I knew I’d leave somebody out! Thanks for the catch, Falcon; it’s great to have backup on something like this.
Shadenwawa asked:
This is another thing that varies considerably among various groups and individuals–everyone has their own comfort level for rituals, spells included. It also varies with the complexity and importance of the spell–a life-or-death situation merits more effort than “I need more money. Please help me find a better job.” Sometimes, it appears very like silent prayer–sitting quietly, concentrating on a positive outcome for a situation. You simply direct your mental energies into making that outcome happen, and top it off by asking for a little help in case you can’t do it on your own. Other times, a Wiccan will create a sacred space (this involves sketching a circle around an area, cleansing it, and invoking the protection of the Wiccan’s Patron(s)), write a spell calling for a certain outcome–verse requires more concentration–and burn it in a candle flame, while focussing on their desired outcome. The spectrum continues on up to the full ritual with an entire coven in ritual garb (which varies from none to “nice casual” to robes) with invocations from the HP (High Priest(ess)) and responses from the rest, combined with ritual gestures and the manipulation of athames, wands, chalices, fire, salt, incense, and water. In this case, the entire coven concentrates on the desired outcome–with the little “Please help us if we’re in over our heads” request included. Regardless of the degree of ritual, however, many (perhaps most) spells include a caveat similar to this:
“An it be for the good of all and the harm of none,
So be it, let it be done.”
This is a backup, in case we’ve overlooked some harm the spell could cause. It amounts to asking that our prayers not be answered if the answer would hurt someone.
I suppose (to sum up another long-winded post) that the biggest difference that I see between magick and prayer is that when a Wiccan works magick (s)he doesn’t just ask a greater power to take over and do something, like most prayers seem to do. With magick, you put everything you’ve got (all your mental energy, mundane efforts, everything) into generating a positive result, then ask for a little help and a safety net in case you’ve made a mistake in selecting an outcome. Wiccans very commonly hold that the gods/goddesses help those who help themselves; at the least you have to show that you’ve done your best.
No, Protestant churches don’t believe in transubstantiation of “the elements.” Although Christ does say “this is my body” and “this is my blood” he refers to them as bread and wine subsequently in scripture and this is taken as an indication that they are to be considered symbolic.
I believe that transubtantiation as a formal Catholic doctrine actually came into being after the Protestants split off from them.
(BTW, Presbyterianism dates from 1560 and was founded by John Knox.)
I practice Brookeism (real name is Brooke. Hard to believe I don’t go by Swiddles, I know.) Brookeism is a combination of Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Jungian psychology. Basically, I believe in a collective unconcious that binds all things together, that all actions, positive or negative will have repercussions on your life and the lives of those around you, I believe that it is, as my VERY Catholic grandmother used to say, “Nice to be nice.” A huge part of Brookeism is the realization that Jesus, Buddha, and Mohommed were saying the same thing in different forms. Be nice to other people. Give as much as you can to the poor. Pray/meditate to find inner peace. I believe that all religions are roads to the ultimate goal of peace. It is for this reason that I recognise that other people may need to travel a different road than I do, and I respect that wholeheartedly. Just as long as they don’t try and convert me. The best times in high school were spent in a coffeehouse with two women, one was Jewish, and one was a VERY devoted Catholic. We’d have discussions on everything, learn about eachother’s religions in a non-judgemental way. It was wonderful.
FWIW, I was raised a Methodist, and excelled in Bible school. I can still pull archane Old Testiment stories out of no where. Comes in handy.
I was raised in a “New Age” religion, kind of an amalgam of several other religions. Most people just call them ‘nuts’ or ‘culties’. The actual name of the church was/is Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT).
After doing some religious investigations of my own, I think my beliefs fall more into the area of Wicca than anything else.
No problem, hon…I only remembered because I have such a strong connection with mine. (My two, actually.) And possibly because I just recently “converted,” if you will.
