What is God?

I believe in one creating Source of the universe. I believe that all the gods and goddesses of all the pantheons all over the earth were created out of this source and are seperate entities. However I believe they were formed by man worshiping them, and came to exist out of the need of man. They exist to serve us, not the other way around. I also believe in lesser dieties, elementals. Spirits of the elements, dragons, fairies, gnomes. Not that you can actually see but much like the gods, they're invisible but you know they are there. I believe actually one of my guardian spirits to be a dragon.

Do I hate Christians?

***WARNING THIS PARTICULAR POST MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO CHRISTIANS. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from their faith, but these are my feelings about the faith and reasons for leaving and I don't know how i can express those without posting things offensive to Christians. Everything in this post is MY personal opinion. Some of it may sound familiar if you have done reading on Pagan faiths...I am after all a Pagan. It is not my intention to plagurize, but being as this is just a blog and not a book I don't feel the need to site sources. ***

No. I dislike the fact that many don't respect my freedom of religion. I dislike that many want to call America a "Christian Nation" when one of the very founding principles of this country was freedom of religion. It didn't say freedom of any approved religion. It's seperation of church and state.
That's part of the reason I'm so open about my faith. I think that if we as pagans go and hide in the "broom closet" it makes it easier for people to spread rumors and misconceptions about us. if someone gets to know me and has to say "this is a good woman" with the knowledge of my being pagan, it helps to break down that fear. Christians still fear the dark. If we walk into the light and show them who we are, they will find there's nothing to fear.

Someone said to me recently that in their experience when someone was not a Christian it mainly had to do with how they were treated by other Christians. I would be lying if I said I didn't harbor some of those feelings myself. Being told I'm evil and going to hell certainly doesn't make me eager to return to the faith. Yes I do find Christianity to be more about the teachings of Paul than Christ. Yes I see many Christians just want to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow. Yes I feel that that is not really walking a true walk of Christ. I also see many Christians use the sin now, pray later philosophy. I feel there are VERY few true pure Christians in this world, if any. Yes that's why Jesus died, to save you from your sins. Well how many times did he tell you to be a true follower, sell everything you own, give to the poor and follow him. How many of you have done that. How many of you have plucked out an eye or cut off a hand for causing you to sin? I love it how when Christ said something people are uncomfortable with he was speaking "metaphoricly"

But enough of this rant... The truth is I have some major issues with Christianity and the Bible in and of themselves having nothing to do with followers of the faith.
I guess first off is the history. Christianity has blatantly plagurized so many other faiths. The story of Noah, the idea of a savior that sacrifices himself. And being born to a virgin? Not original at all. And then take your holidays.. Christmas what do trees and wreaths and mistletoe have to do with the birth of a God. Why December 25? If shepards were watching their flocks by night surely Christ could not have born in the dead of winter. Who was? Just about every Sun God in every pantheon acrossed the globe. Now this in and of itself wouldn't bother me so much, Rome was very cosmopolitan and worshipped many gods of many pantheons, but alot of Christians want to act like they came up with the whole thing.
In fact the only concepts that are unique to the Christian faith are eternal damnation and a source of ultimate evil. i.e. the devil. People ask me if i worship the devil. Not only do I not worship the devil, but I don't even believe in him. The Devil is a Christian deity, not Pagan. The way we envision him is modeled closely after Pan.. a merry fun loving woodland god, but he borrows traits from many other pagan gods.
Funny story: A friend sent me a video of people doing some things with white gloves under a blacklight. Anyways was a Christian thing and the song reffered to christ as the "morning star" I almost died choking on my water. The morning star is now Venus but originally it was the Roman light bringing god......Lucifer.
I know the Jews view the devil more as God's dirty work guy. I haven't read the Qur'an yet but from what i've been told Muslims also do not view him as this source of ultimate evil. Every Jew I've talked to said they don't really know what happens after they die. Muslims believe that some people do go to hell for a time, but most are eventually allowed into heaven.
The devil really serves two important functions in the Christian church. First he is the boogeyman, used to fill pews. If you don't go to church and tithe and whatnot the devil will get you. Secondly he is the scapegoat. No one wants to admit that they have sinful urges so it was "the devil getting to you" Heidi and Spencer on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" recently prove my point exactlly. Instead of owning up for bad behavior they say "it was the devil getting to us" and anyone that doesn't like them "has the devil in them" They take it to the extreme but in my experience most Christians feel this way to some degree.

