Practicing Wiccans/Pagans Only?

Question

Do you believe you can possibly be athiest and pagan/wiccan at the same time? Do you think that the God/Goddess and aspects are actual beings? Or representations of certain energies, ideas flowing through nature? Do you think that you can invoke these energies without the believe of an actual God/Goddess per se.

Please practicing pagans only. Please no wiki answers as this is something that is not just flat research. This is an experience question. Please no one who dabbled or had friends that were wiccan but were not themselves. I can't stop ya from answering, but your answer is likely to have less meaning for this type of question.

Please excuse my grammar.

CJ. 1) On this you have no idea what you're talking about. 2) I'm not Wiccan. 3) People can't worship what they don't believe in. 4) Wiccans don't even really worship anything, in the sense that you mean worship.

I was a member of a couple Wiccan covens(not the teenage variety either), and no, we didn't use "Thank the God/Goddess" in any of our rituals.

Yourpastlifelover, I know the difference between pagan and wiccan. I've studied far more than one might think. But, I was looking for an answer for one or both.

In this question as in some others, I wish the answerer would simply answer the question, rather than assume they know more than the asker in other avenues.

Pin, did you ever consider that I was Wiccan for quite some time and decided that it was not the path for me? Instead of sending your nasty quip.

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible to be a Naturalistic Pagan. (i.e. One that doesn't believe in deities. Kind of a Pagan Humanism.) You can invoke the archetypes of various deities from collective unconsciouses.

Myself, I'm a hard-polytheist, so as you might have guessed I do not believe that the Gods and Goddesses are are just aspects of some greater whole, I believe they're individual and separate.

Answer 2

I don't fit your category, but I've thought a lot about this as I've wrestled with whether I'm a pantheist, a monotheist, or a polytheist.

I think what makes most sense in a modern context is a naturalistic polytheism: that is, the gods are cosmic, natural and social processes. But that doesn't mean they're not real. We have no idea what forms of consciousness may be associated with complex processes in the universe besides human beings. It might well be that the complex processes which the gods are, are in fact the seat of their consciousness as much as the brain is the seat (or material manifestation) of ours.

OTOH, you can participate in these processes and be sensitive to them in many ways, and your participation or sensitivity wouldn't necessarily have to include a belief in their personal existence. They could certainly be real, and efficacious, but not conscious. That's not an untenable position. It would actually have been recognizable to a lot of paleo-pagans -- that was the way most Greek philosophers thought about the gods.

For myself, the clincher is that I see the *dynamic* and evolving nature of these processes. That tips the balance for me towards thinking that these processes do possess an "interiority" analogous to human consciousness. Also working in this direction is the transpersonal experience studied by psychologists such as Jung and Stanislav Grof. People have participated in, have experienced, the consciousness of gods. At least, they've said they have. The accounts are pretty gripping. Read some of Grof's work; it'll blow your mind.

I also come out of a philosophical orientation, process philosophy, which is panexperientialist, i.e., it sees "experience" as a cosmic datum on all levels. I see no intrinsic reason why the complex phenomena associated with the gods should be without an interior dimension of conscious experience.

Answer 3

Yes it is possible to be a witch and be an atheist. Yes, it is possible to be pagan and an atheist. (note those two are NOT interchangeable) Buddhists are considered pagans, and they have no dieties. Being Wiccan and a atheist? a wee bit harder, since it is a religion based in pantheism.

As for them being actual beings? Well, I've studied a lot of the gods and goddesses of many different faiths, and the similariities are too widespread to be ignored. Are they actual beings or made up by man based on time, place and need to explain the divine - or even natural forces in their lives? Don't know, don't care to speculate.

Can you call upon energy without believing in a god or goddess, or without channeling that supposed diety's energies and personality? Certainly. It's like using electricity - you don't have to believe in your local electric company to use their product, nor do you even think of them.

BTW? You seem to use Wiccan and pagan interchangeably - they are not. Pagan currently meaning (and I say currently since word meanings change regularly in the english language) a blanket term for any religion or belief set not founded in Abrahamic teachings - meaning Christianity, Judaism, and Muslim - so that leaves literally thousands of belief sets that are considered pagan, including hinduism and buddhism.

