4. Beliefs - Birth, death and rebirth
I'm not a literalist about this. In my opinion, death is a continuation of our lives, it's the entry point to another part of our existence. I think it may be a more flexible reality than the one we know now. Mainly, I think that any attempts to describe it by earth-bound people (i.e. us) are bound to fail because we don't have the understanding or the tools to do it. Any such attempts made are at best incomplete and almost certainly just wrong.
I don't mean that we shouldn't think about these things, or theorize. I think it's a useful exercise. I just don't think we should expect that we're going to be correct in our guesswork. :)
But I do think we go on. I think we may be able to connect with the world we're in now in some way. Possibly we'll gain a better understanding of the gods. These things are all possible. They just aren't guaranteed. (This is a point where I find myself diverging from the more reconstructionist folks at times.)
So, the answer to this one? As the agnostics say, "I don't know, and neither do you." :)
( Days to come )
I'm not a literalist about this. In my opinion, death is a continuation of our lives, it's the entry point to another part of our existence. I think it may be a more flexible reality than the one we know now. Mainly, I think that any attempts to describe it by earth-bound people (i.e. us) are bound to fail because we don't have the understanding or the tools to do it. Any such attempts made are at best incomplete and almost certainly just wrong.
I don't mean that we shouldn't think about these things, or theorize. I think it's a useful exercise. I just don't think we should expect that we're going to be correct in our guesswork. :)
But I do think we go on. I think we may be able to connect with the world we're in now in some way. Possibly we'll gain a better understanding of the gods. These things are all possible. They just aren't guaranteed. (This is a point where I find myself diverging from the more reconstructionist folks at times.)
So, the answer to this one? As the agnostics say, "I don't know, and neither do you." :)
( Days to come )