I have been thinking again (oh no I hear you cry!) about many things, but mainly on belief, my beliefs and religion as a whole.


Why do we believe? I have been thinking of the differences in the days when religion were found and belief today. I do not believe that less people believe than back then, in a proportional basis. I believe there were always people who questioned things, and questioning is healthy. Questioning lead to science and without it, where would we be today? But before the questioning, before the science, miracles happened, prophecies were told and the end of the world came with every eclipse. People believed, because they didn’t know any better. They would never again see a total eclipse and know it to be a astronomical phenomenon that would occur over and over again. They believed that God was angry, or that the world was ending. Today, we’re more likely to grab those little plastic glasses generally given away free in news papers to witness this scientific event. Probably the only one we’d ever see.

So what leads people to believe now? Is the world all just undiscovered science? Or does what sparked religion all those years ago still confound us now?

Today I feel the world is largely of blind faith. I mean no offence to those with other beliefs but when you look at the Christians, the Muslims, and all those with a holy book, I feel they just take the word in the book as gospel. And there it in my opinion a lot of truth in that. You get people like Fred Phelps who seem to digest the bible but look at how they use it? Picketing everything they can from rockstar’s funerals, to Comicon, to funerals of those who died fighting for their country. God hates this, God hates that. And how come those reading the same book (unless I’m muchly mistaken) who sit there saying God loves everyone? Is there any effort in these religions?

I’ll stick with a general conception of Christianity for this bit, not going to get bogged down.

Christianity, you are christened when born, and if your parents so wish it you go to Church every Sunday until you feel you might be old enough to make the decision that that’s not where you want to be. Or there are those who have no thought about it and carry on being Christian until they die, not of any miracle or anything that has snagged their attention, but because it’s what they have always believed. So they are born, live and die Christian. With no thought to follow any of their thoughts, they believe blindly in this “Word of God” this book you can buy for £12.99 from WHSmiths. And I look upon it with a sceptical mind, with this world of science, I do not see how these things can have taken place, and I see a lot of it as just stories.

I’m not going to comment on the other religions with holy books, I have very little dealings with them but having been christened, attended church, Sunday School and studied it fairly extensively in school I feel a familiarity with it. And that is my view.

So I look now to Paganism. Paganism is an umbrella term as such for countless different forms of religious belief and thought. There is no “holy book” for paganism for one, they are fairly new in the world of religion, Wicca was only founded in the 50’s. So what makes these people believe when there is no holy book?

I still consider myself fairly new to the world of Wicca and Paganism. I have had an interested for many years and I have been reading for many years though I don’t believe I have found my “niche”.

So I believe, and why? To be quite honest with you, I’m not all that sure. Having studied many areas of Paganism it just feels right. Many people call the feeling like they are “coming home”. I know this feeling, I know it well. And so I believe in a God and I believe in a Goddess. This equal balance in divinity as there is in the natural world. For every male half there is a female half, without both there wouldn’t be the life on this earth. Even those who reproduce themselves have male and female parts. All through nature, flowers, trees, animals, insects, the earth its self has split male and female. Yin and Yang. Its all part of the balance of life. I find the God and the Goddess easy to believe in. It’s not hard to see why people believe in that part. Neither do I find it hard to believe in energies. Everything has an energy, even rocks and crystals. It is these energies that are used to perform magic. Energy is generated in ritual through a number of different ways. It can be raised by voice, by dance, drumming. The energy is told what we want done through spells and it is released into the universe to do our bidding. The magic bit, that oddly, is the bit I find hardest to believe. I’ve had little to no experience with direct magic, it’s not something I find myself comfortable to practice. I wonder if its because of my lack of knowledge or if its because I find myself linking magic still to Harry Potter.

I feel I need to connect more. Many people in the online communities I’m on have daily devotions and alters and find they connect more. I’m wondering if I had this if it would help. The only way I’ll get around my disconnection with magic is to practice it myself. Then I can feel myself if I’m comfortable with it or not. And I think that will contribute to which path I take.

Currently I view Wicca as where I want to be. I know that this is probably as its where I started. Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A guide for the solitary practitioner was the first book I picked up from a bookshop and committed myself to read. It was also bought on a day of great significance in my life and I feel that it’s someway connected. I believe I would be quite happy in the Wiccan path if I could just get past my block on magic. Perhaps my next stage of development can be setting up an alter. Dedicate a little time a day to meditate on what I seek. Clarity.
And yet, while I sit here pondering beliefs I still have a strong basis in Science. I don’t take everything to be some sign of the divine. I know it can’t be. And I think it’s hard having such a interest and belief in science and having a belief in something like Wicca where the concepts have been around for centuries.

But going back to the blind faith. Do pagans have blind faith? I don’t think so. I think that paganism is not something people stumble on really. People are not recruited to Paganism the way that other faiths advertise and try to recruit. They are there by choice, and that choice is personal to them. But something made them believe in this, something that isn’t a book written centuries ago. To have faith in paganism you have to look deep within yourself and find what it is that lies in that that makes you believe. You can’t follow blindly as it is you that makes the decisions, you that chooses what to believe. It is not dictated by a “messenger of God”. I suppose that is why I feel comfortable in it. It’s dicated by me. The main principle of Wicca is “An harm ye none, do what thee will.” Which sums up what life should be about to me.

I'll keep on trying, reading, believing. I'll try new things, daily time to stop and think about what I seek.

Something has to stick sooner or later.