The rise of neo-paganism (No, this one is NOT SATIRE)

National Review Online ^ | 27th September 1999 | Roger Scruton

[Cacique]

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[Askel5]

A Call to Vigilance: Pastoral Instruction on New Age

[glory]

discostu, your assertions about Christianity(negative) vs. your assertions about Wicca(positive) save for your belief that neither are true make you seem a little disingenious about your athiesm. What I mean to say is you seem less like a true athiest after reading your posts and more like a rejector of one particular religion. After all the Wiccans really believe the same as you(in modern Wicca anyway). The power in oneself to manipulate the environment around them. Is it any wonder given that your "beliefs" are similar that you would be sitting here defending Wicca while chiding the Christian religion?

[glory]

I have to support Tomalak on this one. While I have known some Wiccans who are pro-life FOR THEMSELVES, thier view is not so cut and dry as "do no harm". In fact, I can think of a few sites where Pagan/Wiccan are justifying abortion as "degrees" of do no harm. They were conflicted over "harm" to the mother or "harm" to the baby and in that regard they could see financial reasons as being "harm" to the mother and her life trumping the baby's. There were many too who believed, like many other "pro-choicers", that there was a difference between terminating at 9 weeks vs 32. Basically, there seems to be NO moral precedence in the Wiccan beliefs to support the idea that they are pro-life as a whole or that they should be.

[glory]

I'd like you to paint me with your broad brush discostu. I studied Wiccan and pagan rituals in some detail as a young adult. Of course I don't know everything there is to know about them, maybe not even as much as you, but maybe more. What of me? I'm sure you'll find some way to brush me aside as well.

As I said before, I find it very telling of your athiesm with what I read here so far. I'm still waiting for you to paint your broad brush on Wiccan and pagan practices. Of course they do no harm, ever right? Never one sacrifice? NEVER? Pagan covers a wide range of religious beliefs so I would submit that you go back and do a little research before you answer that question. And please be sure to extend your research back through history as you did for the Christian relgion. Thanks

[glory]

Agreed and for discostu who raved about the crazy Christian sites on the web, I implore you to read some modern day Wiccan and pagan sites(MANY lump themselves together btw) and see if it does not follow the destructive liberal line of thinking.

[BlackElk]

Virginia was NEVER a Catholic colony. Maryland was but Maryland was also religiously tolerant and made no effort to exclude non-Catholics. I don't believe that even Maryland took government money and handed it to the Catholic Church as you suggest was done in the Protestant Anglican colony of Virginia. Maryland was so tolerant that it allowed itself to become a Protestant colony in which Catholics were ultimately disenfranchised and the original capital at St. Mary's razed because of Protestant distaste for the name of the community.

Actually, you are eloquent proof that Chesterton knew exactly what he was talking about. As to numbers, there are one billion Catholics and one billion other Christians in this world. Few of them live in Red China or India which have two billion or more people between them. There are a very substantial number of people, mostly Muslim, who inhabit much of the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa. There is a substantial atheist and agnostic hangover in the former Soviet Union and its former satellites which also have substantial populations. There are pockets of continuing paganism in the Third World and some phonies and frauds who claim "Wicca" as a religion, as pointed out by this NR article. There are, of course, those poor souls who are so in love with their favorite sins that they choose those sins over the Way, the Truth and the Life, but God anticipated that and allowed them and us the gift of free will to choose Him or perdition. I think that about covers the question of whether and. if so, why many abandon Christianity (as many enter).

Any questions?

[glory]

Do your own research liberalbuster. There is plenty enough online to satisfy such a statement. I'd submit that on some Wiccan sites you'd be sure your were reading some mush from the DU or democratic party themselves.

[BlackElk]

What a limited imagination! Self-worship is a poor, cramped thing, posing as magnificence when it is nothing but unwarranted pride. How lonely and how sad! Also, if you don't care what others believe, why do feel compelled to share your unbelief with them (us)?

