I am Pagan.

[Broomstick]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
Red Dragon: I take your point about sincere pagans vs. those who use paganism as a form of rebellion – but one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn as a Christian is not to prejudge what’s in someone’s heart. Without condemning your insight, may I respectfully suggest that you need to look at the supposed pagans-for-show in that same light?

Hmm… having once had to stop some new-minted Pagans (completed with many pentacles drapped upon their black-clad bodies) from going out to “convert the Christians”… I have to say there are a LOT of “show Pagans” who are just plain embarassing. There really is a sub-set into for the “cool” factor, or to be rebellious and shocking, and who don’t give a hoot about the moral, ethical, and philisophical underpinnings of the faith they’ve supposedly chosen.

With some it’s a phase they go through to on the way to being proper Pagans, others its a phase they go through during the young adult search-and-discover period of life. Some are just flakes.

[Broomstick]

*Originally posted by His4ever *
Let me explain perhaps why the Christians won’t leave you alone…

I don’t know which annoys me more - the Christians who won’t leave me alone, or the Christians who won’t stop explaining why they won’t leave me alone.

It’s extremely condescending to explain us over and over again, as if we were slightly retarded, WHY you (the heavy-duty prostelytizers) do what you do. We KNOW why you do it - you are apparently compelled to explain this as often as you commit this intrusion.

Get a grip on this: some of us have read your Book, heard your message, listened to your explanation and we’re still not convinced. Underwhelmed might be a good term.

Someone once asked me why I wasn’t a Christian. It’s quite simple. I don’t believe Jesus is either God, or the son of God.

Meanwhile, you are continuing to act in manner I find offensive and disgusting. I realize, since I wear nothing to distinguish me as a Pagan, I might be mistaken for something else. However, when I state I’m not interested in your message I mean exactly that. Don’t bore me with “but if you only read the Bible!” - I’ve read it. Don’t “explain” to me why you feel compelled to do this. The state of my soul is between the Divine and me, it’s none of YOUR business. It’s not a potential Cosmic Brownie Point to add to your lifetime tally.

What does it take to convince you that what you are doing with your prostelytizing (by that, I mean an attempt to convert) is something that my religion considers a terrible wrong? The only comparison that I can think of is a particularly fundamentalist person who believes homosexualtiy is a mortal sin being badgered by homosexuals to engage in homosex, even after stating they are of X demonination, they believe sex with the same gender will send them to hell, and they are about to puke from disgust. But wait, let us explain why homosexuality is so much better than heterosexuality…if you would just try it… come to one of our parties where you can see the benefits homosexuality has brought to the lives of people… just get down on your knees and perform fellatio upon a person of the same gender and you will SEE THE LIGHT!.. You don’t have to believe, just do it and the FAITH WILL COME!

I think ya’ll should be getting the idea by now…

(Truthfully, I’m rather uncomfortable with the analogy, given that I believe homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable human variation, and that a person has more choice over their religion than over their sexual orientation. My apologies to anyone needlessly offended, but it’s hard to show how offensive somthing is without being offensive yourself)

[Stephi]

Has anyone done a “Ask the Pagan/Wicca Guy” thread yet? That would be interesting to read.

[Esprix]

Testify, brother Broomstick! Amen, and HALLELUJAH!

Esprix

[lel]

Oops, forgot about this for a few days…

How, pray tell, does forcing someone to witness your witnessing, thereby, as in the case of my local fundies, making out christians to be bigoted loons with no respect for others privacy or beliefs, save anyone?

Isn’t it likely that by your actions you are bringing your faith into disrepute and turning people from the right path?

And if this is a possibility, with the likelihood that the souls saved, souls lost count is not going to be in your favour, how can you justify continuing to do it?

There is much to be said for witnessing kindly and with compassion, but the responsibility of the proselytizer is also to share the gospel directly; not worry about how many souls fall into the won column versus the lost column. It’s a delicate balancing act.

Or do you honestly believe that more people think,

“This God fellow seems a mean dude, I’d better click heels and fall into line else it’s going to start getting pretty damn warm.”

than

“Sheesh, what a bunch of loony codswallop, thank god I’m an athiest.”?

Actually, yes, I do. Take a look at the numbers here, for instance. I’ve yet to see a source reliably say that there’s more atheists than Christians in this world. Now to be fair, of those 33% of people worldwide that are Christians (going by the above site figures), certainly not all believe that God is going to send them to hell if they aren’t saved. However, it’s likely that more than 8 percent of Christians worldwide believe that there is some form of punishment for those who aren’t born again.