Since they linked it as a resource, it would be a good idea to examine it for it's value.
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In today's world it seems that religion has become a central core of our lives.
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Even so are we really religious? We talk about fighting for god and being good Christians but the truth is on home turf do you really believe the words that are preached to you every Sunday?
God should have been capitalized given the context as a proper noun. And my suspicion is that most Christians do believe what is preached, to differing degrees.
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Do you even attend church every Sunday? And be honest with yourself, do you really believe in the text of the bible and an all-powerful-ever-living god that will forgive all your sins or send you to hell based on how you choose to live?
This is actually a pretty ignorant understanding of Christian tradition, since it completely ignores key concepts for the majority of Christendom, such as Free Will, the sacrament of reconciliation, the forgiveness of sin, passages from scripture that address how people sin, who goes to heaven and what hell is.
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I took a spiritual journey of my own when I found myself questioning these very things. I found myself searching for what I truly believed in and questioned my devotion to my own Catholic upbringings. Amongst my upbringings were superstition and occult movies from the age of five, so it was no wonder I was heavily interested in witchcraft. When I started researching the Witch Trials for a school report I discovered something very interesting. I learned that Witchcraft was very much alive and was even considered a practiced religion in many parts of the world. The Craft, now known as Wicca, was brought out of the closet in the 1950s by Gerald Gardner who professed to be an initiated witch. With his professions more witches came out of the closet and the laws against witchcraft were repealed in 1951, thus paving the way for Gardner and many others to publish books on the subject.
There is no evidence of a hidden witchcraft religion. Murry's own thesis was debunked in her time.
Gardner created what we know of the Wica.
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To my surprise, I was able to find books on the subject very easily and now almost every bookstore carries a New Age section bearing many books on the subject.
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I started delving deeply into the Craft and even gave up on attending Church.
So, you broke your word? And you are encouraging others to do so?
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Despite my affirmations, however, many of the ideals of Wicca strongly contradicted what I honestly believed in courtesy of my Catholic upbringing.
I wonder how. I mean, clearly, fertility cults and Catholicism aren't the same. But I wonder about the validity of the criticism issued.
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Wicca preached of an equal higher power male and feminine balanced completely.
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Wicca also followed a devotion to nature.
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However, it was their belief that evil as a sole entity did not exist was something I could not fathom.
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I believed that if everything had an equal then truly there was an evil force to match the good in the world. I believed that there was constantly a war of good and evil and that we are all but pawns. I believed in angels in demons and a battle that never ended. This was something Wicca completely contradicted.
In much the same way there are Hard Polytheistic Wica, there are likely members of the cult who agree with claims about good and evil.
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I also realized that I had a problem with keeping up on the rituals.
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I would follow them every now and then, but it all really seemed to be icing on the cake in my opinion.
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I believed that some elements may be necessary, but if a spell really was equal to that of a prayer, why wouldn't a mere prayer suffice?
Petition Prayers are not the summation of prayer.
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So I decided to look back into the Catholic faith and that Book of Revelations as well as the lore on angels and demons. I learned that unlike the generic Christian faith Catholics looked highly on the Mother Mary and even some Wiccans who followed Catholicism as well viewed Mary as a vessel of the Goddess.
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I also found many parallels between Catholicism and Wicca and realized that I could not fully deny either one as part of my faith. I also realized I believed in many other religions like Taoism, Buddhism and even Muslim.
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They all had similar concepts in that they believed in a higher power and that good was rewarded with good and bad was rewarded with bad.
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I attempted to go back to church to balance the rituals of Wicca but both seemed tedious and absolutely unnecessary.
Again, this is sheer ignorance as to the nature of Wica, since the orthopraxy is necessary.
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At church I'd sit amongst people who held dark secrets that they wanted forgiven for
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or people that needed to show face or some who just blindly followed the tradition of getting up each morning because that was how they were raised.
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Once a girl looked at me and said she could tell I was very "spiritual." At first I thought it was because of the pentacle I wore professing my faith. As I got to know her more I learned that she had a gift of seeing things. One time she mentioned seeing people whom she and her friend called "faeries" and I said "You see dead people." I hadn't meant it as a joke. I was dead serious though slightly playing off the movie. She didn't seem to think it was funny and I felt terribly sorry she thought I meant it so. However, from that moment on I thought back to what she said and realized she had pinpointed who I was.
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I was "spiritual." I couldn't define my religion because I wasn't religious.
The definition for religious that includes "relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity" could just as easily be applied to anything described as "spiritual".
Because of this, I think the author is merely attempting to dismiss other practices.
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I believed. I believed without ritual and without a physical church. The true church was in my soul and I was able to feel closer to God by believing in myself and in Them with no hesitation or reservation. In my opinion the word "religion" came from the word "ritual"
I really wish authors would put in the two minutes research to confirm or refute any opinion formed in ignorance.
It came from the Latin religionem, whereas ritual came from the Latin ritus.
If you want to examine the etymology, and the historical definitions, ritual came from the word religion, not the other way around. Further respect for that which is sacred is not synonymous with "ceremony."
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I was completely and utterly "spiritual" and I didn't feel the need to prove my faith to anyone. It was a kind of enlightening and I feel happier for it. It's a feeling I feel sad that very few people ever get to know. Such a feeling can only be felt when you are at one with your faith and you don't care what other people think about it or who sees you practice it. You just believe. You don't let other people tell you it's wrong or you practice it wrong. You just believe.
Advocating for a "whatever you feel is right" attitude is irresponsible. Especially when there are folks like the Frosts around.
And when privilege fuels senses of entitlement and creates racism.
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When I see the wars of today
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and the way people try to impose their own beliefs on others I can only feel sad.
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First of all, I feel sad for the people being imposed upon
Funny. I think people who rape children as part of their religion should be imposed right into a cell. Well, actually, I would advocate for the death sentence with some qualifiers, but sadly, rape and molestation isn't a capital offense.
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If they were truly content and truly believed they wouldn't feel the need to make others see.
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They would believe without judgment or reservation.
On the contrary. If people were truly confident, they wouldn't need an overly permissive attitude to protect themselves from criticism.
That's what this is. If no one can be criticized, then the person who proposes this can't be criticized if they are wrong. Other people risk criticism and it can build strength and conviction.
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In a novel I am working on I created a kingdom devoted totally to the motto of a patron goddess. Though the goddess and the kingdom are completely fictional their motto is one I wish all people could readily devote themselves to. "Love as thou wilt, without judgment or reservation." It is how I have deemed to live my life and I hope that others can find their own path and free themselves of the chains of society and just believe.
Remember that you're not allowed to judge when a racist a*****e spits on a person that has a different color of skin.
Remember not to judge the mother who scalds her child to death.
Don't judge the man who rapes their girlfriends seven year old daughter, after all it was his right to Love as thou wilt.
