A few years ago, occult author Donald Tyson published an article online entitled "Atheism, the Real Enemy," and its argument should be very familiar to regular readers of this blog: that pagans – and, as Tyson makes clear, supernaturalist occultists of all stripes – have much more in common than Christians (and other religionists) than they do with atheists and skeptics.
Though several members of the pagan community who commented on this article – and the several people who wrote “responses” to this article – took issue with its argument, what’s striking is that Tyson perceives very clearly a point that I have been insisting for some time: that occultism and paganism are religious orientations, at home with (and ultimately make claims whose truth values are indistinguishable from the claims of) other religions like Christianity, and strongly opposed to rational investigation, skepticism, and methods of distinguishing truth from falsehood.
Though Tyson would probably not phrase his position quite like that, that is precisely the argument of his article.
Read on for a few thoughts on this article.
