"On Faith" panelist Starhawk is a prominent voice in modern Wiccan spirituality and cofounder of Reclaiming (www.reclaiming.org), an activist branch of modern Pagan religion. She is the author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979) --considered an essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement--and the novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) . Her works have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Japanese, and Burmese. Many of Starhawk's political essays were collected into her book Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising . Her newest book is The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature . Starhawk has also recorded several tapes and CDs; most recently Wicca for Beginners (2002), Wiccan Rituals and Blessings (2003), and a four-CD set Earth Magic (2006), all produced by Sounds True. She consulted on and contributed to three films known as the Women's Spirituality series, directed by Donna Read for the National Film Board of Canada: Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, and Full Circle . Committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism, Starhawk travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism.
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Starhawk
Co-founder, Reclaiming
"On Faith" panelist Starhawk is a prominent voice in modern Wiccan spirituality and cofounder of Reclaiming (www.reclaiming.org), an activist branch of modern Pagan religion. She is the author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979) --considered an essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement--and the novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) .
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Wow, I may have missed a post or two, but it seems as if all posts from the entity know as "Frank" have dissapeared from this thread. Is that a good thing? It does take the context out of several of our posts, and in future will give us fewer opportunities to attempt to wax eloquent. On the other hand, there are/will be a lot fewer repeatitive hate attacks. What do others think about this censoring/cleaning up of a mature thread?
It's a great achievement for Islamic leaders and scholars as well as Newsweek and the Washington post to present this imperative opportunity for inter cultural and global philosophical dialogue. What's important is that by exchanging our ideas and comments regarding inter religious relations and world events that affect our views of each other as fellow human beings. Since the advent of humanity, We strove to make sense of the world we live in and the lives we've experienced. Worldwide curiosities to learn the true nature of life and our universe is an exceptionally rare virtue upon life on Earth. In other words, we're the only known species on the planet who've pursued to unravel these great mysteries and developed written philosophies based upon our understanding of the world around us.
One such philosophy that lasted throughout the ages of humanity is commonly known as religion and spirituality. Ever since our early belief in the Sky God and the God Mother from ancient Pagan times, we vigorously pursued to unravel the truth about our most profound questions. As any educated person would know that religion and their core beliefs or faith have evolved over time. Paganism, Monotheism and Polytheism have been influenced by humanity as these great philosophies have influenced our perceptions and decisions in life over the ages. Over time humanity has embraced diverse religious faiths and spiritual convictions that continue to influence our behavior in our times and most likely beyond.
What's vital for humanity's progress and even survival is to know the true nature of faith itself. To understand the true origins of faith. But most of all, is to accept the truth for whatever it may be. Each one of us will learn the absolute truth once we die. But until that time comes for anyone of us to depart this world, we really don't know the answer to God's existence nor do we have the absolute truth in regards to the true nature of God. Besides if we did possess the truth, there would've been only one religion on Earth with no diversification of any way, shape of form. There would only be one holy scripture written throughout human history.
Considering one's religious faith to be absolute, while considering others to be false would be ethnocentric at best. While collectively searching to unravel the mysteries on nature, life and the universe through sincere reasoning and serious research would be enlightening at its worst. Most importantly, we must accept the fact is that none of us have conclusive evidence to confirm our core beliefs and there's always an immanent change that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong. Our greatest challenge would be to tolerate the truth no matter what it may ultimately be. With such an open mind, we would be able to overcome any future discovery that would contradict our faith regarding the true nature of life, spirituality and divinity.
Humanity does have the ability to achieve such a social achievement. However, it's solely up to humanity and not any other entity or groups of entities to decide our destinies. Each one of us has a choice to make; either hopelessly engaging into meaningless inter cultural conflicts or combine our scientific and cultural gifts to thrive into an enlightened global civilization that could ultimately expand beyond our solar system. The choice is yours, and the time to make it is now!
That was absolutely beautiful. If I can teach my future children to live and love in such a way.. well the possibilities are really endless. What an amazing world we could create!
I suspect you're absolutely right. What is needed is balance. no matter what religion you follow.
Let's hope the work is underway. The Lady has already called me. I answered. I'm raring to go..
*rolls up sleeves*... what should we tackle first? So much to be done.. so little time.
Wow. I've been reading all these posts and am totally ovrwhelmed by all the negativity going on here. Having been a pagan for over thirty years, raising children of all colors and religions in my home, loving them all, trying to develope "perfect love and perfect trust" between them despite their different faiths has taught me the greatest lesson of all. That there is no faith that soars above another, but there is always a place of balance and peace in the spiritual realm that receives evryone who trys to seek that place out in their hearts and souls. In that place, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist....we are all together. Love is the path to that place, it's the most difficult of all roads, it reqiures the deepest understanding of the good and evil within each one of us...as well as the cultures we come from. Will it cure the evils of this world? Maybe not. But it can cure the evils of the worlds we individually impact...and ripple out from there. Such a small bit of practical magick....love and personal sacrifice... so much power in such a small word. Where are the dissenters that revile such a power? Begin at home...teach it to your children and your children's children. Feed them on it, Bathe them in it. Speak the words to them. Fire their passions with it. Heal with it.
War...it is man's creation. It is temporal. The battle for live and livlihood isn't fought in this realm. All pagans should know this...all Christians too. Want to try to stopthis insanity?Then teach your children so they can help heal a world that trembles in fear. Or better yet...create a one that holds new and universal values. Impossible??? Nothing is impossible if you believe. I believe. My kids believe... of course, we also believe in faeries. How silly of us. How marvelous the innocence that believes in the unseen realms. How powerful the faith of love..in any religion.
I'm just continually-amazed how some Christians treat us, then try to make all these abstract connections between us and 'evil' in order to justify it.
We should be singing *healing* songs here, for the world and our civilization, not trying to count casualties to justify more casualties.
Abuse of the human spirit, it seems, has just been going on so long that it's become impossible for some to distinguish... and if that isn't an argument for diversity, I don't know what is.
Too much in these 'One True Religions Of Love' just comes out *backwards* for us to buy thinking in that "We're the good guys, you're 'evil'" way.
Certainly, I'd say we're not about to believe a book or a religious affiliation offers any kind of protection from wrongdoing, never mind that *not* believing in it makes us 'immoral, selfish, somehow like Stalin,' or any of the other threats and accusations we hear.
Vilifying innocent people certainly doesn't make your case.
We *do* perceive an interconnection, between you, us, A living Earth, ...and spirit, so beautifully-described in what Terra quoted. It takes some pretty-convoluted chains of unreasoning to insist that somehow *we're bad people* for that ...for disobeying a book that defends its accusations of 'evil' as 'love' by apparently saying it arguably didn't kill more people than Stalin.
Since you like numbers, this is from the Encarta Encyclopedia:
Although the human cost of the war was tremendous, casualty figures cannot always be obtained and often vary widely. Most experts estimate the military and civilian losses of Allied forces at 44 million and those of the Axis at 11 million. The total number of civilian losses includes the 5.6 million to 5.9 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. Of all the nations that participated in World War II, the human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the official total, military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The United States, which had no significant civilian losses, sustained more than 400,000 deaths.
Where did you get those figures? They're surely exagerated. The figure I recall for loss of life in Hiroshima was 100,000. Nagasaki can't have been much more.
And WWII: 40 million? Those can't be combat deaths. You must be including deaths from oppression, such as the Nazi death camps, which can hardly be credited to the war.
Anyway, Antaeus, I hope you'll forgive the rambling. I just think that sometimes we are tempted to be too-defined by outsiders. You have a good name, here, (better, I think, than the largely-random one I chose here) ....Actually, I really saw it when watching some cheesy movie, ...bing.
I met another of our veterans, tonight. Still, like so many, working to protect our country while being called a traitor in his own hometown.
That he still cares about, despite some people mistreating his kids in the name of 'Christianity.'
Thought of your screen name, actually.
A certain amount of, "Oh, Goddess, this is another reminder we're *in it now, aren't we,*"
"Man gets tired
Spirit don't.
Man surrenders
Spirit won't.
Man crawls
Spirit flies
Spirit lives when man dies
Man seems
Spirit is
Man dreams
Spirit lives
Man is tethered
Spirit free
Antaeus: "Hmm, I fear I am going to show the diversity within the Pagan community here. You see, I am rather firmly of the belief that I am God, as is everyone else, and everything else, for that matter. In the rituals I participate in it is fairly common for us to salute one another with "thou art God" "thou art Goddess" or more elaborately, "the God and Goddess in me salutes the God and Goddess in you". This is what I believe is meant in the Charge of the Goddess when it says "And if that which ye seek to find you find not within youself you will never find it without".
Don't get me wrong, Antaeus, ..totally 'Namaste.' Thou art thee God.
This is not what this means to certain Christians who are taught that humans are shameful beings externally-created for the express purpose of being inferior to and conditionally-saved by "The Only (but still homicidally-jealous) God."
Trying to shift theological languages around, here. Sorry if I offended, ...actually, I think it's one place where I think we can help Christians with their thing about 'We must all be Jesus, who is humble, yet the all-powerful lawgiver and only (but very jealous) God...
They've actually got an idea where you can 'be God' while being 'humble,' but it has a way of coming out backwards and somehow involving bad things.
Swear to the Gods, people screaming, in a rictus of rage, 'I'm more humble than you, infidel!' while taking a swing or alluding to various weaponry *does* lead one to wonder if the Morrigan really wants you to be Buddhist or if you've just watched too many kung fu movies. :)
But, anyway, Antaeus, I wouldn't try too hard to affiliate *us* with the Roman Empire. Most of the tolerance and pluralism really had much to do with remnants of the Republic feeling a bit more secure... while the Empire found that while God-Kings have a way of ending up in serious peccadilloes, King-Gods to displace the imperialism onto give you... well, stuff that still hasn't gone away.
It's been overstressed by Christians trying to turn Rome into a morality play to obscure the fact that there's more of the Roman Empire to Pauline Christianity than there ever was of 'Paganism,' but...
In 'Pagan Rome,' we'd *still* be the 'pagani.' Check out the Kybeline prophecy and some of the other stuff that went down: while this may not have been what the average Gods-loving 'Pagan' thought, certainly, in a way, Rome became its own religion of 'control.'
What Christianity became is really an expression of the same sort of problem.
What's usually not mentioned about Constantine is a) the famous battle in which he says Jesus promised him victory, was actually a highly illegal insurrection in which he didn't want to be a mere triumvir, and he needed leverage which only the unwieldy *slave caste* (among which the Christian promises were popular) could provide, and b) He actually worshiped Apollo until his deathbed, (while outlawing Paganism for others) at which point he then is said to have 'converted.'
