The Official What Do YOU Believe?

Wiccan question...maybe dumb and perhaps stereotypical, but are Wiccans only women? Is Wiccan witchcraft, and aren't men witches referred to as something else?

Someone asked a question and I tried to answer it, which I guess was taken to be bashing. That wasn't my intent, I was just trying to answer the question.

Sorry.

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...to be a rock and not to roll...

Possibly. But who knows what laws would take their place. No organized religion is free from not so happy things in the past. Just ask Og the caveman...

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No Wicca has both priest and priestess, Goddess and God.

Magic, incantations and rituals to the elements are aspects of Wicca commonly referred to as witchcraft by those not of the faith.

Witches are of either gender. The term "warlock" is actually a Judeo-Christian coined term meaning "oath breaker" within that religious belief not Wicca.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Wicca is a subset? I dont know the word, of the Pagan faiths, just like Baptist and Episcopalian come under the Christian faith.
Respect for nature, yes, but the Divine is the central force in more of them. We honor nature as a creation of the Divine. It all fits together.

I don't care for Wicca that much, because a lot of people have used Wicca as a platform for women superiority, that men are inferior, it turns into a lot of man bashing feminist groups rather than what it was intended to be.

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Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

Yes. Druidism is a very, very old religion with many gods, older than the patriarchal monotheistic Christianity and Islam. Druidism might be older than monotheistic Judaism but there are no existing records that indicate exactly how far back it goes. Wicca is a very new 20th century neo-pagan duotheistic religion that only started gaining popularity after the 1950's, introduced by Gerald Gardner who gave the religion the name "Wicca".

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Am I the only one whose head is spinning here? Geez, I feel like I need to get a notebook and write all this down!

Heh. Google is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

http://www.seekersway.org/seekers_gu...ruids_1_l.html

.

I have traveled many a psychological mile in my search of religion and spiritualism. I was raised a Chrsitian Scientist, later became a member of the Methodist Church, and when that no longer filled my needs I began my search for something to believe in. I just was no longer satisfied with what I had been taught and known my whole life.

I read on all kinds of belief systems. I fell in love with a wonderful, marvelous, sexy, intelligent, woman that made me happier than I have ever been in my entire life. We talked about beliefs and she was raised Catholic but is no longer a Christian, let alone a Catholic. She follows many of the tenets of Wicca but does not call herself a Wiccan. I became intrigued and I follow much the same path now.

What especially speaks to me are the following beliefs of Wicca:

Thou art God/Goddess
As Above, so Below; as Within, so Without
Spirit abides in all things; Names have power
Maintain an attitude of gratitude
Honor the ancestors, your elders, teachers, and leaders
All life is sacred
All acts of love and pleasure are sacred
Whatever you send out, returns three fold
Love is the law; Love under will
Work for the greatest good, an' it harm none

The most intriguing and the clearest to me is that our path is our own and we decide what we will be and do is the following:

As ye harm none, do as ye will.


Let me be clear, I am no expert on Wicca. I am a novice in this belief and learning more as I go. I do know that I am clear in the opinion that the beliefs of others, as long as they harm no one, are not a threat to me. The corollaries to that are also clear, it is not my job to try to convert anyone to my beliefs and it is not my business to denegrate anyone else's beliefs.

I wish others would pay me the same respect. Everyone would be so much happier.

Raised Catholic but from the time I was a small child I knew it was wrong. I did not believe in the Christian God. I would try to hide from my Mother so I wouldn't have to go to church, I crossed my fingers during my confirmation because while I wanted to please my family I did not believe a word of what I was saying and couldn't come up with a better way.

Now I (half jokingly) say that I worship Epona, the Celtic horse goddess. My life revolves around my horses. What they need, what they want, and I never feel so content and at peace with the world when I am relaxing in the field while they graze or reading a book in the barn while I listen to them munch their hay.

As long as we all respect one another it should not matter what we believe.

No, someone else probably took YOUR answer and ran with it. This is the nature of GC, lol. Questions and answers are permitted, of course, we all want to learn! Sadly, someone might be trying to prove their own point instead of learning or being genuinely curious. I don't see you on the naughty list. And I love your avatar.

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Becky

I am a Christian, currently attending an Anglican Church. I was raised in the Church, my father was a minister. I left it for 7 years and was Wiccan. Came back and have been in the Church ever since. I have never been able to wrap my mind around the concept of there being no God or nothing after this life. I have had fascinating discussions over the years though with friends who are atheists.

I enjoyed this thread, it's nice to see what we all believe.

Beautiful thread, Becca, thank you.

