Welcome to Gaia! ::

I was just wondering, do you of you guys sometimes have problems with other pagans? I mean, I talk to anyone really about beliefs, but I find it is other Christians that get the most irritating to deal with since they think that whatever they do is right just because they believe in Christ and the bible, buncha ******** hypocrites. But that got me to thinking. Hm.....
What pagan attitudes bug other pagans?

So.....

What attitudes from fellow pagans bug other pagans?
Why do those attitudes bug you?
And I am pretty sure i'm not the only one that has a beef with most christians either am i?

The Persecution Complex, i.e. Ravenwolf. You know, those people who over dramatize the Burning Times and how "evil" Christians are. Christians aren't really that bad. Fundamentalists are. I mean, my best friend is a Christian, when I met Jameta she was Catholic, and even my sister is a Christian (I'm pretty sure I'm the only non-Christian or non-Catholic in my whole family...). Religion has never prevented me from getting along with these people. Because it doesn't really matter.

I view religion like a mountain. At the bottom there are many paths (religions). At the top there is Divinity, Spirituality, or Holiness, whatever you want to call it. All the paths will lead to the top, but a few people (fundies) pay more attention to the ground beneath their feet than the actual path or the destination, and walk off into the woods. That's when we get the jerks. It's really not about the path you take, it's just reaching the destination. When you quit looking ahead, you're bound to wind up in the woods.

That's the problem. People like Ravenwolf blame the Christian/Catholic churches of today for the horrible things done by the churches of hundreds of years ago. None of the people in power now were around when any of that happened, so how can we blame them? The churches have changed so much since then. 99.9% (I imagine) of people today would be appalled at the thought of burning someone at the stake. The Burning Times are over and done with. All the people involved are dead now, and have been duly judged by their God. I think we should just drop it.

I haven't had any problems with fellow Neopagans in the flesh when I've interacted with the local communities. Online is another story. Various clashes of what "is" and "isn't" a [fill in the blank] or other semantical nonsense often end up causing some rather distasteful disagreements. This especially becomes the case whenever the term "fluffy bunny" is used, as it's essentially a bashing/hate word regardless of whether or not its usage is 'justified' in a particular case. Accusing someone of falling under that label doesn't help encourage discussion; it alienates and breeds intolerance of different ideas. It is also the case in defining Wicca, or at least around here. Never in any other forum have I seen so many vehemently "fundamentalist" viewpoints on the matter.

That makes sense to me.

I have a lot of issues with the pagan activities that are run in my area. Big problems I have are:
People coming to an open circle under the influence of drugs or alcohol (it happens quite often),
Self-appointed High Priests/Priestesses, ends up being the young witch or inexperienced one who has even less formal/informal schooling than I do (Sorry folks, but if you're a 14-year-old "High Priestess", not many people are going to believe you),
CIPA (Central Illinois Pagan Alliance) has organized a few good events that I've attended, but reading through their meeting minutes on their site's blog makes me wonder (getting plastered at the meeting discussing Beltane?),
If a Christian happens to be in attendance, but is supportive or isn't offensive, there can be a lot of bashing wrongly directed at them ("Well the pope 500 years ago was a b*****d so I must blame you for it"),
Certain circles can become cliquish and ultra-exclusive, even if you're filling a role for their event.


Conversely, some good things I've experienced in pagan gatherings have been:
I have felt more welcome and wanted at some pagan circles, in front of total strangers, than I ever have in a church or even in some of my own gatherings with my own friends.
If an event says "Potluck", you can always count on people to bring food (in my experience).
If an event says "No drugs or alcohol" or "family friendly", you can damned-well bet they mean business.
People who are violently against your faith won't "attack" when you're having open circle with a bunch of people... (heh heh) 4laugh
Sometimes you get the badly-run ritual, but sometimes you can pick up some interesting and pretty amazing techniques. In my experience, each localized group tends to have their own ritual style. I went to Chicago for an open Lughnasadh ritual and it was the most amazing one I've ever been to... we had ritual on the beach with tiki torches and a potluck afterwards... a storm came in and we could watch the lightning hit the water from the safety of the little park next to it.

The friendly open-minded tolerance has been my general experience too, with a few exceptions. Perhaps because it's the nature of Neopaganism to be pretty ecclectic (looking at the movement as a whole set of very diverse traditions) that we have to have that open-minded tolerance to begin with. There are probably some more pseudo-cultic traditions out there that aren't as open to other forms of Neopaganism, but I can't think of any I can personally verify at the moment.