RE: Not religious doesn't necessarily mean atheist
November 2, 2017 at 6:28 am
(This post was last modified: November 2, 2017 at 6:32 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(November 2, 2017 at 1:40 am)Hammy Wrote: I cannot grasp the concept of something never succeeding nor failing when failure itself is the absence of success
And if absence of success is not a failure, then your inaction is a success
It's why I'm so lazy all the time. I need to actually figure out a worthy goal I'd deem to be desirable and worth achieving before I can have a meaningful sense of ambition. Ambitiousness is a strong motivated desire for success but if I have no goals I already have what I want, which is nothing, thereby I am a success by default. I can't be a failure if I have no goals to fail to achieveBecause ultimately failure is a lack of success, not an absence of success, so success can be an absence of a lack of success by default
Not in a religious economy. Think of it this way; they aren't going out of business, but they aren't turning a profit either. Wicca doesn't appeal to the sort of consumer required (or appeal in the manner required) for the profligate growth of what we consider a mainstream religion. It's chokey. For example, between the 90's and the 10's, as it matured in the american market space, it began to coalesce around a loose but singular message (this is one of the factors that, as we understand it, helps a religion to grow - consolidation)..and by the numbers it was an up and comer with what seemed to be the fastest rate of conversion of any american religion..if you ignored the actual numbers and possible errors in reporting. From roughly 8k to 140k ish. Not alot of people..and significant number of them probably didn't convert, just "came out of the broom closet" as it were.
The kindest appraisal would classify wicca as a local frozen yogurt shop competing with global brands. The global brands, for their part, encroach on the small local shops market space with ease. Christo-paganism is a thing. It appeals to the same consumer that wicca appeals to, but maintains the traditional iconography and even cultural support that the adherent is accustomed to. The larger the buddy jesus camp becomes, the more of the available space for wicca is consumed. It's in a precarious spot, where it only exists in the receding margins.
For a religion, that's not success, at best it's survival, at worst a slow death.
@Witchraft.
Most adult wiccans have a modified belief/position on witchcraft, just as they have a modified position on gods. They take it to be effective, but not necessarily for reasons of magic. They're ritualists, as I mentioned before. The value of witchcraft is explicable beyond some force that makes people love you, just as the value of focal divinity is explicable beyond the literal existence of gods. In the strictest sense, the wiccans who believe in literal magic and literal gods are generally adolescent or in transition from christianity - and beyond that...a minority. As they get older, and as they shed their christian underpinnings, their wicca comes to resemble a concept of utilitarian metaphor. They draw down the godhead in a personalized ceremony not so much because they believe they are being possessed by a god, but because the ritual focuses and grounds them. Witchcraft becomes an exercise in goal orientation.
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