Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Witchcraft and You

Here's another rant about the Churches and oppression of those they disagree with.

One might think that I am angry with Christianity and God, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I am a spiritual person, just not the kind that thinks there's only one path to God. No, I'm not a witch either, but used to play around with the idea and for a while got quite an education in the process that I never would have gotten from the Christian sources I was involved with previously.

I knew what the Church had to say about it but felt there was something wrong with "Suffereth not a witch to live" and other fears the church had concerning them. Seemed out of place in the book of the Bible it was in and the overall context of most of the other passages. So I started researching Wicca and witchcraft in general.

I have to admit I was a young buck and had heard that witches were mostly women and they danced naked and had sex rituals. What red blooded young man wouldn't want to know more about this! I knew I did, but was severely disappointed in the reality. Yes, there were some really odd things and strange people. It seemed that Wicca mostly drew the people who were drawn by oddities and the idea of magic and even many mentally ill people.

Mostly it was just young girls trying to earn their independence and piss off their parents. I learned some very startling things though in my research that you won't learn in church, and it was no glory to the precepts that Christianity was supposed to hold.

Like the fact that originally witches were nothing more than midwives in early Europe. They learned healing herbs and delivered babies and were the wise ones of the small villages. If the passages in the Bible that spoke of witches were written as early as they are supposed to have been written, they wouldn't likely have been there at all because the term "witch" didn't even come about until much later. Yet Christians today still hold that there were never any mistranslations in the Bible. That the word of God is perfect and complete, infallible-yet they forget sometimes that the rulers of the day indeed did change some things, and those changes still persist today.

Please don't mistake my vehemency on subjects like these for anger or resentment. I do feel betrayed sometimes by the things I learned that I later learned was completely false, but I don't harbor resentment. I do however feel that the record should be set straight and that they will be judged. Judged by their own lies and corruption in front of God. There's no excuse for the two-faced, pretenders. I'm not mad at God, I'm mad at his followers.

How about the fact that when the church came to Europe and saw the harvest dances, the Christians thought they were riding brooms. Indeed there were brooms, part of the ritual festival for crop fertility, which was just as superstitious as Christians thinking they were actually doing magick and riding brooms. 

Another factoid, There were only three witches burnt at the stake in the U.S.. At least two of those happened in Boston. Most were hung or drowned, and it was by the thousands by Christians in Europe. Christians killed more people for being witches than all of the jihad Muslims combined-(9 Million according to some sources) then you can also throw in all the Jews Hitler killed and you still wouldn't have the total number of witches killed by Christians. Betcha won't get that information in Bible school, the accuracy of which I can't personally attest to.

For those uninitiated with the topic, The Wiccan Rede is not much different from the Golden Rule; An it harm none, do what thou will.

There is no Satanism in Wicca (witchcraft), no sacrifices of humans or animals (Jews and Christians did) and no wars started over the precepts and beliefs. They were simply slaughtered and had to use folklore and stories mostly to give future generations their knowledge, lest they be found out and hung.

The old Catholic church used to tear down their pagan places of worship and build the church on the ruins of the old ways. They, much of the time, had to use local stonemasons and workers for labor which turned out to be kind of funny because right under the noses of the Catholic church, the masons and stone workers added in their own deities and symbolic icons and were forced to go to church. The Catholics didn't realize they were still praying to their own gods and goddesses while in the Church.

Pagan witches ended up making their own languages, secret symbols used to write texts and they kept these texts well hidden. It was called the book of shadows. Shadows, because it had to be hidden away on pain of death. Witches were no more "magic" than an average person could walk on water. Spells abound, superstitions of healing and powers, attributed to the Goddess and God. But no more strange than any other pagan beliefs.

They did get a few things right by developing their intuitive powers. The Tarot is one of them. Many believe that the symbolism on the cards are things just like our road signs today. If you see 3 wavy lines one over the other, you know that means water.

