NationStates Jolt Archive

Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Wicca And Christianity were once one religion that somehow got split into two completely seperate religions?

*Preferably library ones

Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Wicca And Christianity were once one religion that somehow got split into two completely seperate religions?

*Preferably library ones

Christianity has about 1900 years on Wicca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca) so I don't see how they could have been the same religion at one point.

Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Wicca And Christianity were once one religion that somehow got split into two completely seperate religions?

*Preferably library ones

Yessir. I believe I saw the topic discussed here once:

http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/

No need to thank me.

Christianity originated around 60 to 100 CE, depending on where you draw the line between it as a religion and it as a mystery cult in Judaism.
Wicca is about 50 years old.

Wicca is less than a hundred years old, its (very very very) spurious claims to the contrary. Hell, even the vast majority of the things that are claimed to be "pre-Christian pagan beliefs" fail to really seem to relate at all to any of the evidence and material we have (albeit limited material) about the actual beliefs at that time.


Basically, anyone who argues the two have common descent is lying.

Christianity originated around 60 to 100 CE, depending on where you draw the line between it as a religion and it as a mystery cult in Judaism.
Wicca is about 50 years old.

If Wicca is about 50 years old and Wicca apparently stems from Paganism, howcome the Bible refers to Pagans?

I think they were the same religion, then something went wrong somewhere, and someone messed up the dates to make them seem like two different religions. In fact I'm just about positive, I just want some evidence. I strongly believe in Jesus (I'm a confirmed Christian in the Church of England) and I believe that He can and does forgive people, but not long ago I read a page about Wicca and it makes complete sense, yet Wicca apparently stems from Paganism and the Bible warns against it. Something dodgy went on somewhere, I'm sure of it.

I'm now gonna check that link

EDIT: Hilarious

If Wicca is about 50 years old and Wicca apparently stems from Paganism, howcome the Bible refers to Pagans?

I think they were the same religion, then something went wrong somewhere, and someone messed up the dates to make them seem like two different religions. In fact I'm just about positive, I just want some evidence. I strongly believe in Jesus (I'm a confirmed Christian in the Church of England) and I believe that He can and does forgive people, but not long ago I read a page about Wicca and it makes complete sense, yet Wicca apparently stems from Paganism and the Bible warns against it. Something dodgy went on somewhere, I'm sure of it.

I'm now gonna check that link

EDIT: Hilarious

In short, Wicca is a generic form of Paganism that borrows from different Pagan religions.

Christianity's history is long and complicated, especially when considering its approach to "pagan" practices.

Suffice it to say, they were never one religion that "branched off" into two seperate religions. Paganism in all of its various forms (exluding Wicca, which is a more recent creation that borrows from many kinds of antique pagan beliefs) has always coexisted with Christianity, and the two religions have borrowed certain elements from one another during their long histories.

But they are two separate things without a shared origin.

If Wicca is about 50 years old and Wicca apparently stems from Paganism, howcome the Bible refers to Pagans?

I think they were the same religion, then something went wrong somewhere, and someone messed up the dates to make them seem like two different religions. In fact I'm just about positive, I just want some evidence. I strongly believe in Jesus (I'm a confirmed Christian in the Church of England) and I believe that He can and does forgive people, but not long ago I read a page about Wicca and it makes complete sense, yet Wicca apparently stems from Paganism and the Bible warns against it. Something dodgy went on somewhere, I'm sure of it.

I'm now gonna check that link

EDIT: Hilarious

Pagan was originally a term used by the Romans to refer to anybody who did not worship the same Gods as they do. It is used as a blanket term for anybody not of the same religion. It does not refer to any specific set of beliefs - to the Romans Christians were pagans.

Pagan was originally a term used by the Romans to refer to anybody who did not worship the same Gods as they do. It is used as a blanket term for anybody not of the same religion. It does not refer to any specific set of beliefs - to the Romans Christians were pagans.

Source for this?

