In article . net, "Dwight
Stewart" writes:

"N2EY" wrote:

How do you know they haven't?

Because absolutely nothing has happened.

Exactly.

Perhaps something really bad would have happened, but the spell prevented it.
Who can ever say?

Well, would you like if someone called a
religion you respect "all nonsense"?

If it were a ligitimate religion, no.

Who determines what is a "legitimate" religion and what isn't? Who *can*
determine such a thing (other than God?)

However, it is a little hard to
perceive wicca as a ligitimate religion.

Why not? People have come up with new religions all over the map. Who is to say
they were not "legitimate" because their beliefs are different?

Since little is really known of the
old pagan religions (especially directly), wicca practices today cannot
seriously be linked to paganism.

Probably not. Doesn't mean wicca is or isn't legitimate, though. From what
little I know, they are trying to reconnect with the *spirit* of those old
pagans.

Instead, the practices today mostly seem
made up from images and stories in movies, television, and fiction books
(old and new). And the people involved often take on the personas of
characters directly from those fiction stories.

Couldn't the same be said of almost all religions now in existence? Most are
based on a book or series of books written hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Most describe events of the long past that are not provable to be fact or
fiction in any way.

Would you say they weren't legitimate?

Further, their claims of
spells, charms, and so on, are simply hogwash (childish hogwash).

Would you say the same thing about the power of prayer, miracles,
transubstantiation, and other central beliefs of modern Christianity?

Everyone
is certainly free to believe what they want, including those who consider
the whole thing absolutely ludicrous.

Everyone is free to believe up to a point. That point is where someone's purely
religious beliefs begin to infringe on the rights of others for reasons based
purely on belief and not provable scientific fact.

As an extreme example, a religion that required the human sacrifice of
unbelievers can't coexist with others. (There have been forms of Christianity
that fit this description, btw).

By the way, this is not "us versus them." I have no specific religious
beliefs, so pointing to a ligitimate religion is not really going to change
my opinions of wicca. All religions have their faults and doubters, but I
have no doubts about my opinions of wicca. :-)

Fine - but then why discriminate between "legitimate" and "illegitimate"
religions?

I wonder what the Book of Bokonon has to
say about all that...


Wasn't it supposedly Books (plural) of Bokonon? Anyway, I'm not so sure
all this (wicca) is exactly harmless untruths.

Couldn't that be said of many religions?

What harm does wicca do?

73 de Jim, N2EY