i need a bit of clarification here. ok. a lot.

[TeaDidikai]

Takozu

I would have to say Soft then, only because I also share the belief that another shouldn't be punished for believing in a different deity other than one own's deemed 'right' deity.

Ummm... not a good reason in my book to go Soft Polytheism.

See, you can be a Hard Polytheist who simply doesn't care what other people worship.

That's pretty much where I am.
Don't care which open pantheon you worship.
Care even less as to which closed pantheon you have found belonging with.

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i understood yours after i read hers. xD <3

Oh sure. wink

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I like the Orthpraxy idea a LOT.
I mean, a lot a lot.
I think it's a little harder for me to understand Wicca only because I've been raised in an Orthodox environment?

The Wica is a Mystery Cult.
Not understanding Mystery Cults is pretty common, since there aren't a lot of them around anymore- at least, not in the USA and other English speaking countries.  

[AvalonAuggie]

TeaDidikai

Takozu

i understood yours after i read hers. xD <3

Oh sure. wink

The key to good communication is listening to Lady Gaga on loop for at least two hours.  

[TeaDidikai]

AvalonAuggie

Bear in mind, it's not necessarily a matter of believing in the deity or not. A hard polytheist could believe in deities in multiple pantheons but only worship some. Or one.

Hell, there are Christian Monolateralists that don't deny other gods exist, but only worship the god of Yeshua.

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Orthopraxy also encompasses purity laws, like keeping kosher in Judaism, or things or people being mahrime (is this the right spelling, Tea?), spiritually unclean. So orthopraxy isn't necessarily easier.

Right spelling for Kalderaš, which is one I use often enough.

As to how much of this is orthopraxy... it gets tough. For example, look at the food mizvots- there are exceptions and work arounds and tradition variations etc. Granted, you won't see a Hasidic Jew eating a cheese burger, does that make a Reformation Movement Jew less Jewish? Meh.

Conflicts like that will be present everywhere. I have a Sinti friend who looks at me funny for some of the things I do as part of my families traditions and vica versa.

But then, we've hit something that might be more flexible because of the ethnic link between peoples over a strictly ideaological/theological one.  

[TeaDidikai]

AvalonAuggie

The key to good communication is listening to Lady Gaga on loop for at least two hours.

I would... but I like keeping my brain in my skull. It fits and everything!  

[AvalonAuggie]

TeaDidikai

Right spelling for Kalderaš, which is one I use often enough.

As to how much of this is orthopraxy... it gets tough. For example, look at the food mizvots- there are exceptions and work arounds and tradition variations etc. Granted, you won't see a Hasidic Jew eating a cheese burger, does that make a Reformation Movement Jew less Jewish? Meh.

Conflicts like that will be present everywhere. I have a Sinti friend who looks at me funny for some of the things I do as part of my families traditions and vica versa.

But then, we've hit something that might be more flexible because of the ethnic link between peoples over a strictly ideaological/theological one.

And that's something I never even thought of before, having been raised in generic middle-class American culture.
Thank goodness I work in a library, where I can reconcile my ignorance due to privilege with my insatiable curiosity.  

[TeaDidikai]

Takozu

can I be undercover awesome?

ninja

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that explains it a little more. thank you. C:

Welcome.

Here's the thing. I firmly argue that part of being a responsible pagan is being pagan for the right reasons. Best way to ensure that is to work through the issues that stem form being raised in another faith.

On a path that is this important, you want to be walking toward your goal, not running away from your past.

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actually, i'm only just beginning to work. got my first seasonal job this past November. but that's beside the point. xD

I understand it's a job, and I don't doubt the individual priest himself for being an upstanding individual. I didn't mean it in a way that he might think he's closer to God than me as a way of being better than me, I mean it in the way that some people perceive their priests in a way that 'since he leads a spiritual life, he must be closer to God than me'. Which brings me to my disagreement with a Catholic confession booth, but I see with your previous statement why they would have one.

Ah... those projections- the putting the priest on a pedestal, that's not okay- and the priests will be the first to tell you that.

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Errr, I'm still a little bit lost. You mean in a way that say, in the long term, a wolf dies, and it's spirit lives on the astral plane/in mediation before being reincarnated?

That's one cosmological explanation, yes.  

[AvalonAuggie]

Takozu

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For temporary situations- something akin to astral projection. In the long term? Death and existence elsewhere prior to reincarnation- whatever form that takes.

Errr, I'm still a little bit lost. You mean in a way that say, in the long term, a wolf dies, and it's spirit lives on the astral plane/in mediation before being reincarnated?

Speaking as an animist, yes, sort of, though generally this theory is applied to people more than animals. When working with animal spirits as far as my personal experience goes, it's a fuzzy sort of category where if you're getting a lesson in wisdom from, say, Rabbit, that spirit could be encompassing the aspects of all rabbits, the universal Rabbit, if you will, but it wouldn't the the same as working with the spirit of a pet rabbit you'd owned that had died and gone on to a rabbity afterlife.

and of course I'm generalizing when I really should not be, and assuming a fundamental difference between animal and human souls, which given your statements about reincarnation you possibly don't believe in, so please do disregard my nonsense. Sleep deprived. sweatdrop  

[TeaDidikai]

AvalonAuggie

Speaking as an animist, yes, sort of, though generally this theory is applied to people more than animals. When working with animal spirits as far as my personal experience goes, it's a fuzzy sort of category where if you're getting a lesson in wisdom from, say, Rabbit, that spirit could be encompassing the aspects of all rabbits, the universal Rabbit, if you will, but it wouldn't the the same as working with the spirit of a pet rabbit you'd owned that had died and gone on to a rabbity afterlife.

and of course I'm generalizing when I really should not be, and assuming a fundamental difference between animal and human souls, which given your statements about reincarnation you possibly don't believe in, so please do disregard my nonsense. Sleep deprived. sweatdrop

Interesting.

Personally I consider Animal Spirit Guides to not be the same as the animistic spirit within an animal, and acknowledge that just as another person can teach me a lesson, a single animal can teach me a lesson without it being from an Animal Spirit with capital letters.  

[TeaDidikai]

Takozu

Err, ok. o- o
I'm not sure I care who worships what, but what I was getting at was that I think there's a universal deity/deities/God&Goddess, like an example would be that before the Native Americans met the Europeans/Pilgrims, they had a specific name for say, a Dragonfly. So did the Europeans. But it was still the same thing, a Dragonfly.

I like your example, because I'm about to turn it on it's head.

In your analogy, the word for dragonfly may (and I emphasize may for a reason) be analogous to the word deity.

Sure, the indigenous peoples had a name for dragonfly. But is it the same species? Is an Aeshna affinis the same as a Calopteryx aequabilis? Hell, if I catch two dragonflies even of the same species at the same time, are they the same being?

(Also, I learned something today. Common American Dragonfly names are better than the Common European Dragonfly names.)

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That's probably another factor contributing to my terrible misunderstanding.

It happens.