Our Paganism is not the manipulative, praxis-and-control-oriented thing the Roman *state* became, and in fact, *subsumed and redefined* Christianity to do *better* at its convenience, to much later and ongoing horror...
Our Paganism is the birthright of all peoples.
Apollo is said to speak no untruth. Maybe what's happening now is part of making a great wrong right. Maybe the story isn't what we think it is. , either. But one thing's clear: We must live honestly, or we will find corruption comes.
This is possibly all we can do.
And anyone who told you different,
Is thinking Imperial. And may not even know it.
It's one of the ironies of history that Christianity *became* the Empire.
And the Empire gleefully became Christianity, ...sure, sweep away all the inconvenient 'fallibility' of the diversity of human conceptions of the Gods... all the cultural depth which made Cicero such a pain in the arse. :)
Now that we Pagans are supposedly the 'barbarians'
again, we should remember one lesson:
Never let Rome pick the battlefield.
No, 'Pagan Rome' wasn't the moustache-twisting cartoon villain that some Christians want to make of our heritage, there, (this idea is actually a largely-Victorian construction extrapolated from portrayals of Nero intended to apparently get people strapped into chastity-torture devices) but neither was it necessarily some Pagan paradise.
We may never *really* know, because as we can see here, people who think they're 'righteous' may feel above the truth, if they can even see it.
Some will say that 'changes in religion made Rome fall' ...I think it's more likely that maybe religious complacency changes *when* empires are falling.
Certainly, it's silly to say 'Rome fell for lack of being Christian,' when it *did fall* largely cause Constantine screwed the pooch to take power that wasn't his... and the Christian emperors after him... well, blew the whole deal, for what that was worth.
We're all (supposed to be, anyway) *modern people, now.*
Sure, I'd like the temples back, but ...more than that, I want my American Republic back.
Pardon the lecture, but, that's an angle to the story we don't think about too much... no simple answers as there are.
Just a random idea, really, but maybe the point isn't that some America that never quite was is 'falling,' ...maybe she's just possibly growing into what our common dream says she could be.
And what's 'falling' is just old castles of illusion.
We are not these castles, these buildings, even these words.
Maybe the point isn't 'resurrecting to eternal glory and vindication' like the Christian Jesus: maybe it's, we get cut down like John Barleycorn, and we *get up again.*
And life goes on.
How well is and always has been up to us.
*You can't see no priest to learn of the dead,
But I'll show you beer in a handful of yeast.*
You see, Christians, somewhere along the line you got this idea that *people are really irrevocably 'created to be awful and in need of being controlled.* (Unless of course it suits power to say, 'You're in the 'Image of God, don't question my sexual hangups or scientific illiteracy which have nothing to do with that anyway.')
Actually, we're primates with pack instincts that involve both dominance and submission that you confuse with 'Divine Will' because some folks who pay too much attention to war and breeding control want you to believe that's all there is to life and have discovered that you can be terrorized into compliance and codependence and feel it's a 'religious experience' (as long as it fits certain parameters: if it doesn't, it's obviously a deception of 'Satan,' or 'selfishness, etc, etc, and on and on it goes. )
Just... Breathe.
OK? Chill out a second, and 'look' at me. Look at the next person you see.
Are they really 'inherently evil' and by some cruel property of the universe damned to Hell cause lots of Christians are, frankly, a****les and you'd have to be a total idiot to believe you, even if your source material weren't totally sadistic and self-contradictory?
No.
And you aren't, either.
You are not damned, you are not evil, and I swear to the *Gods* you don't have to be afraid of me and my people in the way this idea leads you to believe.
If your God wants to subject me to particularly sadistic disembowelment for saying so, well, add a little more blasphemy to the supposed sentence. Not my first time around this particular wheel, as it happens, and, well.
What good is it to say that.
Maybe it does some good to say *this* though:
*Don't.*
*Be*
*Afraid.*
'Look' at me. Look at a human being. Look at anything, ...honor your Jesus, as I happen to, because of a few who were kind to me who may have thought better of him than as a source of shame and threat and degradation and war and desperate clutching for control over a humanity that you taught was *so awful* that we must be the 'image' of a very irrational view of 'God.'
Frankly, Christians, *your* god is bigger than this, too.
"Humbly," prithee:
Stop acting like he's a poop-throwing alpha male monkey who's going to flip out and mind control otherwise-evil-anyway-'Islamic' terrorists cause he happens to decide all of a sudden that homophobia is a big deal and good idea?
Morning Glory Zell attended several of the Heartland Pagan Festivals in the late 80's and early 90's. She was a living resourse for Pagan chants of every description and purpose. I just wish she had recorded some of them.
I love chants...I took a class with selena fox a couple years ago...it was amazing, I felt like we were going to blow the roof off with just the power we raised with the chant.
"It’s said there are invisible threads of energy binding all the shamans of the world to one another.... and something connects each of us as well: the empathics and sensitives who dwell on the edge, who hear the calling, and keep the pledge. Practitioners of authenticity and wholeness, reinhabiting sacred self and sacred land. Seekers of significance and purpose, the last to give up the ancient ways, and the first to explore the new. Those its said may cry too hard, or laugh too loud.... that dare to care, so much! Each an integral component, of a lineage of place holders: unbridled children and wizened elders, willful wilders, wiccans and wizards on whose souls rest the responsibility to invoke a new/old Earth, an Earth once again green and growing, dynamic and diverse, feral and free. Our shared ministry is this most insistent calling. And our liturgy.... is our love. Conservationists, restorationists and healers. Teachers, activists and defenders. Artists, ritualists and celebrants– all rare conduits of clarity in an age of blinding noise and neon. We’re the reinhabitants of Ectopia and Katuah, the verdant Northeast and the mountains and deserts of the mystical Southwest, of watersheds and wildernesses, sacred groves and organic farms. In tryst with rivers and forests, promised to a particular valley, or courting all the Earth in a gypsy’s search for home. We’re returning to an older way of being as well, to the great mystery– humbled by our place in the awesome harmonic Whole. We’re determined to dance out our individual dances, never losing step with that greater choreography of which we are a part. Like the fabled Alice, we each pursue furtive magic through the openings in the roots of trees and the imaginations of children. Getting down on our hands and knees, we make our way back to that Gaian Wonderland we can never really leave.
I’m excited! The energy is incredible. The transition, no matter how bright, demands that we look! Unwavering vision. Unwavering intent. I’m excited! Because I sense more acutely than ever our connection to one another, and to those spirits and life forms we call “other.” It’s not really a thread that connects us after all, you know– but strands of a miraculous web. We can feel each other from great distances, through its delicate vibrations. We have only to reach out now, along these fibers, over roaring rivers, underneath a canopy of trees, in order to touch the source.... through the warp and weft of interconnected consciousness. Though we may live and work in different places, we are but one tribe, with a single unified cause. Champions of sentience and sacrament, bodily extensions and voluntary agents of holy Will.
The whispering river and the rustling of the leaves are this inspirited Whole, trying to get our attention. Gaia, The Earth, is speaking to us through the voices of all creation. Yes, I’m excited! I stand as if barefoot, out of breath, staring wide-eyed at the wonder of the magic exploding before us. I’m thrilled to witness this re-becoming, this song... as we’re each reintegrated into the living, breathing flux, each made to feel we belong. I’m thrilled, because as loving and responsive care-takers, we’re fulfilling our true evolutionary role, redeeming our species as well as our selves.
No, we humans are not the brain of Gaia, the divine director– the anointed weaver that sets design rules for the patterns in rock, the flow of fire, the perfect twists in peach-colored sea shell. But we are the voluntary magic that fills the enchanted loom, reaching out in our efforts to restore the planet. Reaching out for each other. Reaching down deep again with our splayed toes, our anxious probing roots.... embracing the innermost heart of the Mother Earth, and thereby reaching out, out– until the sun encircled.
I am but a monkey
You are but a monkey
We are all but monkeys,
Turn the world around.
We are all but monkeys,
Be the hundredth monkey,
Turn the world around.
We come from the mountain, living in the mountain,
VERSES: Go back to the mountain, turn the world around!
We come from the mountain;
Go back to the mountain, turn the world around!
(Also: spirit, ocean, prairie, forest, river, water, etc.)
I'm the hundreth monkey, we're a hundred monkeys,
Be the hundreth monkey, turn the world around!
Be the hundreth monkey,
Be the hundreth monkey, turn the world around!
turn the world around!
We come from the fire, Go back to the fire,
turn the world around.
-------------
I have a picture of Lancelot...lol, the only living Unicorn, that Tim Zell created. His story The Other People is one of my Pagan favorites.
Look at the numbers and tell me who is greater evil throught out humanity and recorded history.
1st WW : 10 million death
2nd WW : 40 millino death
Hiroshima/Nagashaki Japan Nuke : 3 million death
Iraq : 700,000 death
Afghanistan : 350,000 death
Iraq before war embargo : 500,000 death
Bosnia : 120,000 death
those are few examples of recent one that we know some are still not over.
Crusades : 2 million ++ death
Spanish Inquisition : 1.5 million ++ death
one thing is common among above those all are done by Christian leaders and those followers of the religion call LOVE your enemy.
Now war/battle by Muslim army according to documented non islamic historians:
Take control twice of Jerusalem by Omar/Saladin : less than 100 killed because the Christian army fled of the battle so the muslim army just walked in without blood.
Muslim invasion of ancient persia: less than 150 killed. Still Jews live in Iran largest in the middle east after Israel.
Muslim invasion of Rome : less than 50 in the battle and they surrendered and paid ransom not much blood was lost.
Muslim invasion of Spain / Granada : less that 500 same the Spanish army fled the war against the invading large muslim army. No force conversion and Jews lived there more in number than Jerusalem that time not a single convertion was documented. Chief of Ottoman army was a Jewish man fighting with the Muslim soldiers. It was politics of nationality not religion, today Jews still live in Turkey in large numbers.
Muslims in India : no recorded war but trade of muslim merchants and they ruled over 1200 years and still today Hindus are majority almost 90 percent no force conversion to Islam
Recent history: Sept 11, 3000 death blamed to Muslim fanatics.
Filipine : total killed by terrorism less than 100 in last 10 years against Govt. policy of oppression.
Thailand : less than 50 by bombs and others including army planned incidents.
Palestine : Hamas and other fanatics killed less than 5000 in 60 years of fighting with the state of Israel in return Israel killed over 60,000 +++ 3 million homeless.
