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Paganism = New Age? How is that possible?

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posted on Jul, 23 2004 @ 04:22 PM
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Quote: "Because the Mafia was/is Catholic, does not mean Catholics are therefor Mafia. In the same way that, because the Mafia was Italian, doesn't mean Italians are therefor automatically linked to the Mob."

Yeah - I am Italian too!!! Obviously All Italians or all Catholics are NOT a part of the Mafia. Obviously other Mafias exist like the Russian & Japanese Mafias.

Why would somebody who was not Catholic wear a Big Crucifix around their neck? HELLO? And you are talking about my Logical Reasoning!!! Oh Yeah you almost got me - what about Christians & Protestants? Well in my experience Most Italian New Yorkers are part of the Roman Catholic form of Christianity.



posted on Jul, 23 2004 @ 07:02 PM
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Originally posted by Seraphim_Serpente
Quote: "Because the Mafia was/is Catholic, does not mean Catholics are therefor Mafia. In the same way that, because the Mafia was Italian, doesn't mean Italians are therefor automatically linked to the Mob."

Yeah - I am Italian too!!! Obviously All Italians or all Catholics are NOT a part of the Mafia. Obviously other Mafias exist like the Russian & Japanese Mafias.

Why would somebody who was not Catholic wear a Big Crucifix around their neck? HELLO? And you are talking about my Logical Reasoning!!! Oh Yeah you almost got me - what about Christians & Protestants? Well in my experience Most Italian New Yorkers are part of the Roman Catholic form of Christianity.


Huh???? What the hell are you babbling about???

You need to read slower pal. My post was in agreement with yours about the Mafia being Roman Catholic. Just an FYI for ya.....

Also, I was never part of the conversation about someone wearing a big gold cross or whatever, so I have no idea what that is all about. However, I can see you obviously never thought about the fact that it was really a big Golden 'T' which stood for 'Tony' now did ya smart guy?!?!?


After all, everybody knows that if you see an Italian Dude in NY his name is either Tony or Vinny, right, eh?? eh, oh...oh eh......
(BTW, I'm also part Italian. So don't put a hit out on me or nuttin' for breakin' your balls a little, capisce!!
)

Ummmmm.....I don't know, what about Christians and Protestants??

Lastly, I have little doubt that most Italian New Yorkers are Roman Catholic either. In fact New York is supposed to be like the main Hub of the Catholic Power in the U.S. isn't it?

This is more on the Conspiracy side of things but I've read that:
Cardinal O'Connor of New York is the most powerful Cardinal in the country. He is the military vicar. Cardinal O'Connor is the King of the American Empire and he rules his Empire from that Palace, St. Patrick's Cathedral, "the little Vatican".



posted on Jul, 23 2004 @ 07:29 PM
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Thank you Skadi and Lady V, for not only staying on topic, but for giving some very educational and useful information, that actually pertains to the original thread.
(Even Crysstaafur, concurs with your posts). We've both been practicing Wiccans for nearly three decades. We've seen alot of different views and arguments on the topic of Paganism, Wicca, and Witchcraft over the years.
These posts are quite good, and strong arguments in favor of those that seek their own personal spiritual path. Hassah!



posted on Jul, 23 2004 @ 08:52 PM
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I think you are trying to respond to me, so I am going to try to explain better what I was saying in the first place.
I am happy for you that you are Wiccan, that is great. Your mother and grandmother being Wiccan and Shaman is also wonderful, but it doesn't effect the fact that Wicca is relatively new as far a religions go.

The major difference I think in what we were saying has more to do with how you take the term "new age." For some reason, most Pagans/Wiccans seem to have stereotyped new age to mean the fluffy bunny happy bouncy white light love everything or you are wrong- scary people.

When I am saying new age I am not using any type of steotype for the people involved, I am simply referring to the idea that these religions are new. They are using old ideas, they are reviving them, but they are still new groups, new people and new ways of using old information.

In reference to the original question, from the perspective of someone who thinks that god created all and man first worshipped him, everything else is new, and seeing as how history is written for us to think that christianity ruled the world until the evil 60's and hippies and the new aged wiccans and pagans came along...
yes, sorry but pagans and wiccans do get thrown into being new age because they are utilizing radical ideas to actual enlighten people rather than enslaving them in churches. Pagans do not like the term. Wiccans do not like the term.
But if you enter theological circles or leave the realm of what gets classified as "new age"- you will find other people will still classify them as "new age." It doesn't matter if you like it- it doesn't matter if anyone likes it.