And I’ll back you up on the magick. Most of mine consists of finding a quiet space and meditating until I feel I can talk to the Goddess about what I need. Admittedly, most of my spell casting recently has been for personal strength. The only thing I’d add is that many Wiccans take the view that you ask the God or Goddess for help, but then you work on your own towards the desired outcome as well.
I’d like to add another question to everyone, however.
How does your religion feel about people who are not members? (The Wiccan delegation already answered this one). Specifically also, how does your religion feel about the chances of non-members in the afterlife, if you have one?
Doob, any chance you can get your Muslim friend involved in this? I think there is a shortage of SD Muslims from what someone said on the chat last night.
SwimmingRiddles, when I first read your post I thought you said “Gungan Philosophy”.
“The first church of Jar-Jar.” ::shudder::
Oh and just to clarify, I would like to see tenets etc. of religions even if you don’t follow them personally anymore. You don’t have to be an active member (or even a formerly active member) to describe the belief system, although it helps.
Shadenwawaalso asked (and I completely failed to notice):
**
I don’t mean it in any exclusive way–some of the us regard many (or all) animals as “people” as well, and include them in the “harm none” category. As you might imagine, this leads to various forms of vegetarianism.
Me? Well, I tend to hang out with the Asatru* contingent. They drink mead and eat meat with great gusto.
*Asatru are another group of Neopagans, who follow Norse Paganism (worshipping the Aesir, like Odin, Freya, and the like). They throw great parties, if you’ve got the guts.
Okay what the heck, I haven’t done much with church in a while, but Ill take a stab at Lutheranism, since no one smarter than me has done it so far.
Lutheranism had many denominations, Missouri Synod, Wisconson Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and several others(including som ein Europe I’ve probably never heard of. After a bunch of mergers I think there are basically two left, Missouri Synod or MS, and Lutheran Church of America, or LCA. I’m more familiar with MS cause thats how I was raised.
Lutheranism was founded based on how it was different than Catholicism, so thats how it easiest to describe. The only one who talks to God on your behalf is Jesus.There is no Pope, and Pastors are not intermediaries to God. Pastors are people who felt the “calling to God” and took the time to study God’s word at great depth. But they are mostly teachers,councilours, and leaders, they help you find your own way to God, but they can’t take you there. As such there is no confession, except in your own heart to God. The Church gives its official position on matters, as to what it finds acceptable, but faith is emphasised as a personal matter, so it never says do X and go to Hell.
As I mentioned before Consubstantition is an important belief as opposed to Transubstantiation.
There is no partitular position give to Mary, she is respected as the mother of God, but in no way prayed to, likewise there are no saints to intervene on your behalf, emphasising again the personal nature of your realationship to god.
They really never say what is going to happen to other religions, ie go to Hell or not, but instead say that that is a matter between them and God, but you should take any oportunity to try to educate other people about God.
We don’t have full immersion, just a few drops on the head for baptism, and speaking in toungues and Pentecostal type stuff is mostly frowned upon(I have never heard of anyone in a Lutheran Church doing it).
There really is no Dogma that I can think of. If you do a Lenten Denial, then that is considered good, but there isn’t much pressure to do so.
You can eat or drink ANY DAMN THING YOU WANT!!(my favorite part) although cannablism would be serverly frowned upon).
Basically as long as you believe Jesus died for you then you are in good standing with the church, but going every Sunday, and the Other Churchly things are good to do cause it helps you keep Faith on your mind, so you don’t drift away, but as I said there is very little do X and Go to Hell.
MS is more conservative than LCA, No Women Pastors, more emphasis on the stuff that the Bible points out as wrong. And the standard “Love the Gay Guy, hate the Gay sex” thing.
Strongly anti-Abortion, Anti-death penalty.
Okay I’ve babbled enough about Lutherans.
P.S. a much more entertaining way to learn about Lutheranism vs Catholicism is through Garrison Keillors “Prarie Home Companion”. Its funny as hell and usually dead on.