This is it.
Add up the numbers you will learn the truth. Know the truth and truth will set you free (The Bible -John) who is greater evil?
Peace and just stop blaming Muslims, learn history and you will see the light why the living evil man Bush has said Islam is peace because this is the truth and the number tells it all. We know 700K killed in Iraq but the media will not say it because they are Muslims but if one die in Israel by a Muslim Palestinian the whole world will cry wolf. Who is the evil?
Hmm, I fear I am going to show the diversity within the Pagan community here. You see, I am rather firmly of the belief that I am God, as is everyone else, and everything else, for that matter. In the rituals I participate in it is fairly common for us to salute one another with "thou art God" "thou art Goddess" or more elaborately, "the God and Goddess in me salutes the God and Goddess in you". This is what I believe is meant in the Charge of the Goddess when it says "And if that which ye seek to find you find not within youself you will never find it without".
But rather than quote more Pagan scripture, I will instead quote my favorit American Poet. (Actually, I should also disclose he's my favorite writer in the English language period).
"I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks
to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick
of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it
may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub
for the wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed
before a million universes.
"And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God
and about death.)
"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God
not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself."
That was an exerpt from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. And in another place in the same poem:
"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth;
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own;
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers;
And that a kelson of the creation is love; "
I love Walt Whitman.
Anyway, in as much as God exists, I am a part of that, as is every planet and star, every flower and ant, every poem and song, every place of worship and everyone who worships. I'm afraid I don't recognize any God to which I am not connected. I think this is part of the difference in the hard and soft polytheisms within Paganism, and between those with a strong Pantheistic element and those with whom it is weaker or not present at all. Oddly enough, I am usually disagreeing more with the soft polytheists, since even though I see the gods as part of the physical universe, I also see them as distinct individuals, and the soft polytheists often see diferent gods as aspects of the God and The Goddess rather than as seperate entities in their own right.
Anyway, Paganplace, many blessings to you, and to the acceptance of diversity within the Craft.
Hi, Rock. *Thought* you were being thoughtful there for a minute, but there's still something we can speak to.
No, we don't think we're 'God,' at least any more than we think *you* are.
I see you say this:
"Is not our nature to hate, steal, lie, cheat, get over, be number one, egocentric, vainity, and every other thing that our very own conscience speaks to us about."
No, it's not our nature. Who taught you that, about yourself, about us, about everyone else in the world?
" If this is true how much time do i/we have to to entangle oneself in arguments about whether or not paganism is a religion,"
No, you don't. It is.
Don't lump us in with pedophiles. Trust me, Christianity is not the source of all the world's ills, but to my mind, you have no basis to speak on that.
As for thinking 'God' has something to do with your forms, also, this is something you shouldn't assume is meaningful when you talk to us.
I'm well-aware, though that you were taught the things about us that you've repeated here.
They tried to teach me the same thing.
You have no copyright on goodness, and, no, people aren't as inherently 'evil' as you say.
You want to help serve the world, reduce suffering, and do measurable good, well, great. You'll probably find Pagans there, not announcing themselves or using supposed kindness to coerce or denigrate non-believers.
Perhaps while you 'take the credit' and say these things about us.
No, we don't have big charitable foundations, because we don't in general feel the need to accumulate vast surplus wealth to fill some *hole* in our lives, (I'm always saying, stop screaming that 'sex sells' if you're not willing to stop *repressing sex with one hand and offering material assuagements with the other.* ) ...and then give some away to assuage the guilt, (or the gilt, for that matter.)
But we're ...good people, Rock. Good enough to *take* morality in our own hands, to love life and love people, not out of fear of punishment for our wicked ways, but because there *is* something good, and yes, Godly, to our seeing, in humanity. In Creation, if you like.
We don't need to fight to 'prove' human belief is the *center of the universe* in order to feel suitably 'humble.'
We find your 'humility' unconvincing, and your insinuations that we must think we're 'God' for not obeying *you* *less so.*
Arrogance expressed through passive-aggression is still arrogance.
lepidopteryx: On Harry Potter vs. Pre-Apocaltptic Story's, turns our Mr. and or Ms. "WHAT" is Superstupid Stitious like!
They Do Not undersatan that there is NO-SUCH-THING=As Wingy Thingees so to speak.
Like you [Et Al] Know We Never Can Die! So let them talk "Blue in the face" until that "Re-Flash" Eschatological Moment [miracle in IT's own right] which innately takes Place, During each of OURS "Poof-TIME-a-Gonna" takes Place!
Mat Peace Be Upon MOMMA/TATTA & All. Forever Together With ECLAT + "i" SOURCE-ONE.
We Dutchland folkarino'a are Joktan-i-On's Et al, And Never Off in this Philosophy & More!
Praise the Holy No=Mon Eclat-i in mt Me Me's and ALL!
Eternity Avoiding Loneliness Via OURS "HEURISTICAL'S" Accordingto Natural LAW & Zero Man Made LAW!
Where fore: Behold "Unbelievers" of ECLAT-I-ON Holy Cosmic Feelers Faith, ,
Throw Down your "Pre-apocalyptic Weapons of Mass Destruction(s, WMD's) Historicaly until NOW [Dispensation] which is your Genuine Prophecy [With Many signs that you deliberately Ignored & Mockeried] for ECLAT + "i" is gonna Get You!
Never Flout the "Eclat-i" that "SISTER Warm Heart propheticaly convied to youi for your own "Heuristiacal" Good, never Bad as is OURS nature, Together, forever With OUR Holy of Holy's Eclat.
May Eclati-Off's revert as Eclat-i-On's the next morning when they get-up, after just reading, seeing & listeing the most beautiful Word of ALL words, ECLAT! Zero MAn or MON made!
So WHAT?! Ya Ya.
P.S., WARNING:
PHOTON(s) is O.U.R.S. and such that, is a WEAPON of LOVE & PEACE & JUSTICE for All & More That is in constant Harmonic Cinvergence with the Known Eclat & Unknown Eclat-i's!
"Go ahead, be a god, make your own way. Some of you think I'm going to pull the "Hell" card out, but I'm not. If such a place or like place exist I am sure that every self centered, smarter than God, lover of self, who does not truly evaluate their true thoughts or actions, will be there, regardless of religion."
Did you ever really try to understand paganism?
Who are you calling smarter than God, lover of self?
Paganism is a religion that is way, way older than your god (ie. Jesus) will ever be. So are many other religions.
I never ceases to amaze me that you people think you have the right way and everyone else has the wrong way. See my post above about world population and christianity!
Hmmm...I thought Pagan Rome fell because the Emperor Constantine had a vision of the cross in the sky and heard the words "with this sign you will conquer". When he won his next battle, he converted to Chrisianity and then set about converting everyone else in the Empire. (or was that just a myth?) Eventually, the loving Christians slaughtered teachers of all other religions, and of the forms of Christianity they disagreed with, then destroyed all the books and works of art connected to those beliefs they could find, and either destroyed the places of worship as well or converted them to churches. This doesn't sound much like the message of Christians becoming the meek servants of all. Lets face it, if the Roman Christians had remained true to the self-efacing version of Christianity that anonymous above has described, the Roman Empire would have remained multi-cultural and multi-religious, and the ancient Pagan religions would never have been forcibally repressed.
At the witch's store that my husband and I both teach in she had a sign put up for donations to be sent to Military pagans, so my husband and I collaborated on making bags for stones or cards or whatever they're allowed to have. We sent out quite a few before we were done. Just a thought.
"(For those Pagans in the group--are you familiar with the chant that starts "we come from the sky-eye, flying in the sky-eye"? I think it might be called "Turn the World Around" and was actually featured on the Muppet Show way back in the 70's. Morning Glory Zell added a verse about being the hundredth monkey, and ever since it has been one of my favorite chants)."
I love that chant too. It's one of my favorites, especially since i was raised on the Muppet show.. :)
You raise a really good point. It's one thing to answer honest questions about why we think and feel the way we do about our faith, but it's certainly another to constantly have to reply to such obvious goading, based solely on ignorance. Where do we draw the line? There seems to be no moderator to insist on respect for everyone on here like there seems to be on other threads.
Why should I as a Christian be any more concerned about what people think of my religion as they are about what i think of theirs. First of all Jesus never advocated violence of any sort. The "enemy" in the home would first be the Jewish person (they were the first christians)who would have the audacity to leave Judism, family, and such, and join up with the so called christ or king. That's a lot of pressure, as it would be for anyone of any religion leaving their culture/family for another religion. At the base level, christianity is about the transformation of self--from being totally self surving to become a servant to all, regardlass of who they are or believe. That was the message that transformed the known world and bought down the roman empire; to the extent that the ceasar put on a robe and declared himself peter jr. It is the same unchanging message of Acts 2:38. Christianity is a message of peace in a paradox, that through apparent weakness (the cross death) come strength (spirit of God in ones life). Now tell me, who in this world wants to be or appear weak? Is that not against out nature? Is not our nature to hate, steal, lie, cheat, get over, be number one, egocentric, vainity, and every other thing that our very own conscience speaks to us about. If this is true how much time do i/we have to to entangle oneself in arguments about whether or not paganism is a religion, or that christianty is the cause of all the worlds ills. Pagans, christians (by name only), muslims, cults, pedophiles, what and whoever, are allowed by God to live their life however they want. just don't use God or christians as scapgoats when everybody is individually responsible for their actions. Go ahead, be a god, make your own way. Some of you think I'm going to pull the "Hell" card out, but I'm not. If such a place or like place exist I am sure that every self centered, smarter than God, lover of self, who does not truly evaluate their true thoughts or actions, will be there, regardless of religion.
Jacob, Thanks for coming here! I did need your help!
WHAT?,
would you care to answer my post above. You are NOT the norm, far from it. YOU, dear Sir or Maam, have no clue! You are nothing but a follower (sheep)! You have no original thought of your own!
(God) "IT" as IT is properly called is many things to many people. You think you will go to heaven in the hereafter? HAH! My grandmother, Strong German Woman she was, always told me that if there is a heaven or hell she'd come back and tell me! Guess what, she didn't! Wonder why? If anyone could have acomplished it she would be the one!
My PAGAN FRIENDS, keep fighting, never, ever let the nincompoops of this world put you down! They are the ECLATi-OFFs and they will die because there is not light (PHOTONS) in them!
AHHH, and last but not least WitchQuestion:
You are nothing but a WHAT? or a FRANK. So sad for you. Life IS a highway and YOU are NOT going my way! Thank the might ECLAT and the GODESS for that!
