Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Ramblings of a Pagan Guy: Stupid Cliches we use



Over the years, I have found that many a person has this strange idea when it comes to the Pagan faiths. It as if, you know as soon as one converts, they [the pagan] are thrown back to the middles ages. People have this rather quirky notion that pots and pans turn into wands and broomsticks, that tables and chair turning to sacrificial altars and stone circles. At best, many people think that once one devotes themselves to the God and Goddess, reality bleeds away is magically replaced with Hogwarts schools and Weasly like houses. At worse, they believe that our God and Goddess are just whores, or the Christian devil. With this miniblog series, it is my hope to not only document my time growing as a Pagan, but to address these and many more misunderstood concepts so that we will be see as people. We are not the demons some people try to make us out to be.

When I somehow manage to get myself out of bed, which usually involves an unnecessary amount of screaming and cursing, I liked to start my day out with a little ritual. I enjoy some lemon aid, more toast than anyone should eat, and a nice helping of thinkprogress for my news. While every news program, website and blog has a agenda and bias of some sort, I find that thinkprogress at least makes it tolerable for a bit. While I was scanning the numerous stories of how Mitt Rommy managed to screw yet another thing up, and even more numerous comments on it, I found a random link to "10 Cliches Christian's should never use". Written and later expanded upon by Christian Piatt, it gave some interesting insight to how some "religious" sayings can just be mean, or down right insulting. From the first paragraph I knew it was going to be good;

"We Christians have a remarkable talent for sticking our feet in our mouths. When searching the words most commonly associated with “Christian,” the list ain’t pretty. I think part of this can be attributed to a handful of phrases that, if stricken from our vocabulary, might make us a little more tolerable. Yes, these things may mean something to you, but trust me, non-Christians don’t share your love for these tried-and-true cliches."
If you are interested here is part one and part two.