---Travis <skibum13@geocities.com> wrote:

> (from-email)  skibum13@geocities.com
> (from-where)  God lead me to your page.
> ( Where?)
> 
> Why Paganism?
> 		
 
I've been thinking for several days about how to answer this question.  Of course I knew I *had* to answer, but the answer is a lot more complex than would it would seem to appear!

First I have to make it clear that I do not speak for all Pagans - I just give them a place to voice their own opinions.  Paganism is not a religion, like Christianity; it's a group of religions, highly diverse and only loosely associated.  Paganism is, essentially, an umbrella term for all the religions which came before the "Big Five" - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hindu - and all those which seek the spirit of those ancient beliefs. I don't have more than the dimmest understanding of why an Asatruar, or a Druid, or a Metista shaman would choose choose their paths.  I can, however, answer your question in the context of my own religion, which is Wicca.

Why Wicca for me, personally?  Because, at a time in my life when I was feeling lost and desperately seeking some kind of spiritual path, it came to me and opened my eyes to a whole new way of percieving the world  - a way that makes sense, that fulfils me spiritually and intellectually.  There's a lot more to it than that, but it's hard to explain.  If you've felt the touch and the inspiration of the Divine, then you understand...

Why Wicca, in general?  A variety of reasons.  Increasingly it is becoming accepted that religion is a matter of personal choice and fulfillment of personal needs; and this is a positive change for everyone concerned.  Christians are Christian because they choose to be, because it feels right to them, not because their parents told them they "need to" be.  And those who aren't fulfilled by Christianity and other mainstream religions are finding what they need on other paths.  Then there are those who have been raised in the faith - children of Neo-Pagans, and children of family traditions that have never been Christian.  My husband is one of these; he can trace his family's lineage to early mideival France, and although there has been conversion and intermarriage down through the years, the family never converted en masse, but retained the ancient religion to this day.

That brings me to my next point... what, excactly, is the "ancient religion", or, as you'll hear some refer to it, the Old Faith?

Simply, the Old Faith is a term which refers to various traditions including Wicca which preserve or revive, in more or less recognizable form, the religion of ancient Europe.  This religion recognizes an ultimate "creative force", an unknowable Deity, much like the JHWH of the Jews - except that this Deity is not the creator of the Universe who exists outside of nature, but rather the living Universe Itself, which exists in a state of constant change and "self-creation".  Though nothing stays the same, certain cycles repeat themselves, and it is this dance of change and cyclic return that defines the Pagan worldview.

Although most religions recognize one ultimate Divine force, this is regarded as beyond human capability to comprehend or to interact with in any meaningful way.  So we divide the Divine into more manageable packages; or we simply choose to percieve aspects which ae already present in both ourselves and It, depending on how you look at it.  Chrisitanity presents a triune God, Body, Soul and Mind (Christ, who walked the Earth with and as Man; the Holy Spirit, which inspires spiritual revelation, and the Almighty Father, the Law-Giver).  Wicca, on the other hand, percieves a dualistic God - male and female.  The Lord is the sky and the sun, the daylight hours, the summer months, death, conception and the wild places; the Lady is the Earth and moon, the night and the winter, birth and life.  All these things are neccessary, and together they make up all that is.  This concept is similar to the Native American concept of Earth Mother and Sky Father, or Great Spirit;  and it is the oldest and most universal cosmological system in the world.

It is this connection with the ancient, with the most basic perseption of Deity, and the connection with the living universe that draws people to Wicca and to other Pagan religions.  That's why they're also called Earth-based religions; we are, on a fundamental level, aware of the universe around us, and of the part we play in the universe.   

I hope this helps to begin to answer your questions.  Of course, feel free to e-mail me again if you like, or come visiting on IRC.

Blessings,

Bethanny Stuart