{"id":896,"date":"2016-09-12T08:30:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T22:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/?p=896"},"modified":"2018-01-24T13:32:14","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T03:32:14","slug":"4-lies-we-tell-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2016\/09\/4-lies-we-tell-the-world.html","title":{"rendered":"4 Lies We Tell the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I recently wrote a post about why I hate the misconceptions so many Pagans have about Paganism.\u00a0 I was planning to simply write a post listing some of the misconceptions that Pagans have, but I had a better idea for this post. I will still post about those other misconceptions another time though.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of articles\u00a0out there that list, discuss and refute some of the misconceptions that non-Pagans have about Pagans and Paganism. \u00a0I\u2019ve noticed an amusing thing about some, actually many, of these articles. \u00a0Often the person refutes the misconceptions with their\u00a0own misconceptions about Paganism. Here are four of them.<\/p>\n

\"We
Francisco Goya [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Devil Worship<\/h2>\n

Non-Pagans Say:<\/strong>\u00a0 Pagans and witches are devil worshippers!<\/p>\n

Pagans Say:<\/strong> The Devil is a Christian entity, we aren\u2019t Christian and don\u2019t believe in Christian deities or entities.<\/p>\n

The Truth is:<\/strong> Neither are right, both are right.\u00a0 It really depends on the Pagan.\u00a0 Paganism as a whole is non-Christian \u2013 no Jehovah-Allah-Yahweh, no Devil.\u00a0 But Paganism is not a single religion or belief system, it is many.\u00a0 And we are legion. Sorry, I couldn\u2019t help that.<\/p>\n

I will begin with the idea that we do not believe in the Abrahamic God or the Devil.\u00a0 Many of us are polytheistic, or omnitheistic like myself.\u00a0 Generally we believe in more Gods than we worship, honour or even like and respect.\u00a0 People like me, who believe in all of Them, must also believe in the Abrahamic ones \u2013 to believe in all but Them would be a bit hypocritical don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n

Beyond belief, there are Christo-Pagans out there, Pagans who worship Jesus and\/or God.\u00a0 There are also Satanists (who do not worship Satan or the Devil), and there are those who worship or work with Satan, Lucifer and\/or the Devil \u2013 who are separate entities in some traditions.<\/p>\n

You can say that most Pagans do not worship the devil, and this would be true.\u00a0 You could say that most Pagans don\u2019t really believe in the devil, or the Abrahamic God and this too would probably be true.\u00a0 But you cannot say that no Pagan believes in or worships Them \u2013 because that is not true.<\/p>\n

Evil Pagans<\/h2>\n

Non-Pagans Say:<\/strong> All Pagans are evil.<\/p>\n

Pagans Say:<\/strong> No Pagans are evil.<\/p>\n

The Truth is:<\/strong> Once again, it\u2019s actually somewhere in the middle.\u00a0 I won\u2019t actually go too deeply into this one, since I have written an entire post about it before<\/a>.\u00a0 Suffice to say, Pagans are human and like every human of any religion, we all have the capacity for evil \u2013 whatever you define evil to be.\u00a0 We all can be evil, but not all of us actually are.\u00a0 Some Pagans are \u201cevil\u201d, some do evil things.\u00a0 But on the whole, we are just like any other group of people \u2013 we\u2019re basically alright.<\/p>\n

Dangerous Killers<\/h2>\n

Non-Pagans Say:<\/strong> Pagans and especially witches are out to kill us all, curse us with their evil magics.<\/p>\n

Pagans Say:<\/strong> Pagans follow the rule of Harm None, we would never ever ever!<\/p>\n

The Truth is:<\/strong> In the middle again? This is closely tied to the evil Pagans and even devil worship thing really.\u00a0 Because we are assumed to be evil devil worshippers, we are also assumed to be out to hurt everyone.\u00a0 Pagans respond with the fact that we don\u2019t hurt anyone, it\u2019s basically the only rule Pagans have.<\/p>\n

Except it\u2019s not.\u00a0 It\u2019s Wiccan lore, and we are not all Wiccan, and the Rede that is so oft stated is quite misinterpreted by all the non-Wiccans anyway.\u00a0 So there are a bunch of Pagans out there who say they follow the rede of harm none, and that\u2019s cool.\u00a0 But not all of us do.<\/p>\n

Animal Sacrifice<\/h2>\n

Non-Pagans Say:<\/strong> Pagans and witches are all about sacrificing animals, in their evil rites.<\/p>\n

Pagans Say:<\/strong> We harm none, and that includes animals! We\u2019re all vegan actually.<\/p>\n

The Truth is:<\/strong> Okay, Pagans don\u2019t really say the vegan thing, but it seems like it sometimes.\u00a0 Once again we\u2019re in the middle.\u00a0 For the most part, animal sacrifice is not part of Paganism, for various reasons.\u00a0 It\u2019s outdated, it\u2019s against the persons moral code, it\u2019s against the law, we don\u2019t actually know how to do it, it\u2019s yucky.\u00a0 Whatever, there\u2019s a lot of reasons.\u00a0 But they are not reasons that everyone has.<\/p>\n

Animal sacrifice does happen in Paganism, most prevalently within the polytheistic traditions \u2013 Hellenism for example \u2013 but also in other traditions.\u00a0\u00a0 It does happen, it\u2019s not about hurting or torturing the animal, it\u2019s generally more humane than what happens in a slaughterhouse and it is done by Real Pagans.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So what can we take from all of this?<\/p>\n

When trying to refute other peoples misconceptions about us, don\u2019t go to the opposite extreme \u2013 just be honest. \u00a0\u00a0We are all human here, and like any human or group of humans we are not all wonderful, shiny, unicorn people. \u00a0And like any group of people, what some people of our group do, does not necessarily define all of us. \u00a0Don\u2019t fight misconceptions with misconceptions. \u00a0The truth is actually much easier for people to believe.<\/p>\n

Also, just because you don\u2019t like a thing, doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t a legitimate Pagan practice.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t fight misconceptions with misconceptions. The truth is actually much easier for people to believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2764,"featured_media":897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,11,13],"tags":[31,32,25,59],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-pagan-community","category-paganism101","tag-misconceptions","tag-paganism","tag-religion","tag-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"\n4 Lies We Tell the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Don't fight misconceptions with misconceptions. 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