Wow, the conversation was really hopping today while I was at work.
First, to go back a bit, I would like to thank all of you who commented on the issue I raised about my friend who will shortly be serving in Iraq. It is always good to hear other perspectives, and I believe I will try to find out what sort of talisman I could give him that he would actually be able to carry, since I know the military has regulations about such things.
Second, I had read the posts in witchvox about responding to critisism of Paganism, and I feel that in public forums such as this, every attack does need to be answered, as otherwise the numbers of people who read but don't post (until quite recently this included me) will think we don't have answers to the issues raised. On the other hand, it might be possible to come to some agreement amoung ourselves to perhaps limit our responses to some of the more trollish posters like What?, so that they don't totally control the converstation by constantly repeating the same inane and irrelevant critisisms just to have us all post answers to them.
Speaking of which...
What?:
You again miss the point of Paganism. We do not believe in a creator that exists outside of reality, so we don't praise reality instead of its creator, but as something that was given birth by the universe itself. I actually don't use the term "creation" with reference to reality, since that is not an accurate reflection of my view of reality. And speaking as a Pagan, I don't know of many Pagans who think they have the answers, at least in regard to religious faith, for anyone other than outselves. We all have to live in the world that we experience, and in the world that I have experienced, Paganism is the belief system that comes closest to explaining everything that has happened to me.
What makes you think we haven't cured cancers, changed the weather, and are lessoning the effects of global warming? We are the hundredth monkey, my friend. (For those Pagans in the group--are you familiar with the chant that starts "we come from the sky-eye, flying in the sky-eye"? I think it might be called "Turn the World Around" and was actually featured on the Muppet Show way back in the 70's. Morning Glory Zell added a verse about being the hundredth monkey, and ever since it has been one of my favorite chants).
>>Paganplace:
I think, Lepi, that they really don't understand that spirituality does *not* have to be about acheiving control or numbers. Let's not be goaded. Certainly not asked in fair ways, but it's a fair enough question, 'what the heck is this magic all about.'
I just don't think they care to understand the answers.
Oh, and you pagan, godless wonders have the answers for us.
You have theory, my friend. Erroneous at that.
..goddesses, witches, worshiping the creation..
I guess if a friend of yours invented something good for your daily use, you would worship and praise the creation, not the creator.
Like talking to people who live in a Grimms Fairy Tale book.
witch
7 entries found for witch.
To select an entry, click on it.
witch[1,noun]witch[2,verb]water witchwitch doctorwitch hazelwitch huntwitch of Agnesi
Main Entry: 1witch
Pronunciation: 'wich
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English wicche, from Old English wicca, masculine, wizard & wicce, feminine, witch; akin to Middle High German wicken to bewitch, Old English wigle divination, and perhaps to Old High German wIh holy -- more at VICTIM
1 : one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially : a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : SORCERESS -- compare WARLOCK
2 : an ugly old woman : HAG
3 : a charming or alluring girl or woman
4 : a practitioner of Wicca
5 : WITCH OF AGNESI
So, which witch are all of you witches?
Its so confusing.
According to Merriam Webster..there are at least 6 of you.
Are you the Samantha-type, Endora-type or the Wicked one of the West-type?? Alluring or hag?
Kind of makes me proud to be Pagan, sometimes, when I see the people. :)
Don't let it get to you, Gaby. The world teaches itself, in some ways faster than others. These guys, they're just more than a little afraid. Maybe they'll figure out what of, eventually: and they've got people in their own religion who might help out.
And, hi, Jacob. :) One of our more courteous visitors. Welcome back. :)
Wherefore: Round And Round WE go and were love stops nobody knows. Just follow your Own “i” and never somebody else's “i” [Never Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Krishna, Buddha et al]
ECLAT + “i” = O..U.R.S. YA! Say “Hello World's” and never Goodbye. Just Let IT be.!
“Together forever in ONE BIG HOLY COSMIC HEART BEAT here on “Space-Ship” Momma Poppa Earth “
Jacob Jozevz (Ordained REVELATION Minister in “Cruxology”). Sic Passim. Passim et seq.
“ Ignorance is not the Problem in This World. It's the things that People Know that are not so”
Will Rogers. And;
“”It is One Thing To show a Humate that they are in error, and Another, to Put Them in the Possession of TRUTH”
John Locke And;
“Things Should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler,” and “ Common Sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18”
Albert Einstein {our great Prophet of “Relativity” & “Quantum Entanglement” pbuh} And;
“IT is Fatal, as it is Cowardly, to blink Facts because they are not to OUR Taste”
Tyndall And;
“The Most Erroneous “Story's” [Biblicals] are those WE know best – And therefore never scrutinized or Question”
S.J. Gould.
“Many errors of Truth, consist merely in the Application of the Wrong Names of Things”
Spinoza Baruch.
“I can Live with Doubt and Uncertainty & not Knowing, I think it is much more interesting to live, not knowing than to Have Answers that might be Wrong.
Richard Feynman, { Father Of Atomic Bomb & Founder of ECLAT's (G-d's) Number in Nature, e2.71828. Hence WE decay but Never Die! And;
Therefore: "Whatever Will Be Will Be, a Kay Serra Serra sera, Whatever will be will be..."
A reality cycles, starting at the E N D of some Begging, And then evolves and Involute s into another Begging with End. For Humates "A Bad Begging Usually has a Bad End, Vis a Vis.
So, Keep your Precious "Heuristics" in close resemblance to your overalls intelligence that WE do not Take when WE go POOF-TIME! Only Loved Ones, if any & Heuristic in the Due-To=Be Machine!
“ Better to take a chance believing then not believing. Either-Way, IF there is a GOD [Supernatural Deity etc.] then you WIN if you did not, wll what do you have to loose?”
- Jacob Jozevz via Pascal's “Wager”. Thee END?, NEVER!.
I rise,
I soar,
I bend,
I sing,
I fly on wings of destiny.
I shape
I braid,
I tie the knots,
I am the teller of things to come.
Winds that whisper in the trees,
Storms that pass away unseen
I the Witch will gather from you
The elements that will create and renew.
I will walk upon this Earth
Again the lines of death and rebirth.
Fires that burned you sent to me
I was ash in a muddy stream.
Fire and water now tell what I should know...
For I will reap what you have sown.
You know, Frank, there are certain people on these blogs that are intolerant ignoramuses.
At least, I try to be inclusive and non-judgmental when it comes to other faiths. You, Frank, etal., are extremists of the worst kind. You think you have the answer because a bunch of old papyrus tells you so. Also, let me tell you, if you want to talk about being the norm,out of a world population of 6.6 billion, only 2.1 billion are bible based (meaning catholics, protestants, mormons, jehovah witnesses, amish, etc. etc. etc.) That is only 32%, the other 68% believe in something else.
There are many of us who differ with your believes. And that is our right, unless of course, you do not believe in the Constitution of the United States.
You belittle everyone elses religion, yet try to shove yours down everyone's throat. If you are not willing to engage in dialogue, then maybe you should "go have your hissy-fits on blogs that are just for yourselves."
You're right. Faith is not a numbers game, and that was, at least in part, the point I was tryng to make. I guess I didn't make it very clearly.
Perhaps I should have phrased it as a hypothetical question:
If I were the only person on the planet who believed as I do, would that make my belief wrong?
I think, Lepi, that they really don't understand that spirituality does *not* have to be about acheiving control or numbers. Let's not be goaded. Certainly not asked in fair ways, but it's a fair enough question, 'what the heck is this magic all about.'
I just don't think they care to understand the answers.
I haver personally witnessed not only endurance and inner strength, but also strength from belief in an idea that all of us are interconnected to everyone and everything. An ability to see life as joyous and sacred in everything we are and do.
Who said anything about us being made in the image of anyone or anything? Certainly wasn't the pagans.
So what is your point?
How about asking questions, rather than attacking for once? you might be surprised.
Since when does one have to be a member of a majority to be valid?
Bear in mind that Christians were once a very small cult.
And if you want to talk about sheer global numbers, I believe that Islam would top the list.
And what exactly is the "norm" for religious beliefs?
Frankly, 'What,' I think you're in no real position to be mocking people when you're insisting on some pretty wild stuff, yourself, and apparently accusing people of 'black magic.' :)
Yes, and Ive seen yours and others who think they are the center of the universe drible here also.
Get over it...pagans and atheists will never be the norm, the majority, however you want to spell it. So go have your hissy-fits on blogs that are just for yourselves.
All Comments (121)
Wow, I may have missed a post or two, but it seems as if all posts from the entity know as "Frank" have dissapeared from this thread. Is that a good thing? It does take the context out of several of our posts, and in future will give us fewer opportunities to attempt to wax eloquent. On the other hand, there are/will be a lot fewer repeatitive hate attacks. What do others think about this censoring/cleaning up of a mature thread?
August 12, 2007 11:38 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on August 12, 2007 11:38
It's a great achievement for Islamic leaders and scholars as well as Newsweek and the Washington post to present this imperative opportunity for inter cultural and global philosophical dialogue. What's important is that by exchanging our ideas and comments regarding inter religious relations and world events that affect our views of each other as fellow human beings. Since the advent of humanity, We strove to make sense of the world we live in and the lives we've experienced. Worldwide curiosities to learn the true nature of life and our universe is an exceptionally rare virtue upon life on Earth. In other words, we're the only known species on the planet who've pursued to unravel these great mysteries and developed written philosophies based upon our understanding of the world around us.
One such philosophy that lasted throughout the ages of humanity is commonly known as religion and spirituality. Ever since our early belief in the Sky God and the God Mother from ancient Pagan times, we vigorously pursued to unravel the truth about our most profound questions. As any educated person would know that religion and their core beliefs or faith have evolved over time. Paganism, Monotheism and Polytheism have been influenced by humanity as these great philosophies have influenced our perceptions and decisions in life over the ages. Over time humanity has embraced diverse religious faiths and spiritual convictions that continue to influence our behavior in our times and most likely beyond.
What's vital for humanity's progress and even survival is to know the true nature of faith itself. To understand the true origins of faith. But most of all, is to accept the truth for whatever it may be. Each one of us will learn the absolute truth once we die. But until that time comes for anyone of us to depart this world, we really don't know the answer to God's existence nor do we have the absolute truth in regards to the true nature of God. Besides if we did possess the truth, there would've been only one religion on Earth with no diversification of any way, shape of form. There would only be one holy scripture written throughout human history.
