Sixth Day of Yule, 2011

Alright, day six is here to greet us.

Note to bloggers out there, making these posts the night before will have the side effect of making it very hard to remember what day you're actually on. You're thinking it's the sixth day, but there's only five candles and you're having to remind yourself just where you're at.

Anyways, last night's offering was Oliver's Camelot Mead again, just as it was on the first night. Hopefully there will be enough mead left for the Ninth and Twelfth nights as well. If not, I have some "Apothic Red" wine that I'm told is very good, though personally while I like the bottle (it's red and black and made me think of Alchemy when I first found it) I can't say I like the taste. I'm really picky when it comes to booze, and flavors. So far, the Camelot Mead is about the only one I can really stand drinking. But oh well, I'm not getting paid to be a wine critic or to sell this stuff, so moving on.

Here's the pick of last night, where you can see the offerings in their glasses before Hel, Thor, and Freyja.

Hopefully the computer issues that kept me out the last couple days are fixed, and I won't have that problem again. If I do, well, we'll see how it gets handled.

Also, today is the 24th and Christmas! So set out those milk and cookies people.  Santa might be a "Christian" guy, but some of his aspects can be traced back to Odin, and he is a jolly old elf/alf indeed. So be good, boys and girls, and perhaps he shall bring you a present, and if not, at least you made this holiday just a little more Pagan. And have a merry Yule, Saturnalia, or what have you

Anyways, the gifts:

Six Horns of Mead,
Five Golden Rings! (I wish)
Four Runes Inscribing,
Three Days of Kinship,
Two Goats of Thor,
And a Raven in a Yew Tree.

Provabilty in Reality.

There once was a mathematician, whose name escapes me, who came to the realization that for everything that could be proven true, there was something equally true that could not be proven. In other words, there are things out there that are True, but cannot be proven by any known means.

Religion is one of these things. Scientifically, we cannot prove the existence of Gods, spirits, or the supernatural. Yet, many people believe, or know, such things to truly exist. I cannot prove that Thor walks the sky making thunderstorms, but it is True to me.

What makes this situation even more difficult is that even when you can "prove" something, people will say it is not proven. This was one of my issues with the Wild Hunt "news" website. I would say something I knew to be true, because I read a lot on the subject. I would even provide links on occasion. However, my argument was not "Proven" because my sources were considered "invalid." Indeed, be anything resembling a Conservative (which I'm not, honestly) and every argument you make will be invalid there. I once saw someone make an argument there, provide a good half dozen plus links, and be told that their information was invalid because it came from Conservative sources (somehow the Huffington Post became conservative at the time of the linking).

One perfect example that came up over on the Wild Hunt regarding me was my blatant, but unfounded Islamophobia, which I had failed to prove rational. Now, There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of sites out there about Islam and its threat. I even provided links to some of the things I had read, but had them "invalidated" because of "racism." Now, I know racism. I've seen it. So I like to think I have a pretty good idea when something is racist. But such doesn't matter. My sources, despite their documenting literally thousand of bits of information, could not "prove" anything. Heck, the nightly news or mainstream media which talks about how in Islamic countries the vast homophobia, misogyny, religious discrimination, etc that goes on. And if you know how to read the media, you can tell in Western countries when a crime was committed by Islamic Immigrants. But of course nothing can be proven. Members of their religion, who the "mainstream" of Islam cheered and supported, flew planes into buildings, suicide bomb themselves, kill those we would consider innocent, but no. It cannot be proven true.

I'm not going to get into the politics again. I can't "prove" these things to people. In this age of "citations" being an eye witness isn't enough, nor is being well read or informed. And even then, having the "citations" if the other person doesn't accept their legitimacy.

People have let their politics dictate their proof and their truths. They have let "science" and "rationality" dictate what they will believe. They insist things be proven true, but they ignore the existence of truths that cannot be proven. I have my own issues with what is true, and if it can even exists, and this is one of the reasons.

Nine Facts About Me

I'm not like others. Everyone says it, but it's true.

I tend to offend people, even when I don't mean too.

I have lived a quarter of a century, I have forgotten more than most people ever learn, and yet I am often treated as if I know nothing at all.

I am not a nice person. I am what the world made me, what my life made me.

I am closer to three gods above all others, Hel, Thor, and Freyja. Death, Sex, and War. I'm sure that says interesting things about me.

I ran away from home at 24 because I finally realized I couldn't forgive the abuse after I drew a hammer on a cookie and realized that my mother's love for Judaism was stronger than her love for me or her tolerance of my Heathenism, even though she isn't Jewish.

I hate the God of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed. I hate what he has done to this world, what his ideology has done, and what his followers have done. I have fought his street preachers face to face with words when they preached their venom. I grow wary when I see a Muslim, not just because of what their "extremists" did with planes and bombs, but because I know what the "moderates" do to people like me that practice magic and worship Heathen Gods in their native lands.

I grow tired of how many of my fellow Pagans treat each other. I think we have enough enemies out there, we don't need to beat each other up to conform to what some people think is "normal" or "mainstream" or "acceptable." We are supposed to be accepting of each other, no matter how abhorrent society finds us, because it's what is right to do in our eyes.

I don't think Pagans and Heathens will ever be accepted into the "mainstream." The Monotheists will always think we worship false gods and the Atheists will always laugh at everyone with an "imaginary friend." I don't think we became Pagans and Heathens to be mainstream anyways. I think we did it to buck the mainstream, so we should embrace that.