why do people get wicca and satanism confused?

Question

Wicca has a #1 law ... Harm None. Wiccans believe in love for yourself, others as well as our earth. Satanism is dark and hurtful.

Answer 1

Honey, many established religions look at each other as if they're satanist, never mind us of the Pagan-Persuasion. It's very sad that people can't just leave each other be about the Name of God. Catholics hate Protestants hate Muslims hates Jews hates Christians hates etc etc etc....Satanism doesn't have to be dark and hurtful, even though it seems to call on the "darker" side. It';s all in intent. You, being Wiccan, should know about intent. Doing a bad thing with good intent....a good thing with good intent... I will admit that Harm None is a very good premise as is Live and Let Live. Blessings to You, my Dear.

Answer 2

Wicca does not have a law that says "harm none." It has a Rede (which means *advice*, not "law") that says "IF it harm none, do as ye will." Which means if what you want to do doesn't hurt anyone, go ahead.

It doesn't say "if it would cause harm, you may not do it"--because that would be unlivable. Causing harm is part of life. (You gotta eat, and that's harming *something*.)

Satanism is no more dark or hurtful than any other religion. I despise people who bad-mouth other religions without knowing anything about them. And I hate the idea of implying "well, if I were a SATANIST, then it would be okay to hate me because Satanists are EVIL."

Don't try to stop prejudice by pushing it off on someone else. You can say "I'm not a Satanist" without saying "because I'm good and they're bad." You don't know what they are--and from your post, it looks like you've accepted the Christian beliefs about Satanism.

Why believe they're right about Satan if you don't believe they're right about God?

Answer 3

Most Christians do not believe in any deity outside of their belief system. Therefor, by their rationale, you either worship Yahweh or Satan with Yahweh being defined as God and everything else falling under the auspices of Satan. You aren't likely to change this irrational thinking anytime soon.

But there are a couple of misconceptions in your statements. "Harm None" is not the "#1 LAW" of Wicca. It isn't a law at all. It is a rede. A rede basically translates as "advice" or "counsel". I'm not sure where and when people got the notion that this was some divine edict.

As far as Satanism being dark and hurtful, well it depends on which type of Satanism. The LaVeyen type of Satinism is really nothing more than a form of Atheism with ceremony. They believe in indulgence in anything that brings pleasure and in promotion of the self. They also hold some ideas that could be construed as humanism. They aren't necessarily bad folk and they don't go around killing cats or babies. I'm not saying I agree with their ideology, I'm just saying you can't expect people to stop making generalized, sweeping, misinformed statements about your faith if you are doing the same.

Also, I would like to know why most Pagans are so quick to bring up the tired old "We don't believe in Satan so how can we worship him?" argument. I think Ray Buckland first said this in his Big Blue book (it may have been Cunningham) and, ever since, people have been regurgitating it all over the internet. Their are basically two types of Pagans...Pantheists and Polytheists...(I realize there are more but all will generally fall under one of these two headings)...If you are a polytheist and believe in a multitude of deities...why not Satan? If it's fathomable that Zeus, Isis, Quan Yin, Odin, and Hecate all exist in some form somewhere, then why can't Satan? If you are a Pantheist and believe "all Gods are one God", again, why not Satan? Who says that can't be one of the "aspects"? If deities like Set, Loki, Kali, and other "dark" gods are just "dark aspects" of the divine...who decided to exclude Satan and why?

Blessings,

Matt
(a Wicca, not a Satanist)

Answer 4

Ignorance. It's not that satanism is dark or hurtful- that's devil worshipers. Satanist don't believe it's truly possible to love everyone and that anyone who says they do, are lying, so you have to pick who to love and who to hate. It's about being honest with yourself. Christians are not to believe in Wicca or Satanism or Devil Worshiping or Paganism or anything outside of their Christian realm because anything outside of that realm is bad regardless of what they're about and because Christians broadcast everywhere, the understanding is out that it's all bad regardless. A lot more than those two branches get confused, like dark or black witches being seen as Wiccans who are mostly white witches unless,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(something happens)--- anyway it's about laziness in finding out the truth and you really cant if you are devoted to a faith that says all that stuff is bad and regardless.

Answer 5

It's all about business.
No really.

Some guy named Jesus lived and died and created a philosophy on life somewhere in between.

A few hundred years later that philosophy turned into a bona fide religion. But like all religion, it was infiltrated by corrupt officials (clergy) who made up their own rules and doctrines and morphed it into something else.

Their problem was, that they were a minority group in a world full of pagans. To solve this issue they forced the social elite to convert, either through physical force, political force, or whatever.

Once the elite were Christians, they began demonizing the pagan gods. Horned fertility gods became Satan. (look at Pan and Bacchus, horned half-man-half-goat gods, look just like Satan) Then through a campaign of temple burning and witch-hunting, paganism was driven into the shadows, where it lurked in secrecy until Gerald Gardenar had the balls to go public.

Sometime during the dark ages, the pentacle, a symbol of the Earth and of protection was given the meaning of Satan. The issue wasn't helped at all when some Christian rebels turned to Satan to answer their prayers when Jesus had obviously failed for centuries. Thus the birth of Satanism and the prime oppurtunity for the Church to further demonize even more.

The stereotypes have continued to this day, mixing up the minds of the masses who know little to nothing about anything.

Answer 6

The Inquisition, specifically. The standard practice, before burning folks at the stake, was to declare them devil worshipers.

Satanism, is a twisted sect of the Christians, mostly started around 16 or 17 hundreds in Europe. France I believe, was where the "black mass" was created....just an inverted version of the Catholic Mass. It was done as a reaction to the overwhelming influence of the church.

Today, the Wiccans got that taint from the original burning days of the Inquisitions tainting them with the Coven and Satan worship junk.

Just goes to show how long folks will tell a tall tale.

Hail Eris!

Answer 7

people often get them confused because wiccan use a pentagram as a circle of protection or as a ritual in some spells. While satanists use the symbol a pentacle. One has the five pointed star facing up one has it facing down. Some Wiccans will also use both as a representation of the balance of nature.

Manely because they are uninformed and in olden times all witches were considered devil worshipers. And this untruth has been passed down ignorantly to their children instead of teaching them that witches can be good or bad just like regular people. And if a witch doesn't believe in satan how can they worship him?

Answer 8

And don't forget love for all living things! The answer is that the Church spread a very untrue belief that Wicca and pretty much anything that wasn't Christianity, Catholicism, and Judaism was terrible and worship of the Devil. Satanists don't even believe in Satan! You're right, people need to see the Truth and get over that stupid, centuries-old rumor. Blessed Be!

PS Firekat, because your friend was called Goth doesn't mean it had to do with her belief system. You don't wear your religion. Maybe the symbol, but not the religion itself obviously. If they called her that it probably because of the way she dressed, not anything else.

Answer 9

The Christian church had difficulties converting the ancient pagan to their beliefs so they trained people to believe they would go to hell for practicing the old ways. This leads into present times and closed minded people who don't practice what they preach "Love thy Neighbor". This is supposed to mean love everyone no matter what they believe, the color of their skin or what country they come from. I guess that you would have to be Wiccan to understand that!
Blessings!

Answer 10

Becsuse they don't do their research. I admit that I do not know much about Wicca, but I do know they celebrate nature, and I do believe that their motto is "Harm ye none, do what ye will", or something to that effect.