The respect reilions thread got me thinking after my post on the subject, what do the users of this site know about religions such as wicca, voodoo, satanism, and the likes of. Norse runic mythology, the 'I am also a God' believers, Sumarian, all that stuff.
Wicca believe in powers of the elements, they have five points to their symbol, which did not help them with the whole witch burning thing, due to it's assumed similarity to the Satanism five point. They also believe in God, I think the christian god, beside a goddess, like mother nature, I believe her name is Nyx. There is a great article about the wiccan religion on Wikipedia, I suggest you look it up if you are interested in them.
The respect reilions thread got me thinking after my post on the subject, what do the users of this site know about religions such as wicca, voodoo, satanism, and the likes of. Norse runic mythology, the 'I am also a God' believers, Sumarian, all that stuff.
No so up on Sumerian beliefs but the others I know about. Most of them are quite misunderstood.
Wicca. Is a modern pagan religion loosely based on old pagan beliefs utilizing many gods/goddess (mostly the Mother Goddess and the Greenman) and mostly worshiping the earth and nature. The core moral belief of Wicca is 'do as you will and harm non' There are various interpretation of what exactly is and is not allowed under this context but basically it's taken to mean so long as your not hurting yourself or others it's okay to do. They follow a law of return. What ever you put out comes back to you in fold (sometimes 3 times more, sometimes 10 times more) So if what you do has positive effects, that's what you get back in fold. If what you do has negative effects, that's what you get back in fold.
I read a Wicca bible once... not pretty.
If I was to guess you probably read a book claim Wicca was all about animal sacrifice and sexual orgies. While there are groups who claim to be Wicca who do this, it's not what the religion is about.
Voodoo This is a religion developed from a mixture of old tribal beliefs and Catholicism. Developed by African slaves who were unable to practice there native beliefs. This religion does often practice animal sacrificing. Though to note most of the practices are meant to heal but are often viewed as a means to harm. For example the Voodoo doll is actually not meant as a means of cursing one's enemy but as a healing practice. (Think of it like remote acupuncture.) The alters made up of bones and other trinkets are meant to worship one own person deity.
Satanism This often takes two forms. one being the more commonly associated form where the person really does worship Satan (this one is where you often get your animal sacrifices and orgies that often get mistaken or mislabeled as Wicca.) The second form is not a worship of Satan but rather viewing one's self as a supreme being. There is some conjecture as to how this form got to taking the name Satanism, but it may be that it makes reference to those who started the practice considering themselves adversaries to organized religion and Christianity in particular. (Basically it was to just piss off Christians.)
Rune mythology Norse Runes were treated not only as letters but also numbers and each character held a meaning (such as man, horse, ice...). It's origins are based on the Elder Futhark runes (Futhark being the first 6 letters of the runic alphabet.) I'm not sure how old rune divination is though. But much of this alphabet greatly influenced many languages that are still alive today.
I know I am about to mix taboo with strange, but I feel it's an acceptable segway. So, a few odd religions:
1. Scientology - Dianetics is weird, but I do feel it's possible we could have some "outside help" if you get me.
2. Yahweh followers - something about African Americans being the true Israelites?
3. I don't remember the name of the religion, but it was discussed in a Primitive Religions class I took during my undergrad. Anyway, this tribe believed that all existence was vomited up. If I remember correctly, two God-like brothers were fighting and separated. So, the one brother became bored and vomited up a river. Then he vomited up the fish, etc, etc, etc.
Hmm, that third religion, that makes me want to go scrub myself with hand sanitizer. We are the beings of barf? Intriguing, Anyone else heard of some very strange theories? I'd sure like to see them, I don't know about everyone else,
Norse mythology has a quite funny way to explain creation. First there is a void, a gap, with an icy region in the north and an incandecent place in the south. Out of the meeting of cold and hot a giant and a primordial cow are created, the giant feeds on the milk of the cow. Meanwhile the cow licks on the ice and by that frees a man, who is the grandfather of Odin and others. More are created in other ways, don't quite remember.. The giant then gets killed by Odin and his brothers, and they create the world in the void with parts of the giant: earth out of his flesh, the sea out of his blood, stone, rocks and mountains from his teeth, his hair is used to make trees, from his brows however they create Midgard; further they use his skull to make the sky and his brain to make clouds. They sure were good at recycling XD
Pastafarianism isn't a taboo religion - it's a parody of a religion. However, looking at the hate mail they get you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some sort of evil cult/religion that sacrificed children and ate them with spaghetti.
