Blog

Saturday, December 04, 2004

[E-mail to Z4 at www.whypaganssuck.com]

Z4,

I was just doing research on a book I'm writing (a fictional work on Demonology) and I hit on your website, and had to tell you I really enjoyed it! Plenty of reference links, and you clearly know your subject, and aren't just flaming to be heard. Your layout is well structured, and I really enjoyed your sense of humor.(fluffbunnies?)

Furthermore, I agreed with every word. (Well, as much as I read of it anyways, which was quite a lot...)

My belief (of course, each e-mail you get has to include at least a hint at the sender's belief system, right?) as far as religion is concerned is that we have two choices:

1 - We can choose to fit ourselves into an existing religion. This requires changing any of your beliefs that don't agree with that religion, unless it happens to exactly match your beliefs. I would say that those are some LONG odds that you find a religion that matches what you believe. (if this did in fact happen for many
people, it might hint at a higher truth OR religious belief built into our genetic code OR alien conspiracy theory...)

I don't like this option, as it seems like being untrue to yourself, but the nice thing about it is you have people to eat pancakes with on Sunday.

2 - We can incorporate the parts that 'agree' with our belief systems, and 'roll our own'. So if people want to incorporate Faerie Worship and Aromatherapy into their personal religion, that's fine. (Mostly) I would point out that there is a danger of ending up with what I would call an 'imbalanced' or 'incomplete' religion. By this, I mean deciding to worship the God and ignore the Goddess (or vice-versa) and let's not dwell on what kind of problems might manifest from this belief system, but hopefully people will see/know the parts lacking, and seek to fill in the empty spaces. Consider this to be a neverending process, resulting in a personal religion that grows with the person, and NEVER considers itself to be 'finished' or 'complete'. (Is this a bad thing?)

I prefer this option, although it probably easier to follow the Option 1, and pick your belief system off the shelf, than it is to soul-search and ask yourself questions like, "How do I Really feel about Abortion/Faeries/5-Fold Kisses/Pancakes/Etc...?"

It is unfortunate that many people who want to rebel against the religion forced upon them at birth turn to Pagan/Wiccan beliefs half-heartedly, or with just enough knowledge about the subject to make them annoying. Hopefully your website helps the world in that regard.

For what it's worth,
Conrad Zero

Labels: ,

Posted by Zero10:42 PM
     0 Comments      Permalink     
Conrad Zero - Minneapolis Musician Author and Demonologist

Blog