[shyykatt]

Isn't 'wiccan' and 'witchcraft' two different things? I thought the two hated eachother? Witchcraft is based on worshiping satan- where wiccans worship nature/the earth- right??

[Consider]

You know, I don't really know (which won't, of course, stop me from posting) - but, this is what Wikipedia says,

Originally Posted by Wikipeida

"Witch"
Witchcraft, in various historical, religious and mythical contexts, is the use of certain kinds of alleged supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a person who practices witchcraft, and may be male or female. In historical, mythological and demonological contexts a male "witch" is more frequently termed a wizard, sorcerer, warlock, or simply a magician.

Practitioners of Neopagan witchcraft generally identify as "witches" regardless of their sex, and shun the term "warlock" as connoting a witch who has broken their oaths and betrayed their fellows.

The term witchcraft can have positive or negative connotations depending on cultural context; for instance in European cultures it has historically been associated with evil and the Devil, while most modern practitioners see it as benificent and morally positive.

When I read some history relating to "witches" several years ago, I found that a particular order, I forget which right now, maybe the Dominicans, I better check that since this is pretty serious, yes, the Dominicans, two Dominican Monks, wrote a book on how to recognize witches. A mole, a birthmark, laughing too much, a variety of things, were all said to be signs that a woman was a witch.

Malleus Maleficarum (1486)
translated by Montague Summers [1928]
This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. This translation is in the public domain.

The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.

The book was widely and eagerly used to prosecute women because the land and all the holdings and wealth of the women went to the church when they were found guilty, as they always were.

The book was very important in removing wealth from the general people and putting it under the control of the church.

The church argued that it could never be wrong about anything like this, and they killed tens of thousands of women. (I believe that I've read that they killed hundreds of thousands of women, but I don't want to spend the time verifying that number right now, so I'm mentioning the lower and higher numbers.)

Since women at the time were the effective doctors, since they were the ones who had the time to learn about herbs, the actions of the church caused not only whole villages to be emptied of their women, but a rise in disease since there was no one left, hardly, to care for people who were ill.

It was extremely barbaric.

Consequently, I don't think there are witches who worship the devil, I think that's what the church said in order to take over the wealth...

sort of like weapons of mass destruction ...

[Fozzy]

Originally Posted by Rev.Vassago

:roll:

Well Put Rev...

[Fozzy]

Perhaps I could have phrased myself a little better, I can see how it might be interpreted the way you did Fozzy.

Perhaps if you were "uninterested" you should have left the post alone eh? Were you wanting to make a comment about the topic or take a swipe at the dead serviceman?

My point being is, is all this concern about a wiccan headstone sincere?

I thought you weren't interested at all?


Or did everybody just jump on the bandwagon because they recognized an opportunity to thumb their collective nose's at far more established religions like Christianity?

That's really stupid. Who was thumbing their nose at WHO's religion in this case? The Soldier was Wiccan and deserved to be represented as such on his grave marker. I would support a full blown Satanist in having whatever icon on their gravestone.

Personally I don't consider witchcraft a religion but that's just me.

Apparently you do not understand the religion at all... that's also not shocking. low foreheads living in the dark ages feared all kinds of things too. Some humans evolved.. others apparently have not.

Oh BTW, I like your feeble attempt at making my lack of concern for this issue into my being uninterested in the fate of Veteran's in general.

You made the statement, I didn't.

Being a vet (albeit not a war vet) that would be pretty low on my part.

If the shoe fits wear it...

But I got to tell you Fozzy your well deserved reputation as a Christian basher always makes me look for the hypocrisy in just about anything you might have to say in regards to religion.

And the regular activities of the "run of the mill" American christian makes them an authority on hypocrisy.

Have a nice day.

I usually do...

[stomper4x4]

Originally Posted by Karnajj

Whew!!! I can finally go to sleep knowing that its taken care of. :roll: :roll: :roll: Like there aren't about 232,564,987,776 more important things to worry about.

Wow you're a classy guy. Hey why worry about giving the Wiccans their due, they are way in the minority!

At least they don't make wiccans use separate bathrooms anymore...