[glory]

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/8383/politics.html

Here is an interesting article on just such a thing from a Wiccan. Seems (s)he was booed off the stage if you will of a Wiccan board when (s)he admitted to being politically conservative. Plus, even this conservative seems to have some very liberal ideas in regard to sexual orientation and such. It's a shame that those who claim such great knowledgable of Wicca even need another Freeper to point out to them the fact that Wicca would be more likely to support liberal causes than conservative. That seems to be a given in thier belief system imo.

[BlackElk]

Friend, this is the United States and here we have a First Amendment which guarantees your right to be a witch or a warlock or a Wiccan if you so choose. It also guarantees your right to worship yourself, if your imagination allows such hilarity and your mind is so invincibly ignorant. You can be a Daoist or a Maoist. You can be a Nazi or a Stalinist, an atheist or an agnostic, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Roman Catholic. You can despise Bernard Cardinal Law and Fr. Paul Shanley but not as much as most real Catholics do. All this and more is guaranteed by the genius of the First Amendment as actually written.

Not only that but the God Who created you (whether you care to admit ot or not) gave you free will and the right to choose to recognize Him and choose Him or not, as you see fit. No one is drafting anyone here. Ideas, as Richard Weaver wrote, still have consequences, however. What I do not have a right to do is to force you or anyone else to admire me or share my beliefs. That is a disability which we all share. If you do not share my beliefs I will somehow survive. Whether you think so or not, my Redeemer (and yours, if you so choose) liveth. Whatever you may imagine, I and others like me do not wish you ill over your nonbelief or, if you prefer, your particular belief.

[maryz]

Actually, you are eloquent proof that Chesterton knew exactly what he was talking about.

You mean here?

The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." . . . . I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? . . . . The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," I retorted, "and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. . . . . If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. . . . Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus."

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

[glory]

Is that so? Interesting that some of its basic tenets came from that "senseless" Bible! I agree with another person, you sir are nothing more than a bigot. While we are at it here and for the record, although I do believe my religious belief is true, I would not have nearly so much a disdain for Wicca if it did not support liberal ideals. This disdain extends to Christian churchs as well like some UMC churches and liberal Catholicism. Things like the UU congregations, well you get my drift. Did you ever wonder why these same folks hold disdain for the more conservative legs of Christianity? It's by the same token.

[glory]

Crediting one with the tenents of the other is like blaiming Catholocism for Lutheranism

Huh? Do you know a whole lot about the Lutheran/Catholic saga? Just curious.

[glory]

But in the end, for me, I decided never to let Christians stand between me and Christ.

So very true. This said coming from a similar history of once turning from Christ based on the actions of men.

[glory]

Atheists interest me in their ability to demean those of established religions while vehemently defending those that are on the edges

Boy, I should have read down further and I could have saved myself a post. This is what I was thinking as well as I read discostu's posts. As I said before, it was very enlightening to me.

[glory]

I hate to tell you, but Wiccans and pagans often times lump themselves together. Go to a PAGAN festival and you will find Wiccans, Asutru-ans(?), Gaia worshippers, etc. I see it is Wiccan being part of the larger pagan movement, much like you find many brands of Christian beliefs being lumped under the header of Christianity although some vary a great deal like JW or Mormon, but they probably would not find event to worship together although they all consider themselves Christians, much like you wouldn't expect to find the Wiccans holding cirle with the Gaia worshippers.

[BlackElk]

Yes, exactly!

[glory]

traditional and total disdain for property rights

Interestingly enough many pagans share a disdain for property rights as well believing no one can "land take". coincidence? From a peice about Asutru and Wicca:

"Some highly eco-aware Wiccans, for example, may balk that Norse Pagans, being generally more conservative (more on this later), might be prone to support legislation that is anti-environmental, or that the Ásatrú ritual of "land taking" (i.e., ownership) defies most understandings of land stewardship. To "own" the land, such a person would argue, is inherently "un-Pagan." For their own sake, many Ásatrú reject the label of "earth religion" and while environmentalism is important, veneration of the Earth Goddess is not a dominant feature of Ásatrú; Nerthus being merely another deity among many."

BTW, for the other person who questioned whether Wiccans align themselves with liberalism I submit the above as well.

[glory]

You have peeked my interest friend. I will be going to read your writings later! Thanks.