Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

[Sarkana night]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

I have a bit of the opposite. When people figure out I'm Pagan they don't really believe me because I'm half black.

I'm half spanish and follow the aztec pantheon. Most people won't take that serious.

[TheTeddy]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

My best friend is black and Pagan. I'm white. Guess which one of us was Norse-centric & which one of us leaned towards Vodou?

She caught a lot of crap for being interested in Norse Wicca, Asatru & Odinism, both for being black and for being Pagan in general. I've felt very welcomed by the various Diasporists that I've encountered - not one of them said anything to me about the color of my skin. Among my Pagan friends & acquaintances, though - I was shunned for condoning and participating in animal sacrifice and encountered more ignorance and senseless hatred than I had from non-Pagans.

Racism and stubborn ignorance is always a peeve for me.

I've been meaning to study more of voudou, studying other practices is a hobby.


With ignorant racist groups taking on Odinism symbols and such, I can see where the crap comes from.


The animal thing, in my opinion comes from two things. People wanting to do the opposite of anything the media puts out. And most people who identify as Pagan are nature based. I personally don't do it, but I don't shun others that do.

I'm half spanish and follow the aztec pantheon. Most people won't take that serious.

Very interesting.

[Wyrd]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Probably that there's very little surviving information on it

[Moody Thursday]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

The way people WITHIN paganism nit-pic at the details. 'You're not wiccan because...', 'you can't call yourself a Heathen...' 'You're not a witch you're a...' All that bullcrap pisses me off more than anything else. Oh and people who point and laugh at the fluffy bunnies. As if anyone's path is so perfect and flawless, that they can afford to sit on their pedistals and laugh at the mistakes of others.. eugh. I guess, what I'm saying is the thing I dislike the most about being pagan, is other pagans (90% of this forum excluded of course!).

This, definitely. Every now and then I'll come across a website that has a great sense of community, but a lot of times (especially looking at comments on YouTube videos) there's too much disagreement and discord. And not the polite "I'll agree to disagree" kind, either.

[RiverSong]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

My main peeves are when people assume that I must be a fan of "Charmed", "The Secret Circle" and any other crappy fantasy show out there. OR think that they know all about my religion from watching these shows. D'oh! u_u
Another peeve is when people assume the worst, like my ex friend who assumed that I killed cats on Halloween to celebrate. That's not why we aren't friends anymore, but to say the least, he was an ass. That comment really upset me, being that I am a cat-lover and would never harm a whisker!
And the opposite extreme is just as bad, when people assume that I'm some magickal genie that can wave a magic wand and make all of their troubles disappear. I get tired of explaining, "If I had that kind of power, don't you think I would have done it for my OWN life???" o_O

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Oh, and since I caught up with reading the rest of the posts too... I also have an issue with racial expectations of my religion. I am black and people assume that I'm into Voodoo, not Wicca. I have nothing against that religion, but it's just not mine. Then again, I'm not sure if it's just a Pagan peeve, because in general people assume that I shouldn't like what I like, follow what I follow, be fan of what I'm a crazed fan of, because of my race. What can I say, I don't fit the stereotypes of my race that is portrayed in the media!
So in general, racial profiling is one of my peeves.

[Moody Thursday]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Oh, and since I caught up with reading the rest of the posts too... I also have an issue with racial expectations of my religion. I am black and people assume that I'm into Voodoo, not Wicca. I have nothing against that religion, but it's just not mine. Then again, I'm not sure if it's just a Pagan peeve, because in general people assume that I shouldn't like what I like, follow what I follow, be fan of what I'm a crazed fan of, because of my race. What can I say, I don't fit the stereotypes of my race that is portrayed in the media!
So in general, racial profiling is one of my peeves.

Wow, that is the first time I've heard of this issue. (I don't know many Pagans/Wiccans in my area). That's racist, and extremely ignorant :-/

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Wow, that is the first time I've heard of this issue. (I don't know many Pagans/Wiccans in my area). That's racist, and extremely ignorant :-/

This issue is more prominant than a person should expect in this supposedly educated and enlightened age! especially amiong other pagans, as if we don't have enough crap from outside, the inside stuff is so unnessecary!