Here I was all ready to jump in and answer some questions and I find that Balance and Falcon have already beat me to it! Well, at least I beat Kricket this time! Good job, guys! I’ll just hang around in case you need any back-up from another eclectic!
I don’t think religion means anything. What I mean is, I believe you need a personal relationship with God; talking to Him, worshipping Him.
A religion is simply a set of beliefs and rituals, you don’t have a communication with a religion, but with another being, if you get my drift.
I believe life originated on Earth as a result of chemical processes and evolution. I don’t dislike religious people, but, generally, I despise the institutions of religion because they control people through ignorance.
As for Taoism, there is a great deal of similarity between the concept of the Tao and the Wiccan God/Goddess described above. (In fact, I was Wiccan for a few years before I decided I liked Taoism better.) Unlike Wicca, Taoism is not a religion; it’s more a philosophy of how you should live.
The Tao is a universal, omnipresent force. It is, essentially, Life Itself. (Think The Force in Star Wars.) The Tao has two parts that represent opposites. Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Male/Female, etc. The Yin-Yang (that circle divided in half with a squigly line) is a Taoist symbol that represents this concept. The key is that while everything is in flux, everything is also in balance. The Taoist tries to maintain this same balance within himself.
As for Dogma, I don’t really have any. My actions are a result of my desire to acheive balance within myself. This usually leads me down a morally acceptable path.
I am also a person of principle. I believe in concepts like Truth, and Conscience, and try to live by those principles. When I screw up, or something sucks, I do NOT blame it on God. (Since there isn’t one ).
OK, Taoism is pretty difficult to actually put into words, please ask if you have any more questions and I’ll try my best to answer.
I am a pentecostal Christian. I go to an Assemblies of God church. We attend church on Sundays for about 2 hours, there are Sunday School classes in various topics an hour before church. We also attend a bible study once a week in someone’s home except during summer when we meet a couple of times a month because of scheduling conflicts. We have communion once a month with bread and grape juice which we beleive are symbols. We believe in the Bible as God’s word. We believe that if you ask God, he will fill you with the Holy spirit and you will be able to speak in tongues. We believe that God can and does heal people and we pray for people to be healed in our services and in private. We believe that anyone who beleives in Jesus as the Son of God and propriation of sin is a Christian just as we are. We believe that all christians will go to heaven and all non-christians will go to hell. We do not believe that Mormons are christians. There are many in my church who are ex-Catholics who do not have nice things to say about that church, though this does not apply to individual catholics.
Snark does a pretty good job answering the questions. However, there are a few errors.
I think the word “substitutionary” means quid pro quo–that is a form of payment of an exact amount, or so much suffering that Jesus had for so much sin. That isn’t LDS doctrine – several passages in scripture refer to the atonement of Christ as infinte, not quid pro quo. This may seem like a minor correction, but I’ve seen too many misconceptions about us, and like to correct what I see when I can. Since the atonement the core of LDS doctrine (as well as the rest of Christianity), it’s fairly important to communicate that one correctly.
I have never heard of a figure of 1000 years. I think Snark may be thinking something to do with the millennium. Spirit Prison/Paradise is the abode of the spirits of men and women after death and before resurrection, hence the time of death and the time of resurrection will dictate the amount of time that passes.
Do you have any reading recomendations for someone interested in Wicca? I’ve been curious about the religon for some time and would like to find something a little more in depth than “101 lovespells” and other such tripe.
Yah! Another Taoist! I was actually reading my Tao Te Ching last night before bed. The only thing I have to add to that post is that the Tao teaches you that though the things are opposite, ying/yang and such, they are the same. The whole of the world is opposite things that make up the world together. But they are not in opposition. I find it especially interesting in the context of ancient China, where you had Taoism and Confucinism, which as philosophies, are as opposite as you can get, yet they coexhisted. How Tao.
We are discussing this right now on a Pagan group I belong to.
