A question regarding Wiccans

[Elthia]

**
For starters, Wicca is not an ancient religion. While it is based on ancient Pagan practices, Wicca itself is pretty new. So the men, women & children killed during what today’s witches refer to as “The Burning Times” were not Wiccans.

Exactly. Wicca was started VERY recently. It was (VERY loosely) based on certain pagan practices - but it has about as much in common with those as Christianity does, frankly. It also attracts many of the same people - those who want to be told what to think or believe. Revisionist history is nothing new, but to claim that you are part of an ancient religion when there is SO MUCH proof to the contrary is just pathetic, in my opinion.

I can see why your friend was upset by your reaction, though.

Based on the brief description of the conversation, so can I - and it doesn’t speak well of the friend, frankly. He’s fallen for the flaky, revisionistic methods practiced by so many Wiccans. He should really study history - find out that the druids practiced human sacrifice, that the Greeks persecuted those who denounced their pantheon (including some philosophers we admire today), that the Celts frequently WERE bloody savages. Romanticism can be fun, but to base your life beliefs on it is pretty silly.

Truth is, those people were persecuted for witchcraft.

Yup. NOT Wicca. Witchcraft. Big difference.

They were accused of being witches. Some were, some weren’t. The Burning Times are nothing for you to laugh at.

I didn’t sense laughter at that - the hysteria there was unmistakable, and terrifying. I sensed a bit of laughter at the stupidity of saying your religion was started in caveman times when it was really started in this past century.

In point of fact, there is some hefty evidence that Gardner (the founder of Wicca) based a lot of his material on that of Aleister Crowley, who unabashedly stole from whatever sources he felt like at the moment. If you’re going to use a mishmash of sources and beliefs that you make up yourself (which, incidentally, is what I do, so I’m not saying that’s the wrong part), at least admit it - don’t pretend it’s thousands of years old.

---

Cristi, Slayer of Peeps

Speaking of peeps, did you do something similar to this?
http://www.marshmallowpeeps.org/
Or are you the Slayer for another reason (oooh, cornstarch blood and peeps done up like that page’s ones but worse would be EVIL and FUN!)

-Elthia

[Johnny_Angel]

Esprix wrote:

Just wondering if Johnny Angel is still out there.

Sure, but what else can I say? If you think that respect is a fundamental right of any religion, and insist that the pagans need never bother to try and earn that respect, then by all means, revel in your persecution. If, like AHunter3, you believe that outsiderhood is a necessary and sufficient condition of Wiccanism, then Wiccans are always going to be victims of persecution, and even the sympathetic ears will turn deaf as the whining continues through the years without the Wiccans making any serious effort to actually earn respect. If you think cultural collateral is free sunshine from heaven, legitimacy grows on fucking trees, and don’t want to hear otherwise, then there’s nothing you need me for.

However, the subject is bound to flare up some other time. We can go through all this again at that time.

[MandaJo]

Pandora:

Obviously, company policy regarding religous holidays is something that each company has the right to decide for themselves. . . .

So you would have no problem with a company that forced Orthodox Jews to work on the Sabbath? That is religious discrimination (because said Jew would be effectivly forced to quit) and is illegal.
Pandora

In my opinion, this type of “personal discretion” means that catholic 'dogma" carries no more weight then the non-existant pagan dogma

The dilemna here is that you can’t tell the devout ones from the non-devout. My grandmother is as sincere a Catholic as you could hope to meet–12 kids–and the suggestion that she should not be given protection from employers who insist that she work all weekend because some other people have pre-marital sex is ludicrous. It is on par with suggesting that we do away with sick days because, truth is, most people who call in sick are healthy enough to work.

Pagans, without any dogmatic imperitive to fall back on, are the equivialant of a person who calls in sick but insists on reassuring everyone at the office that they are really healthy; there is not even a pretense of religious neccesity. This makes co-workers and lower-managment feel bitchy and ill-used.

[Pandora]

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So you would have no problem with a company that forced Orthodox Jews to work on the Sabbath? That is religious discrimination (because said Jew would be effectivly forced to quit) and is illegal.

**

No orthodox Jew would accept a position where working on the sabbath was a part of the contract.
When you accept a job, you accept the position and the working conditions described.

I have been forced to quit several jobs because of my beliefs, no one ever said it would be easy to do the right thing. However, when I took this job, they knew my beliefs, and I made certain that their particular policy on religion would allow me to do what I need to do.

**
Pandora

In my opinion, this type of “personal discretion” means that catholic 'dogma" carries no more weight then the non-existant pagan dogma

The dilemna here is that you can’t tell the devout ones from the non-devout. My grandmother is as sincere a Catholic as you could hope to meet–12 kids–and the suggestion that she should not be given protection from employers who insist that she work all weekend because some other people have pre-marital sex is ludicrous.

