Even in pagan antiquity, there were those who, while participating in the community's religious life, did not believe in literal gods. In the centuries that followed the Christian domination of the West, the epithet "godless pagan" was leveled at a wide variety of people. In the 1960s, there emerged a community of people who sought to reclaim the name "pagan" from its history of opprobrium. These Neo-Pagans were interested in nature spirituality and polytheism, and identified with the misunderstood and persecuted pagans of antiquity. While many Pagans today believe in literal gods, there are a growing number of Pagans who are "godless." Today, the diverse assemblage of spiritual paths known as Paganism includes atheist Pagans or Atheopagans, Humanistic and Naturalistic Pagans, Buddho-Pagans, animists, pantheists, Gaians, and other non-theistic Pagans. Here, their voices are gathered together to share what it means to be Pagan and godless.

A living relationship with the wild natural world is our birthright as human beings. But centuries of civilization, patriarchy, transcendental monotheism, reductionist science, and capitalism have broken the connection between humankind and nature. To be Neo-Pagan today is to reclaim our original relation with the world. It is nothing more and nothing less than to be fully human again. To (re-)learn what this means, we need to strip away the layers of estrangement that have accreted to our collective soul over the centuries. So we look back to our pagan ancestors. Though separated by time, there is a connection between us and them. We carry it in our flesh and blood. At our most fundamental, we are still the same human beings we were then. We can be pagan again today because we live under the same Sun and on the same Earth, we feel the same wind blowing through our hair and the same rain falling on our skin.

Every human culture has evolved religious practices. Clearly, there is something inherent in humanity about religiosity: it must fulfill certain needs that evolved with us as our modern brains developed. ATHEOPAGANISM explores how the evolution of proceeding brain systems contributed to the belief systems, value sets and religious practices that characterize cultures all over the world. And then it implements this understanding of the nature of religion in a science-consistent religious practice that fulfills the human need for meaning, connectedness, inspiration and purpose.

In these essays, activist and author, John Halstead, takes us from a 2016 environmental protest at a Midwestern tar sands refinery to a mid-20th century Mexican cornfield stricken with blight to a bloody sacrifice to the Mother Goddess in ancient Rome, and from ancient pagan myths to the latest superhero movies to speculative fiction about a biocentric community of the future. In so doing, he explores the intersection of climate change and capitalism, hope and despair, death and denial, hubris and hero myths, love and limitations, popular culture and storytelling, and what it would really mean for our relationship with the natural world if we were to admit that we are doomed.

An overview essay and approximately 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries explore the background and significance of atheism and agnosticism in modern society. This is the age of atheism and agnosticism. The number of people living without religious belief and practice is quickly and dramatically rising. Some experts call nonreligion, after Christianity and Islam, the third largest "religion" in the world today. Understanding the origins, history, variations, and impact of atheism and agnosticism is crucial to getting a grasp of the meaning of the present and gaining a glimpse of the future. Exploring some of the most extraordinary people, events, and ideas of all time, this book provides a fair, comprehensive, and engaging survey of all aspects of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. An overview essay discusses the background and social and political contexts of unbelief, while a timeline highlights key events. Some 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries follow, with each providing fundamental, objective information about particular topics along with cross-references and suggestions for further reading. The volume closes with an annotated bibliography of the most important resources on atheism and agnosticism.

Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."

Apophenion attacks most of the great questions of being, free will, consciousness, meaning, the nature of mind, and humanity's place in the cosmos, from a magical perspective. Some of the conclusions seem to challenge many of the deeply held assumptions that our culture has taught us, so brace yourself for the paradigm crash and look for the jewels revealed in the wreckage. This book contains something to offend everyone; enough science to upset the magicians, enough magic to upset the scientists, and enough blasphemy to upset most trancendentalists.