Do wiccan need to feed off each other ie,drink blood

hairyheretic

scouser.tommy wrote:

At this stage, as a young person in this society you're more likely to take stick from pagans for being a Christian. In my experience, that's how it is. I'm certainly not saying pagans are in the majority, but in my day-to-day dealings at college, on the internet in particular, and with young people in general, I'm as like to come across pagans as anyone else, and more likely to take stick from pagans than anyone else.

The internet isn't a good place to judge from. People will say things online that they wouldn't say to your face, as the internet provides a shield, or distance, anonymity or what have you.

In addition, there does seem to be a period when someone leaves christianity that in order to reinforce that they do lash out at it. Most grow out of it over time.

On the other hand, I'm yet to be accosted on the street by pagans, pamphlets thrust at me, and shouted at through a loudspeaker that I'm doomed for all eternity

coffee_cake

scouser.tommy wrote:

Okay, come to think of it, I didn't use the best example there. At all, actually...what the hell was even thinking
If pride or arrogance enters into someones hypocrisy at all, it is far more likely to be criticized.
I'm not so sure of what I was saying now, heh, but, bottom line; people love to hate hypocrisy.

Is there a reason we shouldn't?

joseph dawton

Condemnation and judgement of others is not very spiritual is it? Perhaps we all need to grow up as a species and learn to tolerate other beliefs, how can we expect to be tolerated if we denigrate others?

Everyone hates hypocracy with just cause, but we are all guilty of that at some time in our lives, we would divine beings if we could claim to be free from some form of wrong-doing in our lives.

Greater understanding and cooperation is what the world needs if humans are going to overcome our problems to survive into the next century.

http://www.electricpublications.com

Cactus Col

scouser.tommy wrote:

people love to hate hypocrisy.

Never a truer word said, people love to see others being hypocritical, just so they can get all holier than thou on their asses.

Li'l Irish wrote:

Everybody from Neo-nazis, white supremascists, snake handlers, and those oh-so-wicked paedophiles have all claimed to follow the Christian way, even though they couldn't spot Jesus's original message with a pair of binoculars.

The problem is people are blaming the religion, for people being people. You may never have met any pagan that has been oppressed by a jewish person, but I'm sure you don't have to try too hard to find some.

People hate and people are ignorant, and I bet you a years wages right now, that there's a Wiccan out there thinking of raping a young girl, a pagan thinking of stabbing some poor goon so he can buy a wide screen tv, or Jewish person with a gun to someone's temple, and a Christian murdering a family of three, for no good reason.

pbsuxok1znja4r

bluewolf wrote:

Is there a reason we shouldn't?

Probably not. But very often the hatred comes from a bad place; from the wrong place. A self-centred, prideful place. When christians preach that every man is a sinner, most people seem to unconsciously interpret that as "you're all sinners except for we in the church, who are therefore holier than thou", then when said priests/clergy are exposed as also being sinners, all the 'ordinary, decent folk' are all the more outraged at it, because of the earlier percieved holier-than-thou attitude. But that's what makes a good guide. Take Roy Keane, for example, it's been said time and time again about Roy, that one of the things that made him such an effective and reliable leader for Man Utd was his ability to take charge, get the best out of his team-mates, generally boss everyone about - even when he himself wasn't having the best of individual games. Because it has to be done. You wouldn't call him a hypocrite for griefing the lads out of it over bad play even when he himself was having a nightmare on the pitch.
At the end of the day, christianity is a team sport, so, eh, treat the church like you would Keano...

Nevyn

What christains profess to believe and how they live thier lifes is between them and thier god,
What I profess to believe and how I live is between me and my Gods.

Unfortuanly the vast ammount of people in this county are not grown up enough to respect other peoples beliefs.
I have never had a jewish/islamic/hindu/budhist person
assume I was the same faith as them,
or had then rubbish my beliefs,
or rudely bring up the topic that I am not christain for no reason,
or had them insist that I can not raise my children correctly to be good people unless they were rasied as christains,
or as how can I sleep at night knowing I am damning my children to hell as they have not had a christain baptisim.
and yet this is how most christians react that I have interacted with.

If people have a problem I leave it with them but I can certainly understand
why people of differing faiths get a right pain in the face when faced with
that time and time again.

There are some wonderful people out there as well that are christain and
could not care less or are educated enough not to treat those of differing
faithes like they are wrong and misguided.

This will unfortunaly be the way of it until all schools are multidemoninational.

Why is it that those that are a minority faith group are expected to be exemplary examples ?
People are people and there is good and bad in every person and in every grouping.

NeilJ

scouser.tommy wrote:

At the end of the day, christianity is a team sport, so, eh, treat the church like you would Keano...