Source for this?

I was doing it from memory, I was slightly off on the meaning in that it essentially was an insult like calling someone a peasant

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-pag1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan

You might find this article interesting about Mithraism, particularly the bits about similarities to Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

Wicca is roughly fifty years old. It and Christianity were never "one religion". Wicca does not stem from the ancient religious traditions of Europe, but is a product of twentieth century occultism with a manufactured history. Paganism is not a religion, it is a term used to describe non-Christians from the 4th century onwards.

Christianity has about 1900 years on Wicca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca) so I don't see how they could have been the same religion at one point.

i'm pretty sure it was the other way round, and i doubt they were the same religion once since the church condemned witches to be burned however many years ago, i think any similiarity will just be the usual amongst all religions

plus a quote from a wiccan "if you take a bible, eventually the wind and the rain will wear it away, however our bible is the wind and the rain" so i think they see themselves as an entirely different religion too

I imagine you'd frown on Wikipedia links, so here's the description of Pagan from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9374358).

Basically, Pagan = non-Christian and preferably polytheistic. There's a link there to "neo-paganism" and then to "Wicca" that'll probably tell you just about what you want to know, which is that Wicca is olde-worlde paganism re-hashed by hippies. Wikipedia probably goes into more depth.

i'm pretty sure it was the other way round, and i doubt they were the same religion once since the church condemned witches to be burned however many years ago, i think any similiarity will just be the usual amongst all religions

No, I'm pretty sure Wicca was invented in the 50's.

plus a quote from a wiccan "if you take a bible, eventually the wind and the rain will wear it away, however our bible is the wind and the rain" so i think they see themselves as an entirely different religion too

Relevant?

No, I'm pretty sure Wicca was invented in the 50's.

yea witchcraft changed it's name to wicca about 70 years ago because everyone associated the term "witch" with "burn her!" because of the stereotype the church put on wiccans

historians don't except them as the same because there just isn't enough evidence to prove it, but they do accept that it is very similiar to witchcraft

Relevant?

yes

Relevant?

Right now, yes. Things are starting to become clearer, like a breath of fresh air that's slowly creeping up on me.

I'd say the pagan religions wicca survived from/was inspired by could have co-existed with early Christianity, but I doubt they were the same religion. They do seem incredibly different.

Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Wicca And Christianity were once one religion that somehow got split into two completely seperate religions?

*Preferably library ones

well, we know that the founders of it were members of the church of england at one point. does that work for you?

i think the whole point of wicca was to bring back a hated religion

since witches were said to worship satan even tho they didnt believe in him,
perform magic even tho to wiccans science is magic,
be evil even tho they believe that if you hurt someone you will yourself recieve 3 times the pain you caused

so now they're called wiccans so people dont associate the term with the witch stereotypes

Free Soviets: Not really. do you have a source?

O.K. Here's what I've come up with. If people can't see the picture, I'll post the top two paragraphs on here. The top two paragraphs are what I've come up with.

http://www.geocities.com/pjcroad/nature

ooo you Christians are just gonna love me, a confirmed C of E Christian, suggesting this aint ya? :D

No comments on what I've came up with?

...new thread time!

Do you ever get the feeling you're being ignored (http://forums3.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12101933&postcount=15)?

Do you ever get the feeling you're being ignored (http://forums3.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12101933&postcount=15)?

I wasn't ignoring you. What I came up with was based partly on what a number of people said, including you.

Wicca is a branch of Paganism,as is Druidry, Shamanism, Neo-Paganism, Asatru, and New Age. There's heaps more...but because they're all interlinked it'd be hard to follow.

Wicca it's self, is a branch of Neo-Paganism and has taken it's roots from ancient Pagan practices.

All I can do is give you a few links..

http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_chr.htm

but as your question relates to Wicca and Christianity, then no they're not from the same religion. Wicca as a religion, was founded by Gerald Gardner in the 1950's.

here's a comparison chart.. comparing Wicca and Christianity.

