Freedom of Religion

[Abracadabra]

I can have a wonderful discussion about witchcraft with you, as long as you don't insist that it is real, because then we're not having a serious discussion.

Can you please point out to me where I have ever insisted that it's real?

Have I not stated time and time again that I'm an Agnostic Spiritualist?

Here's a quote that I personally made just a few posts back,...

Are those "spirits' just facets of my very own spirit? Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. Who's to say? Even I can't say for sure, and I'm the one who's been calling them up!

I'm absolutely and totally confessing my agnosticism with respect to spiritual ideas (including witchcraft) which is just a label of a particular approach to spirituality.

Nowhere am I insisting that anything is real.

Hell's bells for all I know all of life itself is an illusion. Life may be nothing but a dream. I have no clue.

I would never insist that anything is real.

Do you feel as though people are persecuting you, or refusing to respect you when they don't believe in magic?

No not at all, but when they say things like,...

You render yourself a very unreliable person by believing in such wackiness.

It's pretty obvious that they don't merely disbelieve in magic but that they also pass judgement on me as being an 'unreliable' person.

In fact, you've implied a similar thing yourself:

A conclusion that someone has a few screws loose the minute they invoke withcraft is warranted. Completely warranted

So there you go. Not only are you telling me that you don't believe in these things yourself but that you also consider anyone who even has an agnostic open-mind toward it to "have a few screws loose".

I mean, if you feel that way, at least you're being honest about it. I can respect that much. I do value honesty above all else, and I wouldn't want you do lie to me and tell me that you can respect my views if it's not true.

But still I'd like to try to persuade you to realize that I have my reasons for keeping an open mind to these things. And even though I risk being called an even bigger kook, personally I feel that witchcraft actually works for me at least to some degree. I believe that I benefit from practicing witchcraft.

I'm not claiming that this is 'real'. It could be pseudo medicine. It could be coincidence. It could be any number of things. But from my perspective it appears to be working so that's good enough for me to continue practicing it. What's so insane about that? It's not like I'm trying to proselytize that you should do it.

I respect atheists beliefs that the universe is just a freak accident. That doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand how anyone could think that this universe could pop into existence out of nothing and evolve into sentient beings who are happy to just relentless argue with each other over the true nature of their existence

Talk about having a loose screw? The whole universe would be a loose screw in that case.

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