Nor are witch and Wiccan interchangeable - because it is possible to be one without ever being the other.

I don't have to have ever been Wiccan to be able to be what I am. Nor am I a dabbler. I've been a serious practitioner for for 35 years.

OH, and you are fully incorrect - many Wiccans do indeed worship selected gods and goddesses - choosing those that best fit them and their variety of Wicca. But, as you said, you're not Wiccan - so why are you speaking as if you know?

Answer 4

No, you cannot be a pagan and athiest at the same time. I believe the aspects are Tried and true thoughtforms. I personally like to think they are actually real. I see the Faces of the deities I prefer to work with and make a personal bond with them. Yes they are energies but I like to think of them as real.
And finally, I do believe that you can use the energies of a God/Goddess By frequency. If you lock on to the energy you truly have found the God/Goddess anyhow..this is just my opinion of course..

Answer 5

Okay, I'm not a witch anymore, but I used to be. I also have many pagan friends and am a credible source for this kind of info.

Yes, you can use ritual if you do not believe in the God/Goddess. However, using ritual spellwork does not necessarily a pagan make. Many of my friends practice spellcraft, do energy-work, and have very 'pagan' beliefs, even though they do not believe in a god or goddess, per se. I wouldn't necessarily call these people pagan, but some might disagree.

Also, please be careful when using the terms pagan and Wiccan! They do not mean exactly the same thing, and the belief in a dual God/Goddess as actual deties is a belief primarily belonging to certain sects of Wicca. My ex-boyfriend, who is a Greek pagan, does not belive in THE God and Goddess...just that there are many deities, and he feels particularly close to some of the Greek ones.

Answer 6

1. No, as Atheism denotes a loack of gods, which Wicca has. Maybe for some other branches of Paganism, like deity-free shamanism.

2. No. I'm not a Wiccan, so I have more than a copy/paste bastardization pantheon, but they all seem to be a semi-tangible aspect of human consciousness and creativity. That is, they are thoughts with power, and personality.

3. Yes, many people work magic free of deity, usually Satanic magic, but that's far to simple for me.

The basic premise of Wicca as a right hand path denotes worship of their deities. Notice how every spell is "Tank the god and goddess," etc.

Answer 7

Well I don't believe in any gods or creator figures but do believe in spirits and souls which I think would be contrary to Atheism. Most Atheists i know don't believe in any metaphysical aspects. I'm a practicing witch but kind of outside of Wicca. I think more stricter Wiccans do generaly believe in a Goddess(es), god(s) or combination.

Answer 8

Well, I don't believe in a God and Goddess as actual people, or humanoid beings who live up in the sky somewhere, or in another dimension like the Christians do. I believe they are merely personifications of Natural forces, forces which have been anthropomorphized for ease of comprehension. When I pray to the God and Goddess, I am appealing to Nature as Nurturer, or Protector, or Teacher. For me Gods and Goddesses are metaphors for certain aspects of Nature,and of myself.

Answer 9

As a shaman I don't have a problem with it... I don't see the energies I work with as being some omnipotent power, but I do recognize that there are energies and powers out there. I'm Buddhist too and it doesn't disagree with my practice there either.

As a Buddhist, we believe in a realm called the "devas" where it's like heaven, sorta... the beings are rather well off sentient beings, due to great karma in a previous life or so and they can affect people's lives here in this realm. They can be worked with for the benefit of all sentient beings. Others might disagree but that's my take on it.

_()_

Answer 10

When I was wiccan, I really did not believe in a god or Goddess per se, it was more the power or magic I was after. I guess I was leaning towards atheistism, so the magic still worked anyways. I was a black witch by the way, trying to fight ghists in my house, what a laugh that was. My housekeeper who was voodoo was even more fireghtened then I was, her magic didn't work either. But when I cast spells on people, it worked, so this tells me that ghosts are not dead people. Ghosts are demons. You decide.