Chart (http://www.religionfacts.com/wicca/comparison.htm)

hope it helps :)

Christianity originated around 60 to 100 CE, depending on where you draw the line between it as a religion and it as a mystery cult in Judaism.
Wicca is about 50 years old.

AHHHHHH! i hate 'Common era' so much! whats the point? who is going to be affended by Anno Domini (AD)

All in all the thing that seperates 'before common era' and 'common era' is still the birth of Christ.

AHHHHHH! i hate 'Common era' so much! whats the point? who is going to be affended by Anno Domini (AD)

All in all the thing that seperates 'before common era' and 'common era' is still the birth of Christ.

Yeshua ben Yosef was born in 6 BC, under that calendar, thus making the whole thing illogical. BCE and CE at least make sense.

I prefer the calendar that dates from Julius Caesar's assassination myself, but no one uses it.

yea witchcraft changed it's name to wicca about 70 years ago because everyone associated the term "witch" with "burn her!" because of the stereotype the church put on wiccans

historians don't except them as the same because there just isn't enough evidence to prove it, but they do accept that it is very similiar to witchcraft

Witchcraft isn't Wicca.

Wicca is a silly religion founded in the 50s.

Witchcraft is 'low-magic'/folk magic as practised by superstitious people worldwide.

Wicca draws influence from Old European and Celtic religion, as well as from other pagan religions, as well as Crowley style Occult studies and many other varied sources, it is however a modern invention. All the fluffbunnies in the world whining otherwise won't change this.

Wicca draws influence from Old European and Celtic religion, as well as from other pagan religions, as well as Crowley style Occult studies and many other varied sources, it is however a modern invention. All the fluffbunnies in the world whining otherwise won't change this.

Very true. So a better question for the OP would be:

"Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Christianity and certain other European and Celtic religions were once one religion that somehow got split into completely seperate ones?"

To which I personally would answer "no". I can however give sources that demonstrate that most of the Bible consists of concepts and stories that are found in other religions of its starting era as well. If that means that the Bible is 'merely' a "best of" anthology, picking the best elements from stories of rivalling religions and combining them all to gain popularity, is up to you. One could after all also assume the Bible was written to correct all the "twisted tales" from other religions and tell us what really happened.

But that is a matter of faith.

[QUOTE=Epic Fusion;12101943]yea witchcraft changed it's name to wicca about 70 years ago because everyone associated the term "witch" with "burn her!" because of the stereotype the church put on wiccans

historians don't except them as the same because there just isn't enough evidence to prove it, but they do accept that it is very similiar to witchcraft
/QUOTE]

Naa thats absolute rubbish. Wicca was invented back in the 50's. There may be elements of old wicthcraft in their, there may not be. But Withcraft was not renamed to Wicca 70 years ago, the term was only coined in the 50s.

try the pagan origns of christianity website

http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/getting_started_pocm.html

its very interesting. it goes on and on so dont stop on the start page. it has some great stuff in it.

dont miss the early christian writings if you are feeling a bit more scholarly

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

ill try to locate a couple more links that i seem to have misplaced.

***EDIT***

ahh here it is.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

scroll down a bit until you get to the blue banner section called THE JESUS PUZZLE

or if you are too lazy to do that

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/jhcjp.htm

Yeshua ben Yosef was born in 6 BC, under that calendar, thus making the whole thing illogical. BCE and CE at least make sense.

I prefer the calendar that dates from Julius Caesar's assassination myself, but no one uses it.

Except Caesar's calendar would be out by more than a week by now, maybe two. The Gregorian Calendar, despite its Church origins, is remarkably accurate.

Except Caesar's calendar would be out by more than a week by now, maybe two. The Gregorian Calendar, despite its Church origins, is remarkably accurate.

I'm not talking about the Julian calendar. I'm talking about an alternative one that was proposed in the last couple of decades, in which Julius Caesar's assassination was marked as year 1.

