So, I was reading the 'Jesus Saves' thread...

[honeythorn]

Ah, ok now it all makes sense

[Stormtrooper of Death]

Ah Catholic school. How funny. Glad I go to a crappy American public school!

[honeythorn]

I went to one of the shittiest local comprehensives in the area. Apparantly it is still shit from what I hear.

[Cyberbat]

Try a Born Again school, now that was hell. Thank god that is years in the past, and now I just do quickbooks, so instead of a 7:30 to 3:00 hell, its more like 24/7.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

My school has the biggest facist administration ever. They always fuck things up for us. And our crappy principal always says "Stay Classy Anoka!" No thanks, I won't.

[Breathless Horror]

Haha, my school sounds a lot like yours, Storm. Except add the religious nutcases :P

[Cyberbat]

Hah. I was the "fallen sheep". They would punish me if I didn't go up to the front and get 'saved' every church session they had.

Ironically enough, they used to tell me I should be more like this one chick. She was the perfect little christian. I ran into her a few years later and she was an escort girl.


Yeah, fun fun, being followed around by your principal being told what an evil little thing you were and how you were going to burn in hell.

[Breathless Horror]

My religion teacher used to cry because I laughed at her every time she tried to "help" me. It made fourth period ever so much more tedious.

[Cyberbat]

How appropriate. Siouxie & The Banshees - Sin In My Heart just popped up on my radio.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

The good part about school is that in 6 months, I won't have any!

[Solumina]

I hate to tell you but life after high school really isn't all that different

[gothicusmaximus]

When the fuck did I attack paganism?

The purpose of this thread is to ask Pagans why they've chosen their belief system over the Judeo-Christian faiths that are so often ridiculed on these boards.

So far, the answer I've received most often is "Paganism just suits me better. It's not the 'right' way to worship god, but it's not the 'wrong' way to worship god either." I find this to be a very interesting approach to religion, because absent from it is the reward/punishment dynamic central to many other faiths, including the pagan religions by which this modern paganism is presumably inspired.

If you're a Christian, then your holy book says that anyone who doesn't believe in the ONE god who led the Jews out of Egypt and whose son died for our sins on the cross is violating a commandment and is probably in big trouble. If you're a Greek living in antiquity, Earthquakes mean Poseidon is angry and you'd better sacrifice a horse so he cuts it out. If you're a shintoist, you better placate potentially troublesome spirits, or OH SNAP SON. If you follow the sort of paganism discussed in this thread, though, god or the force or whatever doesn't care what you do. As my evil Atheist Comrade Jillian pointed out, the missionary element you all so despise about Christian faiths exist because Christianity entails the belief that bad shit will happen to people who aren't Christians- There's no real reason to be a pagan except that it suits your fancy.

I admit, I was a tad deceptive in creating this thread. Here was my master plan:
1. I ask pagans why they believe in Paganism over Christianity.
2. Pagans reply, saying "Paganism just feels right to me, I feel the earth talk blah blah"
3. I say "Aha, but you must realize that Christianity feels just as right to Christians as your beliefs do to you. Stop ragging on Christians as though they hold a stupid faith when there's no concrete reason to maintain that yours is right and theirs is wrong."
4. Pagans say "I guess you're right, Gothicus". And once again, the day is saved.

Basically, I misunderstood what pagans believe. I was under the impression that, when they worshipped capricious dudes with animal heads, they were actually expressing a belief that capricious dudes with animal heads were up in the sky deciding things, rather than paying homage to a vague, deific force through the use of certain imagery, the choice of which is completely arbitrary. I'm not sure if 'paganism' is the word I'd use to describe that, but whatevs.

[honeythorn]

I have yet to decide which particular branch of paganism I would like to follow. I have the rest of my life to decide that. Like I said before, Druidry is something I would like to look further into, and I am planning on researching British and Anglo Aaxon gods also.

[Cyberbat]

I've never ragged on Christians. I don't condone people for being whatever religion, or even for not having any faith system. Too each their own.

In fact, its actually a pagan "sin" to bash others for their beliefs. Of course most pagans forget this, so do Christians when they are being just as pig headed.


And being pagan is a little more than "its fits my fancy". I didn't feel the "spirit" as a mormon or a christian but I did as a pagan. That's why its right for me.


And honeythorn, look into eccentric wicca. Might fit your fancy.

[honeythorn]

I'll be sure to have a look but so far Wicca hasn't been quite what I am after.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Silvara, honestly, fuck you if you cannot get the difference between validity and soundness through your fucking thick skull.
I'm not even going to be nice. Just fuck you.
You're the kind of idiot that thinks black is a color, I say it is just the absence of light, and you keep saying "but it's a color" over and over and over because you cannot for your shitty life get over yourself, meanwhile accusing of the other people who can justify themselves to be elitist or some other shit just because they don't agree with you, regardless of all evidence they have.
Again, fuck you. You think I'm blocking the conversation? No, you did that when you keep shouting the same bullshit I have already addressed on every post.

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Zavulon

Yea Christians are so fucking enlightened... Crusades and Inquisitions....

