truth or Fundamentalist Literalism?
The difference between a living spirituality and fundamentalist dogmatic religion.
It is important that we understand the difference between any spiritual practice that has an unbroken connection into prehistory as opposed to practices that have been developed in the past 2,000 years (I.e., Abrahamic religion). The difference between the two is that the practices that we would call ‘shamanic’ or ‘animistic’ in which every culture in the world at one time shared, and modern religions, is that modern religions are purely intellectual in nature.
Modern religions are based on intellectual belief. What you do is adopt a certain belief system and then from that point on you filter everything through that belief system. Let's look into the ways in which Pagan thought differs from fundamentalist literalism found in the Abrahamic religions. The idea in ‘shamanic’ paths is that they are unbroken and carry with them an entirely different understanding of our relationship to ourselves and the Gods.
The Problem With Literalism
The Abrahamic faiths are all based on the idea of literalism. That their scriptures are the truth and that they are the historically accurate representations of history. At the genesis of Abrahamic religion was the first moment in history that posited that humans believe in the scriptures literally otherwise they would be punished.
Before all of this, people were what we now call ‘shamanic’ or ‘animistic’, and polytheists. It was a completely acceptable idea that other people had other gods, and that other nations had other gods, and that you could worship any god you wish. It was a very pluralistic and accepting way of viewing things. It enabled one to be completely proud of their own culture and tradition while simultaneously being accepting of other people’s traditions.
The Modern Mindset
The mindset that we have unconsciously been fed in our modern society for at least the past 1,500 years that completely dominates the way in which we interact with the world makes the majority of our assumptions for us. Even people who are atheists are still typically operating from a dualistic mindset that was given to them by Abrahamic religion.
A lot of science and even medicine today still operates from the assumption that there is a separation between the physical plane of existence and the non-physical plane. We must understand that the non-physical plane was the primary reality in which our ancestors viewed things through.
What We Can Do
I strongly believe that we at least need to have the power to know what we think and why we think it, and to make choices about what we want to believe. I believe it to be true that we can make some choices about the way in which we see the universe, and the choices we make about how we see our relationship as humans to the universe will have huge positive impacts on our lives. The only way we can do this is through personal experience.