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The Marcionites were the largest group of heretics. It is very similar to Gnosticism as defined by the Sethians and Valetinians in that they made a distinction between God and Creator but differed in that they believed much of what is evident within the Protestant movement such as Sola Scriptura (Marcion made the first Bible containing the Gospel of the Lord, aka the Gospel of Marcion and ten epistles of Paul) and sola fida, where as the gnostic sects believed that the key to salvation was gnosis, direct experiential understanding of God and shared close ties with what became Catholicism, or at least the Valentians did, hell Valentius nearly became Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope. What's interesting to note is that, theoria, a type of gnosis documented within Christianity is critical for one to be a theologian within the Eastern Orthodoxies, though they do not believe it to be necessary for salvation.

Okay and?

I present the correct information and question why they believe the misinformation.

And know we hit the million dollar questions here.

If someone is set in their ways, wishes to or claims to be part of a community, believes or practices something that is antithetical to the community in question and can provide no justification or reason other than "I want to be X".

What is the most appropriate way to respond?

Should the community accept the individual in question because they wish to be a part?

Why can the person in question claim to be a part of a community they were never a part of in the first place?

I'm not saying baptism isn't biblical, but baptism of infants isn't, which is what the Catholic Church endorses. Full-immersion is biblical, which is what some churches use. There's also prayer to saints, which isn't endorsed by the Bible, but again is endorsed by the Catholics. (Oh, and I skipped the link cause my computer is acting weird. You think you could paraphrase it?)

I made two statements about a centuries old debate. My argument is gonna lack facets.

I don't see how that justifies putting tradition ahead of the Bible.

Reduction actually.

Depends on the guild. This one yes, but in other's you have to have approval from a guild captain.

Not all religions that fall under the classification of neopagan are eclectic ya know. Also neopagan is not a religion but a classification of religons. Who's claiming that neopagans need to be exclusive. If religions that fall under the classification of neopagan though wish to be exclusive then that is that religion's business. Rather not. Don't agree with their definition of the true will.

Cool so am I. Neither am I, I'm a Christian Gnostic. Beliefs are just images of what is true. Wow aren't you the special one. No one can please everybody. Okay and.. No different at all.

And...

How did I "jump" on him. I mean it's rather hard to jump in text. Wait *jump* there we go. So questioning why someone believes something is wrong? Also isn't this a "debate" guild? Also what beliefs of his did I question?Again okay that's why there's mods and Captains to enforce stuff. This should be brought to the mods rather than this post.

okay so who's going to do the info dropping? Also what is going to happen when someone is confronted with Gardner's "Witchcraft Today" or "How to be Wiccenz in 30 mins." okay how is anything forced? If sources are asked for they are presented. If a claim can't be backed it is dismissed. Why is this so hard?

Reducto ad absurdum? Reduction is one thing, but too far neglects the particulars of the situation.

Again, this is still a simple matter. Yes, they can be prevented from joining *a* guild, but good luck convincing *every* pagan guild on Gaia to take up such a practice.

Yeah, me either. At least we've got some common ground now!

You have a way of trying to mock the evidence I present as though I were trying to be special. Is that the only way you can address the issues I presented there?

How did I "jump" on him. I mean it's rather hard to jump in text. Wait *jump* there we go. So questioning why someone believes something is wrong? Also isn't this a "debate" guild? Also what beliefs of his did I question?Again okay that's why there's mods and Captains to enforce stuff. This should be brought to the mods rather than this post.
About the mods - they're sorting it out. All of the specifics seem to make it a sticky situation. Out of respect for others involved, I won't trash them by airing their personal business here.

This is not exclusively a debate board. Debate AND discuss religion. The thread in question was visibly geared towards a discussion, which was inhibited.

Traditionally in the US, it's considered "impolite" to discuss something as personal as politics or religion in public. If we're going to move beyond that, we need to remember and carry out the respect the old way had built in.