I can dislike being called female because females are moody and I think i'm not moody- this doesn't mean I'm not a female, it just means I have a preconcieved notion about the word's mean that isn't appropriate.

Pagans and Wiccans are prejudiced against anyone they can mark as "new aged" and everyone has been ready for years to point the finger. I am not accusing you as much as acknowleding a community problem that I have seen repeatedly through my life. I've been in the community for 15 years. I spent a good 5 years working with activist groups trying to help resolve the problems of ignorance within our own community.
I got kicked out of my high school, beaten, spit at and threatened regularly in the name of fighting ignorance about pagans and Wiccans around me- I do not need to be told what a Wiccan is, thank you very much.

You do make very broad statements and defining words in the Wiccan religion. I know from your writing style that you are smarter than to really believe all Wiccans can so unanymously unite on a definition- not all traditions define a witch as "someone who has studied very hard, committed the Pagan ways to memory, and has given his/her life over to the Goddess for protection and guidance"
the term witch says nothing of the goddess and not every wiccan would claim that it does. You might be able to settle on "practicioner of magic," but it would be followed by three weeks of debate on how to spell ma(g/j)ic(k), and another month of whether that choice was ok because of all the people who came late or weren't informed of the debate on time...
I'm pretty sure you know what I mean.

I am not trying to sound harsh, nor am I trying to insult you in any way. Please do not take my comments as such, it is only text, there are no tones of voice I can give.

I edited out most parts of your post that seem extremely off topic = I didn't address them anyways and most of it was explaining what your view of Wicca is.

Originally posted by LadyV
I am Wiccan I am NOT a new ager! My mother was a witch and my Grandmother a type of Shaman/Witch, if you will...
The New Age has opened up the access route to paganism.

Some people call themselves pagan, but with their manipulation, and/or rose-colored glasses outlook marks them as New Agers. Not to mention the lack of self-responsibility that marks them. "A demon made me do that." "An entity overpowered me on the Astral plane and made me do its bidding." Oh grow up. This kind of blaming placing is exactly what Wicca is NOT about. This also fully includes those of you who are whining all the time that so-and-so has cast an evil spell. Take responsibility for yourself and your own actions. Be brave enough to admit when you screw up.

Many New Agers stop at the "let's surround everything with white light and love so we can make it all better" attitude.
Wicca is an Earth-based, nature centered religion drawing on the ideas of pantheism, gnosticism, ceremonial magic, and the remnents of pagan religions.
Although the words "Wicca" and "Witchcraft" are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Wicca is a modern revivial of the old, Pagan religions, using magic, nature and a female Deity along with Her Consort, the Horned Lord, as its central core.
A Witch as defined in the Wiccan religion is someone who has studied very hard, committed the Pagan ways to memory, and has given his/her life over to the Goddess for protection and guidance. The term Witch within Wicca is a high title--just because you are Wiccan does not make you a Witch



posted on Jul, 23 2004 @ 09:27 PM
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During the past several years, I was fortunate enough to become friends with an Ojibwa healer, welcomed into sweatlodge ceremonies and became a willing participant in a few of the rituals.

(Yes...and I smoked the 'peace pipe')

Anyone who says that the pagan paths are long gone...hidden behind the veils of the passing millenia...are mistaken. They are active here and now, among us and unchanged.

I was also welcomed into a group of wiccans for a full wheel of ritual, leaving after the year was done.
I remain not a wiccan, but was impressed by the messages involved.

Comparing the two can be a remarkably enlightening experience.

The similarities between them are surprising. I would recommend anyone who is truthfully interested in Paganism to go to pow wows in their area and check them out. I go to the Cape Croker reserve for their pow wows because they are spiritual and not contests for fancy dress or dancing.



posted on Jul, 24 2004 @ 01:10 AM
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MoJom - I wasn't talking to you Silly - my rebuttal was aimed at BlackOps13!

But just incase you were curious - yes Big Gold Crucifixes WITH the
Dead Body of the "Son of God" on it!!!



posted on Jul, 24 2004 @ 01:15 AM
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Also yes I am pretty sure that the Big Ugly Dumb Stupid Goons that I run into are Mafia Enforcers.



posted on Jul, 24 2004 @ 10:15 AM
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I still say Constantine was a Pagan til death.


actually i think he was baptized just a short time before he died, when he was
to weak to resisit. ( we are talking minutes to hrs )



posted on Aug, 2 2004 @ 06:38 AM
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Christianity coined the term pagan if I am correct. It's a conventional method of detracting previous ideologies, and a morbid one at that. Paganism, in my views, is the creator of many doctrines we see on this planet today. How dare we degrade our parent.

