"While you sit in the dark – insane with the fear of dying We'll ball in your parks – insane with the flash of living..."

Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Joey Covington
(Jefferson Starship, Blows Against the Empire)

Ok – I admit it. I'm only into Paganism for the sex. Well maybe not just the sex. I like the symbolism and the cool fashions. I think tatoos when done well are really sexy. The myths of almost all cultures fascinate me.

But I think that almost all of the ritual is so hoaky that I can't bring myself to stand in circle.

I've noticed as pagans get more mainstream, that our old Christian baggage comes more into dominance. Nudity maybe isn't so important in ritual, especially if the neighbors might get offended. And now that 16 year old beauty channeling Aphrodite at the bonfire is no longer just one of the clan, but - great Goddess! – that's my daughter!

Even so, I’d rather hang out with Pagans than with Christians because I think many of the ideas that surround Paganism are healthier for our culture than the Judeo Christain Islamic mindset that has dominated humanity for the last 500 to 1000 years.

A lot of it comes down to sex, body modesty, personal freedom. As a teenager, I first started to question the validity of Christianity, when I started to understand the illogic behind Genesis, and the notion of original sin. Sorry – I didn't eat the apple, I'm not going to pay.

And when you start to question the basics, you start to see the incredible, demeaning, hypocritical, life denying scam that has been foisted upon so many generations of good hearted people whose inner beuaty and grace shines through in SPITE of religion, not because of it.

We ARE in the heat of a culture war – with the dominant varieties of religious nutcases continuing to tell us that death is better than life. Just continue to work hard for the master and in the next life everything will be golden. Pleasure comes only after pain and it's not the pleasure bewteen your legs, but a sexless spiritual joy that will somehow be more rewarding.

Sorry, I'm not buying into it anymore.

"Sex is fun and pleasure is good for you" Youth is just too short to tangle it up with guilt trips regarding pleasure. Body modesty is a social disease. Let the grey faced idiots keep the shame - we have beautiful bodies and it is joy to share them, to be seen and see other bodies, to make love, to share the pleasure, to open up to ecstasy.

“We’ll ball in your parks, insane with the flash of living!”

So what then, if there's no life after death, there's nobody watching, and all we have is each other for a life that is at once far too short and a long time? Will you spend it hoping for something no one can prove exists, in fear of judgement foe masturbating when you were fourteen, or will you live as if the life we have now matters?

What matters? If all we have is this moment, why are we here at all? If there is no plan, no gods to please or fear, what will give meaning and purpose to our lives?

WE will.

Humans will. The Great Mystery is not death, or heaven or or anything less comprehensible than how we will give meaning and purpose to the life we're experiencing. With god we have the dark ages – the Inquisition, the Taliban, the German “Gott mitt us” Holocaust.