If you're so interested in correcting misinformation, do it yourself. You can sow these sources like seeds. It's not that hard to do or understand. On the - "How to be Wiccan in 30 minutes" - if you were to manufacture such nonsense, I'd say you missed the point of this debate. If you're coming across it, then make your own site that points to how that's "not Wicca".

And the idea of using someone's religious beliefs in an "academic" debate with them is still disrespectful. Outright calling someone out to invalidate their beliefs is not okay. You keep trying to force others to look at evidence, and choose accordingly. This isn't school. I hate to say that "evidence has no place in religion", but the way we have total freedom of religion... unless the person wants it, they really don't have to take it. Both with debate and the internet, people can and do just tune you out.

Proof by repeated assertion is *not* a proof. I guess that depends on your definition of "witch".

And belief is dead without the practices to back it up, even in Christianity.

Shinto, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are not Pagan. We've addressed this before in another thread. Shall we take this there?

At the conference of World religions in Australia, where plenty of pagans attended, they proposed a definition of "European indigenous religions". But Wicca was arguably left out, so it was scrapped for another five years until the next conference. If a Kemetic recon group wishes to call itself pagan, it has about five years to make some noise about it before world religions try to lay down some common ideas. Hindus don't need to be called "pagan" and depending on which one you talk to, that's almost like calling a muslim a towel-head. The conference of World Religions understood this.

I'm not aware of anyone talking about Neopaganism as a cohesive religion. The community, however...

And the community is not a friggin coven. Wiccan covens are in the community, but that's not the same thing, now is it? Even when membership in such a coven is exclusive, unless said coven isolates itself from the broader community, even those turned away from the coven can be part of *that*.

These rules and guidelines are explicitly cited by the ToS. Therefore, they are implicitly a part of the ToS.

Lady Tsukiyo, if someone is going to hand me entire books, and not point to where the info they cite comes from, it's going to take a while to read it.

To both of you:
If you recall, I have repeatedly (admittedly, not every time) included in my suggestion that a gentle, guiding hand remain to help direct the discussion. This includes pointing to where in the sources to look for certain key things. If you are intending to "call my bluff" in this way, you have yet to follow through on it.

Also, had you read any of these sources yourself, you wouldn't be claiming them to support your argument. I'm not saying that to be trite, harmful or brash, but most of these sources contradict the info that you post, and only one in an academically sound way - it ends up supporting my argument. One of these isn't even accessible.

I will concede the "Paganism" point. However, much of Neo-Wicca has become synonymous with the Neopagan movement. I don't agree with the academics behind it, but it's there. One of your own sources implies this trend as well.

The "Amber and Jet" link was an internet forum, who's listings are private. If you wish to cite them, please quote them. I don't think I should have to join another group to participate in a debate in this group.

Your own source, the google book, "Triumph of the Moon", on page 228 acknowledges that there is no evidence that Gardner wrote the original text that Wicca is based on.

Your "Revised History" cites Margaret Murray as a source for history. It has been demonstrated that she made up this incident about a group which monotheistically worships a *single* horned god: Here's a source on her. So even if you dispute that Murray's contribution is hogwash, both for the religion and the history, you contradict your notion of both a god and goddess.

Wicca: Witchcraft Today also uses Murray as some authority. Note that she considers confessions under duress (as per the Medieval Witch Hunts) as objective evidence. Such a practice is not valid in court today. Murray was great for her time in Egypt, but even that work has been superseded by more thorough researchers. Her work outside of Egypt quickly became laughable in the field of Anthropology.

Also, as in the "Irish Witchcraft" section of Witchcraft Today, the idea of a European "Pygmy Race" has no archaeological evidence. Neanderthals looked hopeful, until Gardner wrote about them existing after the Roman invasion.

What Thou Wilt: Innovative Trends in Post Gardnerian Witchcraft looks promising, but I'm still hoping you can point me to where your particular claims are supported.

In particular, it discusses "Innovative Wicca" and fluffies as two distinct, though overlapping categories on page 54 (68 of the pdf file). The Traditional and "Innovative" sects are both attributed, by your own source, to be more likely to hold differing "fluffy" beliefs.

