(no subject)

[bzarcher]

Read it. Please. Now.

I cannot stress how much I agree with today's comic. I made my religious choice because I found a religion that, after a -lot- of searching, I found I cared about. That I believed in. That was willing to be as low or high maintinence in my life as I needed.

Not because I hated the Church, or wanted to torque my parents, or because I got beat up.

"Getting back" at someone or "taking power" is the -worst- possible reason to join a religion.

If you decide to worship Goddess, God, the Virgin, the Sun, the Left Handed Hummingbird, or your Shoes, so long as you do it because you have faith, and are comforted by their existence in the world, that's cool. Roll with it.

Have faith, and faith will manage.

Have a good new year, and be safe out there tonight. It's samhain. Faith manages.

Comments

[mephron]

Bad HREF - core dumped

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Whoops.

Error repaired.

[eroticpuppy.livejournal.com]

I agree - I wasn't even raised Christian, or had any exposure, and I was Wiccan for 8 years. I'm more of a laid back secular humanist with some oddities now. But that's not the point.

I agree 100% - my friends and I called this "My wand is bigger than yours" syndrome.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Good to see more freaks think alike.

*Note: I suppose I'm less Wiccan than just regularly vanilla pagan. But hey. :D

[n9vls.livejournal.com]

I've been married seven years...

About a year into the marriage, my wife decided she wanted to start going to church more regularly... I thought, ok, this is something that makes HER happy, and she's cognizant of the fact that I get nothing from church attendance...

Fast forward a few years, and she's putting the kids in religious private schools/daycare, attending services multiple times per week, and glaring at me incessantly when I make no effort to go.

... I'm just putting the fun into dysfunctional, no?

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Wish I had something hopeful I could say, but I think you summed it all up.

[skarlette.livejournal.com]

*KISS* This is why I never really sought out a coven. All the nuts and flakes...and I really hate granola in people form. You either get these whiny bastards, the one who instist 'my God can beat up your Gods....* or the ones who try to impress you with alot of stuff and nonsense about the amount of degrees they have (which mean absolutely jack in the real world) or the ones who try to get you in bed...it just got under my skin...well here hoping I run into more like you sweet.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

*KISS*

Mmm...magicially, yes, I hope we both find people who can be reasonable.

Otherwise... *grins* I might get a bit jealous if we find out there are more than 3 or 4 guys like me in the world. After all, part of me doesn't want to share you very much. *smirk*

[purplemanatee.livejournal.com]

I dunno.


I was raised as a Christian, and it wasn't my hate of the Church that turned me against it; (or even my homosexuality) it was the absolute lack of proof or science or common sense in both scripture and believers.

For the same reason, I've never been able to subscribe to the dogmas of any other religious beliefs: If I have already decided that one religion has pretty much no merit when it comes to my personal life, I find it hard to believe that any other would do anything different. Which is not to say that I hate religion. I study theology and myth all the time, and find it -very- interesting... In the context of psychology and sociology, rather than in a context of 'understanding the world through mystic truths that cannot be confirmed, but are wholeheartedly believed by a portion of the populace that, for whatever reason, has decided to put blind faith in ideas that were first invented, as all ideas, by other human beings'.

They all have the same roots, and the same theories, and they all provide the same crutches to the same types of people. But that is not to say that -all- religious people are that type of people; it is just to say that I, for one, am not a religious person. I find divinity within myself, and through that, within the world at large; if everything is divine, then nothing can be. It doesn't bother me if someone throws a prayer up to the sun or moon, though, or waxes on about the spiritual journey they've taken since joining... Just don't be a prosletyzer. That's why Christians suck, and Wiccans are much better.

But that's just me.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

If it works for you, it works. :D

In some ways, I have to admit my religous convictions are nearly Wu-Wei. The acting by refusing to act. :D

[demeterschild.livejournal.com]

The christians who throw out most of the scripture as myth (which a lot of the old testamant stuff is) are ok. They're grounded and believe because they feel it "fille up the little spaces" Paul, in context, is a pretty good guy. Not a mysogynistic slaveowning asshole. He was just trying to get the word out in the world he lived in. Corinthian women were insane, as Corinth was the center of one of Aphrodite's larger cult centers. Rent a room and someone to worship with...

Being a classicist in my spare time (my first love), I work with the ideas of archetype and myth and "filling in the gaps" on a daily basis. And, as I have realized through a failed relationship with a straight atheistic scientist and an Astronomy class with a nutto Wooster professor (who let me write poems for final projects), God begins where science ends.

As my alma maters's motto so succinctly states: "Science and religion from one source."

Yay for Davan, however. See my most recent post (evening, 11-2) for my thoughts on things.

[purplemanatee.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly. I just think that 'one source' is the human psyche.

I went through a Gnostic phase for a while; that and Hinduism were the only two faiths to make any kind of impact on me at all; I love the iconography, the imagery, and best of all, the esoteric idea that all of it is fantastic metaphor. I love religions that are self-aware. :)