We have been talking about the forms that deities can take. Since we are all pagan and have the view that divinity is shown through archetypical images anything or anyone can become divine and godlike. There person is not divine just the image of the person. I would do a Jesus comparison but that would probably make flames so I will just try to do it abstractly. It is basically an idea that your image can transcend and be a lasting (or fleeting) contribution to divinity. Currently we have a set of Wiccans (though failry flakey) who worship the X-Men archetypes (literally) and RuPaul. I know this doesn’t bode well for Wiccans because it sounds flakey on the surface and granted the people that worship these people whom I know personally are pretty flakey. Anyway, after talking to them about it they have a pretty well thought out belief. Dr.Xavier is the “All-Father” the trainer. Beast represents the intellect, etc. The other set of people who call Rupaul a deity believe that she is a modern day incarnation of Orisha. Orisha is an African God/dess, for those of you who don’t know, often associated with androgony and/or homosexuality.
I say this to give a background to a wide array of Wiccan beliefs. Many are very eclectic as the above shows. Others, such as myself follow the archetypes of older gods. Matt_Mcl said it very well on another thread where basically we worship the universe as a god and give certain aspects an archetypically divine name/appearance. So, whenever we step outside we see our gods and goddesses all around us since the universe is the divine. It is an animistic belief. Everything, animate and inanimate is divine. I have said it before. That doesn’t mean we can’t manipulate it to our will.
I know it is not exactly in your format but a lot of my beliefs were touched upon earlier. I am a Reconstructionist Druid but have been prone to moving around the Pagan circles. I practice mostly solitary but talk with many Wiccans and Asatrui (not sure if that is the plural) because I like to learn about the different faiths. I have never been Christian but went to a Catholic University and a Baptist grade school (thankfully not for very long. They believed that Jesus had a crewcut.). I have always been a practicing Pagan though at the appropriate times in the broomcloset. I can’t tell you guys how hard it was to be in that Baptist school because the faith tenants and all the fire and brimstone speeches we got as children from them. Again, luckily I was only there for about a year.
OH, one last thing. My afterlife is a little different from the Wiccans whom I have known. In Celtic mythology there is little or no definition between the world of the living and the world of the dead. One can pass through it seemlessly and often does. There are many stories that utilize this idea. The Mabinogeon states it at the beginning with the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. It is a little difficult to conceptualize but I basically think of it as a dream like world that we can move between and be reincarnated from.
How Tao indeed I actually do not read the Tao Te Ching very often, (and don’t really understand all that hexagram stuff). I mostly meditate and contemplate a lot, and try to see the balance in things.
I was born Catholic, went to Catholic grade school. We did not attend church as a family except for one Christmas Eve midnight mass.
I ‘turned’ Anglican to get married in '88. I had serious doubts about religion at that time, but it was important to the mum-in-law.
I now consider myself Agnostic. I just don’t know whether there is a higher power or not. I look back on my life, and on things going on around me, and have come to the conclusion that I do not want anything to do with any organized religion. Also, if there is one almighty power, and this is the way “he” runs things, I don’t want anything to do with him.
Suggested reading for chrisbar…
There are an awful lot of books on Wicca out there, on lots of different paths; really the best thing to do is start looking on the Web first. Find out what path specifically interests you, and what details about it, and then find a book about it. A really good place to start is at http://www.witchvox.com/ . They have loads of basic info, links, and book recommendations. Be prepared to encounter some really weird stuff; being such a diverse religious movement sometimes makes us look like a bowl of granola–full of nuts and flakes!
With that said, I personally like Scott Cunningham’s book Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. It’s sort of a basic primer that a solitary eclectic should find useful.
As friedo pointed out, many Wiccans are influenced by Taoist philosophy–myself included (witness my screen name). Hence, I’d recommend brushing up on Taoism as well. We’re all trying to find ways to think and talk about something effectively indescribable; take enlightenment where you find it.
Oh, and ditch 101 Love Spells. Love spells are almost invariably manipulative and should be approached with extreme care. C’mon, you know you bought it, fess up and put it behind you.
Good job, guys! I’ll just hang around in case you need any back-up from another eclectic!
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