The same type of symbolism in most older cultures including most American Indian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Things that have been symbols from the beginning or our cultures first writings. Using these symbols helps the user "tune" in the the super-conscious or the mind of God, giving the user the ability to shuffle the cards and pick ones that are relevant to the readee.

I used to be very proficient with the cards myself. There was never any of the Romanian tricks associated with Gypsies. Just straight forward intuition and many times, a literal interpretation of the cards as the instruction books say. I have successfully predicted the pregnancy of a woman who didn't yet know she was pregnant, and many, many other things. I wasn't calling on any demons, nor using otherworldly powers, I was just using my intuition in a controlled, more intense fashion than I would do at any other time or situation.

One piece of advice, never take seriously anyone who would charge you for the service. Does a Christian in church with a revelation tell you that you must give them 10 bucks to tell you what God told them to tell you? Of course not. How priests can tell you you have to pay to get out of purgatory is simply evil. (sorry, it's just my opinion.) The greed of the Church.

I'm not talking about tithe. Tithe is a perfectly acceptable way to support those who are your spiritual leaders and moral shepherds. (If you like being sheep.) Most of them spend all their time helping the flock and doing everything they can for humanity, at least those who aren't molesting children.

Money always gets in the way of real spiritual gifts given to anyone. There are many things out there that are only evil if you believe they are. ESP is a prime example. Christians think that being together for years and knowing if the other is going to call is from God. When non-Christians can hear each other's thoughts they think the Devil plays some part, since it's a "power". Nonsense, and don't you believe them for a second. It's a talent of the human brain-some much more than others, able to send and recieve energy. It's not a "gift" and it's not a being or God sending the messages for you. It's just you doing what millennial of survival has imparted to us through learning and changing DNA.

How God could allow the passage "Suffereth not a witch to live", is beyond my understanding.

Oh, and by the way, real Satanists do not believe in Satan, nor do they believe in any God at all. They believe they are god themselves. They are basically just atheists with a bad attitude. I've known 2 of them myself and what they seem to have in common is pessimism and disdain for anything happy or pure. They do not, however, sacrifice virgins or hold midnight seances.

I believe in all paths to God. That means that if a person is seeking the light, he or she will find it if they are thirsty enough for it. You can be a Wiccan, a Buddhist, Taoist, or any number of things and still find God and still find peace. I have searched for the truth, and for becoming a better person, and for inner peace all my life and have found it in a number of places, all enriching my soul more and more. I have even found peace and fulfillment in science and the amazement of what can be here on earth, not just in heaven. I'm not scared to die, and know I will give a good accounting when I do.

No Wiccan has ever even hurt my feelings, let alone make me feel as betrayed as my Christian brethren. Let your fear and loathing of those you don't understand go, and find that love is long-suffering and kind. Like Jesus intended.

Humans and Computers (The correlation)

There are certainly no shortage of opinions on the subject but I find most of them to be somewhat too specific and less of an overview than I would like to see.

Unless you're an avid science fiction fan, you may not have really thought about how computers and humans really are alike or what spiritual topics and controversy it really can drum up.

If you equate us being made in the image of God and therefor us having a need to create in our own image you start to see the "Genesis" of this discussion.

We have a great desire to make and invent things that not only serve us and make our lives easier, but we seem to want a companion of our own creation.

A.I. or Artificial Intelligence has been a topic of serious debate and discussion as long as we've had computers and science fiction. Being an avid reader of sci-fi myself, I've read literally hundreds of them. The one thing they have most in common is the machines turning against us. A bit less common is when they become self aware and still like us. I think that's because as humans, we instinctively understand that we're actually parasites struggling to find justification for our destructive ways and fear that our own creations, because they will know us implicitly, will in fact come to realize this and decide that we don't deserve to live.

After all the warning from the greatest minds our planet has ever produced, still science follows after science fiction like a dog at a butcher's shop. We are getting Sooooo close to bio-computing technology that its really getting scary. We keep making robots and yearn for the day when they can make their own decisions and think for themselves. I wonder if God went through the same process?