Deep



posted on Aug, 2 2004 @ 08:17 PM
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Take a vacation to scotland for instance, there are tons of churches, everyone is christian, but then go to the pub after a wedding, a funeral, or a birth and you will hear what the locals really beleive. The beleifs that exsisted before christianity live on in folklore and wivestales. If you have a new house built it still must be sanctified with cocks blood (this is in place of having a corpse buried under the foundation). Up until about a hundred years ago, if a child was born sickly it was beleived that a fairy had kidnapped the human babe and replaced it with its own to be fed with mortal mothers milk, they would then leave the child on a "fairy hill" beleiving that during the night their child would be brought back, and all of this in a very christian society, beleived by practicing christians.
If you read the fairy tales of a country (and by that i dont mean walt disney) its amazing how much of the old beliefs exist in them.
On a different note I would also like to add that I believe just because a person is not a witch, it dosnt mean that they cant practice majick, they just must be very cautious while doing so.



posted on Aug, 3 2004 @ 06:53 AM
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not to mention christianity took many pagan tradions after they tried to wipe them off the place of the earth. taking stuff without asking is not very nice.




posted on Aug, 3 2004 @ 07:16 AM
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Originally posted by mutehalo
not to mention christianity took many pagan tradions after they tried to wipe them off the place of the earth.

It was Catholism not Christianity that took the pagan traditions.
Catholism is different to Christianity.

And just to clear something else up.

Christianity is the transition from the Old Covenant to the New, Judaism to Christianity. So the origins of Christianity date back many thousands of years to the beginning of Judaism. According to the genealogies recorded by Moses, people practiced monotheism/Judaism for thousands of years before any biblical texts where even written.

So the ways of the biblical God have been practiced for a very long time.
Can't be bothered doing the math but you can get an idea.



posted on Aug, 3 2004 @ 10:06 AM
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the term New Age has been used on and off since at least the 1500. as in
the New Age of Enlightenment.

as I recall the Jewish Monotheism did not gel and solidify until after the return
from babylon and the second temple. even into the CE there were sects of
Judiasm that were polythiestic with a God and Goddess represented.



posted on Aug, 5 2004 @ 11:59 AM
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Think of it like Vice Substitution. But for Religion.

People are always going to worship unknown forces outside of their comprehension, but it's all down to which ones are the "comfiest" to do that with.

If we're going to talk about "Pagan" ideas being "made-up, non-provable" ideas, then lets talk about the Mormon faith here too.

I'll put it to the floor that ALL religions are human creations, as in ALL religions, God, or the God-figure is a perfect creation. If religions were something from these/this God, then why all the confusion? I am willing to stipulate that there may well be a God, but how bothered he really is about us, I'm not so sure. Much better we take the responsibility of our lives on ourselves rather than entering into some kind of bargin with some father figure, who we can then moan at when things go bad...



posted on Aug, 8 2004 @ 11:26 AM
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Jews and the christians are the ones i believe are morally just. Everthing else fails moral laws.



posted on Aug, 10 2004 @ 12:01 PM
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I hear that it is Really Moral to Sacrifice your Baby to Moloch!



posted on Aug, 10 2004 @ 12:11 PM
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Originally posted by The Cockroach

If we're going to talk about "Pagan" ideas being "made-up, non-provable"



Paganism was here first. Christians can't prove anything any more than any other religion can.....



posted on Aug, 10 2004 @ 12:18 PM
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Originally posted by Thinker
Jews and the christians are the ones i believe are morally just. Everthing else fails moral laws.


Thank you for posting this well thought out and provocative statement, and contributing to the thread. I know your research has left you unquestionably too tired to actually post something of substance. You name is an oxymoron, right?



posted on Aug, 10 2004 @ 12:40 PM
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Originally posted by Thinker
Jews and the christians are the ones i believe are morally just. Everthing else fails moral laws.

I do not any way mean to be nasty or snotty to you....but with all respect, this type of mentality is exactly why so many people look negatively at the Christian religion....the world is not black and white, not to mention the fact that you will never get others to so much as listen to you or your beliefs with that type thought process.



posted on Aug, 10 2004 @ 02:10 PM
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Thank you Nathraq, that was beautiful!



Originally posted by nathraq

Originally posted by Thinker
Jews and the christians are the ones i believe are morally just. Everthing else fails moral laws.


Thank you for posting this well thought out and provocative statement, and contributing to the thread. I know your research has left you unquestionably too tired to actually post something of substance. You name is an oxymoron, right?





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