For various reasons, I've had reason to think about Druidry and its potential revival as an option to help handle a religious crisis, as well as potentially being beneficial to many Western cultures. Much of what was known is said to have been lost to time due to a combination of oral tradition and a doctrine of secrecy within Druidry. Although Druids are frequently depicted primarily by their closeness to nature, it is said that Druids actually formed a priestly, judicial and professional class in Celtic cultures, contrasting with the contemporary world's professional specializations. Druids also believed in immortal human souls with re-incarnation. The idea of a Druidic revival sounds interesting, but the oral restriction of past Druidry means that any attempt at a revival is inherently limited, constraining new Druidic traditions so that they must start effectively disconnected from the original Druids. The issue is compounded by the contemporary tendency towards a merely aesthetic Druidry. However, I do not think either issue is entirely fatal. If going this route, or going a similar route with another system, it may be worthwhile to take advantage of contemporary factors rather than shun them. In particular, I would suggest that a Druid should be familiar with technology and the philosophical work that went into its development. This does not contradict any concept of being close to Nature: technology is fundamentally the application of Natural laws, and it strikes me as an unusual concept that the use or sophistication of these techniques is the issue rather than the correct or incorrect nature of their application. The practice of computing in particular is closest to mathematics and logic studied properly. It is my opinion that despite how it may seem there are sacred things in computing. When the ugliness is stripped away and a beautiful core kept then computational truth reveals itself over and over. The practice of programming challenges the mind with a demand for precision, and the same technology and practice graduates naturally into techniques such as theorem proving, which allow for obtaining and verifying truth directly.

I listened to Grace and the Abyss by Murdoch Murdoch. I need to respond properly later but can't say some of the most important parts yet, so I'm making some notes now. Summary: >MM grew up Christian, played video games and D&D, in what sounds like a typical American suburban childhood >MM had an abused childhood friend Sam, who introduced MM to atheism >MM's atheism deepened during college, turning into a doctrine that he refers to as "biological determinism" >Sam became a volatile alcoholic Christian in the meantime, MM starts to drift away >One day, Sam confesses consideration of suicide and a lack of faith >Sam "only wanted to believe, but he couldn't" >MM, thinking it in line with a doctrine of strength, simply reflects Sam's choice back at him: "stop whining, either choose life or choose death" >Sam commits suicide, MM blames himself >MM shops around for mystical doctrines, especially among Eastern religions >At some point he writes his book featuring a clown fighting nihilism and always chasing the sun >MM currently believes in neg-entropy doctrine and gobbledygook quantum anti-determinism >MM effectively believes in Christianity, but can't deny the criticisms of it One thing that I'm uncertain of is how deeply he came to understand the various intermediate philosophies he looked at. The impression I get is that he tends to only pick up on the most prominent concepts, but then fails to truly apply the various philosophies he looks at. His current object of religious affection seems entirely impracticable. One of the quicker points to make is simply that the neg-entropy doctrine is factually wrong, and likely morally wrong. Life does not reverse entropy, claiming it does is misunderstanding both concepts. Although entropy does cause death, and life exists partly by its ability to resist this pull, life tends to affirm entropy rather than deny it. The confusion tends to center around the concept of entropy as "causing disorder" while presuming that life is somehow inherently ordered. This is a very life-centric view, and fails to understand death. In fact, MM's particular ideology seems to be the straightforward inverse of physical reality, as if by the power of his deity rivers should flow upstream, and if we see them flowing downstream it is because of our own denial of that power. I would suggest the opposite, that entropy is essential to life, although I struggle to think of particular examples at the moment. The gobbledygook quantum anti-determinism indicates ignorance of quantum field theory, Bell's theorem and the no-go theorems. Many of these quantum theologies tend to depict the measurement-centric view of quantum mechanics, where particles are affected by measurements, but as I understand it QFT does away with these things. The existence of a "consistent histories" theory suggests to me that the measurement-centric theory is little better than physics obscurantism to create such a "god of the gaps". The apparent non-determinism can, in practice, only inspire agnosticism. My understanding is that remains unknown whether the QFT of this universe is truly non-deterministic or whether it is dictated by some currently unknown laws. The no-go theorems demonstrate the impracticability of this measurement-based gobbledygook, which confuse physical reality with what is measured rather than acknowledge the limitations of the measurements made. Frankly, it is one of the most ironic pieces of scientific history. It's bad, confused physics that needs a clearer re-working. The apparent tendency to only grasp surface aspects is most prominent in his understanding of Sam's choice to commit suicide, at the time seeing his own words as reflecting the ideology of strength, then re-reading them later with regret. Here, MM seems confused from the beginning, as if strength is to come from sheer force of will rather than result as a product of health. While I won't deny that MM's response was callous, Sam was the one who made the choice to end his own life. I won't pretend to know the dread that caused such a suicide, but the counter-factual of "what if I had been nice instead" simply isn't clear. To return some of the callousness: I think that even with a concerted effort Murdoch Murdoch would not have been capable enough to help his friend in the end. Most likely, Sam needed something then that Murdoch Murdoch still does not have.