Considering one's religious faith to be absolute, while considering others to be false would be ethnocentric at best. While collectively searching to unravel the mysteries on nature, life and the universe through sincere reasoning and serious research would be enlightening at its worst. Most importantly, we must accept the fact is that none of us have conclusive evidence to confirm our core beliefs and there's always an immanent change that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong. Our greatest challenge would be to tolerate the truth no matter what it may ultimately be. With such an open mind, we would be able to overcome any future discovery that would contradict our faith regarding the true nature of life, spirituality and divinity.
Humanity does have the ability to achieve such a social achievement. However, it's solely up to humanity and not any other entity or groups of entities to decide our destinies. Each one of us has a choice to make; either hopelessly engaging into meaningless inter cultural conflicts or combine our scientific and cultural gifts to thrive into an enlightened global civilization that could ultimately expand beyond our solar system. The choice is yours, and the time to make it is now!
August 5, 2007 1:04 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on August 5, 2007 01:04
Mary:
Maybe you need to look at some of the positives of this war, instead of all of the negatives.
Sometimes to preserve the freedom and rights of people war is a necessary evil.
Mary, you have GOT to be kidding.
The only thing that war preserves is corporate interests.
We in this country have only the illusion of freedom
June 14, 2007 9:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 14, 2007 09:55
Barena,
That was absolutely beautiful. If I can teach my future children to live and love in such a way.. well the possibilities are really endless. What an amazing world we could create!
I suspect you're absolutely right. What is needed is balance. no matter what religion you follow.
Let's hope the work is underway. The Lady has already called me. I answered. I'm raring to go..
*rolls up sleeves*... what should we tackle first? So much to be done.. so little time.
Bright Blessings! :)
June 11, 2007 9:46 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 11, 2007 21:46
Starhawk, thank you for your wise, womanish voice.
June 10, 2007 9:59 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 10, 2007 09:59
Starhawk, thank you for your wise, womanish voice.
June 10, 2007 9:58 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 10, 2007 09:58
Wow. I've been reading all these posts and am totally ovrwhelmed by all the negativity going on here. Having been a pagan for over thirty years, raising children of all colors and religions in my home, loving them all, trying to develope "perfect love and perfect trust" between them despite their different faiths has taught me the greatest lesson of all. That there is no faith that soars above another, but there is always a place of balance and peace in the spiritual realm that receives evryone who trys to seek that place out in their hearts and souls. In that place, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist....we are all together. Love is the path to that place, it's the most difficult of all roads, it reqiures the deepest understanding of the good and evil within each one of us...as well as the cultures we come from. Will it cure the evils of this world? Maybe not. But it can cure the evils of the worlds we individually impact...and ripple out from there. Such a small bit of practical magick....love and personal sacrifice... so much power in such a small word. Where are the dissenters that revile such a power? Begin at home...teach it to your children and your children's children. Feed them on it, Bathe them in it. Speak the words to them. Fire their passions with it. Heal with it.
War...it is man's creation. It is temporal. The battle for live and livlihood isn't fought in this realm. All pagans should know this...all Christians too. Want to try to stopthis insanity?Then teach your children so they can help heal a world that trembles in fear. Or better yet...create a one that holds new and universal values. Impossible??? Nothing is impossible if you believe. I believe. My kids believe... of course, we also believe in faeries. How silly of us. How marvelous the innocence that believes in the unseen realms. How powerful the faith of love..in any religion.
June 10, 2007 4:36 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 10, 2007 04:36
Sorry bout the length of the ranting last night.
I'm just continually-amazed how some Christians treat us, then try to make all these abstract connections between us and 'evil' in order to justify it.
We should be singing *healing* songs here, for the world and our civilization, not trying to count casualties to justify more casualties.
Abuse of the human spirit, it seems, has just been going on so long that it's become impossible for some to distinguish... and if that isn't an argument for diversity, I don't know what is.
Too much in these 'One True Religions Of Love' just comes out *backwards* for us to buy thinking in that "We're the good guys, you're 'evil'" way.
Certainly, I'd say we're not about to believe a book or a religious affiliation offers any kind of protection from wrongdoing, never mind that *not* believing in it makes us 'immoral, selfish, somehow like Stalin,' or any of the other threats and accusations we hear.
Vilifying innocent people certainly doesn't make your case.
We *do* perceive an interconnection, between you, us, A living Earth, ...and spirit, so beautifully-described in what Terra quoted. It takes some pretty-convoluted chains of unreasoning to insist that somehow *we're bad people* for that ...for disobeying a book that defends its accusations of 'evil' as 'love' by apparently saying it arguably didn't kill more people than Stalin.
And that just doesn't make any sense to me.
June 6, 2007 2:31 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 14:31
John,
Since you like numbers, this is from the Encarta Encyclopedia:
Although the human cost of the war was tremendous, casualty figures cannot always be obtained and often vary widely. Most experts estimate the military and civilian losses of Allied forces at 44 million and those of the Axis at 11 million. The total number of civilian losses includes the 5.6 million to 5.9 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. Of all the nations that participated in World War II, the human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the official total, military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The United States, which had no significant civilian losses, sustained more than 400,000 deaths.
June 6, 2007 9:45 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 09:45
Not sure exactly what he's getting at with those numbers. Sounds like another trap to me.
June 6, 2007 8:32 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 08:32
Just a random, and totally fruity idea from the world of the totally-frivolous, yet utterly threatening and blasphemous 'gnomes and gnomettes' ...
How bout you dudes with the guns stop worrying about what's 'greater and lesser evil' and like, ....wake up and not do 'evil' or something?"
Not to interrupt your "Serious theological debate or nothing."
Feh.
June 6, 2007 1:12 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 01:12
How many would you like, John?
Or Roger?
June 6, 2007 1:00 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 01:00
Roger Smith,
Where did you get those figures? They're surely exagerated. The figure I recall for loss of life in Hiroshima was 100,000. Nagasaki can't have been much more.
And WWII: 40 million? Those can't be combat deaths. You must be including deaths from oppression, such as the Nazi death camps, which can hardly be credited to the war.
June 6, 2007 12:50 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 00:50
Anyway, Antaeus, I hope you'll forgive the rambling. I just think that sometimes we are tempted to be too-defined by outsiders. You have a good name, here, (better, I think, than the largely-random one I chose here) ....Actually, I really saw it when watching some cheesy movie, ...bing.
I met another of our veterans, tonight. Still, like so many, working to protect our country while being called a traitor in his own hometown.
That he still cares about, despite some people mistreating his kids in the name of 'Christianity.'
Thought of your screen name, actually.
A certain amount of, "Oh, Goddess, this is another reminder we're *in it now, aren't we,*"
"Man gets tired
Spirit don't.
Man surrenders
Spirit won't.
Man crawls
Spirit flies
Spirit lives when man dies
Man seems
Spirit is
Man dreams
Spirit lives
Man is tethered
Spirit free
What spirit is, man can be."
--where I got this screen name. :)
Keep your feet, brother. Namaste. :)
June 6, 2007 12:43 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 00:43
Antaeus: "Hmm, I fear I am going to show the diversity within the Pagan community here. You see, I am rather firmly of the belief that I am God, as is everyone else, and everything else, for that matter. In the rituals I participate in it is fairly common for us to salute one another with "thou art God" "thou art Goddess" or more elaborately, "the God and Goddess in me salutes the God and Goddess in you". This is what I believe is meant in the Charge of the Goddess when it says "And if that which ye seek to find you find not within youself you will never find it without".
Don't get me wrong, Antaeus, ..totally 'Namaste.' Thou art thee God.
This is not what this means to certain Christians who are taught that humans are shameful beings externally-created for the express purpose of being inferior to and conditionally-saved by "The Only (but still homicidally-jealous) God."
Trying to shift theological languages around, here. Sorry if I offended, ...actually, I think it's one place where I think we can help Christians with their thing about 'We must all be Jesus, who is humble, yet the all-powerful lawgiver and only (but very jealous) God...
They've actually got an idea where you can 'be God' while being 'humble,' but it has a way of coming out backwards and somehow involving bad things.
Swear to the Gods, people screaming, in a rictus of rage, 'I'm more humble than you, infidel!' while taking a swing or alluding to various weaponry *does* lead one to wonder if the Morrigan really wants you to be Buddhist or if you've just watched too many kung fu movies. :)
That's all. :)
June 6, 2007 12:08 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 6, 2007 00:08
But, anyway, Antaeus, I wouldn't try too hard to affiliate *us* with the Roman Empire. Most of the tolerance and pluralism really had much to do with remnants of the Republic feeling a bit more secure... while the Empire found that while God-Kings have a way of ending up in serious peccadilloes, King-Gods to displace the imperialism onto give you... well, stuff that still hasn't gone away.
It's been overstressed by Christians trying to turn Rome into a morality play to obscure the fact that there's more of the Roman Empire to Pauline Christianity than there ever was of 'Paganism,' but...
In 'Pagan Rome,' we'd *still* be the 'pagani.' Check out the Kybeline prophecy and some of the other stuff that went down: while this may not have been what the average Gods-loving 'Pagan' thought, certainly, in a way, Rome became its own religion of 'control.'
What Christianity became is really an expression of the same sort of problem.
What's usually not mentioned about Constantine is a) the famous battle in which he says Jesus promised him victory, was actually a highly illegal insurrection in which he didn't want to be a mere triumvir, and he needed leverage which only the unwieldy *slave caste* (among which the Christian promises were popular) could provide, and b) He actually worshiped Apollo until his deathbed, (while outlawing Paganism for others) at which point he then is said to have 'converted.'
Our Paganism is not the manipulative, praxis-and-control-oriented thing the Roman *state* became, and in fact, *subsumed and redefined* Christianity to do *better* at its convenience, to much later and ongoing horror...
Our Paganism is the birthright of all peoples.
Apollo is said to speak no untruth. Maybe what's happening now is part of making a great wrong right. Maybe the story isn't what we think it is. , either. But one thing's clear: We must live honestly, or we will find corruption comes.
This is possibly all we can do.
And anyone who told you different,
Is thinking Imperial. And may not even know it.
It's one of the ironies of history that Christianity *became* the Empire.
And the Empire gleefully became Christianity, ...sure, sweep away all the inconvenient 'fallibility' of the diversity of human conceptions of the Gods... all the cultural depth which made Cicero such a pain in the arse. :)
Now that we Pagans are supposedly the 'barbarians'
again, we should remember one lesson:
Never let Rome pick the battlefield.