I wasn't really raised within a specific faith, though I would occasionally attend Episcopalian (sp?) services with my great-grandparents (which was really just an excuse to spend the weekend with them). My mother dragged us from one genre of belief to another. I think she is still searching, for that matter. For myself, I found the beginnings of my path when she stumbled into the new age side of things in the '80's. That led to Wicca, then to general Paganism, followed by Shamanism and now I find myself pursuing Asatru/Heathenism and very, very happy with it.

Like Beowolf, I'm a conservative. Like others, I dress in a modest manner, and occasionally wear a cover over my hair. I believe in reincarnation (yes, I've had past life regressions). I believe my animals will be there in the afterlife. I believe in what is considered supernatural and, yes, I believe in the Gods. I believe in the 9 Noble Virtues. And the simplicity of "Harm None".

I also believe that the God of the Bible is real and genuine. It is not my faith. I've always looked at faith, in regards to deity, in the sense of I belong to my Gods and you belong to yours. I don't know that this makes sense. Best description I ever saw about it was on the show Xena back in the early 90's. One season, Gabrielle had died and Xena had approached Hades (god of the Greek dead) to try and contact her. He explained that Gabrielle wasn't within his "jurisdiction" because she had chosen the faith of the Amazons. Xena needed to reach out to those gods, not him. Made the whole thing crystalline in my mind.

And now that I've been rambling, convoluted, and probably about as clear as mud.... good night.

~Drak

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. ~ Unknown

After reading this thread over and over I think the biggest thing That we should take from this thread is that the main point to all beleifs is to treat each other like we want to be treated...all of them have their seperate rituals but in terms of spirtuality we just need to be kind to each other and I think we are on a path to spiritual freedom and blessings....

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Many of life's failures
are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.

-Thomas A Edison

I am fascinated by your Handle name is that the dragons daughter...Love the northshore.....

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Many of life's failures
are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.

-Thomas A Edison

Pretty much my feelings too.
I'm a 'crib Catholic', go to Mass occasionally, go by most of the teachings & believe its the 1st 'church' created. ("Thou are Peter and upon this Rock I will build My Church")
Also believe most religions have gotten away from what they are supposed to do & many are controlled by men who want ways to control others.

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I believe in a master engineer, architect. I don't put any belief in any of the man-made religions.

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"Follow the seekers of truth, but avoid the people who claim to have found it!" -- Jens Martin Knudsen

As with myself, I wasn't trying to bash or insult anyone..If I did it wasn't intentional..

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I was brought up Baptist, but not too rigidly, and stopped attending church in my teens when I realized I did not really have a religious faith. I never actively rebelled, or had any religion-related trauma, but just got to the point where it struck me as more likely that people made up gods than that one of them was real.

I am content to live in a society whose moral base is derived from religious teachings, and like everyone else I have adopted that cultural moral code, more or less, though I have dissociated from its source.

It seems to me that those who practice religion do so not just because they are taught this from an early age, or as a result of cultural conformance imperatives, but because belief in a higher power is part of our human condition and we are predisposed to it. That would make me, an unbeliever, the outlier. I have no clear idea how this happened to me and not others, but I am OK with it and accept the result at face value.

I am in a position where I am content with my lack of faith and at the same time feel joy for those in my acquaintance who are deeply fulfilled by their religious beliefs. Good for them, to find such happiness!

In my younger days I liked to argue with religious folks but I have long since stopped that nonsense. I have a live and let live philosophy now. I bridle a bit at the condescension I feel in the presence of those who find out I have no religious faith, so I generally keep this under wraps - still, this is no big deal. I am very happy to live in a time and place where the nonreligious have nothing more to worry about than someone saying "my gosh, I'll pray that God leads you to see the Truth" (which, after all, is meant as kindness) and that the real bad stuff (stocks, the stake, stoning, etc.) is far away.

I'd like to think that I do not worship science either. It seems that nearly everything we thought we knew about the universe a hundred years ago has been found to be wrong or woefully incomplete, and I expect this to repeat going forward. Also I believe that human intellect has a limit, and that we don't have it in us to understand our universe completely. [I imagine us as flatworms in a petri dish, trying to figure out what the dish is made of and what lies beyond it - never gonna happen.] Because of that, I think there always will be mysteries and uncertainties, and a place for religion to fill the void.

I send Christmas cards, and say "Merry Christmas" without much fear of insulting anyone.

I don't believe reincarnation is necessarily tied up in either of those but certain schools do emphasize it.

I think one can "practice" Buddhism/Taoism and be an atheist, although certainly some forms venture into belief in the supernatural.

I like the thoughts of Alan Watts (who was also a Christian minister of some sect for a period of time, Methodist?) who I think cuts to the chase of Buddhism/Taoism without getting into any of the superfluous nonsense.