So I should tie the church to a flagpole naked, covered in honey and sit back to watch as the fire ants get busy as punishment for abandoning his country during the world cup?? :rolleyes:

Cactus Col

Thaedydal wrote:

What christains profess to believe and how they live thier lifes is between them and thier god,
What I profess to believe and how I live is between me and my Gods.

Unfortuanly the vast ammount of people in this county are not grown up enough to respect other peoples beliefs.
I have never had a jewish/islamic/hindu/budhist person
assume I was the same faith as them,
or had then rubbish my beliefs,
or rudely bring up the topic that I am not christain for no reason,
or had them insist that I can not raise my children correctly to be good people unless they were rasied as christains,
or as how can I sleep at night knowing I am damning my children to hell as they have not had a christain baptisim.
and yet this is how most christians react that I have interacted with.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603210143mar21,1,938137.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true


You never had a jewish/islamic/hindu/budhist person
assume you were the same faith as them because you don't leave in a country that is dominated by jewish/islamic/hindu/budhist people. If you did do you believe that people would assume anything different about you?

It sucks, but it's the way people are. Not just christians. And I doubt every christian you've encountered has had the same reaction.

Nevyn

There are many european countries were people don't assume what religion you are to due to the greater culture and religous mix of people and the proper seperation of church and state. Hopefully we are headed in that direction.

Li'l Irish

At this stage, as a young person in this society you're more likely to take stick from pagans for being a Christian. In my experience, that's how it is. I'm certainly not saying pagans are in the majority, but in my day-to-day dealings at college, on the internet in particular, and with young people in general, I'm as like to come across pagans as anyone else, and more likely to take stick from pagans than anyone else.

Wow, I should go to your college! The most Pagan friendly (and by friendly, I mean we were tolerated) institution I was part of was the Air Force. The Military Pagan Net is very proactive in the U.S. military, but we had to deal with constant prosetylizing (sp?) from the Christian Chaplains.

I think the lashing out at Christianity stage is just another phase of spiritual growth. Like the teenager that lashes out at his or her parents to assert independance, the fledgling Pagan lashes out at the religion they have been raised in.

Nobody's perfect, no matter what religion, race or creed. Pagans have thier bad apples as well; I don't think anyone was trying to say Pagans are holier than them.

turbot

Akari No Ryu:

Please stop misrepresenting Catholicism.

In Catholicism one is expected to accept that the wine becomes the blood of Christ and expected to accept that the bread becomes the body of Christ.
The difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation is a fairly basic one.

Expected to accept?

You are describing your personal understanding, mistaking this for a global understanding held by everyone. Across the catholic / christian population there are loads of different internal perspectives on this, not just one. Organise these as a group and you'll find clusters of people with similar representations.

I find your misrepresentation of how this is only your your personal way of understanding this is ignorant. Curiously, such ignorance is a common result of how the catholic church neglects to help people learn "the nature of their minds" as taught in bhuddism / zen / by Robert Anton Wilson.

We, as humans, are not expected to be sinless. That's not possible. We are flawed broken little beings that are sinful in nature. We lie, we hurt people, we lose our tempers. God does not expect us to avoid these things, God expects us to try. The ONLY law in Christianity is the Law of Love as set down by Christ who fulfilled the old covenant. (Acts and Galatians)

This is exactly the kind of thing that bothers me.

The idea that humans are sinners is taught to people by the various christian organisations.

By describing some natural human behaviours as being morally wrong, and pitting someone against their own desires, many people get trapped in an internal fight with themselves leading to confusion and lack of perception.

This is taught. People who are brought up with the different religious influences often have totally different internal associations with human activities like sex. I'm looking forward to the day when people start suing the catholic church for instilling multiple layers of guilt about being alive, that for many, can reduce those same peoples quality of life.

You have to realise that what you are describing Akari No Ryu is your personal understanding.

The notions of God that you hold to be true are not the same as all other peoples. Thats why I love it when Robert Anton Wilson says

"Religious wars are two people fighting over who's imaginary friend is better"

It's the height of ignorance to claim that your perspective on the universe / god / goddesses / spirituality is the only one or the completely right one, because it's ridiculously stupid to think that you exclusively have been taught the real way it is.

Furthermore, this kind of awareness of spiritualital / global / universal understandings being highly personal, in my experience, is not taught in the catholic church.

It's also very cliched to quote a 2,000 year old collection of mistranlated hebrew texts as an authorative source of whats going on. Yet it can be challenging to think for yourself instead of having an organisation spoon feed you the perspectives you ought to hold. Many christians find this very challenging to contemplate, and I suspect you might react in a mild rage to me saying this.

