Role Playing Games Run Amok! Wicca and other Pagan Revivals.

A few months ago I wrote a fairly scathing retort to some advice by one of the advice column hags, Margo, I believe. The situation was tragic: a girl about to give birth had to deal with her mother (Granny) converting to Wicca from the Catholic Church. The daughter, quite rightfully, wanted Granny Goofypants to have nothing to do with her baby.

Margo came up with typical pap about acceptance and the equality of all religions, etc.

Well, ever since I posted this I have been getting a fairly steady stream of comments decrying how horrible I am for saying mean things about Wicca. Their "arguments" (really tantrums is more the case) tend towards the very simplistic: well, why can't they say the same about your personal beliefs?

Now, I don't do apologetics. I recognize that apologetics is important, but in my universe, I hold it about half a notch higher than ecumenical dialog. At least I think that it is a good idea that someone, somewhere, out there, preferably way out there, do apologetics. Ecumenical dialog, on the other hand, is best achieved with a bundle of kindling and a book of matches.

I would say the same for dialog with Wiccans (and I maintain that the one shame of the Spanish Inquisition is that they did not burn a single witch, something the Protties did much better). They have no use for dialog since they have no use for reason.

However, deep down inside most of them must be a little seed of logic that can be watered. So, if you are one of these pimply, teenaged girls (of either sex and various generations) that wants to spout off indignation, first try to answer the following questions:

1. What is the source of your knowledge of the Divine? Why do you think that there is a goddess and her consort? How was this revealed to you?

2. Can something be "A" and "not A" simultaneously?

3. Since Wicca was made public following the law legalizing witchcraft (!) in England in 1954, it has, like most do-it-youself cults (take the Protestants for instance), fragmented into many little subsects, many of them bitterly opposed to each other. Which one is right? How do you know?

4. Why Celto-Germanic paganism and not Greco-Roman paganism? Or animism? Or North Asian shamanism?

5. Would you be willing to die for your Faith? Why or why not? And, no, I am not asking this with a notion of assisting. That should be the government's job.

Posted by erik at May 1, 2007 11:56 AM