What beliefs do Wiccans adhere to and where are they written or what oral tradition passes them along?

Question

Christians have the Bible and the Ten Commandments. I'm just curious about where pagan doctrine comes from.

Answer 1

There is a huge difference between traditions in paganism and Wicca is only one of them
As a Heathen we use the Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda and several poems such as Beowulf as a glimpse into the past of traditions and lore. These are as close to a "holy book" as we have.
We have history. We believe we are the literal decendants of our gods. By learning about our past, our people, and the culture, we bring ourselves closer to the gods and our ancestors. We are a reconstruction religion, which is slightly misleading because the faith never really "died" but some of it has obvioulsy been lost over the years. We are finding more every day.
We have no "doctrine" in the sense that Christians do. But we do have a worldview that we tend to share trad to trad. Considered the highest by most kindred and folk is:
Strength is better than weakness
Courage is better than cowardice
Joy is better than guilt
Honour is better than dishonour
Freedom is better than slavery
Kinship is better than alienation
Realism is better than dogmatism
Vigor is better than lifelessness
Ancestry is better than universalism

We take our gods rather seriously. We are hard polytheist in that we believe our gods are seperate and real.
I will tell you a secret. Ask ten pagans a question and you will get eleven different answers. LOL Good luck on this one

Answer 2

Yet another non-Wiccan Pagan agreeing that we're not all Wiccans. ;)

For the Celtic Reconstructionists, we're lacking quite a lot of the original material - but we've still got a reasonably good amount. There's an assortment of stories and myths - the Lebor Gabala (Book of Invasions) and the Tain bo Cuilgne (Cattle-Raid of Cooley) are two of the more well-known from the Irish branch.

We've got a mix of oral material that was passed down as folklore, along with written accounts (primary and secondary sources), as well as anything rediscovered via archaeology and athropology. Add in UPG ("unverified personal gnosis", aka person experiences with the divine), and we're doing pretty well.

Answer 3

Look up The Wiccan Rede and The Wiccan Creed.

Answer 4

There is a differance between Wiccan and Pagan.

Wiccan describes a practitioner of the religion Wicca.

Pagan is an "umbrella" term that also includes the Asatrur (who worship the Norse Gods), Hellenistai (who worship the Greek Gods), Khemetic religion (worship of the Egyptian Gods) and various Druidic practices (primarily focusing on the Celtic Gods).

The Hellenistai (or Hellenic Polytheists) have the vast amount of stories that are found in Greek Mythology as tales of our Gods and moral stories, as well as the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle and the epic stories of Homer and Herodotus.

The Asatrur also have sacred texts and I have starred this question so that my contacts in that faith community can answer for themselves.

Answer 5

We Wiccans get our morality directly from the gods.

Answer 6

They basically just "roll their own."