Wiccans

[Njaco]

Well, its official...we've gone to hell!!

Top News- Wiccans Settle Military Grave Lawsuit - AOL News

[machine shop tom]

Originally Posted by Njaco

Well, its official...we've gone to hell!!

Top News- Wiccans Settle Military Grave Lawsuit - AOL News

Why? That "religion" makes just as much sense and is as valid as any other.

tom

[Njaco]

I know that. just getting a reaction. Wiccans and such don't practice "evil" crap, just a different form of belief. He should have had his recognition for his religion like everybody else.

[lesofprimus]

Adler will chime in here Im sure...

[Njaco]

uh-oh

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

First of all I am no Wiccan. I dont think you all understand what Wicca is. Wiccans are not Satanists (they can not be Satanists because they do not believe that Satan exists). If you believe this then you are just uneducated in the fact or have watched to many Hollywood movies. Wicca is a Pagan religion that has existed since before Christian times.

Wicca is a religion based off of nature. Hense the Pentagram which stands for Earth, Air, Fire and Water as well as Spirit. The Pentagram is not a Satanist symbol either, Hollywood has only made it that way., and unfortunatly everyone believes it because it would take to much effort to actually learn what it is.

Here is what Wiccans believe in:

Gardnerian Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.

According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as The Summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the living.[6] Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognised by the witches as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them.[7]

Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct. Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have observed that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, and embracing a more traditional pagan worldview.[8] Many groups and individuals are drawn to particular deities from a variety of pantheons (often Celtic, Greek, or from elsewhere in Europe), whom they honour specifically. Some examples are Cernunnos and Brigit from Celtic mythology, Hecate, Lugh, and Diana.

Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt to have a relationship with them as personifications of universal principles or as Jungian archetypes.[9] Some Wiccans conceive deities as akin to thoughtforms. A unified supreme godhead (the "Prime Mover") is also acknowledged by some groups, referred to by Scott Cunningham as "The One";[10] Patricia Crowther has called it Dryghten.[11]

According to current Gardnerian Wiccans, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret, and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft.[2] However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia. These are the names used in the prototype Book of Shadows known as Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magical.[12]

For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation, and this balance is seen in much of nature. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolised as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.

Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven, wherein "the High Priestess is the leader, with the High Priest as her partner; he acknowledges her primacy and supports and complements her leadership with the qualities of his own polarity."[13] In some traditions, notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at all.

Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things.[14] For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.

A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to effect divine possession."
Wicca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now as for the Pentagrams being allowed on the headstones? Damn right they should have there right to have a Pentagram on there! These soldiers gave there life for there country, it is the least that this country can do for them.

So what if they believe in something different than you. Are they not entitled to religious freedom, as you are?

I suggest that people learn more about the things that are different to them, than assume that Wiccans are Satanists, because they are not.

I have many friends who are Wiccan and several that I served with in the US Army. They are Americans too and deserve the same thing that anyone else is given.

[Njaco]

Hear, hear!!! That was my point exactly and my feeble attempt at stirring the pot was...well, feeble. I am also aware of what Wiccans truly are and its my fault I continued witha sterotype. I thought it was a shame that the Gov. failed to realize this also and it took 10 years to wake them up.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It should have been done sooner...

[Matt308]

I'm open to people believing in whatever they wish to believe in... As long as it does not harm others or impose upon others. Hell I thought the Branch Davidians were murdered. They were kooky. But last I heard that was not a reason to murder someone.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Wiccans are actually very peaceful.

[Erich]

ah but I am back can say a truck load of crap about wiccans or anyone else, my people of yarns ago were once believers in the earth, not wiccans who have their own tweaked version. by the way the branch folk were murdered .........it was a set up.

hmm I guess I am back and happy to be so from places unknown and almost unseen. things are going to happen soon in the world that no-one is going to like ........... ~

[Matt308]

Tell us O' Sage. What have we to look forward to?

[Erich]

trials and tribs with China for one, Iran as the Bush / Mohajeed smoke the weed is doing a cover up. Syria is planning a move unless they get wind that we caught them with their jock-straps over their heads then they may not blunder (yet) an N. Korea is on the listing as well. I've had a very interesting last few days in several areas with some very special people giving a very nasty outlook for the rest of 2007.........

guess we will see............on it goes

[amrit]

Do US personnel have to take an oath? Does it include any reference to God?

Just curious.

[Matt308]

Yep.

Marine Corps Oath

I (state your name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.