AHHHHHH! i hate 'Common era' so much! whats the point? who is going to be affended by Anno Domini (AD)

All in all the thing that seperates 'before common era' and 'common era' is still the birth of Christ.

Not everyone venerates Christ, so cope with it.

Even renaming it to BCE and CE is kind of suspect in my opinion and in the end rather fruitless. Since why choose that particular date to begin the common era, why not when Rome or Greece was founded or any date that makes anthropological sense.
Even if the year 0 was not the exact date of birth of Jesus Christ, the nearest big event worth of mention near 0 CE is the birth of Jesus Christ. Rome wouldn't fall until another 400 years, Judea already fell, Rome was since longer not a true Republic anymore (with Sulla being the first to become dictator of Rome prior to Caeser). The only event standing of mention is the birth of the awaited Messiah, who was seen by some Jews as the true and by others as not and became the figurehead of Christianity.
In all honesty we might as well name it BCE (before christian era) and CE (Christian era) since the correlating dates are too coincidential to serve any other purpose then put Christs birth in the forelight.

I.e for the jews it is the year 3,000 something, or the chinese also have a different date. It is only 2006 AD for the Western or westernized nations.

I think the confusion comes from early christianity taking over a lot of old pagan festival dates as holy ones early in their history. But no even giving Wicca greater validity then it deserves, by calling it the descendant of old paganistic religions I doubt it.

Even renaming it to BCE and CE is kind of suspect in my opinion and in the end rather fruitless. Since why choose that particular date to begin the common era, why not when Rome or Greece was founded or any date that makes anthropological sense.
Even if the year 0 was not the exact date of birth of Jesus Christ, the nearest big event worth of mention near 0 CE is the birth of Jesus Christ. Rome wouldn't fall until another 400 years, Judea already fell, Rome was since longer not a true Republic anymore (with Sulla being the first to become dictator of Rome prior to Caeser). The only event standing of mention is the birth of the awaited Messiah, who was seen by some Jews as the true and by others as not and became the figurehead of Christianity.
In all honesty we might as well name it BCE (before christian era) and CE (Christian era) since the correlating dates are too coincidential to serve any other purpose then put Christs birth in the forelight.

I.e for the jews it is the year 3,000 something, or the chinese also have a different date. It is only 2006 AD for the Western or westernized nations.

Two points.

First, there is no year 0. Second, there were other events closer to the 1 BCE/1 CE point of importance than the birth of Yeshua ben Yosef, such as the death of King Herod.

And actually a third point. Christianity didn't begin until years after Yeshua ben Yosef's death in 27 CE. The earliest gospels were written around 60 CE, and Christianity was still a sect of Judaism at the time.

Wicca is absolutely nothing like the old Celtic reliigions, nor is it remotely like shamanist or animist traditions. It is a new age take which mixes a kind of strange fusion of hippy mysticism, cobbled together old world religious ceremonies, the Temple of the Golden Dawn, and strangely altered new age takes on shamanism. It is syncretic modern paganism which draws from every single tradition that can be remotely called pagan in origin.

I'm not talking about the Julian calendar. I'm talking about an alternative one that was proposed in the last couple of decades, in which Julius Caesar's assassination was marked as year 1.

Never heard of that one. I suppose any date you choose would serve as well as any other. We could use the old Roman system and call this year 2759 (and today the Fifteenth Before January Kalends, 2nd day of the Saturnalia, to be specific).

Two points.

First, there is no year 0. Second, there were other events closer to the 1 BCE/1 CE point of importance than the birth of Yeshua ben Yosef, such as the death of King Herod.

And actually a third point. Christianity didn't begin until years after Yeshua ben Yosef's death in 27 CE. The earliest gospels were written around 60 CE, and Christianity was still a sect of Judaism at the time.


