Wicca
 

MOD EDIT: This was split off from the Prejudices thread.


I am prejudiced against Wiccans. I find that the only reasons that people become Wiccan is:
A. They feel out of touch with their families roots in Christianity

and

B. They think it's cool.

I see it as a conscious decision of "Hey, this sounds cool so I am going to convince myself that I believe it". And that is fucking annoying.


As some of you may know, I do also have a problem with women. However, I am fully aware that this problem stems from me and not from the ladies.

I have had that argument used against me as an atheist.

But atheism is merely a lack of belief in things that you cannot see or doesn't make sense. Wiccans believe that there is a half-man/half-goat prancing through the woods and that mother earth can grant them special powers.

My argument is much more valid.

Not sure you really have Wicca down, there. Yes, its weird and unfounded, but I don't see how that's worse. I don't think that making a comparative argument against one crazy minority religion relative to the crazy majority religion is valid.

My reasoning is that this is not a belief that was instilled in them from birth. This isn't a situation where people have been told over and over again that this is the absolute truth of the universe and if you don't believe it you will burn for an eternity in hell. No. They reached a certain age, rebelled against their parents, and said "I want to be a fucking wizard". I'm certain that you have the ability to see the difference.


Edit: My biggest problem with it is that if you sat them down and made the majority of them talk about it objectively they would mostly admit that they don't really believe it either. I have done this with many Wiccans. I made one cry once, although I didn't intend for that to happen.

Yes. But you are focusing only on Wiccans, and not other pagan religions, not people who have left the faith or non-faith of their birth to join a new faith or non-faith, neither do you take into account people who are born into Wiccan families, and modern Wicca has been around long enough for that to happen. I also notice an ignorance of what Wicca is if you are relating it to modern fantasy genres.

I concentrate on Wicca because that is what the trendy shits who live in my area are into. Also, I'm not sure how that is relevant to the conversation other than giving you a way to say "Look, you're doing it wrong".

I haven't met any 2nd or 3rd generation Wiccans and so they don't enter into my prejudicial feelings.

I am fully aware of what Wicca is. However, the people I have encountered have been enamored with an over-fantasized version of it. And their reasons for joining absolutely have to do with the cool factor.

Edit: If you think that Wicca can't be described in modern fantasy terms then you have a profound ignorance of the religion and should not be discussing it with me.

If the ones you know are trendy shits then that's their lookout, I guess. But modern fantasy comes with a lot of extraneous baggage that has nothing to do with it, and such association is dishonest.

Not dishonest at all. I didn't attribute all fantasy traits to it and I'm not sure what would give you that impression. They do however believe that they can cast spells and worship a horned god. That's as far as I took it, so...... not sure what you're talking about.

A:Gods and Godesses of wicca can be "symbolic" which mean that they symbolise or represent somthing. for instance the half man half goat your on about (pan) is god of male sexuality, this does not mean all wiccans think that he exists phisically but see him more as an idea and a symbol of what he is diety of, Although some people do consider certain dietys to be "phisical"

i respect your opinions :) but would consider myself as wiccan/pagan and i would just like to add that i havent had it crammed into me from birth. my family is christian.

:)

shaman

That's my point. You made a choice to believe this drivel.

Let me ask you this. If you know that the gods that you venerate are merely a way of defining natural human feelings or natural environmental phenomena then why the fuck do you bother?

I want to hear this story.

It was the bass player in my band's sister. I was just explaining to her that her reasons for believing what she does are completely juvenile and that at some point she was going to have to stop pretending to believe something that she was obviously too intelligent to think was actually real. I then had to explain to her brother why she was crying and leave.


Edit: Good idea for a thread Venks. You brought 'old and not so tasty' back out of the woodwork. This is one of the few things that we could have talked about that I really just can't hide my disgust for. Also fanfiction.

SOME dietys are "symbolic" not all, it also depends mostly on a wiccan's personal believes.

let me clarify this for you. dietys can be "symbolic" a way of defining natural phenomena or human feeling, they can also be "manifest" which means that they are belived to acctually exist as the soul of the thing they represent the sun god for example could be depicted as the sun's "soul" (it is ok to laugh i dont care)

However i will admit those that represent human fellings are accepted to be "symbolic" to most pagans today. (personally i feel that Pan is symbolic, but i feel that other dietys are manifest).

shaman

Where did they touch you?

real mature...

on a slightly different note
i will not be giving anyone any shit so please do not give me any (insults and the like)

I believe that even you don't really believe that. It's the only way I can even bring myself to talk to you.

you Dont think i believe it thats fine. :) let's just agree to disagree.

I know that you think you believe it but everyone needs to think that their particular crutch is going to hold them up. It doesn't really matter how flimsy or ill made it is. However, if you really think about what you are doing I'm sure you will realize that you joined this because you either knew people who were Wiccan and accepting of you or you thought it would be cool to cast spells. I mean, come on. It's all just a bit too silly.

i'm mature enough to know that a religion is not somthing that you sould join just because you think it's "cool".

i am also finding it hard understand why you try to convince other people not to believe in somthing because YOU find it to be stupid...