Oh. FFS, Magic is the act of the magician, transubstantiation is the act of God. The priests don't change the bread, God does.

God is an aspect of the consciousness of the people participating in the ceremony. If these people participate as full believers, they help assign/imbue the bread with spiritual power. If you are curious about this, read "The Hidden Life in Freemasonry" by C W Leadbetter, to read about a clairvoyants perspective on such rituals.

You don't understand what papal infalliability is, quite clearly.
No, the Pope is human. Papal infalliability authorises the pope to, after having fulfilled certain criteria, speak with the authority of God. This is a tradition based on "Paul you are my rock, on you I build my church... as you make it on earth so shall I make it in heaven."

I understand it quite clearly, and object to it completely. Whether or not the person labelled as Jesus actually said this and the documents we have access to are accurate, it's a ridiculous leap of logic that this means the catholic CEO / pope is entitled to speak with the authority of God. If you think he speaks with the authority of God, then does the catholic "God" advocate acts of genocide like telling the populace of Africa not to use contraceptives, thus sentencing millions to lifetimes of torture?

And what you've posted is different how.

Because within Ireland at least, there is more influence from the catholic church than unbiased sources of comparative religious study. There are many colleges where religion is taught at university level, where if you don't ascribe to christian belief systems you won't pass. The church and state have been in collusion for a long time, and sculpted the way the population understands less popular religions such as wicca.

Provide statistics supporting this.
I'm particularly interested because most witches were hung.

It's from a christian text, curiously: Witchcraft and Demonology in Ireland by John Seymour.

I'd just like to note something, for the record. I am a practicing pagan. I am a Celtic Recon. I am in no way, shape or form Catholic, or for that matter, Christian. It really bugs me when "pagans" lash out with this same done-to-death "more persecuted than thou" complex with fallacious arguments left right and centre.

Maybe you could enhance your sense of spirituality and your ability to usefully reconstruct ancient rituals and beliefs of the celts by by learning to more properly understand the role your mind plays in mediating your understanding of the universe.

turbot

joseph dawton wrote:

I have to say I agree with Akairi there.

So people have been persecuted, that's the story of the human race! What is the point in tit-for-tat arguements. surely what the world needs is an attitude of tolerance and an attempt to come to greater understanding and acceptance of other faiths. There is no right answer, only God - whatever that is? As imperfect beings we are incapable of constructing a perfect faith, all we can do is strive towards the divine and attempt to live better lives.

http://www.electricpublications.com

If the world needs an attitude of tolerance, then any faith should include an education that teaches people:

- It's ok to hold contrary beliefs and exist together harmoniously
- It's ok for someone else to have a completely different spiritual understanding than you
- Your ideas about spirituality are personal to you, and your way of understanding the universe, not the only truth about the universe

A lack of this awareness leads to wars and persecution and lack of freedom.

Most mono-theistic faiths do not include any education or lead to decent awareness of the way your ideas about spirituality are in your head, and in someone elses head, entirely different understandings may exist that are as valid as yours.

turbot

akari no ryu wrote:

I get so frustrated with people who claim to be "in harmony with nature", etc, lashing out at a strawman representation of Christianity.
If paganism is an attempt to reattune yourself with your cultural roots, then reattune yourself to your cultural roots, not the whitewashed namby pamby white light love everything and tolerate everyone (except the ebil xians) bull****.

Akari, who are you directing these comments at?

Your:

If ---> Then: Not:

Statement

is so broad and vague it's practically useless.

Surely a wise approach to spirituality is about being, aware, smart, spiritually skillful, harnessing and harmonising with natural rhythms and energies, and respecting the harmonies that exist within nature as a way of enhancing well being.

turbot

But, I think you misunderstood my point (maybe I didn't make it clear enough), which was, that Turbot had started attacking Christianity without any provocation at all (or at least Christian propaganda).

The OP asked a question, it was answered, then Turbot launched a little attack on Christianity. I felt there was no need for this.

Not quite.

The OP asked if wiccans need to feed off each other and drink blood.

Within my response, I made a bunch of implicit assumptions.

1) As this is an Irish website, there is a good chance the OP was raised and educated within Ireland

2) The catholic church had and to a significant extent, still has a major influence on what is taught in school, and the attitudes instilled in school about different approaches to spirituality.

3) The structure of their self serving propaganda is to encourage, for many, ignorance and fear about other religions.

4) The OP asked:

I was just wondering do wiccans need to feed off each other?

Also how simillar are wicca and satanism?

researching on the net and getting alot of conflicting information,if someone could clear it up for me.

