** I say this because I believe all others are an invention out of our feeble understanding of things, and our reluctance to accept the unpleasant things about reality, those being: we are not in control of our lives, evil exists, we all are going to die. You can worship and celebrate life, which is good, I’m all for that! But we can’t ignore our mortality. Religion attempts to answer these questions. Jesus, and I guess Christianity tells us things we don’t like to hear. or we don’t understand. Too bad. **
Actually I have found what to me seem more reasonable realistic answers in my faith for those “unpleasant” things than I did in Christianity. It also is not shy about telling me things I would rather not hear if I were to order the world to my own pleasing
Hellenic religion does not shy away from saying that we are mortal in every sense of the word (in fact hubris is a specific religious prohibition), that even though things happen to us which we cannot control we are still fully responsible for our actions and inactions, as well as that bad things are going to happen, sometimes even to good people and holds out no promise of a glorious rosy afterlife to make up for it. There is no reason to suppose that all entities in the universe are kindly disposed toward humanity, indeed those that deign to notice it at all may well not be particularly so. The Gods are not omniscient, omnipotent or omnibenevolent, but neither are They dolls to be positioned for our amusement and bidding, taken out when we want to play, then stuck back in the toy chest and safely ignored until it is again convenient.
Not all Neopagans believe (I would say the vast majority do not) that everything is sweetness and light, that all anyone has to do to fully control forces immensely greater than they is to read the right spell from the latest book published by Llewellyn Press, that each of us is free to do exactly as s/he desires when so desired with no thought for the effects of our actions on others, or that we can fully understand the intentions of the Gods. Those that do labor under the misapprehension that the above is true or that it is all just an extended D&D game or a way to shock their parents hopefully are quickly disabused of those notions and will gain some spiritual maturity.
I spent a long time desperately trying to make my spiritual experiences fit into the mold of Christianity, however badly. They kept popping back out until I acknowledged that they were, in fact, real and as they were, not what I would make of them. Believe me, it would make my life infinitely less complicated on very many fronts if I could have found any way to stay Christian, but I could not do so and remain honest with myself.
So in the mean time, lets all live in peace.
Amen.
I was just stating my opinion, that it seems when something doesn’t agree with our values we have a tendency to create a world that does. It’s kind of an American thing I think, big ugly churches with big ugly cars in the parking lot (with fish symbols stuck on the bumpers).