Prophet of Poison
I'm asking
why Wicca can mean only that. You can keep giving me books and facts about initiatory Wicca, but as it stands now it's all just proof by assertion.
The word had no meaning in Modern English till Gardner applied it to his religion. Thus the religion that Gardner created is the only religion that can be titled Wicca. If you don't meet the critera of Wicca then you are not Wiccan. To be Wiccan is to be a member of a specific fertility cult with specific deities and specific rites. Don't have those deities, not Wiccan. Don't have the rites, not Wiccan. It's not about belief. It's about practice.
Prophet of Poison
I understand that they are different, my point is that it won't matter what you call them. If you call an orange an apple, it's still an orange. If you let people know that when you say 'apple' you really mean 'orange', then there is no problem in communication. Nothing is keeping the 'meaning' of the words absolute.
So I can go up to a random person and ask for an apple when all they have are oranges and call an orange an apple? Thats bizare. It shows a lack of understanding of the terms and the meanings of words.
Prophet of Poison
Why can it
only mean that?
He brought the word into modern useage. As such it belongs to his cult.
Prophet of Poison
You could call yourself a Christian. It'd cause a lot of confusion, but there's nothing inherently wrong about it.
But your not following the God of Christianity in that situation. In which case calling oneself Christian would be inaccurate. You don't follow the right God. The same applies to Wicca. If you don't have the right deities, rituals, and lineage you are not Wiccan.
Prophet of Poison
Think of it this way; it's like money. Money has no intrinsic value other that what people prescribe to it. The 'value' of money wavers up and down and can become totally worthless when people lose their faith in it. Because money only represents a concept of value, or better yet; an agreement that we'll pretend it's worth something. Words work in the same way, they only represent ideas. If a majority of the world agrees that a single dollar can buy a TV, then a TV is 'worth' one dollar. If a majority of the world agrees that the word Wicca means 'what have you', then that's what it 'means'. There's nothing keeping the value of money or the meaning of words objective and static.
The people who call their religion Wicca have no understanding of what being Wiccan entails. if they did they would know that Wicca is oath bound and can't be learned from a book.
