Shven

I've explained plenty of times why I dont consider non-Gardnerian initiates to be Wiccan, and you have ignored my reasons on each occasion. And it is in no way bigoted to claim such. If I had claimed that Gardnerian wicca was the only valid form of witchcraft or earth centred spirituality then you could call me a bigot, but since I neither said nor believe any such thing (being a neo-pagan non-wiccan witch and all) please keep your emotional appeals to yourself.

Shven

Shven

Saying Gardner cant define Wicca is like saying Muhammed cant define Islam.

Heathen Dawn

I haven’t ignored those reasons, just rejected them.

I’ve been on a coupla pagan boards lately, and I have to say the nastiness quotient is growing and growing. Day by day every pagan claims his way is the only true way. It could be the reconstructionists claiming scholarship is the only way to go, the anti-fluffbunnies saying the fluffbunnies are giving Wicca a bad name, or the Skytoucherians saying the only real Wicca is the initiatory mystery religion, claiming all other ways are like “a baboon wearing a tuxedo.” Sectarian exclusivism is poor man’s fare in the Christian world, but I see it’s gained fashionability in the pagan world as well.

I could join this trend of nastiness. Say Heathen Dawn’s brand of Wicca is the only true one—it’s polytheistic (duotheists aren’t true Wiccans), it’s nature-worshipping (neglecting nature-worship puts you outside Wicca), it’s about a relationship with the Goddess and the God (if you don’t cultivate that then you’re not a true Wiccan), it repudiates scholarship in favour of the ecstasy of ritual (an emphasis on scholarship gets you out of Wicca and puts you in the Recon camp), it rejects scholarship in general as unpagan because it’s scripturalism (only the Abrahamics have sacred scriptures) and so on. Yeah, I could be nasty, as is fashionable today, and put down all paths except my own as “not the right way of being Wiccan,” “not what Wicca is really about.”

But … I’m a weak person, I am. Too charitable for my health, I accept Gardnerian Wicca, with its duotheism, as Wicca, and Skytoucherian intiatory mystery religion as Wicca, and occult-immersed book-learning ceremonial-magic-like nearly-Golden-Dawn Wicca as Wicca, and Recon pagans like Sannion or the Ásatrúars, poring over their Ancient Greek or Old Norse tomes all day long instead of actually worshipping the Gods and forming a relationship with Them, as true pagans.

And I’m wondering when that charitability is going to be reciprocated.

Very telling! He was a dictator, terrorist and paedophile, and Muslims today say only he can define Islam; I dare say if they started defining Islam by other than him, started rejecting him as the definer of Islam, our world would be a slightly better place.

And Gardner was a dirty old man who loved his High Priestesses by mastering them. A bit removed from the male-female equality that is a salient feature of Wicca nowadays.

brighid

Niether Muhammed nor Jesus defined either of their religions and as we have both seen those minor movements have grown into something far more diverse haven't they. Wicca, like Christianity, is merely an umbrella category to encompass a broad and diverese group of people practicing a type of religion. Gardner, nor you, nor I get to define what religion can or should be for any individual. Wicca has no dogma, it has no hierarchy and it has no universal church with a distinct set of rules that says what is or is not a Wiccan. Therefore, Muhammed, Jesus, Shven or Gardner do not have the ability to determine what is or is not Wicca outside of their own practice or established and exclusive tradition that falls under the same umbrella as all others.

Brighid

Heathen Dawn

Well said, brighid.

4th Generation Atheist

To own the truth that's the most frank admission from any sort of religionist that I have ever seen. Way to go! :Cheeky:

As far as borrowing is concerned, however, how does borrowing make a religion "not serious"? Most of the familiar world religions (meaning, basically, sects that have armies) borrowed from one another a great deal at their inception; is it any surprise that modern Wicca, at its inception, does the same? And there are plenty of "reseedings" of borrowed material---medieval Xns, for instance, absorbed a lot of borrowed material from other religions (especially Zoroastrianism, which should be no surprise) through secret societies founded after the Crusades. In some cases the original practitioners of the donating faith might be more inclined to say "stolen" rather than "borrowed", though in my example the Zoroastrians could well have placed some of their ideas deliberately. And all this was done between "serious" religions, often through the medium of alchemists and other secretive types with their cryptic manuscripts and eerie pictures---to some, the "fluffbunnies" of their day. (A major difference for today being the speed of the process, in our day of the Internet and instant access, not to mention widespread literacy). So how is a "serious" religion really all that different from a "silly" one? And for that matter, how is obsessive atheism not "silly" also?

My take on it is go where you get what you need, and when you encounter those with different needs or opinions, try to get along. (Exception: fundies who try to make their little fetishes the law of the land...but that's a different topic). If you must have a religion, just don't hurt anyone else in its name, and be very very careful whenever you're alone with it. They've been known to bite, and hard.

