Recognition of Paganism

[angel_kohaku]

the article is complete bullshit. It has obviously been written by a pissed off Christian, because Paganism is not devil worship, demon summoning or skyclad rituals. (well, it can be, if you so choose )

Paganism and Wicca are different. Wiccans are pagans. Pagans are not Wiccans. Wicca is a relatively new religion, effectively founded by Gerald Gardener in the 1950s.

Also, paganism and satanism: To clear up any misconception, Satanism is not the worship of Beelzebub/Satan/whatever name you are giving the opposite of a Christian "God". Satanism is the worship of the self. Diabolism is the worship of "Satan".

Also Cain: windowlicker: lol, haven't heard that phrase in ages!

[hr]

I wanna be an anarchist, get pissed, destroy

[exnihilo]

That seems to be playing with words. Satanism is the worship of Satan, the clue's in the title there. That many Satanists do not now worship Satan is neither hither nor yon.

[Mr. Disgruntled]

"The article is complete bullshit?"

I'm sorry. The article is unbiased. Yes, it doesn't heap praise on Wicca. That is, however, because your entire belief system is "complete bullshit." Face the facts: paganism is FALSE. 20th-century. FAKE.

I recall a young lady popping into an SRC several years ago seeking to get affiliation (I think?) or to have the SRC petition the University to let the Pagan Soc into the Mansefield. They were soundly shot down, and rightfully so. We laughed at her then. However, with the support of David Bean, this year the psychotic gimp pagans got their way. They got their space and can now book a building that is normally used by societies that serve a purpose--- Christians, Moslems, LGBT, you name it. They do things to make the world a better place. Pagans? SELF-CENTRED. Hell, "Satanism" is part of "neo-paganism" and that crap is all about pleasing thyself. Which is why it's hardly a religion--- it's simply part of a current phase that means that everyone wants their world tailored to their own particular preferences and specifications. So a bunch of overweight social outcasts went off, started their own religion, et voila. They had their church.

In all honesty, Wicca/Satanism/Diabolism/whatever the hell you call it is nothing but a psychotic hippie religion created so that exceptionally unattractive people could go and get laid. What they practice today has absolutely no grounding in any sound religious tradition--- either that, or you mix the major traditions together and create something utterly comical. You people believe in crap like "Magick," raising the dead in seances or through Ouija boards, having which are far better explained with a psychosomatic explanation (e.g. a dentist tells you you have a cavity, your tooth hurts; a second opinion says, "actually no, you don't," your tooth stops hurting), and you dance around in fields. By and large, you're social outcasts, which is no surprise given that you don't subscribe to a major religion, no religion, or somewhere between.

Instead, you sit around on your fat, unattractive behinds, worshipping forest goddesses and believe in bullshit like four elements and You employ ancient mythologies which, created by ordinary men, were in large part pathetic, unscientific attempts to explain the workings of the universe or, alternately, were simply explanations of the human condition through storytelling.

I'm pretty sure a Moderator won't approve this, but I hope one does. You know why? Because there are a lot of perfectly normal people in this world who like going about doing things just as they've always been done, making changes for GOOD rather than for the purpose of validating their own delusions. We go out and rather than casting a spell for god knows what, we work for a living and send some money to charity. We like raising our kids in the way we were raised, because the way we grew up turned us into the people we are--- good, honest, hardworking people who know the difference between right and wrong. However, we come home at the end of the day and we have to see your offensive, selfish, nonsense symbols and your generally negative influence on society which has influenced some people to go as far as shooting up schools (Harris & Klebold being prime examples). Your religion is not about humility, or self-sacrifice, or about doing good--- it's not even about being in harmony with nature (if it were, you'd live in a mud hut, not drive a car, and sure as shit not use the internet). It's about self-gratification. It's about selfishness. And the rest of the world is getting tired of you.

Our fellows and our children in the 21st century may question their upbringing, or even the nature of their existence, simply because your new age crap is everywhere. Your consistent effort to establish your status as social outcasts means only that those people who do matter, who do fit in, and are normal exacerbate your ignorant isolation by shutting you out of civilized society, retreating behind closed, locked, and barricaded doors.

