Funk Babblings

Recently our local pagan group has had quite a bit of discord. In their efforts to bring harmony, some in the group equated that discord to chaos, and equated chaos with evil. The following is based on my response to those opinions. I'm interested in what others think of these things.

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Evil and chaos are not the same thing.
Harmony and chaos are not opposites.

Order is the opposite of chaos, yet order can come out of chaos, despite our intuition to the contrary.

See reputable books on chaos theory, such as:

• Chaos by James Gleick
• Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge Of Order And Chaos by Mitchell M. Waldrop
• At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity by Stuart Kauffman

For an irreverent, whimsical, and unreputable treatment, from before there was such a thing as chaos theory, see the Principia Discordia. [printed book] [single HTML page] [separated HTML pages]

Particularly relevant portions:

• Entropy (page 54)
• The Curse of Greyface (pages 49 and 70)
• The Sacred Chao (pages 10, 56-57)

Summary of the Principia:

Chaos is a natural and inevitable aspect of the universe. Both order and chaos can be destructive, and both order and chaos can be creative. Creativity, whether though order or chaos, is good. Destructivity, whether through order or chaos, is bad.

The way I see it, people seek out a balance. People who have had too much order in their lives may seek out chaos, and people who have had too much chaos in their lives may seek out order. Ideally people are balanced and don't feel the need need to seek out either one.

The Tao Te Ching seems appropriate here. [online] [printed book]