Did he work for a couple millennia to come up with the perfect being, only to find that it thought for itself and therefore messed everything up? Is that what our creations will do as well? Are we nothing more than software programmed to believe that everything we do is real? Hmmmmmmmmm

When you start realizing that matter can actually exist in two places in space at the same exact moment, it gives you pause as to the reality of our world. For a better and easier way to understand particle physics, try This great site.  It really shows you how particles can be in two places at once and blows your whole theory about the universe.

If that didn't totally blow your mind, then you're in the wrong place and more advanced than I and I tip my hat. I have always been amazed that science comes to pass a few or more years after someone writes it down in a book. You have to wonder if the science fiction writer is giving him/herself over the the collective consciousness/pool of knowledge/mathematical probabilities/God and seeing into the future. Its certainly easier to think that science people love science fiction and follow like sheep towards a social goal, however, I don't believe that's entirely the case.

As far as regular science is concerned, you can only accomplish what mathematics can prove. In other words, You can't make 5 from 2+1. Things can only be what their sum amounts to in whatever combinations are possible and so on.

Believing we could follow Star Trek principals and come up with a transporter would have been thought ridiculous to most all scientists other than Einstein and a few select others at the time. But the time has come and physicists have certainly proved that its not only possible but have transported atoms (?) a few feet. Not only that but combining particle physics with transportation theory, I can see being able to not only transport an item, but also leave a copy at the point of origination someday in the future.

And if a particle can be in two places at once, it would wipe out hunger if we could replicate (another Star Trek Principle) food. If a person could replicate anything, it would destroy the economy as we understand it now. There would be no way to tell between currency and counterfeit. No one would need a loan for a home or for tools of their trade. I realize things never turn out quite the way the writers tell it and my ideas may never come to pass in the way I am speaking, however, we would have to be colonizing planets by that time to keep some countries from replicating nukes and wiping everyone out. Will God step in at some point and stop us? Or will we eventually prove that God is nothing more than the active imagination of the ignorant? Or maybe that we should have stayed ignorant in the Garden of Eden and kept our mouths shut?

Politics and Religion

This site really isn't religious or political, however, I do have to speak my mind on the subjects and hopefully you will find the truth in it and not just be defensive. Let me explain.


When my wife and I first got together we used to have some really serious arguments. At first I couldn't understand why she would be so vehement about being right. With most other women i'd known, if you kept at a "who's right and who's wrong" type conversation long enough, they would simply say, "Whatever!" at some point and the conversation would be over. But not her. As long as she thought she was right she would not give up and after a dozen or so of these, I started noticing a pattern; I found myself wrong sometimes. (Ok, half the time or more.)

It made me question my memory as well as my views. At first I felt taken down a notch or three. I felt like she didn't really respect my or my views. I was the man of the house and dammit, I should be listened to! As it turned out, she didn't think of me as the man of the house but as a partner in life. As one person and she was not going to allow me (as part of her) to be wrong or misinformed because that reflected on her as well.

Once I quit feeling sorry for myself I had a revelation. Why would I want to be wrong about anything?? For prides sake? You can be a lot more proud of knowing the truth than in being wrong.

We still argued about who was right or wrong, but it took on a new hue. Now we were arguing to find out what the truth was. She also got to where she realized (and it was a shock to her) that she was wrong sometimes also. We started looking things up and doing research. We started arguing kinder with each other and even feeling a sense of accomplishment if we found ourselves to be wrong.

When you find out you're wrong, feel happy that you finally got that bit of incorrect information out of you instead of feeling foolish and defensive. That is my point.

As I said in my last article, "I'm not afraid to tell the truth" I've never found a single group of people who are so willing to lie to get what they want as Republicans. Many are simply being vehement about their views because they hate to be wrong and they follow whatever sources they have and use for information because it fits their was of thinking instead of taking the harder route and finding these things out on their own.

They listen to Fox News or the hellfire attitudes of their preachers or pretend to be with the early settlers of America who needed their guns and the right to do anything they want, whenever they want.