**

That is the dilemna indeed. but it applys to all faiths. I am as “devout” (for lack of a better word) a pagan as you are likely to meet. I’m not some kid playing around here… I’m been doing this for 12 years, and my beliefs are extremely important to me. I do not violate the principles of my faith for any reason. I have quit jobs and ended relationships because of conflict with what I believe.
I’m sure your grandmother is a sincere catholic (alhough I find it odd that you use the fact that she had 12 children to give weight to this arguement). But, catholic mass is offered every day of the week (in many places, more then once a day) there is no requirement that she attend mass on sunday as opposed to any other day. By strict interruptation of her faith, she could only request that her employer schedule her so that she could attend mass once a week. Holy days are another matter however, and it would be your grandmother’s responsibility to make sure her employer would be willing to grant her those days off before she took the job, if she felt they were vitally important to her faith. It’s only when an employer goes back on an established policy that there is room to complain. It is an unfortunate fact that there are people in this world whose job forces them to work when they would rather not, if this isn’t acceptable to you, then you don’t take that job.

Here’s an example, my SO is a devout catholic, he is also an ER doctor. Obviously, Emergency Rooms contiue to operate through religious holidays. He chose this profession out of a sincere desire to help people, and he works (often 24 hour shifts) through holy days of obligation, often missing confession and mass. He has decided that his god will understand the necessity of this, and he attends mass when he can. This is a choice he made, since he knew that horrible working hours were part of the job when he went into medicine

**
It is on par with suggesting that we do away with sick days because, truth is, most people who call in sick are healthy enough to work.

**

Many companies require a doctor’s note to count an absence as a paid sick day. Otherwise, the worker must take a personal day, a vacation day, or unpaid time. In a sense this is a reaction to the problem you have described.
I was willing to explain fully my beliefs, and the requirements of my faith to my employers, they accepted me knowing what my conditions were. They claimed it would not be a problem

**
Pagans, without any dogmatic imperitive to fall back on, are the equivialant of a person who calls in sick but insists on reassuring everyone at the office that they are really healthy; there is not even a pretense of religious neccesity. This makes co-workers and lower-managment feel bitchy and ill-used.
**

To me this sounds like yet another example of the “my religion is fine but yours is just silly” mentality.
Why should my co-workers feel ill-used, I am willing to work jewish, christian, muslim, budist, and hindu (just a sampling of the religions actually practiced by my co-workers) holidays (except when they for some reason coincide with mine)so that they can have time off to worship, why should they feel ill-used by my requirements? If it is because they don’t understand, I am willing ot explain, but I fail to see how one person’s faith should “outrank” another’s

-Pandora
(now declaring myself the queen of the run on sentence )

[MandaJo]

Pandora:

No orthodox Jew would accept a position where working on the sabbath was a part of the contract. When you accept a job, you accept the position and the working conditions described.

We need a lawyer to rule on this one, but I am pretty sure it is not true. When someone advertises themselves as an equal-oppurtunity employer one of the claim is that they do not discriminate on the basis of religion. A job that was impossible to preform due to the demands of an employee’s religion seems discriminatory to me. I am not sure that a job that interferes with the non-obligatory elements of one’s religion is also discriminatory, nor am I sure how certain vital services (i.e., ER workers, firefighter) are treated.

Pandora:

alhough I find it odd that you use the fact that she had 12 children to give weight to this arguement)

Because of the Catholic Church’s ban on birth control, one could argue that having twelve children (in a three-bedroom house!) is the most convincing outward sign of one’s commitment to the obligations of one’s faith. It is a bit of a joke, actually.

Pandora:

By strict interruptation of her faith, she could only request that her employer schedule her so that she could attend mass once a week.

If you were raised Catholic, you didn’t listen much in CCD. Sunday Mass and the six Holy Days of obligation are mandatory–missing one when it is bodily possible to attend in a mortal sin. As of 1964 and Vatican II going to the “anticipatory” Mass on Saturday night became an acceptable substitute for Sundays and holidays, but not for Easter. No other Mass is sufficient or required.

To me this sounds like yet another example of the “my religion is fine but yours is just silly” mentality.

How, pray? You practice a religion that has a main teneant the idea that nothing as trivial as church attendence is going to send you to hell. Many Pagans I know brag about this–the harshness of Christianity is seen as a deterent and as somewhat barbaric. When the Orthodox Jew rushes to make it home before sunset he does so because he has an explicit covenant with God, part of which reqires him to keep the Sabbath. Whether or not he wants to do it is immaterial. Pagans, on the other hand, have no imperitive to celebrate their holidays outside of personal desire. You will not go to hell if you miss it, and every Pagan book I’ve ever read makes this clear. It is not a question of who is more devout or less devout, but rather that what you are devoted to does not have requirements and what Sam down the hall is devoted to does.

[Johnny_Angel]

The fact that the Judeo-Christian tradition involves covenants and consequences for non-observation of those covenants is an important difference between it and these neo-pagan traditions. I suspect that there were dire consequences for pre-modern pagans – e.g. drought, famine, children being struck blind, and so on. Since neo-pagans do not see their gods as jealous gods who must be cowed to, or the bitch goddesses who demand to be appeased, the imperative is very much a personal choice. That personal choice does not carry the same weight as the fulfillment of a covenant, for which non-fulfillment involves dire and eternal consequences.