Religion & Me

I just read Aidan Kelly's blogs having to do with his religious background. I’d like to respond by telling all of you about my own early religious experience. Even though I was brought up a Lutheran, and he a Roman Catholic, a lot of the experiences he relates resonate with me very much. Religion-wise, I didn’t have any choices until I was an adult. When I was twelve, and taking confirmation classes, which are pretty much the same as Kelly’s catechism classes, if you take out the denomination-specific stuff. They’re both indoctrination into Christianity, to make sure that we have the important points of the faith firmly in our pliable young minds, so that we can blurt out the points of our faith without thinking. That’s the thing about the cookie-cutter religions; they all place a high importance on orthodoxy of belief. Everyone has to believe the same stuff, and pass it on to others, if they get the chance. And we’re not supposed to try to work it out logically, using scientific evidence or anything like that. We’re just supposed to take it all on faith. But it hit me, here’s this deity that I’ve never seen. I only have the preacher’s word that he exists, and he’s the one source of salvation from something he invented called sin. I later learned that a “sin” in archery means a missed mark. That’s all. If only I’d called a stop to it then and there, and been courageous enough to announce to my parents that I no longer believed in the existence of this old bearded white man on a throne in the sky. That’s always been one of my shortcomings; a lack of courage. I was a Satanist for maybe five or six weeks when I was 27. Then I found a third way to go; Paganism. I was taking a class on the occult at Diablo Valley College, and our instructor told us about a meeting where we could meet some Neo-Pagans. I went. Unfortunately, so did some Christians who claimed “equal time.” Wonder how they’d like it if we started walking into churches claiming “equal time.” They haven’t given us equal time for over 1600 years, why should we give them them equal time? The Pagans left their seats, and went to the side of the library where the door was. I joined them. We introduced ourselves, and generally had a great old time while the jesoids prattled on with their same tired old message that nobody wanted to hear. I joined a Druid Grove, and started going to the Horned Moon meetings of a NROOGD coven. I started with the Sabbat celebrations. The funny thing was that when the Goddess was invoked, I could feel Her in my mind and soul, as I’d never felt the presence of the Christian god. I always felt that I was talking to a big nothing. In April, 1976, I was initiated, and started studying Wicca close up and personal. Since then, what adventures I’ve had! I’ve formed three covens, which unfortunately didn’t get very far, I’ve learned ritual magick, perfected my reading of the Tarot to where I’m writing a book on it with someone, and gotten my 3rd degree in a trad I’d only heard about in the ‘80s. Now I’m in the middle of forming a working online coven.