You know dude, I too regret the impact that "Christianity" as a whole has had on the world and all. But the tenants really aren't all that bad.

Don't murder, don't cheat on your loved ones, don't lie or steal. Are these basic ideas THAT bad? How many situations have you actually been put in that says that there was a plausible necessity to go against these ideas?

I think it would behoove you to meditate on the ideas and principals of what benevolence really is. This is just a suggestion.

As for the rest of Christianity, being about 99% of the rest of it can go fuck itself. *shrugs*

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Ravenmother

Jillian, Since the background is black and white on this forum...

My computer screen is lit up...and yet I see black and white? Is that an absence of color or is somthing else happening? Black is a color...while it is also a lack of light.

All the colors mixed together make black on an artist's canvas. When the sun goes down and there is no moon light in an ally way, it's black...therefor it's your lack of light. I see it on both sides.

Black is a color and a lack of light.

Just needed to say that.

You do realize if that's how you read it, then you have missed the entire context, right?

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

You do realize if that's how you read it, then you have missed the entire context, right?

I got your context, Jillybean. But we should know by now that this place is riddled with devil's advocates and those who love to be obtuse.

[Godslayer Jillian]

He's not being the devil's advocate even. He just refuses to see the difference between soundness and validity (seriously, after reading the wikipedia he still says "so you're argument isn't true because why is it true so it's not valid" which makes no sense), principally, I dare to bet, because he got offended that I can't respect paganism.

[Godslayer Jillian]

You know what's the funniest thing of the last two pages?
I said something regarding the thread. Mir said "that's your opinion". I told him that doesn't mean it's inherently wrong, that he still has to evaluate my opinion before declaring it untrue by asking himself "is it factual?" and "is it consistent?"
So far so good.
Then Duckman simply said that those two question should be only one.
And that's it. I was called "pompous" for mentioning something they teach you in any logic class, by two people that kept going on about how my two questions should be one.
I don't even know if they know that their arguing was that insignificant.

[gothicusmaximus]

Originally Posted by Cyberbat

And being pagan is a little more than "its fits my fancy".


And honeythorn, look into eccentric wicca. Might fit your fancy.

Am I supposed to lol at this?

Originally Posted by Cyberbat

I didn't feel the "spirit" as a mormon or a christian but I did as a pagan. That's why its right for me.

See, here's the thing-
Christianity: The idea that god is a single omnibenevolent being whose son Jesus died on the cross.
Paganism (as I understand it and as it's classically defined): The idea that the universe is ruled by a pantheon of gods, very much like men and women in temperament.

They can't both be right.

Now, if you're making the argument that both traditions are just different ways of paying tribute, through the use of ritual imagery, to a vague, deific force which doesn't care at all what ritual imagery you use in paying tribute to it, then not only would I be hesitant to call that a 'pagan' belief, but I'd be at a loss to explain why anyone would worship Osiris or Athena when he could just as easily worship The Terminator. To each his own, though.

[Drake Dun]

"Validity" has one rather flexible meaning in general purpose English, and another more specific meaning in the context of formal logic. The definitions that Jillian is advancing are nothing that he made up, but neither do they capture the entire life of the words in question. Are you guys sure you aren't beating each other up over semantics?

[Drake Dun]

As for "pagans", my own thoughts.

There are certain features of the human psyche that are separate from the faculties designed to help a person interact with physical reality, and which when allowed to grow into their natural expressions can result in complex systems of thought and social interaction that can properly be called "religion" in the broader sense of the word. By themselves, they are harmless, and probably even valuable.

The problem comes in when they get tangled up with your understanding of gross facts about the world around you, or worse yet inform your ethical sense with the arbitrary gibberish termed "revelation".

There's a kind of spectrum with this stuff. Islam is the worst example I know. Honest Christianity is not much better. The split-brained postmodernist curiosity known as "moderate" Christianty is just barely on the wrong side of the line, by my lights. Moderate Christians are mostly harmless, but they're still hanging on to a couple of unbearables. Getting them to reject the doctrine of eternal punishment, for example, is like extracting teeth.

Modern "pagans" are a shade or two better, which in my book puts them into the safe zone. Occasionally one will bust out with something ridiculous, for some reason usually involving traffic lights or the bodily functions of other people (a Crowleyish atavism), but their foibles always seem to be embarassing rather than horrifying. I have never felt seriously threatened or harried by them.

This may be a surprise coming from me, but I do think there has to be a certain give and take to these things. It's worth remembering that there are deep uncertainties in the best of our philosophies, and that even assuming such a thing as an accessible ultimate truth, our movements in the direction of that truth are sure to be dogged by the shadow of our own fallibility.

I have participated in Wiccan rituals and found them meaningful. Everybody present knew I was an atheist, and my participation in the ceremony was not any kind of concession to my atheism. I was accepted - not tolerated. I didn't have to pretend to believe anything silly, and nobody tried to tell me how to live my life.

Good enough for me.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

Are you guys sure you aren't beating each other up over semantics?

That's what the boards are here for, as far as I can tell. We do it so very, very often.