Within the christian church, many people derive the understanding that witchcraft is associated with the devil making it a satanic activity, because they teach a thought structure that implies what they teach is right, and anything else is temptation / act of the devil.

What most of the people who've responded to this thread seem to have no awareness of, is these structures are in your head, and can be changed.

When the OP says he's seeing lots of conflicting information, my intention was to highlight aspects of this information to be aware of, because the information provided is going to be very different depending on who you listen to.

turbot

Scouser Tommy:

scouser.tommy wrote:

Depending on how you interpret it? Yeah, if you interpret the mass in the most anti-christian biased way possible, while ironically simultaneously believing that the wine and bread are indeed the flesh and blood of christ; so that it might be described as "cannabalism".
Magical rituals? A wiccan criticizing people for using magical rituals, eh? Forgive me if I can't get get my head around that one. ?

If you've ever thought about it for yourself, please explain, if the bread and wine are meant to symbolise the flesh and blood of christ, does this not make it a canabalistic ritual, albeit a symbolical canabalistic ritual?

Why are you getting so offended when I'm pointing out whats obvious?

Also, I never claimed to be wiccan.

If you're going to react with such anger, your anger will probably cloud your judgements.

Oh, and don't be careful about what you read. Read anything and everything that takes your interest; you'll gain wider learning that way. Turbot is obviously given to censorship.

It's wise to be careful what you read in so far as this is a massive variance in the quality of information available on the web, and to get a good answer, it's at least as important to be aware of who is telling you something or providing you with information, as the information they are providing.

Scouser Tommy is obviously given to ridiculous leaps of logic by thinking I'd advocating censorship, instead of wiser research. But curiously, a lot of information about things to do with wicca / paganism / magick was censored by the catholic church.

If you want to answer the OP's question, it's wise to figure out what must be true in his experience such that you can respond to his original question.

Akari makes a good point. In ancient Rome it was early Christians who were persecuted for their beliefs.

How do you know the quality of their beliefs were maintained since you acknowledge they were persecuted? In the book "Jesus and the Goddess" it's claimed that a lot of their beliefs were totally distorted by the "Romain Catholic Church".

One could just as easily accuse pagans like Turbot of spreading propaganda, as one could accuse the catholic church of doing so.

You are so ignorant, it's ridiculous. Who ever said I was a pagan?

If you wanted to criticise a band you wouldn't attack that band's tribute bands in order to do so; you'd attack the original band itself. Yet critics of Christianity almost always seem to focus their attention on christian humans, who are, at the end of the day...only human. Judge christianity by christ alone, is what I'm trying to say.

If you follow this line of thought, then it's laughably absurd.

Are you really saying that if I go to a Kareoke, and watch and listen to someone sing a song I love, by a band like Queen, really badly, mess up the melody / tune and generally perform a rendition of such low quality it makes my ears hurt, that I should levy criticism at the original band, instead of the performer?

I have never criticized "jesus". I just think the organisations that (mis)use his name and (mis)represent his teachings are worth dealing with carefully.

Anyway, even an ignorant, propaganda-spreading christian like myself knows that wicca and satanism are worlds apart. As far as I can make out, satanism (The LaVey variety) seems far less given to belief in any kind of karma. (forgive me if that's a bad choice of words). Satanism seems to preach a more Machiavellian code. Would that be correct

Satanism is a word.

Wicca is a word.

Many people use these words to describe a very varying bunch of ideas and beliefs, including spiritual processes. There is no one correct answer, or interpretation.

turbot

hairyheretic wrote:

There does seem to be an element within christianity that does feel itself better than non-christians (and indeed other christians of different denominations) though. The whole "We're right, you're wrong and youre going to suffer for eternity no matter how good a person you are" crowd..

I think self awareness is a good place to start.

Within myself, when I used to classify myself as catholic, I experienced what I'd now describe as an egoic kind of self importance as a result of my faith, the very attitude you describe above.

I think this is a coping mechanism for holding beliefs that make for life to less that optimally enjoyable.

Now I think that you honour the universe, and it's many dieties including goddesses, by having a good time in it. This feels much more wholesome.

Given the recent (within the past few decades) scandals within the church, and the evidence that it not only knew about, but tried to cover up, those same scandals, is it any surprise?

Again i think thats more indicative of human nature than anything else.

Really corrupt people are seldom harmoniously spiritual. They have icky auras.

How far back does accountability stretch? Obviously trying to hold you personally responsible for actions by the church in the 14th century would be a tad silly, but do you feel current church officials should bear up to actions of their recent predecessors?

Given that their whole power structure is built on such distortions, they have to reconcile what they are promoting.