As far as raising the dead...as long as you raise 'em good and high, where the birds can reach 'em and the smell doesn't bother those of us on the ground...whoops, sorry, confused my topics again.

nermal

But how big is that umbrella? One of the problems us non-wiccans have (and I have had in this thread specifically) in trying to understand what Wicca is, is that Wiccans can't agree on it, though to be fair, Wiccans seem to have no problem with this, except, as previously pointed out, when fluffies enter the mix (not poking at anyone here, specifically).

If the umbrella encompasses Wiccans who worship Celt gods, and Wiccans who worship Middle Eastern Goddesses, and Wiccans who worship American Indian gods, then what is Wicca? And what's to stop a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim from calling their religion Wicca?

If Gardner, who invented Wicca can't define it, then is it rational for me as an atheist who rejects supernatural notions to call myself Wiccan? How about calling myself a Moonie? If Gardner can't define Wicca, surely Moon can't define Moonieism.

Ed, the Wiccan Moonie atheist

Karalora

Perhaps the difficulty comes in because most people think of religion as being defined by beliefs. Neopaganism, however, is defined more by practices--does the person in question "do Pagan things?" Perhaps this begs the question, but it does go a long way toward explaining why most any philosophy, theology, or cosmology can be considered Pagan.

newtype_alpha

Muhammed for the large part DOESN'T define Islam. That is because Muhammed is dead. Muslims define Islam, because Muslims are still alive. And believe me, Islam (well, most religions for that matter) has mutated into not one but several variations that would have its original founders shaking their heads in wonder. We have Sufi Islam, Sunnis and Shiites, Alawites, Ismailis, other obscure sects... and of course we have one sect that likes to say all the other sects "aren't Muslims," much the way protestants like to say that Catholics "aren't Christians." (There were Catholics before there were protestants, which is amazing).

The thing that really throws me is you're not even Wiccan (or so you say). You might as well ask me to go to Japan and figure out who all the true Buddhists are.

For both you and for shven the wannabe Wiccan fundie: Gardner defines Gardnerian Wicca the same way the Nicean Creed defines Catholicism. Gardner is not the horned God, he is not the goddess, we do not pray to him, he did not write our book of shadows and he did not publish a Bible or something and admonish his followers, "I am the Gardner, heed my word." In fact, Gardner himself never stipulated that, "All Wiccans are Gardnerians." Some of his contemporaries believe that, but what are you gonna do?

Nermal, Wiccans have a great deal of agreement as to what Wicca is. The specifics, however, are open to interpretation and customization. It's something you can recognize if you are familiar with it. For instance, most people in this country can tell the difference between a compact car and a pickup truck, despite the similarities between then and even the various types of compact cars/pickup trucks. If you can't tell the difference, it's probably because you have never seen a car before. What's the problem with that? Most non-Wiccans have never met a Wiccan before, or if they have, either aren't aware of it or know absolutely nothing whatsoever about Wicca.

nermal

The more we talk about this, the more I come to believe that Wicca is synonomous with Pagan. But Pagan is a perfectly good word. What distinguishes the Wiccan from the Pagan?
Gardner is not the Horned god, as you say. But some Wiccans claim not to worship the horned god. Name any other religion in which the differences include worshipping completely different gods. I don't think you'll find one. Perhaps Muhammed isn't the end all and be all of what Islam is, though most Muslims would call that heresy (Muhammed, like Gardner, did write the book), but a Muslim MUST worship Allah, or he is not a Muslim.

Sure, there can be differences in the details in any given religion. But no one can call themselves Christian without worshipping Christ. No one can call themselves Buddhist without acknowledging the teachings of Buddha.

The difference between a Wiccan who worships the Horned God, and the Wiccan who does the Celtic thing, and the Wiccan who worships Native American Gods, etc. is as profound as the difference between a Christian and a Muslim. The blanket term for the Christian and Muslim is Abrahamic. But, the descriptors Christian and Muslim exemplify the differences between the two Abrahamic religions.

The blanket term for the earth religions, and animism in general, is Pagan. There's nothing wrong with that. The point is made by Koralora, when (s)he speaks of "neopaganism" in response to a question about Wicca. If Wicca is synonomous with Pagan, why not just say Pagan? Just because a bunch of disparate people like to say they are Wiccan, does that mean they are all, then, Wiccan? Do we speak of Wiccan religions, the way we speak of Pagan religions? I've not heard of it.

Inded there are differences among pickup truks. But there is a clearly defined set of characteristics which distinguish a pickup from a car. If asked, I could name them specifically. What, exactly, are the defined characteristics which distinguish Wicca from Paganism?

Ed