I completely honor your path. I used to be part of spiritual groups, and I do miss the sense community we had. I have since outgrown the need for such groups ... perhaps you will one day, too. Or not.

Whatever works for you and brings you happiness is all that matters. No one else needs to agree or understand. We’re all on our own unique journey, and no one can tell us whether the path we choose is right or wrong.

PS - I’d never heard of atheopaganism before.

Here is what I do....

I only have faith in family and friends.

I only worship the one I love! (Position currently open)

I have never heard of those. Thank you for sharing.

I guess there are people who must believe in something.

I never knew or thought about this before.

I believe in me, my friends, a few acquaintances, my dog as far as living beings. I believe that the grocery store will have the food I am looking for. Gas stations will be open.

As far as supernatural.... nope. No santa. No ghosts. No miracles. Nada. If I can see, touch, smell, or hear something, it exists.

Can't you just enjoy life without having to believe in something? Life is great already and we can make it even better without havong to look for a crutch to hold us. Make this world better somehow, try to leave it better than when you received it and you will live a joyous and happy life.

Though I AM a 100% Atheist I still respect the Earth as being the Mother to all life upon it and the Cosmos being a kind of Father to everything within it, though going as far as worshipping either of those ideas is, most definitelty not for me since " Worshipping" anything/anyone is merely a religious ideology in my way of thinking and that is 1 thing, among many, I refuse to do.

Have you ever read Olaf Stapletons book Star Maker? It might not be the kind of thing that you are into, and it's a little outdated but I think you might find some guidance in it anyways.

Salvation from what? Religions do not offer me anything nor do they explain things either. I went to religion in my early teens because my parents were into it and at the time I thought it was valid. Today I see how little people really know and I do not believe all these who are "praying for you." I do not need any principals to live by or anything that guides me. I have no rulebook and I'm not lost.

Wait. let me change some of this. I am lost today because I think the entire world has went insane! I'm serious. It's hard to even have a decent conversation these days without somebody wanting to talk about the invisible man. Dead men guide them and they cannot live without him, Jebus who is his own father/son. Oh, well. I'm my own grandpa.

But I guess being pagan is OK.

i don't turn to religion for any of those things, never did. i was raised a secular jew; we only went to shul for bar mitzvahs and weddings. we eventually moved away from other parts of family, not to get away from them but for dad's job advancement, so we pretty much only saw family on the occasion of such rituals, but while there was a strong sense of jewishness in the house, religion itself was all but absent. i was a lonely kid but never attributed it to lack of religion; i was small, wore glasses, carried a briefcase, came late to rock n roll and didn't have anything else in common with my peers either, plus as we moved around it was hard to make lasting friendships. still, it never occurred to me that i could make myself believe something in order to make friends, and i felt that a sense of right and wrong was already instilled in me without attaching a god or a rulebook to it. so obviously i didn't and don't feel the lack that you did/do, and don't need to find atheopaganism or any other ism. i do enjoy some jewish rituals and have attached secular significance to them, but that's something i indulge in less than annually, and for enjoyment only, and i don't feel close to any of the inevitable strangers i meet if i go to shul. i like the music, i like the sermons (i mean, jewish sermons are not about fire and brimstone; they're about treating the world and its inhabitants well), and once or less a year is cool for me. i don't think i need an organization to help me find fulfillment in my life. now politics, that's another story! but that's another story....

g

I agree with them pretty well except the ritual part. I have been curious about paganism at times but never got that far into it. I’m comfortable as an agnostic at this point and most of those principles work there too. I have fellowship via he Red Cross and my volunteer work there.

Thanks for sharing. I think that we all need some sort of "narrative" or foundation in our lives. Religion appease this for many but of course not for us. The principles you shared certainly seem like noble foundations.

You are not crazy but you are human. Human beings crave meaning. We are born without knowledge of this meaning and thus we crafted many ideas to make sense of this world. Religion is one of those ideas.

Your post reminds me of the quote " God is Dead " by Friedrich Nietzsche. Many people take the quote to mean Nietzsche was affirming that he was a proud card-carrying atheist. He was but with this quote he was also lamenting the fact that without the values of Christianity--- man must now declare his values on his own.

This sounds like the stage you are in. You are currently in the process of declaring your values. In fact, I feel as if you already have a grasp on what those values are but you are simply looking for confirmation.

As an existentialist, I believe that it is up to us to create the meaning(values) in our life. The universe is not going to answer you back.

Good Luck.

Do we chose what we believe? I’ve never felt like it’s been a choice. I hear tell of folks thinking through their beliefs and can not quite relate.

Perhaps it’s just my interpretation of words n verbs; ‘Believe’ instead of ‘believe in’. Connotations differ slight. I don’t know.

Pretty much what my wife believes, she thinks of herself as a druid but follows no rules or doctrine,

Love your mother earth....Gaia gawd is more than metaphor but less than consciousness with rocks....it's not pagan it is ecosystem feelings

I dig the idea of paganism sans any deity. The best of both worlds. I'm down.