Is Religion a type of Witchcraft?

Where in any of this does it state that religion is what defines witch and without religion we would not have the concept of witch?

If you're reading comprehension skills are that poor, don't expect me to remedy your hebetude.

I think the point to be made here is that "witchcraft" was a Christian word and a Christian notion to describe what to the practitioners thereof was no more than a clinging to the old animistic religions which their ancestors had practiced. The so-called witches and warlocks did not worship anything that could be described as Satan. They worshiped Odin and Thor and the woodland deities and demi-gods. It's interesting to note that in modern Italian, to this day, witchcraft is at times referred to as la vecchia regione, i.e. "the old religion."

You may be correct but what source are you using to make this claim?

Let me guess "You were able to read that into that?

In the remoter parts of Europe, the old religions hung on with amazing tenacity. In some places, a thousand years after christianity appeared in a country, the peasants in remote areas still followed the degenerate practices of religions abandoned by priesthoods, but still practiced by the people. The church attempted to co-opt the "holy wells," to cut down the sacred groves, and otherwise absorb the old, popular places and practices. In the end, though, they just damned the practices as satanic, as witehcraft.

As i'm sure you know, some parts of Europe did not even become christian until fairly recently. Bussia only became christian a thousand years ago. Lithuanian only became christian in 1385. The accusation of witchcraft was the sharpest dar in the quiver of the village priest, and, of course, a good way to get rid of annoying old women and men who were contemptuous of authority.

This joker is a waste of your time and mine, LA.

Again Setanta how is any of this relevant to the claim that you have made?

I have no idea why you expect others to do your research for you, rl. After all, the sources are there at the touch of your fingertips.

What I said in my earlier post was off the top of my head because I thought most people are cognizant of the obvious. The connecetion between wicca (Old English word, ultimately derived from Anglo-Saxon Germanic) and Christianity dates back to at least the late 10th century and Aelfric's declaration:
Ne sceal se Cristena befrinan tha fulan wiccan be his gesundfulnysse.

If you have difficulty reading Old English, I suggest you look it up.

If you're too stpuid to see, don't expect me to educate you. Dipshit.

OK are you suggesting that this practice only goes as far back as the Anglo-Saxon Germanic? and that this is empirically its etymology?

The word witch derives from the Old English nouns wicca /ˈwɪttʃɑ/ (masc.) "sorcerer, witch (male)" and wicce /ˈwɪttʃe/ (fem.) "sorceress, witch (female)". The word's further origins in Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European are unclear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicce

I am just trying to learn something here is all.

The practice of what the church fathers are pleased to call "witchcraft" or "wiccan" goes back into prehistory and the dim dark mists of the begining of human theologic consciousness. The point is that our present-day perception of wiccan as some sort of Devil-worship is the conceit of the Christian church.

The way you sneer and argue, it doesn't appear that you're at all interested in learning anything. You just want to defend the idiotic premise of this thread. What constsitutes witchcraft and who are witches has always been defined by the dominant religion. Tens of thousands of women and men--mostly women--were executed in Protestant Germany on allegations of witchcraft. Churchs appointed witch finders. The same hysteria showed up in England during the civil wars, and in Scotland until as late as the mid-18th century. The most notorious, but by no means the only example in what became the United States was at Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690s.

Claiming religion is a type of witchcraft is roughly the same as saying law enforcement is a form of street gang.

I have no problem with what you are saying here.

Why would you think this? Do you think that you are that important?



OK do you have others who agree with you? maybe someone with a PhD?



I see no need to argue this.



Do you think that there are no law enforcements that are similar to a form of street gang?

of course religion point else as inferior being to justify one will to use else for powers expressions over objective existence

in that truth religion is a kind of magics ends, which point a powerful figure able to do tricks on else by involvin their beings or objects deformations

when truth so constant fact conception is eternal superiority then any objective perspective is relative superiority to what objective is superior absolutely
then seekin to limit objects or else to things perceptions identities is always an agression to truth facts and existin superior things rights

religion is the edge of hypocrisy, like shown now clearly in meanin to use powers over any to claim any existence

like this topic is clearly about atheists preach but for theists life

I would say all. You mean you are afraid of Playboy and Playgirl too? Have you considered you just may have a fear of books?

The point of the response was to point out that you may have misidentified the extent of the solution space. You have offered only two possible solutions to your own question. I added another solution (from Liechtenstien) to be considered.

Not that I couldn’t warm up to it but I feel that his answer is a bit extreme to take initially. I base this feeling purely on statistical considerations. Extremes are generally of low probability, which is one reason they are termed extremes.

I feel another item in the solution space is the possibility that you just happen to really suck at the analysis and interpretation of abstract symbolic information.