Now I'm an athiest--- so I won't say you'll rot in hell. However, I will say that I don't push Atheism on anybody else and I sure as shit don't round up other atheists and try to steal space in a Christian building. Your minds are warped and your religion is false. Your religion goes against the established order of modern society and the vast majority of us are sick of you. I was sick of hearing your BS at Uni and I remain sick of having you in society.

My only consolation here is that you're all a bunch of gimps and, from my experience, are strange. I hope your lives after university are as miserable as your lives appeared to be while there, spending years on end in halls or at the arse-end of Lamond drive lighting candles to your false gods.

[magic bob]

Facts and evidence ladies and gentlemen, facts and evidence

[angel_kohaku]

Mr Disgruntled: I never said I was a Pagan. I was merely pointing out the obvious errors. I am not so naive that I think small minded people such as yourself are going to "heap praise on Wicca".

You sir, are an uneducated arse.

Any religion falling under the bracket of Paganism may not be an "ancient religion" but it has a belief system and deities etc etc.

If we are discussing the validity of one religion over another, what about Jedi?

It's not only pagans that are allegedly unattractive:
*Jesus loves you* [s]everyone else thinks you're an ugly cunt[/s]

If people want to take their clothes off and run around fields worshipping the soil, let them. If people want to stand in the street telling me I'm going to hell, let them. If people want to believe the teachings of Yoda are true, let them.

Nobody has any fucking tolerance any more.

[hr]

I wanna be an anarchist, get pissed, destroy

[exnihilo]

Possibly because the number of people taking the piss has stretched the patience of otherwise tolerant people?

When we live in a world where people are still killed or assaulted for their religion, where even in the 'civilised West' synagogues are firebombed and cemeteries desecrated the last thing that's needed is a group of people ('Jedis', I'm looking at you) pretending to have a new religion and actually asking for it to be recognised. It's playing games, as is much of the Buffy-led 'Wicca', it obscures serious matters, it mocks those who genuinely profess a faith and it's pathetic.

[Al]

For an avowed atheist, Mr Disgruntled, you do seem to have a very religious bee in your bonnet.

[Queeg]

Mr Disgruntled just needs some love, I think. He sounds hurt. Either that, or he needs to lighten up. It's just life, man. Chill.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting exnihilo from 10:36, 27th Jun 2006
Possibly because the number of people taking the piss has stretched the patience of otherwise tolerant people?

When we live in a world where people are still killed or assaulted for their religion, where even in the 'civilised West' synagogues are firebombed and cemeteries desecrated the last thing that's needed is a group of people ('Jedis', I'm looking at you) pretending to have a new religion and actually asking for it to be recognised. It's playing games, as is much of the Buffy-led 'Wicca', it obscures serious matters, it mocks those who genuinely profess a faith and it's pathetic.

Any religion that one doesn't follow is a pile of bullshit. Someone who belives in Wicca is no more ridiculous to me than a Christian or Hindu.

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[exnihilo]

I don't question that. I question those who have a "faith" as a pose and not as a genuine belief. You're deliberately missing my point, I suspect.

[exnihilo]

That answer, despite quoting mine, bears no relation whatsoever to what I said - and, indeed ignores my point entirely.

Unless you are saying that someone who filled in "Jedi" on a census for a bit of a laugh or who claims to be a "Wiccan" because it's "dark and mysterious" and who then claims to be following a systematised religion has no negative effect for the people who are members of minority religions who are subject every day to hatred and violence?

If so, that's cheap, and it's disingenuous and you know it, borne presumably of a basic antipathy to religion in general and a sense of atheistic superiority over the "credulous fools" who devoutly and genuinely follow the teachings of their faith. What these posers do is damaging as it masks very real and very dangerous religious intolerances. But presumably that's funny too?

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting exnihilo from 14:07, 27th Jun 2006
That answer, despite quoting mine, bears no relation whatsoever to what I said - and, indeed ignores my point entirely. Unless you are saying that someone who filled in "Jedi" on a census for a bit of a laugh or who claims to be a "Wiccan" because it's "dark and mysterious" and who then claims to be following a systematised religion has no negative effect for the people who are members of minority religions who are subject every day to hatred and violence? If so, that's cheap, and it's disingenuous and you know it, borne presumably of a basic antipathy to religion in general and a sense of atheistic superiority over the "credulous fools" who devoutly and genuinely follow the teachings of their faith.

