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[Jackrabbit]

Everything after 'stretches' is aimed at Dwarf.

[Grakelin]

I just have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate.

Which religions do you partake in which are not made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old?

[Fenrir]

I think his point is that Wicca was created by someone that should have known better and probably did know better. (I personally could not say if this is true or not.)

[Grakelin]

Known better than to have done what?

[Fenrir]

Known better than to have created that religion. That is; he supposes that the religion's founder knew that the religion was not in any way truthful.

Of course, I may well be wrong, but I think this is what Dwarf means.

[Aqizzar]

I just have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate.

Which religions do you partake in which are not made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old?

I think his point is more that Wicca was arrived at by a scholar of paganism that sat down and built a new faith by picking and choosing parts of different mythological traditions with deliberate intent.  All religions mix new and old sure, but they weren't designed with conscious effort to look or appeal a certain way, they were arrived at by a thousand accidents of history.  Wicca is not alone in this, Kwanza, Mormanism, and the Kabbalah branch of modern Judaism all get the same criticisms.

[Dwarf]

But I for one am most certainly not on Dwarfs. Be less of a douchebag and be more conducive to discussion. Vitriol breeds vitriol (I wouldn't have called you a douchebag otherwise, though I stand by that, cause that was hella douchey) and helps nobody. Is it so hard to express your opinion in a positive manner? Here, I'll rewrite this whole post so I do too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's quite a bit of fun-poking at ignrant cristuns on this forum, but if you put the shoe on another foot, hoooo boy.

It is just fun-poking though, and there's been fun-poking at wiccans in this very thread. But I think near everyone agrees that just calling it bat-shit crazy is unnecessarily rude, and nobody wants to have to deal with it.

So it's all cool, we're basically on your side, depending on how far your definition of fun-poking stretches. But I for one am most certainly not on Dwarfs. Don't be so caustic in voicing your opinion or all you'll do is alienate people. I wouldn't have minded if you said you have trouble with Wiccan because, say,

I have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate.

That's not a bad way of putting it, it's less rude and more people are willing to discuss it with you instead of simply calling you out. Better for all sides.

But my original post stands because you made me angry by being an ass.

I'm sorry for my asshattery, but I don't see any more asshattery in my second post.

EDIT: Okay, I used "to pull out of one's ass", I guess that could be offensive.

[Eagleon]

I think his point is more that Wicca was arrived at by a scholar of paganism that sat down and built a new faith by picking and choosing parts of different mythological traditions with deliberate intent.  All religions mix new and old sure, but they weren't designed with conscious effort to look or appeal a certain way, they were arrived at by a thousand accidents of history.  Wicca is not alone in this, Kwanza, Mormanism, and the Kabbalah branch of modern Judaism all get the same criticisms.

I never personally got why everyone didn't just do this. I mean, if you're going to claim to be able to commune with some sort of divinity (inner or otherwise), you might as well figure it out for yourself what it needs. Obviously you'd want to draw from the experiences of others when it makes sense, but when they're doing something you see as stupid and harmful it's a little bit escapist to trust implicitly that it makes sense on some other level you can't see. And when you see useful human insight from foreign mythology, it's downright bullheaded to discard it because it didn't come from your parents or your religious leader.

Basically to me this isn't so much a criticism as a complement, and many other "neopagans" I've encountered feel the same.

[Jackrabbit]

But I for one am most certainly not on Dwarfs. Be less of a douchebag and be more conducive to discussion. Vitriol breeds vitriol (I wouldn't have called you a douchebag otherwise, though I stand by that, cause that was hella douchey) and helps nobody. Is it so hard to express your opinion in a positive manner? Here, I'll rewrite this whole post so I do too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's quite a bit of fun-poking at ignrant cristuns on this forum, but if you put the shoe on another foot, hoooo boy.

It is just fun-poking though, and there's been fun-poking at wiccans in this very thread. But I think near everyone agrees that just calling it bat-shit crazy is unnecessarily rude, and nobody wants to have to deal with it.

So it's all cool, we're basically on your side, depending on how far your definition of fun-poking stretches. But I for one am most certainly not on Dwarfs. Don't be so caustic in voicing your opinion or all you'll do is alienate people. I wouldn't have minded if you said you have trouble with Wiccan because, say,

I have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate.

That's not a bad way of putting it, it's less rude and more people are willing to discuss it with you instead of simply calling you out. Better for all sides.

But my original post stands because you made me angry by being an ass.

I'm sorry for my asshattery, but I don't see any more asshattery in my second post.

EDIT: Okay, I used "to pull out of one's ass", I guess that could be offensive.

Yes, your second post was fine, I used it as an example.

[lordcooper]

I just have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate. If I shall be a bit vulgar, it just seems to me somebody pulled the whole thing out of their ass, because their belief doesn't originate in the early days of humanity, nor has it evolved from another belief.

