The last post here was over two months ago. So much for my “two posts a week” plan. I am not sure where I am going with my Internet Presence, really. Our first forum is pretty much wound down and our second one, the subject of the last post here, never got off the ground. I just shut it down a few minutes ago, having gotten tired of just cleaning out porn spam every day. I knew it was aimed at a pretty small target audience, but I guess I didn’t realize just how small.

I think this blog will get off the ground again once I have answered a pretty important question: what the hell am I doing? What am I trying to accomplish? What niche am I trying to fill? What is the focus of this blog, or purpose?

Once I have figured that out, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I do have some ideas for articles rattling around in my head, which I’ll post as I get to them.

I’ve formed yet another set of forums. Yes, yet another thing to take time away from my blogging, unfortunately. This one is for those interested in “warrior” spirituality, and the closely related subject of pagan event security. It is found at www.paganstronghold.com. I invite anyone interested in emergency preparedness, martial arts, and security from a pagan point of view to come join us there.

There are actually a few pagan warrior groups out there, but they are all local in scale and are devoted to specific pagan faiths. This forum is intended to be common ground for all of them, and is not associated with any specific pagan religion, faith, or organization. My introduction to the forum reads:

We are modern pagans of various faiths who follow a “warrior path” of spirituality. We find it spiritually fulfilling to serve our communities by preparing ourselves, mentally and physically, to put ourselves in harm’s way should the need arise. This forum offers support to those who want to serve the Pagan community as protectors and where such people can coordinate with each other and with Pagan event organizers.

Modern paganism has reached a point of critical mass at which we have caught the attention of the mass media and the general population. Among many other issues this creates for us is a more evident need for security at our events — a task we still have good reason not to trust to third parties such as off-duty police who may not be sympathetic to our ways. Our public events and large gatherings are attracting more and more unwelcome attention and a wider variety of people in general. This means that altercations, confrontations, accidents and other minor emergencies are more and more likely.

In our member forums, you will find discussions and debates about the finer points of “warrior” pagan spirituality and philosophy, strategy, martial arts, tools and equipment, and event security coordination. If you would be interested in such discussions, or in talking to us about how members might be of assistance with your upcoming event, you are invited to join us.

I haven’t seen the movie Jesus Camp yet, but I’ve seen this video about it, and I am aware of the phenomena: children being brainwashed into joining an army for Jesus. I don’t know why, but I thought that somehow I was far removed from this… until today.

This morning, I went to “show off” day at the day-camp we sent our four-year-old to. It was designed to show the parents what the children have been doing the four days of the camp, and give some recognition to some of the children for their achievements. Now, I have to admit that I knew the day-camp program was sponsored by a Christian group, but I had no idea it would be like this. I mean, the YMCA is a Christain group, too, as is the Boy Scouts. You don’t expect recruiting into the Jesus Army at a cub scout meeting, though.

The first thing we saw at this parents day was a clown act, which featured magic tricks tied to various religious lessons, such as “don’t seek revenge,” and “God will forgive your sins.” It was cringe-worthy, but relatively mild… until the last “magic trick” which actually involved our child as a volunteer after he whined a bit to be allowed to participate. At the end of the trick, the “magic” wouldn’t happen until he said to the entire assembly: “I love Jesus.” He seemed a bit reluctant, much to his credit. Still, I was disgusted, and furious.

Then we had the pleasure of hearing the different camp groups give their camp cheers. Our son’s group had one in which they said they were soldiers for Jesus. Another one had four-to-six-year-olds chanting the words “sin” and “death.” I don’t remember the other two groups’ cheers, but they were pretty much the same. All I could do was sit there, open-mouthed, thinking: “what have we done!” We grabbed our son and left as quickly as we could. Needless to say, he won’t be going back next year.

On the way home, I broke down in tears, but we did a pretty good job at hiding our distress from our son. My wife gently asked him questions about his experience. It turns out he thinks Jesus is some man who cured ten guys of chicken pox. Also, he thought the “chapel” time was pretty boring. He doesn’t seem traumatized by it, so I don’t think there was any damage done, but it did cause me to think more about how to involve him in our faith.