I personally don't believe that evil exists outside the hearts and minds of men. A tornado or forest fire is a force of nature...It is destructive but not evil, it just is. And in nature (and life) often destruction must preced creation and/or growth. A lion killing a gazelle is not evil, the lion is just doing what is programmed into it in order to survive. Isn't that in essence what sin is? Things like greed, pride, lust, gluttony...these were programed into us in order to survive as a species. Now granted these things taken to extremes can be bad. Pride can become arrogance, lust can lead to rape, gluttony can lead to being fat, but those are acts of men. I don't believe the urges are evil in and of themselves. Someone asked me about demons recently. Another said they had a what they felt was a demon in their home. I can believe in human spirits, ghosts if you will, that are so bitter or angy, or have been there so long that they've lost their sense of humanity and may be perceived as a demons. A second explanation i could believe is that i do believe in elemental spirits of nature. As natures is often destructive, so too could the elementals be.

Christianity teaches that we are all the same...worthless. It is Christ that gives us value. With this theory the redneck living in a trailer on welfare that makes no contribution whatsoever to society but is a Christian is SUPERIOR to the scientist that cures cancer but is not. I'm sorry I just dont' buy it.
i think Christianity does lend itself to a smug superiority. So much for being humble and meek. I don't think you can really help it as a Christian. If you are a Christian and reading this try and tell me that you don't feel atleast slightly superiour to me. You're saved and I'm not. You probably feel more than a little pity towards me (guess what that means you feel superior) Poor dumb Pagan just doesn't get it. My mom used to say to me "you just don't get it, you don't understand Christ" I used to try to argue with her, but honestly no, no I don't get it. I don't know how anyone can read the entire Bible, know the history of the church and say "yeah that sounds about right" If it works for you and brings you fulfillment I'm happy for you, but i just don't get it.
So yeah, i was taught to confess my sins in prayer every night. Honestly as i got older the less and less I felt i needed to confess. I didn't really feel like I was sinning much. I came to the decision that as long as I was not causing harm I wasn't sinning. That's another reason i came to Paganism. The Wiccan (paganism's perhaps largest faith group) Rede is "An it harm none, do as ye will" It's longer than that and includes exceptions for self defense. But that lined up with exactly what I felt.

So there is alot of why i left the church. There is more but this has been a pretty long post and I'm not feeling especially well. I think my next post will be more about what i specifically believe about creation, God/the Gods, and the afterlife.

Why Paganism,

So why Paganism? is an easy one to answer. Pagan is an umbrella term. Most people think Wicca and Paganism are one, but Wicca is a religion with it's own rules and dogma that I don't adhere to. Under the umbrella you have, of course your Wiccans, but also your Druids, and Reconstructionists, Feri, Discordians, Stregas, Gwyddons, Thelema, Ceremonialists, The Church of All Worlds, Green Witches, KitchenWitches, HedgeWitches, Christian Witches, and depending who you talk to ... Voudan, Santeria, and Satanists.(Some of followers of these last 3 classify themselves as Pagan while others would be insulted at the idea.) Reconstructionists use texts and informations passed down to try to worship exactly as their ancestors did. Under this umbrella you have Asatru (norse), Hellenismos (greek), Kemeticism (Egyptian), Religio Romano (Roman), and Senistrognata (Celtic). Also note these paths are not always mutually eclusive. A Pagan may follow one or more of these paths...or none. (and I'm sure I probably missed some categories too)

I am a solitairy, eclectic Pagan...which as I put it means I think everyone is full of shit. LOL I think all paths have things that are good to them, but i just don't feel like I fit into any catagory. If anything I would say I am a Dark Pagan, which is more of an introspective path, but I will talk more about that in another post. (DARK DOES NOT MEAN EVIL)