[Caelia]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

That really does suck, RiverSong. Sadly I've seen it all too often in the Pagan community. I think that's one of the things that really gets on my nerves: how we place people in so many boxes. I see this all too often in the Kemetic communities, though I know they're not the worst offenders (it just feels that way). It gets taken to racist ends and it's gotta stop. There's a difference between how a religion functions and stereotyping.

Another of my biggest peeves is how the Reconstructionists think their brand is the only accurate way but aren't as true to the practice as they claim, even accounting for gaps in knowledge or the unavailability of some materials. I totally understand why, but c'mon! You're gonna get on to folks about UPG I get to ride you about not using lead in that Sokar statue for Kha-her-Ka. I haven't even touched the variations amongst temples and even different periods.

As for my actual practice, I have incredible guilt when I can't do something as proscribed. It's not so much of mispronouncing or slipping in the wrong word as much as certain parts of the ritual I can't do or do as often because times changed. Yeah, it still peeves me.

[RiverSong]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Wow, that is the first time I've heard of this issue. (I don't know many Pagans/Wiccans in my area). That's racist, and extremely ignorant :-/

Oh, I'm sorry... I should have been more clear... I didn't experience this from other Pagans, but from people of other religions. It wasn't just an ignorance of what Wicca is or mixing it up with Voodoo, though some have done that too. In person with those of other religions, I've gotten the question of "And how did YOU find out about this kind of religion?". Then I get the bad stares of "how a black woman could have possibly found out about it, actually be drawn to it, and practice it." It makes me very uncomfortable when that happens.
My answer to that, though very truthful isn't too good to them either, when I explain that I knew this beautiful woman named Summer who was Neo-Pagan and through trying to find out more about her religion I came across a Wiccan reference and it started from there. I leave out the part that her and I had a "thing", a spark for each other, romantically at one time. Yet, I still get "tsk, tsk" and head shakes to that explanation. And a few have tried to convinced me that I have been brainwashed by this woman and really belong in the southern like churches of my area for my race or at least do Voodoo because that makes more sense than practicing a "white religion". And yes, they have used that exact term with me, "white religion"! o_o

But I chalk it up to general racism, not really a Pagan norm. I have yet to get that vibe from other Pagans! LOL! Those same people who said that I shouldn't be in a "white religion" also said that my vocabulary and writing style is not of my race, what I wear and how I carry myself is trying to be white, and that my love for rock music doesn't fit or my taste in anything else. They had accused me of trying to become Caucasian, yet I'm highly proud and happy to be my race! I wouldn't want to be any other race! So, they were bigoted all around and I don't talk with them anymore. I can't help that my family is mixed, that my friends and lovers have always been, and I grew up around educated people of all races... which they clearly are not educated. That's how I deal with bigotry, just to remind myself that the people who are have low very IQs. ^_^

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That really does suck, RiverSong. Sadly I've seen it all too often in the Pagan community. I think that's one of the things that really gets on my nerves: how we place people in so many boxes. I see this all too often in the Kemetic communities, though I know they're not the worst offenders (it just feels that way). It gets taken to racist ends and it's gotta stop. There's a difference between how a religion functions and stereotyping.

Well, I'm new to learning that. I didn't think it did happen in the Pagan community, then again I know mostly Solitary Practitioners. I feel uneasy with groups or anything that feels organized... being that I was raised under another organized religion before finding the Pagan path. It's shocking that this happens in Pagan circles as well. I guess I've just been lucky so far, that it's on;y happened with people of other faiths and most notably with general racist.

[thalassa]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Wow...I can't believe I never posted here...

My pet peeve is the the "more persecuted than thou" complex that pervades some individual's paganisms (and trickles down into the "mainstream" of attiudes about paganism), where every single one of their trials and troubles is because of the Evil Establishment Xians trying to stomp them down. Its been my observation that they problems of most of these people most of the time really stems from their (often rude and unsolicited) shoving of their religion into other people's faces.Yes, some (Christian) people and denominations are jerks...but really, most people just don't care and (admittedly wrong) assumptions come less from bigotry or maliciousness than they do from ignorance and apathy.

