So, this isn’t just about personal safety. This is also about Bike Party keeping a good image, and what I’m starting to notice from a lot of anarchic grassroots groups who operate in public is that they can’t keep a good face indefinitely. Consider the result if that crash had been catastrophic enough that it involved an ambulance, particularly if a couple of more people were hit. I, personally, missed joining the crash by only a few feet.

But as far as keeping myself safe, my experience with Bike Party tells me that there isn’t necessarily “another room” to go to. I was riding in a loose pack when the crash happened. I had taken up a position that was a couple feet behind someone who appeared to be a BIRD. Except for someone riding on a bike trailer, there was no irresponsible riding. The crash was instigated by someone who came out of nowhere. And that’s pretty common for all the bad things I’ve seen at Bike Party rides. Everything is fine, and then someone does something really dumb and endangers everyone around them. The amount of time it takes to endanger others on a bike is very, very short, which is why pack riding is a set of skills people have to learn to develop. Because of this, the only place I have ever felt safe is when I’m basically far out in the lead.

Again, I’m not demanding EBBP reform. Even if I wanted that, I don’t have the time to make it a priority for myself. This is mostly a rambling musing on people’s behavior in festival space, its relationship to groups which embrace anarchic formation and facilitation, and the problems that come with it.

- W

Of course, when it comes to reaching out between the theists and the atheists, I consider Camus’ remarks to the Dominicans, published in “The Unbeliever and Christians,” the model. I cannot truly say I can see a deity anywhere, but something I can see is evil. We are faced with it, and where we can agree we see evil, we have a duty to come together to stand against it or at least not add to it.

On that front, I have never had any question where your heart lies, and I think it makes you a model human.

Being nearly 32, and having been a Pagan of some stripe or another since I was 15, I can tell you this– if you have an open and questioning mind, you’re never going to finish figuring out what you believe. At least, that’s been the case for me. I’ve gone through some very distinct philosophical phases…who I am and what I believe was very different before I started reading the existentialists, for example. So, there’s no rush. You’ll probably be figuring out what you believe the rest of your life.

Something I hope to be able to bring to light through this post and a few others in the future is that atheism has actually been an ever-present philosophical and cultural force in almost all the world religions. There have been atheistic philosophers who retain connections to their religions. Most people don’t know that the term “ground of being” actually comes from a Christian philosopher named Paul Tillich who is regarded by more than a few as being a pantheist or atheist.

I honestly think that there is a general cultural surrounding modern Paganism that focuses way too much on “belief,” and I suspect it’s something that’s been picked up from living in cultures heavily steeped in Christianity. Christianity is a doctrinal religion– it is, fundamentally, defined by one’s committed belief to a series of ideas. Paganism has, for most of its life, been practical rather than doctrinal. That is, it’s about practice…about what you do. I think that a lot of new Pagan focus on what one believes rather than what one does has a lot to do with the fact that, with Abrahamic doctrinal religions all around most of us, we’ve grown used to the idea that religions are about what we believe.

But, I think the tent’s a pretty big one. There were a lot of great atheists long before atheism took on its modern face. Plenty of them were Pagans. I’m joining them and seeing Paganism in terms of practice, experience, and culture.

And I do get looked at funny from time to time (I’ll write more on that in another post, actually). You probably might, too. But, if that’s who you are, then it’s other people’s problems and not yours.

Someday I’ll get around to writing that article about my experiences as a Pagan-Agnostic…