A question on Technopaganism as philosophy

[andypendence]

I'm new to technopaganism, and don't have much of a background on neo-paganism being formerly interested in native american spirituality(abandonded because of disagreement with the reality of shamanism), taoism(abandoned because of disagreement with wu-wei philosophy), and secular humanism(abandoned because of overwhelming focus on humanity and

Comments

[ziggysinamerica]

For me, a lot of my technopagan path involved putting together what I glean from scientific advances with ideas of psychology, theology, and shamanism. I can't say I've ever read a book that dealt directly with technopaganism as a concept, but I'm sure they're out there.

What you wrote seems to me to be a pretty accurate take on technopaganism, at least one that matches with my beliefs pretty well. I personally take the God idea and expand it further to include the universe in its entirety. "God" exists in the four fundamental forces of the universe.

As always, YMMV, and ultimately, finding the right label may not always bring you closer to reconciling and understanding what you believe in spiritually.

[andypendence]

The only reason I don't extend my idea of God to the universe is our much-more limited knowledge of the universe than of Earth.

On your last statement, I agree.....but the way I see it, my progression of labels(from uninformed agnostic to atheist to secular humanism to technopagan pantheism) is steadily bringing me closer to an accurate description of what it is I believe, both for myself and for others.

[vaxjedi]

I think that what you are describing could be called technopaganism in at least one sense of the word, specifically in the sense that technology has a spirit similar to the 'natural' world.

There is a distinct lack of technopagan literature out there. A few books I've found useful are City Magick, Urban Primitive, and TechGnosis.

[t3dy]

sorry to disappoint, but there's no monolithic neopaganism, or technopaganism (which is more ambiguous as it has no guidelines about how tech should be applied to an already nebulous category). however, there's tons to read

[andypendence]

Thanks for the loads of links, I'll definitely check them out. Quick question, though, do the above links, for the most part, relate to neopaganism in general or technopaganism specifically?

But to reply to one of your statements(and this is assuming that you meant monotheistic instead of monolithic), I often hear about "the goddess" as the deity of neopaganism.......how is that not monotheistic? Also, since I believe in one greater god(the earth) with a plethora of lesser gods(the various pantheons of the ecosystems of earth, i.e. norse for scandinavian regions, celtic for irish/british regions, etc etc), my beliefs are only as monotheistic as norse(with Odin), celtic(with Lugh and Dagda/Danaan), Roman and Greek(with Zeus and.......Jupiter?) etc, etc.

Once again, thanks for the help.

[t3dy]

the links refer to technopaganism in general. (nothing exclusive). much of it overlaps with various countercultural occultisms

I did indeed mean monolithic. (I don't see why you would assume I meant monotheism, not sure the relevance here... technopaganism need not be bound to a particular theism) in the study of religion, the term "monolithic" tends to be used in the negative, as a warning that we can't interpret "traditions" such as neopaganism (instead some say it's better to talk about "neopaganisms" because they are many) as cohesive, easily categorized and nailed down , groups that all believe generally the same thing. cool thing about technopaganism is you can swap tech stories with folks whose beliefs differ from yours.

sure, many neopaganisms are reconstructionist traditions modeled after monotheistic religions (others after polytheisms or pantheisms)

[andypendence]

My bad. I was unaware that monolithic had any meanings other than to do with...well....monoliths.

[tlttlotd]

Stephen Wolfram - A New Kind of Science

John Conway's game of Life

The mentat wiki

Key 23

Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie - The C Programming Language

I've also written some stuff that you might find intersting. Do you know any Perl?

[andypendence]

Thanks for the links, I'll definitely check them out. As to your question: 'fraid not. I'm not.....well-informed about programming. Not exactly computer illiterate, but not exactly.......a computer scholar, either. Just about know enough html code to create a decent myspace page, know my way around windows, and know my way around the internet.