No, 'Pagan Rome' wasn't the moustache-twisting cartoon villain that some Christians want to make of our heritage, there, (this idea is actually a largely-Victorian construction extrapolated from portrayals of Nero intended to apparently get people strapped into chastity-torture devices) but neither was it necessarily some Pagan paradise.
We may never *really* know, because as we can see here, people who think they're 'righteous' may feel above the truth, if they can even see it.
Some will say that 'changes in religion made Rome fall' ...I think it's more likely that maybe religious complacency changes *when* empires are falling.
Certainly, it's silly to say 'Rome fell for lack of being Christian,' when it *did fall* largely cause Constantine screwed the pooch to take power that wasn't his... and the Christian emperors after him... well, blew the whole deal, for what that was worth.
We're all (supposed to be, anyway) *modern people, now.*
Sure, I'd like the temples back, but ...more than that, I want my American Republic back.
Pardon the lecture, but, that's an angle to the story we don't think about too much... no simple answers as there are.
Just a random idea, really, but maybe the point isn't that some America that never quite was is 'falling,' ...maybe she's just possibly growing into what our common dream says she could be.
And what's 'falling' is just old castles of illusion.
We are not these castles, these buildings, even these words.
Maybe the point isn't 'resurrecting to eternal glory and vindication' like the Christian Jesus: maybe it's, we get cut down like John Barleycorn, and we *get up again.*
And life goes on.
How well is and always has been up to us.
*You can't see no priest to learn of the dead,
But I'll show you beer in a handful of yeast.*
You see, Christians, somewhere along the line you got this idea that *people are really irrevocably 'created to be awful and in need of being controlled.* (Unless of course it suits power to say, 'You're in the 'Image of God, don't question my sexual hangups or scientific illiteracy which have nothing to do with that anyway.')
Actually, we're primates with pack instincts that involve both dominance and submission that you confuse with 'Divine Will' because some folks who pay too much attention to war and breeding control want you to believe that's all there is to life and have discovered that you can be terrorized into compliance and codependence and feel it's a 'religious experience' (as long as it fits certain parameters: if it doesn't, it's obviously a deception of 'Satan,' or 'selfishness, etc, etc, and on and on it goes. )
Just... Breathe.
OK? Chill out a second, and 'look' at me. Look at the next person you see.
Are they really 'inherently evil' and by some cruel property of the universe damned to Hell cause lots of Christians are, frankly, a****les and you'd have to be a total idiot to believe you, even if your source material weren't totally sadistic and self-contradictory?
No.
And you aren't, either.
You are not damned, you are not evil, and I swear to the *Gods* you don't have to be afraid of me and my people in the way this idea leads you to believe.
If your God wants to subject me to particularly sadistic disembowelment for saying so, well, add a little more blasphemy to the supposed sentence. Not my first time around this particular wheel, as it happens, and, well.
What good is it to say that.
Maybe it does some good to say *this* though:
*Don't.*
*Be*
*Afraid.*
'Look' at me. Look at a human being. Look at anything, ...honor your Jesus, as I happen to, because of a few who were kind to me who may have thought better of him than as a source of shame and threat and degradation and war and desperate clutching for control over a humanity that you taught was *so awful* that we must be the 'image' of a very irrational view of 'God.'
Frankly, Christians, *your* god is bigger than this, too.
"Humbly," prithee:
Stop acting like he's a poop-throwing alpha male monkey who's going to flip out and mind control otherwise-evil-anyway-'Islamic' terrorists cause he happens to decide all of a sudden that homophobia is a big deal and good idea?
Let my people 'go.'
Better yet, wake up and prioritize.
Won't you be my neighbor?
June 5, 2007 11:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:54
Morning Glory Zell attended several of the Heartland Pagan Festivals in the late 80's and early 90's. She was a living resourse for Pagan chants of every description and purpose. I just wish she had recorded some of them.
June 5, 2007 11:45 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:45
I like your verse better...lol.
I love chants...I took a class with selena fox a couple years ago...it was amazing, I felt like we were going to blow the roof off with just the power we raised with the chant.
terra
June 5, 2007 11:35 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:35
My favorite...next to Pagan Musing.
The Enchanted Loom
(words & music by Jesse Wolf Hardin with Loba)
"It’s said there are invisible threads of energy binding all the shamans of the world to one another.... and something connects each of us as well: the empathics and sensitives who dwell on the edge, who hear the calling, and keep the pledge. Practitioners of authenticity and wholeness, reinhabiting sacred self and sacred land. Seekers of significance and purpose, the last to give up the ancient ways, and the first to explore the new. Those its said may cry too hard, or laugh too loud.... that dare to care, so much! Each an integral component, of a lineage of place holders: unbridled children and wizened elders, willful wilders, wiccans and wizards on whose souls rest the responsibility to invoke a new/old Earth, an Earth once again green and growing, dynamic and diverse, feral and free. Our shared ministry is this most insistent calling. And our liturgy.... is our love. Conservationists, restorationists and healers. Teachers, activists and defenders. Artists, ritualists and celebrants– all rare conduits of clarity in an age of blinding noise and neon. We’re the reinhabitants of Ectopia and Katuah, the verdant Northeast and the mountains and deserts of the mystical Southwest, of watersheds and wildernesses, sacred groves and organic farms. In tryst with rivers and forests, promised to a particular valley, or courting all the Earth in a gypsy’s search for home. We’re returning to an older way of being as well, to the great mystery– humbled by our place in the awesome harmonic Whole. We’re determined to dance out our individual dances, never losing step with that greater choreography of which we are a part. Like the fabled Alice, we each pursue furtive magic through the openings in the roots of trees and the imaginations of children. Getting down on our hands and knees, we make our way back to that Gaian Wonderland we can never really leave.
I’m excited! The energy is incredible. The transition, no matter how bright, demands that we look! Unwavering vision. Unwavering intent. I’m excited! Because I sense more acutely than ever our connection to one another, and to those spirits and life forms we call “other.” It’s not really a thread that connects us after all, you know– but strands of a miraculous web. We can feel each other from great distances, through its delicate vibrations. We have only to reach out now, along these fibers, over roaring rivers, underneath a canopy of trees, in order to touch the source.... through the warp and weft of interconnected consciousness. Though we may live and work in different places, we are but one tribe, with a single unified cause. Champions of sentience and sacrament, bodily extensions and voluntary agents of holy Will.
The whispering river and the rustling of the leaves are this inspirited Whole, trying to get our attention. Gaia, The Earth, is speaking to us through the voices of all creation. Yes, I’m excited! I stand as if barefoot, out of breath, staring wide-eyed at the wonder of the magic exploding before us. I’m thrilled to witness this re-becoming, this song... as we’re each reintegrated into the living, breathing flux, each made to feel we belong. I’m thrilled, because as loving and responsive care-takers, we’re fulfilling our true evolutionary role, redeeming our species as well as our selves.
No, we humans are not the brain of Gaia, the divine director– the anointed weaver that sets design rules for the patterns in rock, the flow of fire, the perfect twists in peach-colored sea shell. But we are the voluntary magic that fills the enchanted loom, reaching out in our efforts to restore the planet. Reaching out for each other. Reaching down deep again with our splayed toes, our anxious probing roots.... embracing the innermost heart of the Mother Earth, and thereby reaching out, out– until the sun encircled.
June 5, 2007 11:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:32
Terra:
The final verse I have is a little different:
I am but a monkey
You are but a monkey
We are all but monkeys,
Turn the world around.
We are all but monkeys,
Be the hundredth monkey,
Turn the world around.
June 5, 2007 11:27 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:27
Antaeus,
We come from the mountain, living in the mountain,
VERSES: Go back to the mountain, turn the world around!
We come from the mountain;
Go back to the mountain, turn the world around!
(Also: spirit, ocean, prairie, forest, river, water, etc.)
I'm the hundreth monkey, we're a hundred monkeys,
Be the hundreth monkey, turn the world around!
Be the hundreth monkey,
Be the hundreth monkey, turn the world around!
turn the world around!
We come from the fire, Go back to the fire,
turn the world around.
-------------
I have a picture of Lancelot...lol, the only living Unicorn, that Tim Zell created. His story The Other People is one of my Pagan favorites.
IO Evohe,
terra
June 5, 2007 11:09 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:09
Look at the numbers and tell me who is greater evil throught out humanity and recorded history.
1st WW : 10 million death
2nd WW : 40 millino death
Hiroshima/Nagashaki Japan Nuke : 3 million death
Iraq : 700,000 death
Afghanistan : 350,000 death
Iraq before war embargo : 500,000 death
Bosnia : 120,000 death
those are few examples of recent one that we know some are still not over.
Crusades : 2 million ++ death
Spanish Inquisition : 1.5 million ++ death
one thing is common among above those all are done by Christian leaders and those followers of the religion call LOVE your enemy.
Now war/battle by Muslim army according to documented non islamic historians:
Take control twice of Jerusalem by Omar/Saladin : less than 100 killed because the Christian army fled of the battle so the muslim army just walked in without blood.
Muslim invasion of ancient persia: less than 150 killed. Still Jews live in Iran largest in the middle east after Israel.
Muslim invasion of Rome : less than 50 in the battle and they surrendered and paid ransom not much blood was lost.
Muslim invasion of Spain / Granada : less that 500 same the Spanish army fled the war against the invading large muslim army. No force conversion and Jews lived there more in number than Jerusalem that time not a single convertion was documented. Chief of Ottoman army was a Jewish man fighting with the Muslim soldiers. It was politics of nationality not religion, today Jews still live in Turkey in large numbers.
Muslims in India : no recorded war but trade of muslim merchants and they ruled over 1200 years and still today Hindus are majority almost 90 percent no force conversion to Islam
Recent history: Sept 11, 3000 death blamed to Muslim fanatics.
Filipine : total killed by terrorism less than 100 in last 10 years against Govt. policy of oppression.
Thailand : less than 50 by bombs and others including army planned incidents.
Palestine : Hamas and other fanatics killed less than 5000 in 60 years of fighting with the state of Israel in return Israel killed over 60,000 +++ 3 million homeless.
This is it.
Add up the numbers you will learn the truth. Know the truth and truth will set you free (The Bible -John) who is greater evil?
Peace and just stop blaming Muslims, learn history and you will see the light why the living evil man Bush has said Islam is peace because this is the truth and the number tells it all. We know 700K killed in Iraq but the media will not say it because they are Muslims but if one die in Israel by a Muslim Palestinian the whole world will cry wolf. Who is the evil?
June 5, 2007 11:08 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 23:08
Antaeus:
"Song of Myself" is my favorite Whitman poem too.