The truth is that the Republican part is now the greedy party, not the Christian party. The Republicans have chosen the side of big business and greed instead of truth and caring about the small guy. It's also the racist party. It's the party the Skinheads choose. You won't find any Democrat racist or Skinhead. They choose industry over nature.

Before you even go there, of course not all Republicans aren't racist or Nazis. No one with any brains would make such a claim. I hear there's even a few of them who are nice...LOL

Still, how does it feel to know that that's the type of people who only flock to the Republic party? There are more racist homophobes in small town, conservative America than anywhere else. And why can't conservatives see that homophobia is racism? You don't have to agree with the lifestyle, but you don't have to go around beating them up. That's what the Aryans do. The Republicans are so busy comparing our President to Hitler and saying he's Socialist and a Nazi, all the while being racist themselves and more closely aligned to old Germany than the Jews.

You don't think beating up gays is anything more than religious terrorism? You want them dead, the Muslim extremists want YOU dead. You are the same as they are. Wrong. One would think from reading the Bible and Christs attitudes and precepts that Christians would be the kindest, most loving, tolerant people on earth. The meek. But as with all religions, instead people use it to make them feel good about themselves by putting others down and being at war with people of other religions and beliefs.

This is why I align myself with science instead of religion. (No, not Scientology.)

Science holds no grudge that the Christians think human kind has only been around for 6 thousand years, it just knows better. It sees race and color as exposure to different levels of UV rays over thousands of years in different climates and it knows that we all came from Africa originally, from one race and the DNA is there to prove it and can trace your lineage back through Europe and Asia and the Middle East and then to Africa.
You may be a white supremest, yet you are just as African as the blackest Nairobi who never left Africa.

The only financially successful Republican U.S. President was Ronald Reagan, or so I'm told. If this is the case, why doesn't the Republican party change it's policies some? I have to admit that Bush was finally starting to see the light a bit towards the end and started the bail out process. But if we weren't chasing oil across the middle east, war after war with the pretext of a war on terror, we wouldn't have gotten in this shape in the first place.

As we speak we are getting ready to go after Iran when North Korea is making more threats, is more unstable and has done more against the freedom and rights of humanity than even the Middle East has. So why is that? There's no oil in North Korea (comparatively). They both have made threats against the States (nuclear) and have comparatively unstable governments.

I know it's an old argument. Republicans and their oil interests. Why have they tried so hard to block everything the President has tried to accomplish? Hell, they're blocking even the things they wanted to do themselves, but because the Dems are trying to get it done they just naturally have to stand in the way.

Republicans deregulated Wall Street. We all know how that turned out. Free market only goes so far towards economic stability. After a point of deregulation, the greedy and criminal gets a foothold and after they have taken what they can, they leave the rest of the nation in shambles and they don't care. That's what government is FOR. We have laws for a reason. We have government and regulations for very good reasons.

Here an excerpt from a respected source on new of the stock market, Stocks and News, the week in review-from the article, "Wall Street History".