Because I find it to be unbearably stupid.

If you can tell me what the word pagan means (without looking it up) I will cease and desist immediately.

Technically a pagan is somone that worships a pre-christian diety/dietys

basically, somone who worships a diety/deitys that were around before the idea of the"judeo christian god".

Goatmen and spells are just as unbelievable as talking snakes and zombies. Your religion, like all other religions, is just another take on Christianity. I know Christianity didn't come first, but it's a point of principle.

At the end of the day, it's each to his own, but I think OANST is right in saying that a lot of people just convince themselves that they believe something.

EDIT: you two pests beat me to posting. Shame on you.

Wrong. Technically the word pagan is an insult used in regards to farm people. Pagan means "of the pagus", the pagus being a Roman farmstead. It is exactly the same as calling someone a redneck, rube, or hick.

It gained it's modern day connotation because when the Romans switched over to Christianity, the outlying farms were not privy to the ever changing fashions of the city and did not abandon their old gods as quickly. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

maybe people do convince themselves that they believe somthing, however it is not our right to say which people they are, we don't know if they are serious or if they are just thinking they believe somthing. There is just very little way of telling ...

If it's serious...well, that's worse. Sorry.

I can almost guarantee that if you dig deep anough you will find lots of definitions for the term.
it has been used as an insult, and a term to describe people who believe in a pre - christian deity...it has been used as many things over the years ...


oh and i suppose that its up to you what is and what isn't the right thing for people to believe in.



_!_ -_- _!_

I'm sure I will find many definitions but this is the fucking etymology. And there's only one of those.


It's up to me to decide how I feel about these things and this just happens to be the place where I discuss how I feel about these things. I'm sorry. I think that your religion is moronic. I think that every religion I've ever come across is moronic, so don't feel like I'm singling out yours. I'm singling out the way you joined your religion more than anything else.

Many of you new people didn't realize that I am a dick and I really have been working on this but sometimes.......

There are lots of words that have had their definitions changed by god only knows what...and if people choose to group themselves under the "modern" definition of a term then who are we to judge?


now then ... can we get along?

This isn't what we were arguing about. I just thought it would be a fun diversion to tell you the literal meaning of the word.

i dont think anyone would call a roman farmer a pagan nowadays simply for being a roman farmer...

i am pretty sure the term has been redefined several times by centuries of who knows what.

wait ... then what are we aurguing about? sorry short attention span.

The validity of your belief system and how you came to own it. To be clear:

I don't think it is and think it's a bandwagon thing.

You think it is and suggest that this is a well researched belief.

oh yeah right. :)

i will tell you i do have pagan friends, like two. But i resent the idea that it is a "bandwagon thing" as you put it. Don't worry, i would be able to know whether or not i am lying to myself, i think that lying to yourself stops you from growing as a person so i would always go out of my way to not do it.

also, the same thing could happen to lots of people. A person could become christian just because of peer pressure or acceptance or attention or whatever you call it.

arn't people supposed to be putting down their prejudices? or are you just watching me and OANST verbilly wrestle each other?

shaman

Of course it could. However, we live in a culture that pushes that particular belief as the absolute truth every fucking day. It's much easier for a weak minded person to be taken in by that kind of propaganda. And I think that we deceive ourselves far more often than we deceive others. I'm fairly certain that given some serious thought and a bit of time you will agree with me.

Yes. Yes we are, and we're loving it.

i do agree that people can be taken in far more easily by christianity than anything else in our society. but i still stand by what i beleive in, i think i have given this a serious bit of thought and can't see myself thinking "actually i don't believe in this".

thanks

shaman.

Have you been visited and impregnated by the goddess? What possible reason could you have for believing it?

well for instace, i beleive that living things have a soul (humans were not the first life form on this planet, and they are not the first life form to behave like they have a soul, just look at the way animals behave)

for reasons i can't explain (call it spiritual intuition or reasoning that cannot be put into words over the net) i do belive that celestial bodies have a spirit as well, they are after all some of the oldest things in existence and there is no reason why they can't have been the first beings.

since i have explained why that i believe the natural world has a soul, it should be easy to understand why it deserves our respect and protection, which is why wicca works with the rythems and tides of nature, we celebrate its cycles.

OANST you may find this a little hard to understand yourself but wicca is largely a PERSONAL
THING, so um ... yer. NOW LET THIS BE THE END OF IT.

Can't do that. If you keep replying I will continue debating.


How can you possibly try to qualify the actions of an animal based on the assumption of an invisible inner essence? I don't even know how to argue against this. You may actually be too far gone.

from i know wicca isn't all about witch craft etc and as shaman has said its more about a personal thing... personally i'm not a wiccan but i do have a few friends who are and i do not know all that its about, im just saying that theres more to it than spells and stuff...