I was talking about those who genuinly believe in these things. Yeah, worshiping an old tree seems daft to me, but nowhere near as daft as the stuff I've read in pamphlets from Mrs Ross or the Garangas. Why should I respect the Garangas more than Wiccans? Why should I respect Christianity over Jedis who believe in the force?

Why should filling in "Jedi" as a laugh have any detrimental effect on other religions? Because Jedi is daft while Scientology is sensible?

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[Queeg]

Quoting exnihilo from 14:07, 27th Jun 2006
That answer, despite quoting mine, bears no relation whatsoever to what I said - and, indeed ignores my point entirely.

Unless you are saying that someone who filled in "Jedi" on a census for a bit of a laugh or who claims to be a "Wiccan" because it's "dark and mysterious" and who then claims to be following a systematised religion has no negative effect for the people who are members of minority religions who are subject every day to hatred and violence?

If so, that's cheap, and it's disingenuous and you know it, borne presumably of a basic antipathy to religion in general and a sense of atheistic superiority over the "credulous fools" who devoutly and genuinely follow the teachings of their faith. What these posers do is damaging as it masks very real and very dangerous religious intolerances. But presumably that's funny too?

So what you're saying is, that it is preferable to follow a religion because your ancestors/culture do it than to follow a religion because it feels right to you? Even Judaism must have been new at some point... Older isn't necessarily better. In anticipation of your reply, what constitutes a "proper" religion?

[exnihilo]

That's in no way what I said - instead of trying to twist it into your own, wrong, words you could just read what I posted. I said it was better to follow a coherent and consistent religion rather than to either make it up as you go along or to pretend to follow a made up one for a laugh.

[exnihilo]

Quoting Bitterandtwisted from 14:15, 27th Jun 2006
Why should filling in "Jedi" as a laugh have any detrimental effect on other religions? Because Jedi is daft while Scientology is sensible?

First because you shouldn't be putting anything on a census document for a laugh, second because it will tend to lead to scorn which has a knock-on effect on other smaller faith groups and third, as I already said, because it trivialises a very real problem of religious intolerance. When people are being killed for their faith here in Britain the news is covering crap like Wiccans wanting in Mansefield and dickheads putting Jedi on census forms.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting exnihilo from 14:57, 27th Jun 2006

First because you shouldn't be putting anything on a census document for a laugh, second because it will tend to lead to scorn which has a knock-on effect on other smaller faith groups and third, as I already said, because it trivialises a very real problem of religious intolerance. When people are being killed for their faith here in Britain the news is covering crap like Wiccans wanting in Mansefield and dickheads putting Jedi on census forms.

1) Yeah, maybe, but who cares?
2) How will it lead to scorn? You think the Jedi make religion look more ridiculous than the Scientologists?
3) Religious intolerance is caused entirely by those who take their dumb superstitions seriously. I've never heard of sectarian attacks between avowed Jedi and Sith, yet Protestants/Catholics, Sunni/Shiite, Muslim/Hindu etc are all killing each other over who has the most loving gods. If the piss-takers had the same foothold in the middle east that they do here, maybe there would be less death.

BTW, I'm not being intolerant here. I tolerate religion. Like I tolerate hangovers.


[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[exnihilo]

The flippancy makes continuing pointless. You either have no understanding of the issues or you are deliberately pretending not to in order to mock religion. Either way, knock yourself out.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting exnihilo from 15:21, 27th Jun 2006
When people are being killed for their faith here in Britain the news is covering crap like Wiccans wanting in Mansefield and dickheads putting Jedi on census forms.

You really think the deaths in Iraq and Palestine have been overshadowed by the Wiccans and Jedi? Not on the news I get.

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting exnihilo from 15:21, 27th Jun 2006
The flippancy makes continuing pointless. You either have no understanding of the issues or you are deliberately pretending not to in order to mock religion. Either way, knock yourself out.

I certainly don't understand how Jedi are more ridiculous than Scientologists.

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[thePontificator]

You obviously haven't seen Phantom Menace.