So you are saying the death of Herod had more impact on the world then the birth of Jesus Christ?
Also my mistake on the year 0. However the pivotal event that starts the Common era is the birth of Jesus Christ. His birth still affects Billions of people today, a little short of 2000 years after his death.
Now I am all in favor of a new calendar. However this BCE/CE reeks of euphism. If we want a proper one, do it in a proper context. Redate every event, and put the year one with the start of Mesopotamia, Babylonia or Rome. Not almost squat on within 5 years of the birth of the Messiah of roughly 2 billion of the worlds people.
Just changing the titling of a calendar based on the birth of Jesus Christ is not going to change that its purpose was basing it on his birth. So we removed the words "before christ" and "anno domini (the year of our lord)", however this does not remove the main piece of it, that the beginning of the new era so to say is based on his birth according to the Gregorian Calendar. We can name it anything we want to minimize its religious overtones. However you would need to replace the Gregorian Calendar completely or the new era will still always denote the birth of Jesus Christ.

Never heard of that one. I suppose any date you choose would serve as well as any other. We could use the old Roman system and call this year 2759 (and today the Fifteenth Before January Kalends, 2nd day of the Saturnalia, to be specific).

That is what I would propose to be the best solution if you want a calendar with no christian centric dating.
Although to change all history books, convince all people they aged 753 years overnight will be a nice task, or change all computers, logs and documents.

I guess we are doomed to accept the birth of Christ as the even that triggered the new era, the Common era.

That is what I would propose to be the best solution if you want a calendar with no christian centric dating.
Although to change all history books, convince all people they aged 753 years overnight will be a nice task, or change all computers, logs and documents.

I guess we are doomed to accept the birth of Christ as the even that triggered the new era, the Common era.

Yeah, changing all that does present certain ... logistical problems, doesn't it? :p But your birth year would change, too, so you wouldn't exactly age 753 years, you know.

Nope, and dont drag yourself through the mud trying to convince people of something stupid like "wicca and christianity used to be one religion that split."

Does anyone know of any information out there (written on the internet or in books*) that they can point me to that suggests that Wicca And Christianity were once one religion that somehow got split into two completely seperate religions?

*Preferably library ones

No connection.

Naa thats absolute rubbish. Wicca was invented back in the 50's. There may be elements of old wicthcraft in their, there may not be. But Withcraft was not renamed to Wicca 70 years ago, the term was only coined in the 50s.

No it wasn't. The earliest recorded public exposure of Wicca was around he turn of the last century. It is at least a hundred years old, and it is reasonable to suppose that it may have preceded Gardener (the guy who brought it to public prominence) by a generation or so.

It is pretty far fetched to think that is existed as a continuous underground religion living alongside Christianity. Especially since the form that Gardener espoused put men in a subservient role to women. Men have never gone in for that sort of thing in large numbers. Even pagan ones.

Wicca is an attempt to make up a pagan religion, but when compared to the writings of real pagans, the Christian world-view becomes apparent. It's baisicly an attempt by a monotheist to turn himself into a polytheist.

It's a bit like how Erasmus tried to create the "original Greek" New Testament by taking a Latin one and translating it into Greek. It is based so much on Christian philosophy that there are groups of Wiccans whose "God" figure is Christ and "Godess" is the Virgin Mary. With Christ appropriatly (by Wiccan standards) subservient to his mother.

With the success of the DaVinci Code there will doubtless soon be several more egalitarian "traditions" of Christian Wicca in which the Godess is played by Mary Magdalene.

No it wasn't. The earliest recorded public exposure of Wicca was around he turn of the last century.
I'm pretty damn sure Wicca is more than five years old.

So you are saying the death of Herod had more impact on the world then the birth of Jesus Christ?

Quite a bit, yes. Now, Yeshua ben Yosef's actions had a larger impact, but his birth had jack shit.

I'm pretty damn sure Wicca is more than five years old.

That's why I said the "turn of the last century." 5 years ago would have been "the turn of the century."