Your occasional flashes of insight, however, do not justify your acting like a complete prick at the slightest suggestion that someone doesn't agree with you.
This group is a broad church. There are Ásatrúar here. There are Caballists. Thelemites. Sufi. Gnostics. Rosicrucians. Neo-Hellenics. Wiccans: Alexandrian, Garderian, Sæx, Strigera, Dianic, etc. Discordians. SubGenii. Chaosites. You'll probably even find a couple of (the shock!) Christians floating around. This is a place where everyone believes something which at least one other person will find disturbing, incorrect, laughable or blasphemous.
Putting your ideas out is a good thing. Sharing ideas is something which enriches everyone — even the sharing of bad ideas can be educational.
But there is a price to be paid. Sometimes other people don't like your ideas. Sometimes they don't like the way your idea is expressed. Sometimes people are just idiots. That is part of life. The point is, responding to criticism with “God-cursed atheist”, and by deleting the responses you don't like, is not a sign that you are responding maturely to feedback.
Let me say that I am not trying to disparage your faith.
I will, however, take a stance against your Holier-than-thou B.S.
For a start, you seem to have a chip on your shoulder against those who practice reconstructed religions. Wicca especially. Let me let you in on a secret: You are practising a reconstructed religion. That you have done your own reconstruction does not make it less reconstructed.
Your refusal to allow anyone else to show the slightest scepticism, or worse, cynicism does not make you more right. It does not convince anyone. It just shows you up as less secure in your faith. You have divided the universe into “people who agree with Robin”, and “gods-cursed atheist idiots”.
You call out those “who think that they corner the market on Witchcraft and Sorcery”. Apart from the arrogance of your tone, you really do show yourself to be a hypocrite, unable or unwilling to notice the beam in your own eye. You are correct, and your proof is that you are correct. Well, when you have stopped rhetorically recirculating up your own fundament, maybe you would stand back and have a look at your own case. Maybe, when all those people start criticising you, start worrying about you, start laughing at you, maybe it's not them. Maybe it's you.
You talk about the Gods. And fair enough. You talk about the Spirits. Fair enough. You talk about how the Gods respond to Love, Faith and Intention. Fair enough. But you seem to be getting confused. You are an Ásatrúar. You are a Druid. You are a witch (NOT WICCAN! NOT WICCAN!!). You are, in the way you describe your view of Witchcraft, basically a Shaman. Verily, you are a Pagan Renaissance Man. But aren't there a couple of contradictions? If you are so attached to England, why Ásatrú? I mean, sure, it is the closest that we have to the Saxon Pagan religion, but why don't you say so? And you attach yourself to Druidry. ahhh, what? You get a bee in your bonnet about reconstructionists and post-modernists, but don't see a problem with following two separate pantheons? Or are you an Ásatrú Witch Druid?
Sure, follow one God or many. Worship from whatever pantheon you like. Go on a spirit quest with John Lennon, and summon the genius spirits of computers and cars. But don't, please, tell me off for being not traditionalist enough.
Quite simply, in my opinion, you are a fundamentalist. Not just my opinion, either. You show all the characteristics.
- An idiosyncratic understanding of theology.
- Personal research and meditation leading you to the conclusion that you are the single sane, rational light of reason, destined to lead the worthy to salvation; and conversely, the certain knowledge that all who disagree with you are insane, irrational, and/or tools of demons.
- A complete and total lack of anything resembling a sense of humour.
As I said to you, before you petulantly deleted the comment,
And your reaction to people laughing at your o'erweening presumption to be able to tell us what is True and what is Lies merely reinforces the initial impression: However old you are, however well-read, inside you're just a scared 13-year-old boy, dressing up in leather and talking loudly to anyone in range about how bad-ass and hardcore you are, desperately fearing that you will be found out.And your deletion of that comment was the last straw. Had you had the grace to have left it, I would not have felt the need to call you out in public like this.
But that's ok. One day you'll grow up. I'll talk to you then.
I promise not to delete any of your comments, Robin, should you choose to respond. It's the grownup thing to do.