Religious or fear

I would say its fear. We fear the unknown. Only when we understand does the fear leaves us. I swim very well. I swim a lot. However I will not swim in dark waters where I cant' see the far infront of me because I have a fear. No matter how safe it is, if its dark, I won't be swimming. You get bad people from all kinds of religion, why should paganism be targeted? I mean you get people from all kinds of faith killing other people, guilty of child abuse and etc. They are wrong to hate. Live and let live I'd say. Its not like you are trying to force them to convert into your religion or to convince them that their religion is fake or whatever.

I think it comes from both. They are taught so much that goes against the religion they follow. Because of those teachings fear blooms within them. They lash out at others who do not follow their beliefs. One leads to another and everyone suffers because of it. If one would take time and learn about other religions before believing everything they have been told they might find out that there is nothing to fear or hate.

*nods* I was actually very seriously in danger over religion as a child, because I lived in small-town Kentucky, and when violence was sparked by such religous fervor it was very carefully ignored by local police, or in my case, passed off as simply "bullying". I don't understand the fear either. I try to let people get to know me before I tell them I am pagan, because there are many people whose opinions of pagans have changed through this method. Kind of the "If a nice person like you is pagan, it can't be as bad as I thought" reaction. I do agree with you that there are pagans who add fuel to this fire. I get annoyed by them pretty easily. When I was a teenager, it suddenly become popular to be "pagan" among the "freaks" at my school. It was funny for me because suddenly a lot of the people who had been mean to me as a kid over being a different religion from them suddenly wanted me to teach them about my religion. But as soon as they found out that it wasn't anywhere near as weird and creepy as they expected, they just rejected everything I said and went around being mean and stupid and loud about their own brand of "paganism" which had nothing to do with anything but rebellion. When I was a child, I was afraid of Christians, because most of the people who had abused me had been Christian, and many had used their religion as an excuse for the abuse. I've gotten over that, and I hope that other people will some day get over their fear of pagans.

I think its simply brainwashing! They have been told to hate everyone who is not just like them, an don't want to learn about the differences. If you really want to see people looking at you strangely, tell them you are atheist. You can almost see the electricity sparking across the screen!

I am also a pagan and have been for most of my adult life. When I was younger I had people constantly wanting to fight with me to save my condemned soul. They didn't wish to hear the truths about the old ways, only their own righteousness. These days, I avoid those kinds of conversations because I know what matters to me, and that is all that matters. My spirituality is my business, as yours is yours and so on. It's unfortunate that in our society, with as much as we have grown and evolved these last hundred years, that many who practice alternative religions have to keep it under wraps for fear of prosecution, even alienation from the rest of mainstream society. I think quite a bit of the anger in the world today is the direct result of religious righteousness, but the righteous have no ears, and do not hear.

your right it is fear, i'm catholic and i'm very liberal but i know alot of conservative ones out there and when we have religious topics come up in coversations and i start talking about paganisim and how its not what everyone perceives it to be they look at me like i'm crazy!, i just wish people would stop being so ignorant and close minded and learn to think for themselves and then following the words that are preached by their priest.Every religion has chants and "spells" just in different forms, in mine those repetivitve prayers we do every sunday is a form of chants and the belief of holy water and putting oil around the house while saying prayers to protect yourself from unwanted entities...what is all of that? but when i say that in conversation nobody wants to hear it incase you havent noticed i actually get irritated when people are close minded and judge someone off of their religion when they don't know nothing about it except what they heard and don't care to find the truth out for themselves