And I'm sorry, but giving me a 288 page book attributed to Gerald Gardiner, The Meaning of Witchcraft without any guidance as to where to find any particular claim you make is just unfeasible. I can haz helpz? If it contains as much of Gardner's attempts at explaining the Anthropology of his Wica cult in terms of academically unsound sources as his other text you cite, I will have the same qualms with it's submission.


http://www.geraldgardner.com/Gardner46-49.PDF
A brief scroll through of this will display Gardner's time spent in the OTO, his attempted claim to succeed Crowley there, and his attempt to obtain documents that Crowley wrote are precariously placed in the time period in which he wrote the text that supposedly forms the basis for his Wicca.

So, as the topic is pretty broadly about teaching others, we can add the following question:

What do you do when the other person refuses to see your perspective?
If you hold an ideal solution, and find that your behavior differs, that's alright. We're all human. Please acknowledge both, though I hope for the ideal solution as a new, related topic of debate.

I put this here as my reply forms a start to my personal answer to this follow up prompt.
Thank you for the personal attacks, as they illustrate my point wonderfully. This is a debate and discussion guild, not one of for hostile arguments.

As the "academic credentials" of one person's faith was off topic in the discussion where it arose, comparing someone's habit of calling them out on their religion to evangelicals is not an ad hominem (this was done in a previous thread). Evangelicals get aggressive where I've lived, calling out others for not being members of their church, or a similar church from a short list of allies. If this is an ad hominem against the rest of Evangelical Christians, I apologize for that, but you get my point. Rmc's ad hominem attack of someone in another thread is admissible as an example of one idea of how to educate others, which some members of the PRFC historically espouse. You all defended it in this thread, where I debated against it and in favor of another method.

My other method has yet to see a thorough argument against it, though my ideas of what is and is not Wicca have. These are distinct ideas, but I hope to use the ideas on Wicca to provide additional support to the other assertion. I have already stated this.

If you're referring to any "proof by repeated assertion" comments as attacks, I tried to warn you subtly that I might not be able to contain myself. I apologize for the manner in which this came out, but not for the truth contained in them.

And have I derailed my own thread? Yes, I stray to address peripheral concerns, but each of my posts either mainly or completely addresses the some branch of the topic of debate.

I fail to see anything I've done which is intellectually dishonest, unless you consider enforcing standards of conduct to be "intellectually dishonest". Using Christianity, in whose history I'm somewhat versed (nothing expert, but I'm not completely ignorant) as an illustration of how ideas, even religious ideas evolve is *not* intellectually dishonest. I don't remember seeing enough of a satisfactory rebuttal to necessitate abandoning this position.

If I assert something to which you disagree, feel free to ask for a source.

Now, I've replied to the notion of "Pagan" as all Non-Abrahamic Faiths in the appropriate thread: how do you define paganism?

And rmc, thank you for the clarity on the Council of Nicaea. I hope to more thoroughly examine it soon.

I was more addressing Pre-Nicaea Christianities. It's a common misconception to lump Marcionism as a Gnostic system since it makes a distinction between God and Creator. Marcionism was very popular rivaling catholicism and lasted until 6th century CE, when for some unknown reason all the Marcion Churches converted to Catholicism. There's not enough evidence to say why Marcionism disappeared but nearly all of the publications and works of Marcion were destroyed (hopefully they might be hiding underground in some small desert town like the Nag Hammadi Library).

The quick and dirty of the Council of Nicaea is you had all these different religions claiming to be Christianity. The emperor of the most powerful nation wants to convert to Christianity but no one exactly can define what it is. Emperor pretty much sends a letter to the various Churches saying get your s**t together and agree on something. In the end a pretty inclusive statement of belief was developed. The only group specifically targeted to be excluded from this was the Arians. It's also interesting to note that Constantine if he was Christian had an Arian view of Christ. And thus began the establishment of what is orthodox and what was heretical. To claim that heresy existed before 325 CE is kinda dishonest since technically there was not One Church until this council.