h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You know what? I finally went googling for more info. And very illuminating it all was too. But I didn't find much about witchcraft's veiw of the afterlife, which was interesting. I remembered that you mentioned reincarnation, though. Is this a standard beleif?

And who is Alistair Crowley?

it is a fairly standard belief throughout our religion...
alistair crowley is an author of withcraft books.... how have you been any way...

Oh? Respected? I got the distinct impression he was a bit persona non grata.

Not bad, you?

You know yesterday I thoughht of a whole swathe of questions for you, but 'puter crashed before I got to them. Now they seem to have leaked out of my head...

they'll come back to you... and he is an average writer... sorry to be breif but i need to get stuff done, i can reply but not waffle today...

No worries But a big for actual business. And on a Friday, too

Actually, I have a feeling it was something to do with the fact that one of the sites I visited had an ernest discussion about whether it was possible to be a Christian and a Witch. I think the conclusion was, that from a witchcraft point of veiw, not a problem, but from a Christian point of veiw, possible a bit tricky.

Now I cannot remember, specifically, what I was going to ask you about this... but what are your views?

No hurry, though

my view is that is impossible to be a witch and a christian at the same time... you could be one and interested in the other but not both as various things within the religions conflict... plus the fact that christians, catholics, etc are scared of us, and are responsible for the witch trials and burning of witches... i'm not bitter but i tend to remember all of these things... it is silly, things people dont understand they tend to be scared of, that is not a way of life for witches and wiccans, we are a very open minded people.... we are not what those religions make us out to be as you may have guessed... i'm not having a go at you it is just that i have very strong views about things like this... if someone is a very strong christian then they will tend to be a) afraid of us, b) bad mouth us, as this is what their religion drums into them.... anyone who speaks about being both is not onm either side of the fence or they are just trying to find out your point of view... be careful my friend... blessed be!

Well, to be honest with you I was extremely dubious about it myself, given that, apart from the knee jerk reaction I would expect many Christians to have on the subject, the thology of 'you shall have no god but me' (or whatever) would seem to rule it out. Can imagine why witches would feel strongly about the subject too.

But, on the other hand, not all Christians are a bunch of illiberal minded nutters. My mother has a friend who is a roman catholic nun and who runs workshops on integrating the christian and buddist religion. She is also (searches for the right word) err qualified? to paint icons in the orthodox tradition.

i know not all christians are narrow minded, but the bhuddist religion is not frowned upon with in christianity, but witchcraft has a typically bad name as nobody understands it... i believe that theyshould teach it at school along with the others in Religious education... that way people would not be scared of it and not fearful; of it and we would be widely accepted...

Well, true. I suppose that there is less of the idea inherent in the witchcraft/christian thing that the two are mutually incompatable, and certainly less of the unfortunate history.

I'd agree with the religious ed thing too except I'm not at all sure it should be taught at all. Partly because, well, you can't do them all, can you? And partly because we spent the entire time in ours doing wordsearches on a religious theme, except for the one lesson where we watched JC Superstar, and it was a huge waste of time...

tell me about it... R E is a big waste of time as they only teach it from one point of view.. they dont teach them as they should be, they are all from a christian point of view...

Well, I think a few of the wordsearches may have had a nod at the hindu religion. For an in-depth analysis of say seekism I had to wait for sunday school classes. We got to do comparative studies complete with feild trips. I don't remember them being particularly biased in favour of ours either.

My church was way too liberal. I ended up with too much of an enquiring mind and very little faith.

fair play... if you were ment to believe then you would, and will.... everything happens for a reason... the thing that first pushed me this way was that nothing else made sense to me... this feels right...

Yes, I agree. What I often think is that people forget that when it comes down to it any religion is about belief, pure and simple. Now me, I have no quarrel with my church: it did shape quite a bit of my thinking and (I suspect) still does, in the sense that I used the 'stories' associated with it as a sort of touchstone from where I started my thinking on all sorts of issues. But I simply don't beleive any more.

I am in, in fact, the unfortunate position of simaultaneously beleiving in the reality of religion for other people (and I mean the actual reality, not that 'it is real for them' lest you think I'm being patronising), and its lack of reality for me personally.

So I have put the whole issue on hold, pending further developments... I'm glad you found your neiche, though

yours will find you, have no fear of that... it will do so when the time is right...

I suspect so too.