We don’t want to handicap him by making him a freak the other children would make fun of, but we don’t want him brainwashed by strangers, either. We are very much “in the closet” where we live. Nobody but the few other pagans in town know we are anything but “God-Fearing Christians.” We involve our son in rituals, though, and let him make offering to the spirits and gods, and teach him about virtue.

He doesn’t understand that what we practice is different from everyone else, but the day is coming where we can’t hide our differences from him or from the outside world any longer. We had put that day off as long as we could, and maybe we still can a while, maybe even another year or two. I’ve played “the talk” in my head since before he was born. It’s the big talk where we explain to him what we are and how we are different. That’s going to be a lot harder to talk about than sex, I think. And the day I’ve dreaded is coming soon. He is very intelligent. He will start asking questions soon. It just doesn’t seem to me a four or five year old should have to deal with these issues. All I can do now is fervently pray to the gods for guidance.

Alton Verm of Conroe, Texas for his recent attempt to have the book Fahrenheit 451 banned at his daughter’s school.  The classic book by Ray Bradbury is basically about banning books.  And, to top it all off, Mr. Conroe’s request comes during “Banned Books Week.”

Alton Verm’s request to ban “Fahrenheit 451″ came during the 25th annual Banned Books Week. He and Hines said the request to ban “Fahrenheit 451,” a book about book burning, during Banned Books Weeks is a coincidence.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read” is observed during the last week of September each year, according to the American Library Association Web site, www.ala.org. The week celebrates the freedom to choose or express one’s opinion, even if it might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them, according to the Web site.

Congratulations, Mr. Verm!

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the relationship of logic to faith, as if they are somehow inimical to each other. But, in fact, faith is accounted for in logic all the time. A thing that is taken on faith, in the language of logic, is simply called an “axiom.” It is something that which is assumed to be true without proof. It is taken on faith. Every logical argument starts with an axiom or set of axioms. Therefore, every logical construction, every belief about anything, is ultimately based on matters of faith.

When it comes down to it, there is always a reason, a “logic,” even to matters of faith. Nobody just believes something for absolutely no reason. A belief didn’t just spring whole in their mind from absolutely no source whatsoever. And, actually, if it did, that might still be a reason to believe it, I would think.

So, when someone says the believe something, or take it as a matter of faith, there should still be an answer to the question: “why?” Maybe the answer is that it is what they were taught by their parents and they trust their parents, maybe it is for some other reason, but there is always a reason. And reason is exactly what logic is about analyzing.

The way I personally approach it is this: for things that we cannot directly know, pick the explanation that works best. If something comes up that the explanation doesn’t work for, then come up with a new explanation. This is pretty much what science does. A scientist starts with giving a possibly wrong explanation for something that is “unexplainable.” This is called a “hypothesis.” Then the scientist tries to test that explanation. The more the explanation holds up, the more “true” it is considered.

So, faith is integral to logic, and even science. It is not the opposite. What logic is good for, though, is analyzing those assumptions. Are they truly axiomatic? Should they be? We should be very careful in choosing our axioms, and keeping them to a bare minimum. I’m working on narrowing my axioms down to a single, simple one if possible.

Another common misunderstanding is found in what we expect logic to provide or what we hope to gain by discussion. Many seem to think that we (people who are espousing the application of logic to spiritual belief) are looking for objective proof of the truth of what people say they believe. While such is helpful, and would certainly be decisive of a given matter, it’s not really what we should look to logic for. We don’t need abslute proof in something to believe it is true. If we sat around waiting for everything in the universe to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt before doing anything, we’d never get out of bed in the morning.

We should be looking not so much for objective proof of what is believed, but the reasonableness of the belief. Does the belief make any sense? Does it fit with other beliefs (uphold an internal consistency?) Are their good reasons (including, possibly, objective evidence) to hold the belief as true, and what are they? These questions are easily confused with ones in search of an objective truth for certain claims, but there is a subtle, yet important, difference. Objective proof of the underlying claim cannot be provided, by definition. We are talking about spiritual beliefs, not facts.

Reasons behind a belief, though, those are not impossible to come up with, and should be well thought out and frequently reconsidered.