How many exJWs are now pagan? Why? (page 2)

Sirona

Gretchen,

I feel just like you. For the first 12 years of my life I was not JW. Noone taught me the concept of sacrifice but I often found myself "offering" something to God...little trinkets. I still wonder about where I got that idea and why it felt so right to me. I also had a collection of fairy ornaments and I would sit under our oak tree talking to the fairies (I think I actually did...but who knows?). Since being little I could sense people's illnesses and see auras.

I used to write poetry and fairly recently I got some of it out for a friend to read. She commented straight away on how "pagan" they were! I hadn't even thought of it, but when I re-read them she was right.

Sirona

Carol,

There are people who consider themselves Christian Witches. Strict Christianity, however, would be at odds with true paganism. Christianity has one God (who is always viewed as male), whereas paganism embraces the idea of multiple gods (whether you see them as aspects of "one" or as seperate entities).

Christianity forbids looking for omens in nature, or having graven images, both of which feature in paganism.

Sirona

Norm

Christians should feel very comfortable with so-called paganism. Why?
Because everything in Christendom is taken from paganism. Absolutely everything. Several books has been written about this and it is well known among educated people.

Just have a little peek at this webite and by all means check with other sources. It is very educating and quite revealing.

http://home.earthlink.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/

Norm

garybuss

I went to a two day meeting sponsored by Christians for ex cult members called a counter cult ministry. It was advertised that former Jehovah's Witnesses were welcome so my wife and I went. It was only the second time my wife went with me to anything after she quit going to Witness sponsored meetings.
There were two former Witness young ladies there who were Wiccans. They were quiet and respectful and nice but they were treated terribly by the Christians sponsoring the meeting. In one of the seminars we attended they were in the room and they were singled out by the Christian speaker and he turned the meeting into a public confrontation . . . an inquisition of the Wiccan girls. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen done. Much worse than anything I'd seen as a Witness.
I liked the Wiccan girls and I left shaken and extremely disappointed in the meeting and in the Christians sponsoring it. The Christians were downright mean to those girls and they never provoked any of it. I would never go to anything that Christian group sponsored again . . . but I would go with the Wiccans any time.
Just my personal experience with Wiccans and Christians.

gaiagirl

I'm a pagan, because I came to realize that the pagan worldview is closer to reality than the JW worldview. Specifically, I see humans not a separate creation, but as part of a web of existence shared by all living things. Other life forms are not our "inferiors" but our sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, etc. I also don't see those things which we consider to be "blessings" as coming from some invisible spirit somewhere, but from the material world of which we are made and of which we are part, i.e. our bodies are made of material on loan from the Earth, and fueled, indirectly, by energy from the Sun stored on Earth. The idea of evolution as supported by evidence found in ancient rocks does not conflict in any way with this idea. I also appreciate that pagans tend to accept responsibility for their actions, rather than blaming their own actions on spirits, good or bad.

Ms. Whip

"pagan religion" is natural religion. it's instinctive. human.

when i walked out of the kingdom hall...i walked into nature and buried my closed mind.

i am no longer burdened with the coffin of christianity.

i now think and do things that feel natural to me.

i look back at being a jw and everything about it seems unnatural.

since i was born into the religion, i was coerced from infancy into beLIEving.

everything i thought or did as a witness just didn't seem to fit who i really was. from the clothes i wore, the music i listened to, the people i was around. my natural mind would tell me things... yet i chose to not listen. i would suppress my natural instinct and follow their "rules."

i dismissed dreams and premonitions, i suppressed empathic feelings, i ignored spirit messages, i went against "gut" feelings. i put blinders on, synched up my straight jacket and sat in a kingdom hall void of windows and true light.

as a witness, i swallowed down the artificially created ideology.

as a pagan, i now savor the sweet natural honey of free thought.

ms. whip

(of "the enjoying my sinful heathen ways" class)

Sirona

Beautifully put.

What I love about paganism is that our sexuality is celebrated, not despised. The physical is to be experienced to the full, not restricted. Balance that with the morality of harming none (not even yourself) and you have a lovely combination of loving life, freewill and spirituality.

Its all good

Sirona

crazyblondeb

Being pagan/wiccan, I feel at ease and empowered. Like it as been mentioned, it brings us back to nature. It's taught me how to empower myself. It celebrates our sexuality. For me, paganism/wicca allows me to accept not only myself, but others. Everyone else seems to have covered the highlights. I just know it works for me!

shelley

GentlyFeral

Sirona, this is a fairly recent (over the past couple hundred years) development. The Malleus Malifecarum notwithstanding, herbalists, "cunning men" and "wise women" have been devout Christians in good standing. British Christians still honor such customs as the dressing of wells, which have been interpreted as survivals of pagan worship – but which may not be.

A fascinating example of this phenomenon outside of Europe is the American magical system of hoodoo, which was brought to this country in part by African slaves who were Christians when they arrived. Most of the African survivals in hoodoo come from the Congo, which had been a Christian kingdom since the 15th century.

It was Luther who began the process of cutting Christianity down to the bare bones – and if every Christian agreed with him, there wouldn't still be Christian folk-festivals such as St. Patrick's day, or even Easter, or books like The Long Lost Friend, or for that matter, a Catholic church.

GentlyFeral

Insomniac

About ten years ago, while working as a cook at a private school, I was approached by a student (16 years old) who was taking a survey for his Comparative Religion class. He asked me a number of questions regarding my religious views. Just for the halibut, I gave him truthful answers, not the noxious, hate-fueled rhetoric of the WTBTS. I didn't even know what I would say, until the words came out of my mouth.

When he asked me if God was male or female, I told him I saw God as a perfect blend of both sets of qualities, although I was most comfortable with the female aspect. I told him I couldn't imagine God wanting us to worship Her in a building, when She'd given us all of nature as a cathedral. When he asked me which holidays I celebrated, I mentioned the Memorial, but admitted that I had for years privately observed the Solstices and Equinoxes, as they are holy days that are not man-made, but God-created. It felt immensely good to talk about this stuff honestly to another person. When we were done talking, he matter-of-factly told me that, while I claimed to be of a fundamentalist Christian faith, my beliefs put me squarely in the category of...Neo-Pagan! I was shocked, because I knew nothing about Paganism; these beliefs had all been intuitive realizations for me.

Later, much later, I read some books, took some quizzes, had some long conversations with the Divine. I no longer bother to keep up a pretense of Christianity; although I respect the Christians, their way is not my way. I just know that Paganism feels right for me- as if I've shed a set of borrowed clothes that never quite fit, and put on my own that do.

How many exJWs are now pagan? Why?

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