jwb

what God(s) is it you believe in specifically and why?

A lot of the new age and pagan and mystic type **** might not be as judgmental as the abrahamic faiths but it just feels a lot like a choose your own adventure type approach to religion lol. Just pick your favorite God the same way you would pick your favorite super hero and go with that.

Ayn Marx

The majority of our species have had no freedom in choosing their religion. As that nasty Jesuit saying has it “Give us the child till they’re six and we’ve got them for life.” There are other evil traditions many religious bodies adhere to. Stray from the so called one true path and we’ll stone you to death, burn you alive, torture you till you confess your evil ways etc. Today’s ‘enlightened' Christians claim to have left all that behind. However give them enough political power, as in the US today, and watch what happens to so called sinners.

Underneath all of this human nature is at work. That is, our species is prone to ‘groupthink’ even outside of religious dogma. For instance, followers of Ayn Rand and Marx can act and groupthink like true believers of the religious kind. Until and unless this aspect of group behaviour is confronted and eliminated our species time on planet earth will soon be over. Some of you here may be sick of me recommending this tome but I’m going to do it again. A reading of Arthur Koestler’s ’The Ghost in The Machine’ focuses on this problem. I’ve yet to encounter an honest refutation of his central thesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_in_the_Machine

Trollheart

Look, let's not beat about the bush. We all know worshipping the Great Pixie is where it's at! Oh Mighty Pixie, send us your magic dust and keep us safe from the deadly tree-elves, who are evil incarnate!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

gandhara

Sort of...You can certainly choose which path and deities you want to follow for several reasons, You'll mostly hear from other Pagans that it's because that's who they feel most drawn to, closest to, and have had like personal experiences with. In other cases, the person may have been born into the faith. There are still places in the world where a living cultural Pagan religion still survives and where no revival is needed..Most though have been destroyed by the Monotheistic faiths.. but for those interested in reviving certain faiths there's a lot to work with. There are even really obscure faiths people are trying to revive, like the pre-Islamic Arabic traditions..where there is no even much written evidence to go by.

As for me I'm mostly interested in ancient Assyria.. I don't worship ALL of the gods though lol, mostly just the highest ones...Ashur and Mullissu the most since they're the two highest deities of the old Assyrian Empire. I occasionally honor the others. Each deity has a specific day they can be honored.. And I just wait for the specific days for Ashur and Mullissu, instead of every day (every day would be for actual priests to perform, not the average person, unless they wanted to of course). There were household protective spirits one can honor at any time as well. I usually take like a minute of my time to say a little prayer or praise for them at least once a day. I don't normally ask for much...just general stuff like protection, health, safety, prosperity....and I don't offer much either...incense, some fruit, etc.... If I had a bigger income I likely would devote more time and energy, but I'm content where I'm at so I leave it at that.

Anyway, just thought I'd share a little about my own little faith. I wasn't planning on saying as much as I did tonight lol