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Jun. 24th, 2007 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarOkay. Just once, I'd like to be on a pagan webforum, or email list, or something, any freakin' thing and NOT see "bright blessings", "merry meet", "merry part" all over the place. I don't know of anyone who I've ever heard say/seen write any of these things whose actually used them in everyday life, so why must they be peppered all over the "pagan context"??
Whatever happened to "Hello", "Good-bye", and "Have a nice day"????
Cause you bet your ass that's precisely what these folks say to the people at the office or in the bank teller line.
I'm mildly irritable right now and I've been to too many web forums and read too many emails this evening.
and I'm half-wondering if my telling Mike that I didn't want to hear what he was saying today might not have been taken by Kelly as me saying the same to her (I don't think it was, she didn't seem to, and I said flat out that I wasn't referring to what she was saying, but I'm currently over-analyzing like 75% of the things that I've done or said in the last 24 hours. Because I'm on One Of Those Moods.)
But...I was pretty severely annoyed. Sorry, but you don't just take my talking about a church that I used to attend and you know nothing about and start in on how it's a vehicle for mass brainwashing just because they have a PA system, (Yeah, it's a huge church. Please tell me how the people way in the back are supposed to hear what's being said.) and then just move on into bashing the religion as a whole. Oh, and nice thinly-veiled racist commentary there too. I'm getting flat out sick of hearing so freakin' many pagans who claim to be all loving and open-minded and accepting and tolerant and...and...and...just constantly bashing "Xianity" as if it were some all-encompassing evil.
I might not agree with a whole lot of Christianity. I know that a whole lot of bad stuff goes on behind some closed doors. But Christianity is no different from any other religion. Bad stuff goes on behind some pagan doors too. (Too many people forget, or just ignore the fact that there's a lot fewer of us, therefore a lot fewer cases to hear about.) And obviously it's got something right, because hot damn, there sure are a lot of Christians out there. That whole thing about being saved from damnation for acceptance of Jesus as Savior? It's a pretty sweet deal. My gods never did anything like that.
I just don't believe in it. And I'm not worried about being damned to hell. But there's no more reason to across-the-board bash Christianity than there is for those who do bash pagans to do so.
As one who falls under the pagan umbrella, I get to be associated with all this. Which I must say, I really would prefer not to be.
"To speak the words that need be spoken" indeed....actually, it was really weird. I never had the conscious thought to say what I said. The words just came out unpremeditated. Not rude or obnoxious. My voice was fairly low and completely neutral, the exact tone was one that I don't remember ever hearing out of my mouth before. Did I take my words last night so seriously to heart?
Uhg, I want to sleep. I shouldn't...but I think I'm going to sleep tonight. I will need to try and force myself to sleep tomorrow too.
Whatever happened to "Hello", "Good-bye", and "Have a nice day"????
Cause you bet your ass that's precisely what these folks say to the people at the office or in the bank teller line.
I'm mildly irritable right now and I've been to too many web forums and read too many emails this evening.
and I'm half-wondering if my telling Mike that I didn't want to hear what he was saying today might not have been taken by Kelly as me saying the same to her (I don't think it was, she didn't seem to, and I said flat out that I wasn't referring to what she was saying, but I'm currently over-analyzing like 75% of the things that I've done or said in the last 24 hours. Because I'm on One Of Those Moods.)
But...I was pretty severely annoyed. Sorry, but you don't just take my talking about a church that I used to attend and you know nothing about and start in on how it's a vehicle for mass brainwashing just because they have a PA system, (Yeah, it's a huge church. Please tell me how the people way in the back are supposed to hear what's being said.) and then just move on into bashing the religion as a whole. Oh, and nice thinly-veiled racist commentary there too. I'm getting flat out sick of hearing so freakin' many pagans who claim to be all loving and open-minded and accepting and tolerant and...and...and...just constantly bashing "Xianity" as if it were some all-encompassing evil.
I might not agree with a whole lot of Christianity. I know that a whole lot of bad stuff goes on behind some closed doors. But Christianity is no different from any other religion. Bad stuff goes on behind some pagan doors too. (Too many people forget, or just ignore the fact that there's a lot fewer of us, therefore a lot fewer cases to hear about.) And obviously it's got something right, because hot damn, there sure are a lot of Christians out there. That whole thing about being saved from damnation for acceptance of Jesus as Savior? It's a pretty sweet deal. My gods never did anything like that.
I just don't believe in it. And I'm not worried about being damned to hell. But there's no more reason to across-the-board bash Christianity than there is for those who do bash pagans to do so.
As one who falls under the pagan umbrella, I get to be associated with all this. Which I must say, I really would prefer not to be.
"To speak the words that need be spoken" indeed....actually, it was really weird. I never had the conscious thought to say what I said. The words just came out unpremeditated. Not rude or obnoxious. My voice was fairly low and completely neutral, the exact tone was one that I don't remember ever hearing out of my mouth before. Did I take my words last night so seriously to heart?
Uhg, I want to sleep. I shouldn't...but I think I'm going to sleep tonight. I will need to try and force myself to sleep tomorrow too.
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Re: I was going to say "blessed be" but about 10 people beat me to it
Date: 2007-06-25 07:40 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd be able to stomach me
I have my moments, really I do...but to be fair, I pagan-bash at least as much, and I *try* to limit my bashing to actual, specific occurrences. :-P
Thing don't always go all that great for minority religions. I think that the general attitude of "oooh, persecooshun!!!!!" is greatly exaggerated, there are still a lot of inequities that need to be addressed and general attitudes of inferiority, like the only recently-resolved issue of the VA and the pentacle...now people want Wiccan chaplains in the military but that's being denied (I'll admit, I don't know the details on that one)...but at the same time, people are trying to claim persecution and prejudice against the Thor's Hammer for the Asatru and the Awen for Druids because they're not approved as symbols of faith...but as far as I've been able to tell in the last several months I've been looking at it, no one's died and had a request even filed on their behalf for the request to have been approved or denied. Stuff like that, plus the wholesale bashing of Christianity (sometimes "monotheism" in general)really doesn't make a good case for us to be seen in a better light. I know that it's a back and forth cycle, but each perpetuates the other, and as an aspiring member of the clergy, the least I can do is bitch about it in public places :-P
By the way...as I mentioned in another comment abovce, "blessed be" doesn't bother me a fraction as much as "bright blessings" does.
Re: I was going to say "blessed be" but about 10 people beat me to it
Date: 2007-06-26 01:24 am (UTC)I read the most heartbreaking story about military chaplains a few weeks ago....here it is... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18367801/site/newsweek/