I ask you to accept me

[OneEyedFatMan]

This is John Atkinson, forgot the JA account password.

I am just going to acknowledge that coming back here was a mistake. Like oil and water, Christians and Pagans/Wiccans just don't mix.

To points.

Firstly, I am not Gardnerian. "Wicca" can be defined a bunch of different ways. I am more of an Eclectic Solitary, meaning I don't nor will I likely ever, belong to a coven. I walk the path alone and am content in that.

Gardner was pretty far out there, but he did bring witchcraft into the public view.
As to it dating to the 1950s. True. Some of the forms and practices are as old as humans.

The OP religion only dates back to the early 1900's so ya got me beat by fifty years. As for the claims it dates all the way back to the original church? That is as wild and as false as Wicca dating back in it's entirety to ancient times. I have read the books... and Marvin Arnold was the most blatant revisionist historian I ever saw, and as far out there as Gardner was. OPism is like most all modern religions, an amalgam with bits and pieces of the original, bits of catholicism, bits of protestantism, and other bits o' this and that.

Secondly. The old gods. That was kind of TIC actually. I believe in God, just don't believe he is a single parent. Father God, Mother Goddess... acknowledging both the male and female aspects of the universe. The "old" gods and goddesses are all merely aspects of that. Also note the use of the word "honor" not "worship". I don't "worship" anything. They never made any promises, unlike another religion I could name where the promises flow freely but seem like so much hot air.

On Jesus, Do I believe he was. Yup. Do I believe he was a swell guy? Fer sure. Do I believe he rose from the dead? Not so much. Was he even dead to begin with? Maybe... Maybe not. Do I believe his disciples rigged it. Maybe so. I am supposed to believe all that based on no evidence whatsoever. Except the words of a book filled with errors and contradictions. I really just ain't wired that way. Wicca doesn't require faith in anything.

He might have been the excuse behind Christianity, but Paul was the architect of it. Pretty brilliant actually. He took an obscure regional cult and spun it into a global concern. Then governments spun it into a control mechanism and here we all are.

Thirdly, these scriptures in Hebrews some of you keep tossing at me. Those come from that book that says the universe was created in seven days (it wasn't) and that the whole earth was flooded (it wasn't). The Bible is chock full of stories and tales best described as mythology. I don't believe your book is the "Unadulterated Word of God." It has been plenty adulterated over the centuries. Suppose all that makes me reprobate. Fine. Not all that sure I really ever believed it, because I always questioned it.

I have always been a guy who never really fit anywhere. By trying to fit with the OP crowd I was probably betraying who I am. Now I fit, even it is with me and the world around me.

Fourthly, I follow the creed that says "harm none" and "whatever you do, bad or good comes back at you threefold." Even as an OP I tried to be respectful of everyone regardless of their doctrines. I was one of the very few here who was nice to that Islamic fellow that used to post here and even struck up a friendship of sorts.

I carry that forward to now with treating everyone with respect be they Christian, Jewish, Islamic, all gazillion flavors of neo-pagan, Buddhist, Taoist and whatever-ist. Not-anti anyone. But if you disrespect or mistreat me I am not under any obligation to not give back as good as I get.

I will leave with saying that some of the most toxic people I have ever encountered were OP. And I am quite delighted to divorce myself from them and the system that spawned them.
So to them I bid "sayonara."

I did also encounter some of the most super nice people, who were also OP. To you I bid "au revoir."