Case in point: you read the bible and see a book of Witchcraft full of spells? You also see these spells as bewitching the great unwashed who haven’t the hope of realizing your level of cognitive sophistication?

So you grab the Bible and turn to, say, Deuteronomy. You do not see a military history of the ancient Hebrews (or whatever your preferred term for these groups), as told by a specific group of Hebrews…the winners. You see a Trieste on Witchcraft filled with spells?

If that is the case then God help you if you ever run across Patton or John Wayne in The Green Berets. You will be wetting your bed and sleeping with the light on for weeks to keep the witches away! Not that there is anything wrong with that; some guys are into footware. These are both kind of American analogs to Deuteronomy and being Hollywood films there is a good chance that they were produced by a Jew, just like Deuteronomy, oh, and Patton sure can spout a spell out with the best witch. Plus Technicolor!

Since this is a history (from a certain point of view) and from any point of view it happened already, in fact millennia ago, it would seem a bit late to be casting any spells about it -- but perhaps your concern is with spells that work backward in time. Can they DO that?

Either way it seems pretty clear that the Bible is not full of spells.

See “Blessed are the peace makers for they will find peace.” might be considered an aphorism but not a spell. The same can be said for: “Thou shalt not kill” and “Honor thy father and thy mother”; naive sentiments?…possibly…Right-wing propaganda?...Certainly (only a hater or a “phobe” could disagree); but probably not spells no matter how broad the working definition used.

A spell would be more like: “Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble” or even “Wish I had a watermelon, wish I had a watermelon, I wish Cotton was a monkey, I wish Cotton was a monkey”.

And of course that latter spell could never be found in the Bible because according to Philologists ancient Hebrew did not have a word for watermelon and when you translate Cotton from ancient Hebrew to the Ancient Greek of the Bible it translates to “someone who is unusually fond of goats” rather than the obvious noun of the spell.

Here is another test to help determine if your analytical abilities leave something to be desired. When you read: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish -- did you see it as…oh -- say…a story of a bankrupt family, symbol of decaying czarist society, that fails to save their estate as their cherry orchard is cleared for commercial housing by the new owner, an enterprising son of a surf? Did the fish seem to you to have rather heavy Russian accents?

When you attend a Madonna concert do you interpret her performance as a prescient and biting commentary on current culture?

Ring a bell? Hitting pretty close to home? Well, don’t worry yet as it may not be a pattern of poor analytical skills, but it’s got to make one wonder.

Hey I just had another thought.

Maybe you read something in your Bible but then got distracted and picked up your Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook by mistake, getting the contents of the one mixed uo with the context of the other. Here is one way to tell: If Mosses was described as a 12th level, Half-Elf, Magic User -- that is almost certainly what happened.

See; isn’t it funny how the most obvious explanation is usually the last one considered. I am glad to have helped.

Not that I would ever poo-poo a good healthy fear of the Bible. I’ve heard some pretty scary stories about that thing. For example, I heard that if you put your tin-foil hat on and then read the Bible backwards you can hear Rachel Maddow and Chris Mathews singling a duet of “I am Woman”. If you simultaneously play that Beatles album backwards you can hear Paul saying “John was born in Kenya. The key is with The Donald. John was born in Kenya. The key is with The Donald”. Booooooooo!

And stuff like that just HAS to be true.

The point to my question was only to start a conversation about the way people view the bible. I see the bible in many different ways and one of the ways is similar to witchcraft because there are so many people under a spell like condition who accept it as the word of a God.



I guess you did not like my joke?


If you think that I see the bible as nothing more than a book of witchcraft then you really do not know me.

There is little worth responding to in this typical, confused and arrogant post. No, i know of no law enforcement agency which is similar to a street gang, for however venal individual membes of such an agency may be. The overwhelming majority of society want there to be reliable law enforcement agencies--they don't want there to be street gangs, and in fact want law enforcement to shut down street gangs. It's a question of authority. The same extends to organized religion as opposed to what is called witchcraft. The overwhelming majority of people are, or have been in the past, the supporters of the authority of organized religion. They certainly have not been cheerleaders for what was branded witchcraft.

I have not doubt that you'll have some idiot argument to this, as well. I already suspected you'd attempt to validate the law enforcement versus street gang analogy. You'll have to carry on without me, though, because i'll not continue to play your stupid games.

I guess that you are fortunate. but I have a suspicion that not everyone has had the same results as you or me.



I would think the same thing as well.



This seems true.



Well I personally think that organized religions had false beliefs or ideas that were not true about witches just as they do today with other matters.

Maybe I have it wrong but at one time these witches were thought to be the wise ones among the tribes and if this is true which I am not certain it is, I wonder how the organized religion of that time was responsible for giving them this title.