June 5, 2007 10:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 22:54
Paganplace:
Hmm, I fear I am going to show the diversity within the Pagan community here. You see, I am rather firmly of the belief that I am God, as is everyone else, and everything else, for that matter. In the rituals I participate in it is fairly common for us to salute one another with "thou art God" "thou art Goddess" or more elaborately, "the God and Goddess in me salutes the God and Goddess in you". This is what I believe is meant in the Charge of the Goddess when it says "And if that which ye seek to find you find not within youself you will never find it without".
But rather than quote more Pagan scripture, I will instead quote my favorit American Poet. (Actually, I should also disclose he's my favorite writer in the English language period).
"I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks
to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick
of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it
may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub
for the wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed
before a million universes.
"And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God
and about death.)
"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God
not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself."
That was an exerpt from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. And in another place in the same poem:
"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth;
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own;
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers;
And that a kelson of the creation is love; "
I love Walt Whitman.
Anyway, in as much as God exists, I am a part of that, as is every planet and star, every flower and ant, every poem and song, every place of worship and everyone who worships. I'm afraid I don't recognize any God to which I am not connected. I think this is part of the difference in the hard and soft polytheisms within Paganism, and between those with a strong Pantheistic element and those with whom it is weaker or not present at all. Oddly enough, I am usually disagreeing more with the soft polytheists, since even though I see the gods as part of the physical universe, I also see them as distinct individuals, and the soft polytheists often see diferent gods as aspects of the God and The Goddess rather than as seperate entities in their own right.
Anyway, Paganplace, many blessings to you, and to the acceptance of diversity within the Craft.
June 5, 2007 10:45 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 22:45
Hi, Rock. *Thought* you were being thoughtful there for a minute, but there's still something we can speak to.
No, we don't think we're 'God,' at least any more than we think *you* are.
I see you say this:
"Is not our nature to hate, steal, lie, cheat, get over, be number one, egocentric, vainity, and every other thing that our very own conscience speaks to us about."
No, it's not our nature. Who taught you that, about yourself, about us, about everyone else in the world?
" If this is true how much time do i/we have to to entangle oneself in arguments about whether or not paganism is a religion,"
No, you don't. It is.
Don't lump us in with pedophiles. Trust me, Christianity is not the source of all the world's ills, but to my mind, you have no basis to speak on that.
As for thinking 'God' has something to do with your forms, also, this is something you shouldn't assume is meaningful when you talk to us.
I'm well-aware, though that you were taught the things about us that you've repeated here.
They tried to teach me the same thing.
You have no copyright on goodness, and, no, people aren't as inherently 'evil' as you say.
You want to help serve the world, reduce suffering, and do measurable good, well, great. You'll probably find Pagans there, not announcing themselves or using supposed kindness to coerce or denigrate non-believers.
Perhaps while you 'take the credit' and say these things about us.
No, we don't have big charitable foundations, because we don't in general feel the need to accumulate vast surplus wealth to fill some *hole* in our lives, (I'm always saying, stop screaming that 'sex sells' if you're not willing to stop *repressing sex with one hand and offering material assuagements with the other.* ) ...and then give some away to assuage the guilt, (or the gilt, for that matter.)
But we're ...good people, Rock. Good enough to *take* morality in our own hands, to love life and love people, not out of fear of punishment for our wicked ways, but because there *is* something good, and yes, Godly, to our seeing, in humanity. In Creation, if you like.
We don't need to fight to 'prove' human belief is the *center of the universe* in order to feel suitably 'humble.'
We find your 'humility' unconvincing, and your insinuations that we must think we're 'God' for not obeying *you* *less so.*
Arrogance expressed through passive-aggression is still arrogance.
But you seem to want to be good to people, Rock.
In this we are your friends.
Believe *that.*
June 5, 2007 10:12 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 22:12
Sister(s) Warm heart, Brother(s) et al;
Re: At 8:27PM above passim; Note:
lepidopteryx: On Harry Potter vs. Pre-Apocaltptic Story's, turns our Mr. and or Ms. "WHAT" is Superstupid Stitious like!
They Do Not undersatan that there is NO-SUCH-THING=As Wingy Thingees so to speak.
Like you [Et Al] Know We Never Can Die! So let them talk "Blue in the face" until that "Re-Flash" Eschatological Moment [miracle in IT's own right] which innately takes Place, During each of OURS "Poof-TIME-a-Gonna" takes Place!
Mat Peace Be Upon MOMMA/TATTA & All. Forever Together With ECLAT + "i" SOURCE-ONE.
We Dutchland folkarino'a are Joktan-i-On's Et al, And Never Off in this Philosophy & More!
Praise the Holy No=Mon Eclat-i in mt Me Me's and ALL!
Eternity Avoiding Loneliness Via OURS "HEURISTICAL'S" Accordingto Natural LAW & Zero Man Made LAW!
Where fore: Behold "Unbelievers" of ECLAT-I-ON Holy Cosmic Feelers Faith, ,
Throw Down your "Pre-apocalyptic Weapons of Mass Destruction(s, WMD's) Historicaly until NOW [Dispensation] which is your Genuine Prophecy [With Many signs that you deliberately Ignored & Mockeried] for ECLAT + "i" is gonna Get You!
Never Flout the "Eclat-i" that "SISTER Warm Heart propheticaly convied to youi for your own "Heuristiacal" Good, never Bad as is OURS nature, Together, forever With OUR Holy of Holy's Eclat.
May Eclati-Off's revert as Eclat-i-On's the next morning when they get-up, after just reading, seeing & listeing the most beautiful Word of ALL words, ECLAT! Zero MAn or MON made!
So WHAT?! Ya Ya.
P.S., WARNING:
PHOTON(s) is O.U.R.S. and such that, is a WEAPON of LOVE & PEACE & JUSTICE for All & More That is in constant Harmonic Cinvergence with the Known Eclat & Unknown Eclat-i's!
Praise The LORD, nonjealous Holy No-Mon Eclati , a/ka G-d ONE!
Never ever Flout Your Innate eclat + "i", because WE always Loose if WE struggle against Truth in Reality.
Eclat is Your "Religion, Faith, Beliefs & More. And as of now, PAGAN/Wicca adherence is NO-MORE!
Let IT be said, Let IT be Written, Let IT Be Done! Ya Ya What's you call YOU's?!
Eeee Haaaaaa. <?:+)/ Um!
June 5, 2007 9:55 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 21:55
Anomymous Rock wrote:
"Go ahead, be a god, make your own way. Some of you think I'm going to pull the "Hell" card out, but I'm not. If such a place or like place exist I am sure that every self centered, smarter than God, lover of self, who does not truly evaluate their true thoughts or actions, will be there, regardless of religion."
Did you ever really try to understand paganism?
Who are you calling smarter than God, lover of self?
Paganism is a religion that is way, way older than your god (ie. Jesus) will ever be. So are many other religions.
I never ceases to amaze me that you people think you have the right way and everyone else has the wrong way. See my post above about world population and christianity!
June 5, 2007 9:23 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 21:23
Hmmm...I thought Pagan Rome fell because the Emperor Constantine had a vision of the cross in the sky and heard the words "with this sign you will conquer". When he won his next battle, he converted to Chrisianity and then set about converting everyone else in the Empire. (or was that just a myth?) Eventually, the loving Christians slaughtered teachers of all other religions, and of the forms of Christianity they disagreed with, then destroyed all the books and works of art connected to those beliefs they could find, and either destroyed the places of worship as well or converted them to churches. This doesn't sound much like the message of Christians becoming the meek servants of all. Lets face it, if the Roman Christians had remained true to the self-efacing version of Christianity that anonymous above has described, the Roman Empire would have remained multi-cultural and multi-religious, and the ancient Pagan religions would never have been forcibally repressed.
June 5, 2007 8:51 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:51
I made the above comment that's Anonymous.
June 5, 2007 8:41 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:41
To Antaeus:
At the witch's store that my husband and I both teach in she had a sign put up for donations to be sent to Military pagans, so my husband and I collaborated on making bags for stones or cards or whatever they're allowed to have. We sent out quite a few before we were done. Just a thought.
"(For those Pagans in the group--are you familiar with the chant that starts "we come from the sky-eye, flying in the sky-eye"? I think it might be called "Turn the World Around" and was actually featured on the Muppet Show way back in the 70's. Morning Glory Zell added a verse about being the hundredth monkey, and ever since it has been one of my favorite chants)."
I love that chant too. It's one of my favorites, especially since i was raised on the Muppet show.. :)
You raise a really good point. It's one thing to answer honest questions about why we think and feel the way we do about our faith, but it's certainly another to constantly have to reply to such obvious goading, based solely on ignorance. Where do we draw the line? There seems to be no moderator to insist on respect for everyone on here like there seems to be on other threads.
June 5, 2007 8:38 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:38
Why should I as a Christian be any more concerned about what people think of my religion as they are about what i think of theirs. First of all Jesus never advocated violence of any sort. The "enemy" in the home would first be the Jewish person (they were the first christians)who would have the audacity to leave Judism, family, and such, and join up with the so called christ or king. That's a lot of pressure, as it would be for anyone of any religion leaving their culture/family for another religion. At the base level, christianity is about the transformation of self--from being totally self surving to become a servant to all, regardlass of who they are or believe. That was the message that transformed the known world and bought down the roman empire; to the extent that the ceasar put on a robe and declared himself peter jr. It is the same unchanging message of Acts 2:38. Christianity is a message of peace in a paradox, that through apparent weakness (the cross death) come strength (spirit of God in ones life). Now tell me, who in this world wants to be or appear weak? Is that not against out nature? Is not our nature to hate, steal, lie, cheat, get over, be number one, egocentric, vainity, and every other thing that our very own conscience speaks to us about. If this is true how much time do i/we have to to entangle oneself in arguments about whether or not paganism is a religion, or that christianty is the cause of all the worlds ills. Pagans, christians (by name only), muslims, cults, pedophiles, what and whoever, are allowed by God to live their life however they want. just don't use God or christians as scapgoats when everybody is individually responsible for their actions. Go ahead, be a god, make your own way. Some of you think I'm going to pull the "Hell" card out, but I'm not. If such a place or like place exist I am sure that every self centered, smarter than God, lover of self, who does not truly evaluate their true thoughts or actions, will be there, regardless of religion.
June 5, 2007 8:35 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:35
Jacob, Thanks for coming here! I did need your help!
WHAT?,
would you care to answer my post above. You are NOT the norm, far from it. YOU, dear Sir or Maam, have no clue! You are nothing but a follower (sheep)! You have no original thought of your own!
