Repeating a Call to Action
Both Cosette (Pandora’s Bazaar) and Jason (The Wild Hunt) have noted the remarks of Democratic Senator Yancey McGill of South Carolina who doesn’t believe Wicca is a religion, according to statements made in the Charlotte Observer. I wanted to draw attention to this situation as well. Obviously, Senator McGill is wrong, and is being either willfully ignorant or is simply uninformed, though one would expect a Senator to have a little more knowledge of the subject than this. I am sure some of his constituents are Wiccans or practice other forms of Paganism. Obviously, we all have an interest in such assertions and we all stand to suffer from such expressions of intolerance. Senator McGill wants “Believer” license plates, which I’m sure the entire Pagan blogosphere has been discussing, but he wants to limit these to what he considers legitimate religions. He apparently is not even convinced Buddhists practice a legitimate religion.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson is the author of A Heathen’s Day, which since 2005 has addressed the life and thoughts of a modern day Heathen. He is also the founder of the Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) which is dedicated to the study and support of Paganism as ethnic religion and writes for PoliticusUSA (www.politicususa.com) 
“He apparently is not even convinced Buddhists practice a legitimate religion.”
But if you ask a Buddhist, they’ll tell you it’s not a religion. I’m not sure I agree but that is thier viewpoint. I’ve had this discusion with several of them.
(obviously, I’m working my way through your backlog)
Interesting. I went by sites like Deprung Monastery but I can understand it being referred to instead as a philosophy since Buddhism does not require worship of deities (or most forms of Buddhism, so far as I am aware).
I do know the federal government considers Buddhism a religion and some definitions of religion do not require a divinity be involved.
I think what’s important is what Buddhists think themselves, and not what others think of them. Obviously, as a Heathen, I think my own interpretation of whether Heathenism is a religion is more important than whether a Christian believes it.
My definition of religion is from the Roman definition – that it is proper reverence of the gods – but when I wrote the article I went by the most common definition.
I’m glad you brought this up, Ulfrun because it’s certainly something that should be discussed. We like to label things and we often label them improperly. And words do have power. They shape our perceptions and our perceptions shape the meaning of words.
That’s pretty much how I feel about it. It can be an interesting conversation to have with an actual Buddhist too.
I really miss my local Socrates Cafe. That’s were I met several local Buddhists. We had Buddhists, Pagans, Athiests, Catholics, Methodists, Agnostics, and others, ranging in age from 13 to 70. All having, thoughtful, intelligent, passionate, but still respectful conversations. It was fantastic.
That does sound nice, Ulfrun. We have a lot of Christian coffee shops here in Fort Wayne (unsurprisingly) but I wouldn’t want to go into one of those. I don’t think my opinions would be welcome
I’d offer them but I’d prefer to avoid a stoning.
Well, seeds of another poll or perhaps a post! Or perhaps a discussion topic on the mosmaiorum forums. Have you joined, by the way? (hint, hint)