Okay so I've been meaning to do this for a long time, and I promised myself to do it by this weekend (I'm only a couple days late...)
People ask me occasionally about my beliefs, and how I feel about gods etc. I once saw someone I knew talk about someone they used to know that was not of pagan leanings, and how they viewed gods. What was said put quite a few things into place, and things kind of clicked.
But, we'll start with a bit of background - I wasn't born into a family that attended a church on pain of death, or pardon the pun - "religiously", and going was just going and depended on whether or not it was campground season or winter - we didn't pray before bed, we didn't say grace unless it was a special occasion and we were around our extended family members, we didn't read the bible. The whole thing never really clicked for me in any sense with Christianity. I enjoyed the Christmas carols and some other hymns/song, but those only happened at one time of the year (plus, I just liked singing.) It was about age 13 that I didn't feel like going at all and could finally say "No thanks" without being challenged. I felt no connection, no reaction, there was no spark. At this point I still didn't really understand a lot of my decision, aside from a disinterest, and it was about this time that I was given my first book about paganism.
Reading through it, and talking about stuff with others that I knew, neo-wicca (not that I knew the difference then between "Old School" Wicca and neo-wicca at this point) or neo-paganism also didn't really fit. I didn't enjoy the "one true god" of Christian religion, and I found flaws in goddess worship - sure paganism had two main god figures, but one always seemed to trump the other in a feminist bent. Goddess worshipping was about the same as the "one true god" of Christianity. Having two parts doesn't mean you have a whole, or even an equal sharing. It didn't click quite right either. The explaination one person gave me that before there was a male god and a female god, and the male god gave the female god his power and let her be in charge, there was one no-sex being (no-sex in this case being a twist on what I would assume to be an androgynous being or a hermaphrodidic being), and that the no-sex being halved into the male being and the female being. I was also told in high school by a Christian-Jewish classmate that in Hebrew (forgive me for not remembering her exact words) the word used for God/holy father was translated as a paternal figure, but was actually hermaphrodidic/androgynous. This satiated me a bit, but things still didn't quite fit.
This age frame was also when I was first put into contact with my current mentor. He was a mentor, but not quite to the extent he has been in the past few years, and I recall thinking him a bit of a conceited nutcase when he told me, in no uncertain terms, "one day you will be my apprentice." So you know, I kind of ignored him and plunked along, occasionally asking questions of him of an occult nature, but mostly just being a random kinda angsty teenager who was way older than her age, but trying to be her age, and having him as an acquaintance, figuring out but mostly ignoring a lot of the occult stuff. For the most part I didn't care either way about religion/"religion", or whether or not I was lacking anything. For the most I still don't panic about it, but when I do, it's a bit of a head trip.
So now that we're back to the present of people saying things that click, we'll get back to the used to be friend of a used to be friend. He presented it as this basic idea - God (this would be the "one true god") wasn't some guy in the sky, but a source of energy. It clicked. Energy, I could understand. It made sense. It described how their could be "One" as a "whole", and how there could be different "types". It satisfied my need for actually explainable-by-science needs - look at science stuff about energy. It fits. It also worked okay for my cannot-really-be-explained-by-science needs. It just fit, like Cinderella and her glass slipper (okay, that may be a stretch, but think about it - how comfortable would glass slippers really be ALL THE TIME? Plus, if the shoe doesn't fit, you're kind of like the ugly stepsisters in the non-politically correct version, cutting off toes to try and make it fit.) The "being on the same level as the gods" kinda actually made sense now.
On a slight sidestep on the topic, my mentor is fond of saying that a lot of followers of religions (both those like Christianity and Wicca types) seem to favour the thought of having some higher being that will spank them when they do something bad. We say "Do what is necessary", which goes along with Crowley's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". There's no threefold rule, there's no one waiting to punish you later. It's just you yourself has to be able to live with what you've done. For every action there is a consequence - but don't define consequence as "something bad that will happen", define it in such a way like "for every action there is an equal reaction" - you drop a bomb, people die; you make a pot of hot water, you can cook food or make a hot cup of tea to enjoy. You hex someone, there's a very good chance that bad things will happen. If you can't live with it, don't do it.
Oh, and for all those who go "three times three time three" for the threefold rule - it's not 3 times worse, it's not 9 times worse. Let's do the math here:
3x3x3 = 3³
3x3 = 9
9x3 = 27
It's 27 times worse.
Another note, I recently saw a discussion where people amicably disagreed on spells vs prayer - one person said they were different, one person voted they were the same. I'm mostly in the "they're about the same" group. A spell/ritual with physical actions you perform is essentially a "moving prayer". You want to summon/borrow and direct energy to a purpose, probably for the reasoning that you alone are not quite enough energy. The one participant in the discussion I mentioned above had the reasoning that a spell was only your own energy, while a prayer was (apparently) only for a deity's energy. Doesn't really work since most spells involve deities in some fashion, and in order to pray one must put forth the energy to think about it and do it (yes, repeating words out loud or in your head counts as putting forth energy!)
This may end up being a Part 1/A or something to another, but we shall see. I think my thought process on this is currently finished. But you never know.