(God) "IT" as IT is properly called is many things to many people. You think you will go to heaven in the hereafter? HAH! My grandmother, Strong German Woman she was, always told me that if there is a heaven or hell she'd come back and tell me! Guess what, she didn't! Wonder why? If anyone could have acomplished it she would be the one!
My PAGAN FRIENDS, keep fighting, never, ever let the nincompoops of this world put you down! They are the ECLATi-OFFs and they will die because there is not light (PHOTONS) in them!
AHHH, and last but not least WitchQuestion:
You are nothing but a WHAT? or a FRANK. So sad for you. Life IS a highway and YOU are NOT going my way! Thank the might ECLAT and the GODESS for that!
Blessed be, my friends!
June 5, 2007 8:27 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:27
What?:
Godless pagan? Now there's an oxymoron if I ever saw one. :P
June 5, 2007 8:19 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 20:19
Wow, the conversation was really hopping today while I was at work.
First, to go back a bit, I would like to thank all of you who commented on the issue I raised about my friend who will shortly be serving in Iraq. It is always good to hear other perspectives, and I believe I will try to find out what sort of talisman I could give him that he would actually be able to carry, since I know the military has regulations about such things.
Second, I had read the posts in witchvox about responding to critisism of Paganism, and I feel that in public forums such as this, every attack does need to be answered, as otherwise the numbers of people who read but don't post (until quite recently this included me) will think we don't have answers to the issues raised. On the other hand, it might be possible to come to some agreement amoung ourselves to perhaps limit our responses to some of the more trollish posters like What?, so that they don't totally control the converstation by constantly repeating the same inane and irrelevant critisisms just to have us all post answers to them.
Speaking of which...
What?:
You again miss the point of Paganism. We do not believe in a creator that exists outside of reality, so we don't praise reality instead of its creator, but as something that was given birth by the universe itself. I actually don't use the term "creation" with reference to reality, since that is not an accurate reflection of my view of reality. And speaking as a Pagan, I don't know of many Pagans who think they have the answers, at least in regard to religious faith, for anyone other than outselves. We all have to live in the world that we experience, and in the world that I have experienced, Paganism is the belief system that comes closest to explaining everything that has happened to me.
What makes you think we haven't cured cancers, changed the weather, and are lessoning the effects of global warming? We are the hundredth monkey, my friend. (For those Pagans in the group--are you familiar with the chant that starts "we come from the sky-eye, flying in the sky-eye"? I think it might be called "Turn the World Around" and was actually featured on the Muppet Show way back in the 70's. Morning Glory Zell added a verse about being the hundredth monkey, and ever since it has been one of my favorite chants).
June 5, 2007 7:28 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 19:28
>>Paganplace:
I think, Lepi, that they really don't understand that spirituality does *not* have to be about acheiving control or numbers. Let's not be goaded. Certainly not asked in fair ways, but it's a fair enough question, 'what the heck is this magic all about.'
I just don't think they care to understand the answers.
Oh, and you pagan, godless wonders have the answers for us.
You have theory, my friend. Erroneous at that.
..goddesses, witches, worshiping the creation..
I guess if a friend of yours invented something good for your daily use, you would worship and praise the creation, not the creator.
Like talking to people who live in a Grimms Fairy Tale book.
Yeah, right.
June 5, 2007 6:58 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 18:58
>>I the Witch will gather from you
From Merriam Webster
witch
7 entries found for witch.
To select an entry, click on it.
witch[1,noun]witch[2,verb]water witchwitch doctorwitch hazelwitch huntwitch of Agnesi
Main Entry: 1witch
Pronunciation: 'wich
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English wicche, from Old English wicca, masculine, wizard & wicce, feminine, witch; akin to Middle High German wicken to bewitch, Old English wigle divination, and perhaps to Old High German wIh holy -- more at VICTIM
1 : one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially : a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : SORCERESS -- compare WARLOCK
2 : an ugly old woman : HAG
3 : a charming or alluring girl or woman
4 : a practitioner of Wicca
5 : WITCH OF AGNESI
So, which witch are all of you witches?
Its so confusing.
According to Merriam Webster..there are at least 6 of you.
Are you the Samantha-type, Endora-type or the Wicked one of the West-type?? Alluring or hag?
Which witch programs does a Wicca witch watch?
June 5, 2007 6:46 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 18:46
Very pretty, Terra. :)
Kind of makes me proud to be Pagan, sometimes, when I see the people. :)
Don't let it get to you, Gaby. The world teaches itself, in some ways faster than others. These guys, they're just more than a little afraid. Maybe they'll figure out what of, eventually: and they've got people in their own religion who might help out.
And, hi, Jacob. :) One of our more courteous visitors. Welcome back. :)
June 5, 2007 6:12 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 18:12
Wherefore: Round And Round WE go and were love stops nobody knows. Just follow your Own “i” and never somebody else's “i” [Never Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Krishna, Buddha et al]
ECLAT + “i” = O..U.R.S. YA! Say “Hello World's” and never Goodbye. Just Let IT be.!
“Together forever in ONE BIG HOLY COSMIC HEART BEAT here on “Space-Ship” Momma Poppa Earth “
Jacob Jozevz (Ordained REVELATION Minister in “Cruxology”). Sic Passim. Passim et seq.
“ Ignorance is not the Problem in This World. It's the things that People Know that are not so”
Will Rogers. And;
“”It is One Thing To show a Humate that they are in error, and Another, to Put Them in the Possession of TRUTH”
John Locke And;
“Things Should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler,” and “ Common Sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18”
Albert Einstein {our great Prophet of “Relativity” & “Quantum Entanglement” pbuh} And;
“IT is Fatal, as it is Cowardly, to blink Facts because they are not to OUR Taste”
Tyndall And;
“The Most Erroneous “Story's” [Biblicals] are those WE know best – And therefore never scrutinized or Question”
S.J. Gould.
“Many errors of Truth, consist merely in the Application of the Wrong Names of Things”
Spinoza Baruch.
“I can Live with Doubt and Uncertainty & not Knowing, I think it is much more interesting to live, not knowing than to Have Answers that might be Wrong.
Richard Feynman, { Father Of Atomic Bomb & Founder of ECLAT's (G-d's) Number in Nature, e2.71828. Hence WE decay but Never Die! And;
Therefore: "Whatever Will Be Will Be, a Kay Serra Serra sera, Whatever will be will be..."
A reality cycles, starting at the E N D of some Begging, And then evolves and Involute s into another Begging with End. For Humates "A Bad Begging Usually has a Bad End, Vis a Vis.
So, Keep your Precious "Heuristics" in close resemblance to your overalls intelligence that WE do not Take when WE go POOF-TIME! Only Loved Ones, if any & Heuristic in the Due-To=Be Machine!
“ Better to take a chance believing then not believing. Either-Way, IF there is a GOD [Supernatural Deity etc.] then you WIN if you did not, wll what do you have to loose?”
- Jacob Jozevz via Pascal's “Wager”. Thee END?, NEVER!.
June 5, 2007 5:37 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 17:37
Frank and What....
No Pagan needs to answer to you.
Ashes
I rise,
I soar,
I bend,
I sing,
I fly on wings of destiny.
I shape
I braid,
I tie the knots,
I am the teller of things to come.
Winds that whisper in the trees,
Storms that pass away unseen
I the Witch will gather from you
The elements that will create and renew.
I will walk upon this Earth
Again the lines of death and rebirth.
Fires that burned you sent to me
I was ash in a muddy stream.
Fire and water now tell what I should know...
For I will reap what you have sown.
terra gazelle
June 5, 2007 4:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 16:54
You know what, What? Faith isn't about keeping score. Or maybe it is, to you. Poor you.
June 5, 2007 4:16 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 16:16
You know, Frank, there are certain people on these blogs that are intolerant ignoramuses.
At least, I try to be inclusive and non-judgmental when it comes to other faiths. You, Frank, etal., are extremists of the worst kind. You think you have the answer because a bunch of old papyrus tells you so. Also, let me tell you, if you want to talk about being the norm,out of a world population of 6.6 billion, only 2.1 billion are bible based (meaning catholics, protestants, mormons, jehovah witnesses, amish, etc. etc. etc.) That is only 32%, the other 68% believe in something else.
There are many of us who differ with your believes. And that is our right, unless of course, you do not believe in the Constitution of the United States.
You belittle everyone elses religion, yet try to shove yours down everyone's throat. If you are not willing to engage in dialogue, then maybe you should "go have your hissy-fits on blogs that are just for yourselves."
June 5, 2007 4:02 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 16:02
Pagan:
You're right. Faith is not a numbers game, and that was, at least in part, the point I was tryng to make. I guess I didn't make it very clearly.
Perhaps I should have phrased it as a hypothetical question:
If I were the only person on the planet who believed as I do, would that make my belief wrong?
June 5, 2007 4:01 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 16:01
I think, Lepi, that they really don't understand that spirituality does *not* have to be about acheiving control or numbers. Let's not be goaded. Certainly not asked in fair ways, but it's a fair enough question, 'what the heck is this magic all about.'
I just don't think they care to understand the answers.
June 5, 2007 3:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:54
To What?:
I haver personally witnessed not only endurance and inner strength, but also strength from belief in an idea that all of us are interconnected to everyone and everything. An ability to see life as joyous and sacred in everything we are and do.
Who said anything about us being made in the image of anyone or anything? Certainly wasn't the pagans.
So what is your point?
How about asking questions, rather than attacking for once? you might be surprised.
June 5, 2007 3:51 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:51
Paganplace,
'Or is it'....question form..is not accusation..it is a Q-U-E-S-T-I-O-N. The burden is on the recipient of the question to qualify.
Get a degree, my friend. It is your cynicism that prompts a remark such as yours.
June 5, 2007 3:51 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:51
What?:
Since when does one have to be a member of a majority to be valid?
Bear in mind that Christians were once a very small cult.
And if you want to talk about sheer global numbers, I believe that Islam would top the list.
And what exactly is the "norm" for religious beliefs?
June 5, 2007 3:41 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:41
Frankly, 'What,' I think you're in no real position to be mocking people when you're insisting on some pretty wild stuff, yourself, and apparently accusing people of 'black magic.' :)
June 5, 2007 3:38 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:38
Gaby,
Yes, and Ive seen yours and others who think they are the center of the universe drible here also.
Get over it...pagans and atheists will never be the norm, the majority, however you want to spell it. So go have your hissy-fits on blogs that are just for yourselves.
June 5, 2007 3:37 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on June 5, 2007 15:37