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Polyamory and Pagan Woo December 22, 2009

Posted by shaunphilly in religion, atheism, polyamory, culture.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This does NOT represent me

















1. Eph Zero - December 22, 2009

Oh, thank you so much for writing this. It’s incredibly frustrating for me, and one of the major reasons I don’t like to accept the “polyamory” label.

2. Tomkinson - December 23, 2009


Why shouldn’t you be cynical Shaun. You are cavorting with flakes in a world where the AVERAGE person can’t name a single justice on the supreme court let alone engage in a serious discussion about philosophy.


Whats to wonder about? Most of our species are essentially highly trainable animals. You can’t blame anything on education. If you have even a scrap of a brain today you will educate yourself.

By the way you make several throw-away claims that are in need of refinement.For example the JREF still offers the million dollar prize but it will be discontinued next year. And by the way Shaun, you yourself were taken in by “What the bleep do we know?” at least initially. I had to school you on it. Remember?

3. ShaunPhilly - December 24, 2009

The point of bringing up the jref challenge is that it has existed for a long time and nobody has passed it. And it will not be ending.


I don’t remember that you schooled me about anything. I think you are confusing me with someone else. The first time I heard about What the Bleep… was from a fan of the movie. I subsequently educated myself and never fell for it. Perhaps at first I just didn’t know what it was, but I never fell for it.

4. Tomkinson - December 25, 2009

Well I thank you for giving me the happy news. I’ve donated to JREF many times (for I do ‘useful’ things with my atheism) and if this holds out GREAT, the last newsletter I got had dismal news about the 1,000,000 challenge. But it should have been obvious to you Shaun about “What the Bleep do We Know” was a joke. Here is the most relevant BT post (from you to me):

“Well, I was unaware of the cult behind the movie before you brought it up (although I was familiar, somewhat, with John Hagelin). I was actually thinkng of seeing the movie as I see most movies, at home for free off of our network.”

5. shaunphilly - December 25, 2009

Yes, you really nailed me. I had not known precisely who was behind the movie. Yeah, I really fell for it. I have to admit that you got me.


6. Boaz Peleg - February 23, 2010

For the most part I agree with your post but there are certain parts of it that make me feel like your putting a lot eggs in one basket. I have no issue with the video you posted and everything stated in there makes total sense to me.

Not all people who have daily use of words like chakra or believe that their merging their energy with someone else’s seek in their arrogance to explain the mysteries of the universe by giving some bogus tie in to quantum mechanics which has nothing to do with that stuff.

While I’m all for the scientific approach, there are certain things for which you have no evidence but for practical reasons it would be healthy to assume a certain possibility is the correct one.

For example, if you date a girl and seems to be going well until at some point she suddenly excommunicates you, a lot of people feel the inevitable need to jump to some conclusion as to why it happened in a feeble attempt to learn from their mistakes. You can’t know however because the girl didn’t tell you why before she broke contact with you. The best you can do is guess and strive to be a better date.

But the thing is sometimes it’s not because you made a mistake. Sometimes it’s for reasons that are completely unrelated to you. So when you have no data to base upon believing either possability, but psychologically you feel the need to cling to some sort of explanation, then the practical decision would be to throw science out the window and believe that it probably had nothing to do with you and just try to do better generally. As long as you don’t make a movie out of it with special effects 🙂

Likewise, there are many practices that have to do with Chakras and harnessing life energy that do not presume to explain how our universe works but rather to give people a set of beneficial beliefs and practices that can make their life healthier. Some people who pursue such courses invite scientists to research whether these practices do have the stated effects and hope that scientists will find explanations for them some day. But in the mean time, anyone can try it, and if it works for you, why not benefit from it?

For example, Tai Chi is an internal martial art that teaches among other things efficient body movement. Through a training program supposedly refined through thousands of years of Taoist researchers observing the human body practitioners may after many years through discipline and persistance learn to manipulate their body more efficiently and waste less energy. There is no hocus pocus here or magic potion. It’s learning to reduce wasted muscle movement, focus usage of muscles in the right places, pivot points, efficient angles, learning where to shift your weight to keep the best balance, working from the center of your body i.e. trying to use your pelvis more than most people are used to. Very down to earth kind of things that have nothing to do with houdini quantum mechanics.