“First, the era of laissez-faire economics has ended. For 30 years, the Anglo-Saxon model of free-market capitalism spread across the globe. The role of the state was diminishing, and deregulation, privatization, and the openness of borders to capital and trade were rising. Much of central and eastern Europe adopted this model, as did swaths of East Asia and diverse nations from Ireland to Mexico. 
“This movement reflected the economic primacy of the United States. Its growth, soaring standards of living, and conservative economic policies were widely admired. Countless societies preferred this model and supported governments that espoused it. The state-centered models, such as the French and German ones, were in retreat. 
“Now, a page has been turned. The Anglo-Saxon financial system is seen as having failed. The global downturn, and all its human devastation, is being attributed to that failure. Throughout the world, including in the United States, this has turned the political tide in a new direction. The role of the state is expanding again, together with a reregulation of markets. This is evident in the United States, where President Obama has moved toward more activist and bigger government. The quasi nationalization of the banking and automotive industries, as well as the pending reform of the financial system, makes this clear. It is also clear in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, where nationalizations have gone even further. And it is clear in statements made by such leaders as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently celebrated ‘the return of the state’ and ‘the end of the ideology of public powerlessness.’ 
“Second, globalization is in retreat, both in concept and in practice. Much of the world now sees it as harmful. Those nations, especially developing ones, that embraced increased capital flows and open trade have been particularly injured. Those that insulated themselves, such as India, have been less scarred. The global spread of goods, capital, and jobs is reversing. Global exports are falling sharply. The World Bank reports that exports from China, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and the United States fell by 25 percent or more in the year leading up to February 2009. Capital flows are plunging, too. Emerging markets are projected to receive only $165 billion in net positive capital inflows this year, down from $461 billion in 2008. Furthermore, financial and trade protectionism are spreading…. 
“Third, the world may be entering a new global phase marked by less leadership, less coordination, and less coherence….The United States has turned inward, preoccupied with severe unemployment and fiscal pressures…"

The greedy get rich. The rich don't want us to stop them from getting richer. The richer take without thought to the people who have not and ruin our overall economy. The government steps in and says, "Hey! Enough's enough!" The Republicans fight for small government and deregulation. Republicans=Greed. Greed breeds lying and morally reprehensible behavior. Of course God said that, yet the greed party is the Christian party.

When will they listen to their own God instead of money? Never.

/Rant

I am not scared to tell the truth.

I know. It sounds like I'm bracing for a fight or confrontation. Maybe I am.

There are so many things to say about the world. There are so many people just ready to fight about anything online. Maybe that's why. So many people with so many opinions without anything real to back it up.

Moreover, so many people who use "faith" to explain things that don't work in the real world, even scientists as well as the religious or the political.

While some of my opinions may only work for me in some instances because the world I live in is one I prefer, still there are many things that people just want to believe and use God or personal beliefs to justify and even in the face of real facts they still refuse to be reasonable.

Do you know there are still thousands of Christians out there that still believe humans have only been on earth for 6000 years? My father was one. My father chose to believe that carbon dating was a hoax rather than change his views when faced with new information. He also thought digging a ditch was preferable to using the mind. I used to tell him to work smarter, not harder.

And just like that instance, there are people who choose not to believe overwhelming evidence.

An example? Global warming. While humans may not really be the actual cause, the earth is warming up, we aren't doing much to stop our own contribution to the effect and the effect is surely real and instead of arguing about whether humans are the root cause or not, how about simply realizing the fact that the poor earth is truly changing and to try to help minimize our contribution to it?

I viewed a comic strip yesterday about a couple scientists talking about global warming. One said, "If it's a hoax, we made the world a better place for nothing!"

Isn't that sad?

Instead of all of us trying to make the world a better place just for the sake of it, we spend our time arguing over the science and the necessity of doing so. I heard a joke I just loved the other day.

A Democrat and a Republican were in a bar. (Why the republican was there I'll never know.) The Republican turned and called the Democrat a tree hugger, The democrat turned  to the Republican and simply said, "So, what are you? A puppy kicker, or do you work for BP?"

(By the way, just so some of you are aware, the scientists have quit talking about the likelihood of global warming. Now they just say it's here. This is the warmest year since we have been keeping records.)

It's my personal experience with almost any subject that only people who haven't spent a lot of time studying a subject argues against it. Furthermore, those who study subjects from only biased sources will never have the real facts. (Fox News doesn't count as a source of any kind!)

This is just an introductory article to give the readers a chance to get to know me better. I don't abide flamers, trolls, Republicans, mean people, sport hunters, flaky or superficial, greedy people.

One would think I'm a democrat by the way I talk about the Republicans. I don't align myself with any party. I used to be Republican when I was a young man. But they have always embarrassed me. They are supposed to be the "Christian" party. I've been watching them for 44 years now and let me tell you, I've never seen more lies or scandal in any other group of people in my life.

That's another article though.

Next article: Politics and Christianity