[RiverSong]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Wow...I can't believe I never posted here...

My pet peeve is the the "more persecuted than thou" complex that pervades some individual's paganisms (and trickles down into the "mainstream" of attiudes about paganism), where every single one of their trials and troubles is because of the Evil Establishment Xians trying to stomp them down. Its been my observation that they problems of most of these people most of the time really stems from their (often rude and unsolicited) shoving of their religion into other people's faces.Yes, some (Christian) people and denominations are jerks...but really, most people just don't care and (admittedly wrong) assumptions come less from bigotry or maliciousness than they do from ignorance and apathy.

Hear-hear!
I never got the reason behind shoving one's religion's into others. In fact, I don't tend to mention that I'm Pagan, unless religion comes up... and unfortunately it does a lot in the US these days. I only get asked about my religion after a person I've just met greets me with, "so which church do you attend?", assuming that I must be Christian. I have no dislike for that religion at all, being that I was raised within it, it's just not my path and haven't been for over nine years. But try telling that to someone who's overly religious... it's not fun. I think the issue is that too many people are having than "more persecuted than thou" attitude about religion. I think we all can agree that a fair number of murder and injustice was done to every religion at some point in history. It's all wrong. And I scoff when I see people of religions shout of numbers of who had the most killed or persecuted, as if there's a prize to be won with, "you only had 800, but we had 8 million die!" One is too many, imho, of ANY religion.

[Louisvillian]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

I don't really experience much hate or shit because I'm pagan from people when they find out about my religion. So that isn't really a pet-peeve for me.
What is, though, is the infighting I see within the Neopagan movement and connected revival movements. Though I am also annoyed by the lack of boundaries that get to a ridiculous "you can be whatever you want and call yourself whatever you want" attitude. I'm, at heart, a moderate about certain things. I would like there to be some base definitions about Paganism, without resorting to a nit-picky, "No True Scotsman" sentiment about it. I don't mind boxes, but I don't want them to be tiny and made of steel. Can't we meet in the middle, somewhere?

[westwoden]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

what I find annoying is that when one mentions the word Paganism or Buddhism to a conventional person they think it's weird.

yet if you were to say you were a Christian then that would be considered fine.

double standard there.

if revering Nature is 'weird' then how is revering a man raised from the dead not (ie: Jesus)?

social conditioning at work here

[RiverSong]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

what I find annoying is that when one mentions the word Paganism or Buddhism to a conventional person they think it's weird.

yet if you were to say you were a Christian then that would be considered fine.

double standard there.

if revering Nature is 'weird' then how is revering a man raised from the dead not (ie: Jesus)?

social conditioning at work here

Yeah, what's worse is the idea that not only one who is Pagan or Buddhist is weird, but we must also be ditsy hippies who smoke pot. I have nothing against hippies and I do considered myself one, on the side and it's not connected to my religion whatsoever. But the pot thing annoys me. The most I smoke is nicotine and I'm trying to quit that. One doesn't have to be high in order to be open minded, imho.

They also sometimes assume that I'm vegetarian or vegan... which I don't mind, but it's funny since I'm addicted to all thing bacon. ^_^
(Not to be confused with Kevin Bacon... that guy is just creepy! XD)

[ShadowOfTheMoon]

Re: Biggest pet peeve about your faith?

Well, I'm still pretty new to all of this so I'm not very experienced yet lol...but it does annoy me how prejudgemental people can be towards Paganism. I'll admit that I'm a special person lol so I can kind of see why they'd assume that I'm high 24/7 (I'm NOT, FYI. Never touched ANY drugs and never will) but if you don't have anything nice to say about that then....DON'T SAY ANYTHING. What makes them think it's ok to openly bash my lifestyle? Grr. People can be so disrespectful.