7. tomschronicles - March 28, 2010

Thank you for the post, and especially the video. I’m going to share it with a friend, she’ll dig it. The video, and what you have written, helped ground me somewhat. I am curious about spiritual things, but have been able to utilize a healthy degree of skepticism, until lately. Been letting my mind wander too much without thinking critically.

I do believe that some supernatural things might be true, and that science does not have all the answers, but science and critical inquiry do have their place, and are necessary for navigating one’s way through the world. I am certainly not a person to toss science out entirely. I just don’t think it covers everything.

Regarding polyamory – I guess it depends on the group you are involved with. If people are emotionally mature, it could be a good thing, I suppose. The only serious concern I would have then would be a higher risk of disease. Condoms fail sometimes, and monogamy is safer, but polyamory certainly has its appeal.

And I am not surprised you run into a lot of pagans. I’ve been reading some pagan literature lately, and some books make a big deal out of polyamory.

8. starrynightcoach - May 5, 2010

I also identify as atheist and polyamorous. I’m a life coach who is searching for clients, so I key word searched polyamory, because it seems like a good keyword for the people I relate well with. While a lot of the poly people I know are pagan, I’d say about half of them are atheists. Although that’s probably a higher rate of atheism among polys than average, because I live in Silicon Valley 😉

Poly filters for a high degree of open mindedness and interest in how the mind works, so I think it has a very relatively high rate of rationals, as evidenced to me by my stumbling across people like you within a couple of hours of poking around. It would be pretty hard to find someone with that belief set in the population at large.

Anyway, if you happen to know anyone who might be interested in life coaching, I’d love if you would send them my way. I imagine there are a lot of people interested in self help who have an atheist/poly leaning who have a hard time finding coaches and therapists and would love what I have to offer, if I could just hook up with them 😉 I’m just getting started, so I don’t charge very much, and I’m doing a three free sample sessions offer.

9. Keith - polyatl.com - May 30, 2010

Although I classify as Pagan, I’m down for skepticism and science. In general, I try not to hold too tightly to any of my beliefs as they flux frequently depending on the current state of evidence and my current personal preference.

When it comes to the supernatural though, I believe that it is JUST as important to be able to prove that it’s false as it is to prove that it’s true. Just because one can’t prove that it’s true doesn’t mean that it is in fact false just like just because someone can’t prove that it’s false doesn’t mean that it is true.

I’m all down for science, but science is always and always will be a work in progress.

When the ideas that the world was round surfaced, it was shot down because it couldn’t be proven. Same thing happened when people suggested that the universe DIDN’T revolve around the Earth. At one time science thought that electricity was “supernatural” and impossible. Just because it couldn’t be proven.

Now I’m not suggesting that everything supernatural is true by any means. I’m sure a lot of it will end up being “hocus pokus” but I think it would be a mistake to assume, and subscribe to the idea that it’s all false just because it can’t be proven today.

Think of all the advancements in science that have happened in the past 100 years alone. There are plenty of things that couldn’t be measured or proven by science 100 years ago that are now known to be fact because ways of measurement have been improved.

I’m not saying you should believe in the supernatural. I’m just saying make sure you keep an open mind and accept the possibility that it “might” exist until a way to prove that it “doesn’t” comes around.

On a side note, being Pagan myself, even I get annoyed with the super “crunchy” Pagans.


shaunphilly - May 30, 2010

I want to comment on this, but I’m rather busy today. Essentially, I think that the burden of proof always belongs to the claimant. I don’t have to disprove the supernatural, the believer has to demonstrate its existence. Further, I see no reason to accept the claim, yet. I do have an open mind, but that openness has not found evidence. And further still, I see actual reasons to disbelieve in the supernatural. My reasons why can be summed up in an article written by a friend of mine several years ago. It can be found here:


I essentially agree with this critique.


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