The BBC’s Pagan Topic message board provides a space where it was once possible to meet with and learn from people of serious pagan thought and practice. In the handful of years since its inception it had grown from a place where a cheerful and polite bunch of interested people exchanged ideas best described as esoteric to a mature forum which served as an pagan primer and network for many newcomers. Of particular merit were the contributions of a broadly Heathen contingent. Now, however, times have changed. With its current membership The Pagan Topic must surely be the most banal of all gathering places for both those youngsters who are seeking their place in adult society and also those adults who seek a new lease of life, all within the increasingly incoherent religious category of paganism.
Brimming with devotees of those modern medicine shows reiki and past-life regression it is now a place cackling with low innuendo and the kind of sordid nymphomania commonly found in sexual fantasists. New visitors are invited, more appropriately than is intended, to select their choice of garishly designed and fabricated straightjacket upon being accepted as genuine by an orgy of old farts who, believing themselves wise and experienced, dispense responses relying more upon the word “depends” and the personal redefinition of everyday words to fit personal prejudice and predilection than upon any identifiably authentic religious, social, historical, philosophical or magical traditions.
There are one or two more experienced and charitable types who remain at this forum - if it may be still described as such considering the tone of toilet wall graffiti into which it has descended - in order to try and elevate the general tone of the discourse and provide avenues of escape for those unfortunate enough to be caught in this awful place. Whether they will be successful in this is yet to be seen but it looks like something of an uphill struggle considering that they are horribly outnumbered by the fart-orgy, the members of which claim knowledge and understanding of the people, the practices and the principles of paganism while dispensing nothing in the way of these, instead pouring forth an apparently endless stream of “depends”, emoticons, “back-when-I-were-trad-gard“, sick jokes, anti-Christian invective, Islamophobic bile, sword-lust and talk of “deity” as though it were the latest wonder ingredient for fabric conditioners. I wish those stout hearted Pagan elders at the BBC all the luck in the world in their evangelical activities but in their hearts I feel they must know that they are fighting a lost cause and that their energies would be best applied elsewhere.
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Thank you for a succinct and intelligent post on the pagan topic at the BBC; much better than my pitiful effort.
You’re welcome but I’m afraid that I have some bad news. Dull as The Pagan Topic was when I began to compose that post it suddenly became a lot more dull with the return of Jimmy Davies under the pseudonym of realgonecat. Stand by for endless posts of shameless ingratiation alternating with hair-trigger grudgery. The only way I manage to keep awake when my eyes stray to that board now is to have a game of Jimmy Bingo. So far I have arbitrary, scuffle, Wakantanka, dyslexia, perpetrator and missing-the-point. All I need are George Carling, H.L. Mencken, Daniel Dennett and ghetto and I shall have a full house.
Ghetto: Check!
Thank you for posting a link to RGC's fascinating post.
Clearly, as it was about tolerance, it was beyond your capabilities judging by the rest of the blog, but I enjoyed reading it.
I have an idea. You demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that both yourself and Jimmy are eternally and absolutely tolerant and I shall emulate your example. While you’re getting on with that I’ll continue having a laugh at FraidyCat’s expense.
And don’t forget to show your working or you’ll lose points.
Dearest foggy.
I know you were on the BBC boards when I posted my concerns that Islamophobia could lead to another Holocaust.
Whilst I oppose all Abrahamic faiths I do not oppose Jews Muslims or Christians. Indeed my branch of Paganism is grounded in Deist principles. I am on record saying "I am a Christian, a Muslim a Hindu etc" in solidarity with people of all faiths. I may dislike path people choose but I respect their right to choose whatever path they wish.
I am also on record again and again of saying that there is no such thing as race, sexuality, or even gender. As far as I am concerned all people are of equal worth.
Also on the Muslim board I am on record saying "We must not allow our philisophical diagreements blind us to our humanity."
That is a matter of public record as well.
