Religion and the Internet

Indeed, the internet is being used by both sides of the conflict in many fronts.

Wow, I can't imagine living in a whole country without access to such things. Where I lived as kid, most of the pagans were kind of in hiding. Materials about the religion were kind of hidden on the back shelves of stores that sold jewellry or natural items (like rocks from Mammoth Cave). One of those places, the Rock Shop, was owned by a lady I knew, and when she finally did start billing her shop as a "pagan" shop, she was subjected to a lot of harassment and vandalism. Thankfully I don't live in that town (or even that state) anymore. Haha, I don't have any students at the moment, but I have taught before. It's funny because when I was a teenager everyone around me was "new" to the religion, whereas I had grown up in it. So I wound up pretty much teaching everyone I knew, which got really hard after a while. Right now I'm mainly concentrating on what I''m going to teach my child as he grows (though he's only turning 1 year old this month, so it's very early). I do occasionally help others I meet online though, when they don't really know what they are doing and don't have a teacher nearby. I do think a lot of the information available online is becoming watered down. Some of it is political: some people are so busy trying to convince others that Paganism is "good" they are afraid to get into any real details in fear of offending someone. And then there's the opposite camp, the ones that are "Pagan" but seem more interested in talking about why they're rebelling against a former religion than about Paganism itself. Furthermore, there's the simple fact that many of the knowledgeable people are now parts of various groups which only share information with members. So to find a real mentor, often you have to join an organization of some type. That, or the knowledgeable people are busy writing books they will actually be paid for, as opposed to simply giving information away free online. And then, to confuse things further, you have the people who essentially cut and paste from other pagan websites to make their own pagan website. So you wind up with a ton of sites that say the same thing!

When I started out, they didn't even carry books and equipment in my country (yes, the whole country). The internet taught me most of my basics before the materials started coming into Singapore. (You teach too? Damn, we should trade notes... and complain about our students...) The material online seem much better years ago, now they are too watered down. Or is it just me? :(

It was only 3~4 years ago that wicca and pagan books started to appear on the shelves here. Before that, I had to get all my reading material online. The lucky thing was that I could pick up basic supplies from stores selling items for other religions (mostly Buddhist stores, great candles, incenses, oils and crystals) The books are starting to thin out again though (since most of the flurries driving the market don't think it's cool anymore...) I had a two mentors when I started, one was a fraud and the other was top student from the school of hard knocks. They came and left pretty quickly, not without leaving me very confused first. When I finally sort things out and progressed, I decided that I cannot let that happen to others. I'm still regretting that now ;p Luckily I wasn't egoistic enough to try and teach more then 2 before I dropped of the local scene (Toooo much ego clashing) There was actually talk about drawing pagan comic books for kids. Unfortunately, like most talk, it stayed as carbon dioxide. Wonder if I can bribe a few gods to draw their comic series for loads of cash... (yes, I can draw comics, just don't have the time =/) The politics is really pretty stupid. People who have a problem with us, will always have a problem no matter what we say. The whole 'Never again the burning times' is just laughable, they seem pretty healthy for someone burnt 500 years ago. I understand that we are still treated badly worldwide, but playing their game only makes it worse sometimes. We should just be show the world who we are, without shame or hatred, and let them decide for themselves. Truth prevails, and it's already doing so. I have no beef with the experts trying to make a honest living from their writings, heck, even I want to do it (but I know I'm nowhere near the level to write a book) I hate seeing site after site of the same material all over again, makes me want to tie them up, pile up the wood and... err... never mind.. you din hear me say that...

I'm a pagan Krisss, its not a common religion in this part of the world. Most people don't even know what earth-based religions are around these parts. In paganism, we don't really have a 'church' or similar central authority. It's all personal growth and development.

LOL, I can't imagine chatting to the divine in IRC. Thanks for the visuals mugna_1964!

That is a very good viewpoint EvanHunter, thank you very much :)

But how would we decide right from wrong with all that inform out there?

Maybe it's all in how we use it