You are forced to change your religious beliefs - pick a new religion

[lestatdark]

spurgeonryan said:

lestatdark said:

spurgeonryan said:

lestatdark said:

spurgeonryan said:
I think I would choose Wicca. I am christian myself, but I get so tired of all the top major lets say 10 religions always being mad at each other and fighting or just being horrible to people on this planet. You never hear about Wiccans hurting anyone, or anything else. Unless you believe everything you see on tv. I just wish Religion (Athiest as well) and religion in general could just smoke some......and chilll out! As of right now you are destroying the world it seems! And all the volunteering, missionaries, and money you throw at those problems will not help as we have seen for the past 5 thousand plus years!

Being a Wiccan myself, I can vouch for the not hurting anyone part. Our religion is based on the Wicca Rede code, in which we believe that every action that you do will come back to you threefold and our major motto is "Hurt no one, do what ye will". 

Basically we just try to leave peacefully within our own community and with everyone from every religion and we accept anyone for what they believe.

If I had to change religion, I would go Buddhist myself, as it's closer to the Wiccan ideologies.

Excellent! I was hoping that I was not totally off, since I have hardly any knowlege of your religion other than what you just told me and little things here and there pulled out of movies and tv shows. Of course I am sure most of that is just over the top sometimes.

Most of it is based on stereotypical portraits of witchcraft that date from centuries ago. The Crucible is a good example of that, as it focus (although it was throughly well portrayed) in the hysterical depiction of the "witch-hunts" of Salem, with stereotypes that were the most common for that age (17th century).

A very few movies get Wicca right, though to a limited degree, like The Craft and Practical Magic (this one is more know, it stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman), although they focus too much on the eccentric side of Wicca, when most Wicca practioners are actually just your average person. 

If you're ever interested in knowing more, there are some indie movies that depict the actual reality of Wicca, such as Drawing Down the Moon (not based on the book with the same name), since it focus on the real interactions between the members of our religion and our daily life as well.  

I was watching Rissoli and isle the other day and one of the detectives said that in the 1700's usually if they thought someone was a witch or something it was actually because of a medical condition that made them act strange such as dimensia or schizophrenia and stuff. I am not saying that is what wiccans actually are, but I think that some back then were not actually wiccan they were maybe just sick people that no one understood. I hope I explained that alright, don't want you to think I am saying everyone is just sick. Just back then. As with most medical problems back then no one new. That is why George Washington was bled to death.

Actually Wicca as religion is quite recent, even though it takes from a lot of bases such as celtic and druidic mythology, just as much as common witchcraft. You're right about that, back in those days Witchcraft practicioners were often thought to be people with sicknesses such as hysteria, dementia and many other psychological disturbances, because most of the times they didn't fall with the standards of that age which were based on heavy christian/catholic doctrine. In the dark ages it was even worse, what with the inquisition and so on. 

In some places nowadays, Wiccans and witchcraft practicioners (they're both different groups even though they share some common bases) are still though to be crazy people or are persecuted by the local population. In my country there is a very limited number of Wicca practicioners (below 1000), due to a lot of factors, the main one being that it's one the biggest christian countries in the world (in total % of the population) and still has a very restrictive views on other religions.