I do not know enough about Jimmy so I can not talk for him, but from what little I have read I can not imagine that he is too bigoted. Trust me if he is I will vent my spleen. Until then, may I point out that you were the one that used the disgusting term "retard" to describe someone. Maybe you should brush up on your knowledge of what really offends certain people with disabilities. I happen to care about the language I use to describe people.
I tell you what post something on the "Ouch board" calling some one a retard and watch for the response. Godd thing about people with disabilities, they are quite vocal when they come across crass discriminatory language.
Hello ICP.
You’ve mistaken me for someone else. I have noticed BBC/PT regulars causing bovver on the Abrahamic boards but I do not know the discussion about which you speak. I can assure you that I have taken a fairly strong position against this covert racism in the past. Bearing in mind, however, that I'm not a person to shy away from an argument - that’s common knowledge - I’m not going to bother here because this is nothing to do with me.
I will offer you another perspective on a point you have introduced here, though, and say that there are such things as ethnicity, sexuality and gender and that people have equal worth irrespective of these.
I don’t dislike Jimmy, I just find that his interventions are - I won’t dignify his posts with the term argument - dull and repetitive. You will note that, like a sports journalist, he prefers to talk about the action rather than get involved in it, sometimes going with the colour, sometimes with the play. There seems to be no original thought there, only a noise seeking for an audience. Think of the wind; lots of pressure, empty of content, but able to blow rubbish about the streets and waves across the sea. That’s Jimmy, and there’s a lot of wet trash rolling around the BBC/PT right now. I was surprised when I spotted him, on the first day of his return, still there’s the truth of Proverbs 26:11.
Be wary of stereotyping people, ICP. People with disabilities aren’t necessarily all the inoffensive, politically correct saints about which you might feel comfortable. Some of them may be vocal about things which aren’t anything to do with their disabilities. Some of them may even use swear words.
Fog Patches
Trust me I was not reffering to disabled people as inoffensive or politically correct. We cripples can be quite vociferous.
What we do not like is people using terms like "retard" etc negativley.
You also miss my point about their being no gender, race, ethnicity or sexuality. Whilst a black lesbian has three things that mark her individuality in a different way to mine, there is nothing lesser or greater in this individual traits on either side. Indeed there is a very good chance that many other factors of individuality will be the same.
All these things are just additions to all the other things that mark us out as individuals. Our politics, our football teams or dislike of sport are no less important than the colour of our skin or who we sleep with.
Does the fact that I am a male that chooses to sleep with women actually tell you anything at all about me? It is meaningless, as it would be if I were a male that chose to sleep with males. Indeed the fact that I support Norwich City tells you much more.
If I am black or white tells you little about me as well. I happen to be white, which only tells you something when you know I am a Norwich City fan and a Tory.
The latter begins to create the picture. If I were a black NCFC fan and a Tory a different picture may emerge. You still need more information to sort things out.
Any single piece of information is meaningless. Whether that be sporting preference or sexual preference. Even my gender tells you nothing about me on its own.
The only thing that knowing I am a heterosexual WASP tells you is that I fit the predominant traits of this country. Tony Blair and John Major fit those descriptions (Or at least TB did before he converted to Catholisism) and they are chalk and cheese.
I’ll continue to use which words I wish, thank you Gareth, not recognising your official status as a representative of the Lexical Police nor that as a the duly appointed representative of all people with disabilities. You may continue to worry about this, if it pleases you. Your self-identification as cripple was once regarded as you now regard retard but you may not be of sufficient age to know this.
If you fail to explain your point, as you did, then I’m unlikely to get it. The points you haven’t explained are the way in which your rendering of all social and cultural markers to the sum of trivia is at all a useful strategy and also why you think I should be interested in it. Another thing, why are you now describing yourself as a Christian, a WASP, when you've been claiming to be a pagan for years?
Now, start making sense or go and bother someone else.
The comment stream aside, this is an amusing summary of the PT. I posted a few times, but essentially felt it to be at utter waffly load of old shite, inhabited - present company excepted - by people who were either stupid or aggressive or incoherent or all three. Alas that I never saw it in its former, and by all accounts, better, incarnation. The quotation from Proverbs is a great favourite of mine, btw.
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