http://eclecticsatyr.hostultra.com/aafbb.htm
I found this in one of my email groups. I think it’s very, very interesting. I tend to agree with this guy about a lot of things. I especially enjoyed the tongue lashing he gave the “scholarly pagans”. I don’t think that one has to be attached to a book to be a good Pagan. I think one’s beliefs should be a little separate from what one reads in a book. I think I’ve ranted on this before, haven’t I? Afterall, these are the same people that don’t put any credence in the Bible, because there’s no “proof” that any of it happened. And yet they see other types of mythology as if written in golden ink. If you don’t know everything that every god/dess did throughout time then you don’t take your religion seriously. And you are very, very bad.
I thought that Pagans were supposed to be an eclectic group anyway. Tolerant even. I’m seeing less and less of that as time passes. Certainly the rainbows and lollipops crowd annoys me (why do you need a spell to bring you good luck at the hair salon????), but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to hate them. Aren’t we hated by other groups? Or at the least feared or ridiculed? I do get severly irritated when a young witch of any particular Pagan path wants to know how she can fly or change her brother into a toad…but eventually she will come to her senses and know what the facts are. She will know that she won’t get superhuman powers from incense and sage. She won’t get Brad Pitt to marry her by burning a red candle. And she will certainly not shoot firebolts from her fingertips!!! She find all of this out on her own. Then she will more than likely go on her way, back to church, temple, or synagogue, forgetting all about her little experiment with the “occult”.
It’s the ones that put themselves in front of the media all dressed in black with hub-cap sized pentacles and fake blood dripping from their mouths that we have to worry about. They like to try to speak for all Pagans, explaining this is their religion and they aren’t normal and should never be. What you don’t like the way I dress and so don’t hire me for a job? Well, you’re discriminating damn you!!!! Then they go on to explain how they dance naked in the moonlight and have deep conversations with their cats. No, we can’t see that on t.v., but really it does happen….BULLSHIT.
Please don’t put me in your little equation. I don’t make myself up like some kind of nightmare freak to scare attention out of someone. I want to be taken seriously, thank you very much. At least in the community at large. But that’s hard to accomplish because of bozos that put themselves in front of cameras and act like freaks!! They are irresponsible and hurt all of us– no matter what your tradition (or lack thereof). I believe in conversing with the Divine, but I don’t believe in conversing with the cat. And I don’t think of conversing with the Divine as sitting and having a “human” conversation. It really gets under my skin when these showboats speak for me and anyone else like me. Hey, we’re just living our lives, guy. Get off of you soap box and leave us the hell alone.
Ok, back to my point. Or rather the author of the website’s point. We all pretty much started out as fluff. Unless, of course, you were raised in a Pagan household (most of us weren’t). We all had to start somewhere. And not all of us think that the only way we can honor our Gods is to sit inside all day and read, read, read. My church is outside not the library. And since we are outside the usual confines of where society puts religion it would be wise of us to band together and not find reasons to hate each other.
I mean, really, there are enough people who hate us already. Let’s just all get over ourselves.
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