Apparently there's some Right Wing groups reading and posting our convers

[icymist]

Apparently there's some Right Wing groups reading and posting our conversations. Some of them have absolutely no idea what we are talking about. Good! The rest seem to have to guess what Pagan Spirituality is compared to their self-righteous notions of what Christianity is. Again, So What! It's easy to belittle what one doesn't understand. As patti smith once said: "It's too bad that our friends can't be with us today."

[hvn_nbr_2]

1. "Some of them have absolutely no idea what we are talking about"

That seems odd. I thought they all knew that we were worshipping Satan and drinking the blood of Christian babies. :sarcasm:

If they are guessing what pagan spirituality is (rather than assuming that their leaders' wacko notions are really true), then that's probably a good thing. Insularity and isolation result in narrow views of the world where it's hard to even imagine some "other" ideas, so if they are actually wondering, I salute it.

To give you an idea, I grew up in a very homogeneous white Protestant area. Roman Catholics were exotic to me. Spaghetti was ethnic food (although I don't think I ever heard the term "ethnic food" then). I thought that what distinguished one religion from another was the rules they held: whether it was allowed to dance (never, always, or just not on Sunday), whether it was allowed to play cards (same options, plus variables for whether betting real and/or Monopoly money were allowed. The ones who thought it wasn't necessarily a sin to play penny poker on Sunday were really, really out there), what kind of baptism was legitimate and at what age. So you can imagine that my first reaction to some of the ideas of eastern religions was utter disbelief that anyone could believe such obviously false things. It also took me a long time to feel comfortable with "goddess," long after I had intellectually accepted the idea.

[icymist]

2. Wow, do I understand that.

I learned how to be Pagan in an 'Open Mike' bar. It was like having church right in front of you while all other patrons didn't have a clue!

[Dervill Crow]

3. Good for them.

There was a time that I believed my parents were doomed to spend all eternity in hell because they weren't born-again Christians. It was through reading the posts of a pagan and an atheist on an AOL message board years ago that I started actually thinking in color again instead of black and white. I really liked the black and white thinking when my kids were small. Life is more complicated than that, though.

[Ilsa]

4. I heard a tv preacher blabbing on about

"...how silly it is that doctors and lawyers and other professionals would prance around in the woods, sometimes naked..."
I wanted to email him and let him know that maybe he shouldn't condemn something before trying it. (I haven't tried it, but I don't condemn it either.)

I think people get their ideas from extremely inappropriate sources, like associating Pagan with Satanism, possibly because of that Dragnet movie with Tom Hanks and Dan Ackroyd where "pagans" were satanists.

[laheina]

5. Listening to some of the fundies

one can get the idea that anything that they don't approve of =s satan.

And I would like to prance around in the woods--sometimes naked--but alas, I am solitary. :)

[Brewman_Jax]

6. RW groups and reading

is an oxymoron. :rofl:

That aside, maybe if they looked at different methodologies, they wouldn't waste so much energy being afraid. :scared:

[kiahzero]

7. Of course they are

Taking quotes from DU out of context and holding them up in contempt is a time-honored RW forum tradition, along with other forms of intellectual dishonesty and general stupidity.