Benjamin, my bad, I thought I had read pagan, lots of folks use those interchangeably anymore, such as Xerox machine means copier in a generic sense and not a brand except to the company!
I understand. Just so long as you see what I'm saying now. I studied Paganism for a long time... actually I studied all religion... and was a Pagan for a good while, though in the past couple months I've lost belief in gods, more or less. Maybe it's just a phase due to how wrecked my life has become, and the fact that they've never been there for me. Basically, I can say they don't exist because for me they don't. Maybe for someone else they do. But I can hardly keep my plans for a church with this mentality, which is why I closed it.
Your message was cryptic, but we now get your point. ; In fact I probably get it better than most in that I have run into wiccans such as you describe. IMO anyone who tries to tell you they have the only way is selling snake oil.
It's not that Wiccans believe they have the only path, it's that they act superior, like they have the best one, and I see it as oversimplified ceremonial magic. If I was interested in any of that for myself, I would explore ceremonial magic and the Kabbalah, and not Gardener's watered down version.
As to the goddess, I believe she was around a lot longer than the bible, at least archeology bears this out (as in "When God Was a Woman" and "The Chalice and the Blade".) ; However, I am not advocating anyone else believe in her, just that I do.
Let me clarify: no religion called it "the goddess." Yes there were male and female, dark and light principles. But it wasn't until modern Wicca that they started genericizing it into "the god" and "the goddess" or "the lord" and "the lady." YEs, that goddess figure existed, but it didn't go by "the goddess."