I identified as a Wiccan throughout my teens, but have drifted away from it over the years.  My beliefs and practices nowadays would still fall under the neopagan label, but are a lot closer to traditional shamanism/druidism with a liberal dosage of ritual entheogen/hallucinogen usage added in.  Despite that, they still contain elements of Judeo-Christian and Buddhist concepts which I have essentially tacked on because they make sense to me.  I'm a strong believer in (the crappily named) chaos magic in that belief itself seems to be the important thing, rather than what exactly is being believed in.  Sure, I've 'pulled the entire thing out of my ass,' but what I've ended up with is a set of religious/spiritual concepts that I agree with 100%, with the possibility for these convictions to shift as I grow emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.  That's basically what Wicca as a whole has done.  Not all belief systems need to date back 2000 years or have an inflexible/dogmatic approach.  What's so bad about that?

[G-Flex]

I just have trouble in seeing anything else in Wicca than some religion made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old put together into some kind of, as the name implies, neopagan conglomerate.

Which religions do you partake in which are not made up completely from different, rather random parts of mythology recent and old?

I think his point is more that Wicca was arrived at by a scholar of paganism that sat down and built a new faith by picking and choosing parts of different mythological traditions with deliberate intent.  All religions mix new and old sure, but they weren't designed with conscious effort to look or appeal a certain way, they were arrived at by a thousand accidents of history.  Wicca is not alone in this, Kwanza, Mormanism, and the Kabbalah branch of modern Judaism all get the same criticisms.

Even this is an oversimplification. Very many major changes in religion (and many major religions themselves) are still the results (at least partially) of intentional reform or some new religious leader's ideas being made popular. Granted, it's usually some combination of that and what you're saying.


At any rate, why is one any worse than the other? Why is it wrong for someone to intentionally create his own syncretic religion, but okay for one to arise through what amounts to chance cultural intermingling? Why does it matter how old a belief system is, or whether or not it directly evolved from another religion (which isn't really any less true of Wicca than most other religions anyhow)?

[Duke 2.0]

 I don't wish to take sides in this, but I would like to acknowledge an aspect of this. When a system of belief has been around for thousands of years a lot of it has changed from the original interpretation. It goes to the point where the core concept may be the same, but the surrounding ideas supporting that idea have changed over time to anonymous people. It's something that evolved with no real control by any one person. Whereas younger systems of thought can generally be traced to a single person or group of people, you would have to have large faith in these people to not screw things up. It's a problem between looking over the merits of a system of thought or the merits and the trustworthiness of the creator of a system of thought.

 I also subscribe to a system of beliefs that can originate from a Korean guy that is still alive so I know the problems of believing a young belief system. There may not be any real differences between something somebody came up with recently and something that evolved over thousands of years, but there is a real aspect of how trustworthy it is. As well as cultural familiarity, as some systems of belief have the grace of growing up with cultures and provide more comfort and peace to those in such cultures.

[Africa]

@lordcooper

Being 2000+ years old and having its origins lost in the mists of time doesn't make a religious belief more valid, but what it DOES do is make it uncertain that the belief was pulled wholesale out of someone's butt. In the case of newer religions, like Islam, Druze-ism, Baha'i, Mormonism, etc, we have historical documents about the founder and we know that they basically made it up themselves. Of course, with Christianity and Judaism, we have stories about founders, but history either knows next to nothing about them, or else they may as well be mythological. So hell, maybe God DID appear to the whole nation of Israel on Mt. Sinai. Maybe Jesus DID do a bunch of miracles in front of people. Whereas, we know that Joseph Smith just made up some story about golden plates, which contained blatant factual errors and clearly made-up names, so there's a concrete reason to give Mormonism less credence than standard Christianity.

Also, I read that wikipedia article on "chaos magic" and it seemed like a bunch of gibberish, but I definitely couldn't find a part where it says what the "magic" actually does.

[G-Flex]

On one hand, I'll agree (in cases like Scientology and Mormonism) that a clear history of a religion's founding can make the motives and faults of its founders more clear.

On the other hand... in the case of Mormonism, would the factual errors somehow become less erroneous if the book were written a millenium earlier? Whether we know who Joseph Smith is or not, we still know that the Americas didn't have, say, the animals that the Book of Mormon mentions the region having.


Also: Who really cares whether someone "made up" a religion or it's been around for aeons? Why does it matter, at all? Why do you somehow have more confidence in something just because it's so old that it's harder to prove or disprove, especially when we're talking about religions that don't even rely on divine revelation in the first place?

[Eagleon]

Also, I read that wikipedia article on "chaos magic" and it seemed like a bunch of gibberish, but I definitely couldn't find a part where it says what the "magic" actually does.

Essentially, chaos magic abandons concrete ritualistic traditions for magic (or "prayer" - really, there's not much difference) in favor of emphasizing the importance of altered states of consciousness, most particularly strong belief. A "good" Chaos Magician could switch from counting rosary beads to invoking the third horn of Lurr of Omicron Persei 8, in complete seriousness (well, mostly, I think they could still see the absurdity) and without regard to how much sense it makes mythologically or culturally. It's not so much a way of magic as a belief about the mechanics of it. Religious traditions and cultural elements are seen as a useful guide for your meditation and intent, instead of insight into how the universe actually works, and whatever contradictions you might attempt to reconcile are something else entirely.

Disclaimer: I'm an internalist shaman and simulist, I don't do the magic thing except in my dreams.