"These people place animals on the same value level as human beings and sometimes above that of the human race."

can't say i disagree with that ^_-

I'm a witch and a near-vegetarian. My experience of the Pagan community is that omnis far outnumber veg*ns, but there are probably more veg*ns among us than among the general population, and most Pagans seem to be generally aware, informed, and considerate of veg*ns. Pagan potlucks will almost always have several nice vegetarian main dishes to choose from, and Pagan omnis are more like to enjoy a vegetarian meal that is served to them without complaint, for example. I also find that most Pagans have given some thought to how their diet meshes with their spiritual beliefs. If they are not veg*n, they can explain why in terms of their religious values.

My diet reflects my religious values - not so much as an expression of the Wiccan rede, but rather a concern that meat consumption (particularly in the American style) is irresponsible, wasteful, and disrespectful of the web of life.

Blessed Be, Tom

I've noticed this thread for a long time and decided not to comment, but now I feel like I have to.

I am also Wiccan and I have had very mixed experiences about vegetarianism in the pagan community. Regarding the pagans I know in real life, all of them have been accepting of vegetarianism and happy to include it. For example, I was in high school with a couple of other Wiccans, and when our class would order pizza or something, they always backed me up on getting a cheeseless veggie or whatever even though they ate meat themselves. My best friend of a few years is also Wiccan and vegetarian.

However, I have had a totally different experience with the pagan community online. I have had a number of people get hostile, even downright vicious, with me. One pagan referred to vegetarianism as a "sick societal disease," claiming it almost killed her brother. Other pagans who aren't as extreme have dismissed it by saying it goes against the natural order of the food chain.

And when I disagree with them, they respond defensively and angrily, just as other omnis tend to do.

My point is this: The number of people who follow earth-based religions is vast. In any large group of people, you will find a spectrum that varies from completely ignorant to completely educated, and the same ingrained societal values. Even if a pagan has a totally different worldview, s/he still may think s/he needs Vitamin Meat.

Do a web search. You will find tons of essays about how vegetarianism is not necessary to following the Wiccan Rede. I guess this has two purposes: first, to help Wiccans who are feeling guilty about eating meat feel better about themselves; second, so that seekers who are reading up on Wicca don't say, "Well gosh, I can't be Wiccan, I just HAVE to eat steak." I may have been looking in the wrong places, but I have found a surprising lack of writings on how compatible Wicca and vegetarianism really are.

From http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/vegans.html ....

"God created animals so we would have something to fill our stomachs with after a hard day’s work."

Ummm, can't we fill our stomachs with rice, veggies, and fruit, too? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Miss Meg
I actually started a thread on a Wiccan message board stating my surprise that there weren't more vegan wiccans, that thread got interesting real fast :rolleyes:

ha! i did that too, a couple of years ago...ha ha...and it sounds like it had the same results as your thread!

are you sure the doctor you were talking to hadn't confused the words "vegan" (pronounced 'vay-gan"?) and "pagan"?

i had a neighbour say to me, after i told him i was "vay-gan", that he knew another vegan, too...who is a druid. :rolleyes: :D after that i started saying "vee-gun", instead. :D

here's an interesting website on Wicca....written by someone who alledges to have been deeply involved in Wicca for years.

http://www.whywiccanssuck.com/

Originally posted by annabanana
From http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/vegans.html ....

"God created animals so we would have something to fill our stomachs with after a hard day’s work."

Ummm, can't we fill our stomachs with rice, veggies, and fruit, too? :rolleyes:

I think that site is supposed to be satire - I've been there before; it's got some hilarious articles. :)

www.whywiccanssuck.com has always bothered me. Is it because I'm a fluffy bunny Wiccan? Maybe some people think that.

But I don't see why it's necessary to write an entire site making fun of people who you think are stupid or inferior. If they get on your nerves, then just ignore them. I don't understand what a holier-than-thou attitude accomplishes. Like I said before, any large group is going to include people that you don't agree with, and people that may not know as much as you about some things. Let them work out their issues on their own.

I don't feel that site is particularly relevant to Wicca, regardless of the author's past involvement. It's just like making a site berating vegetarians who go around gasping and shouting, "how can you eat that cute little animal" in their leather shoes, or vegans who eat soy cheese with casein in it because the other kind is expensive, and implying that these people and other veg*ns are immature and idealistic. We all know that isn't the case.

Of course the author of the site can think and write whatever she or he wants, but I feel that pointing people to that site as useful, informative reading is a way of spreading the "i will look smart by making others look stupid" thinking.

Well, as someone who is a former wiccan the two seem to go hand in hand. Many interpret the Rede as to mean no harm to any and all beings. I met lots of other Wiccans who were vegans because of this. Although there are plenty of meat munching wiccans, buddists, hindus and christians.

It sounds as if this person happend to meet someone who was Wiccan and they happened to be Vegan so he created a mental picture of what a vegan was in his little pea brain.


Myself, I am a Byzantine Catholic. I talked to my priest about my dietary choices. He said that he was proud of the fact that I was keeping the "simple fast" year round. The simple fast in the Byzantine Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) churches is not consuming flesh or any animal with a back bone (I'm a lacto vegetarian) The strict fast is when one eliminates, all meat, fish, dairy and in some cases oil. The Eastern Church believes in moderation in all things and I'm doing my part to uphold this teaching.


OMG that bible life website is too funny! This is my favorite paragraph. Also, check out the the use of rainbows, I found that to be almost as funny as the content! I love the comparison between hinduism and animal rights activism. Also note there is no footnotes or bibliography that upholds all of these "truths". This person evidently passed his high school English courses with a "D".

Excerpt from http://www.biblelife.org/animal_rights.htm
Animal rights people, such as those in the Hindu religion and others, claim that red-meat and saturated fat is unhealthy because they want others to stop eating animals, especially the large mammals, such as cows. They revere cows believing their grandmother has been reincarnated and has become the cow. Therefore, they don't want others to kill her. Vegetarians are not concerned that their high-carbohydrate diet recommendation is making people obese and is giving them heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Instead, they are very pleased when people die at a younger age from these diseases because their prime objective is to give planet earth back to the animals. Their diet causes disease in humans because we are omnivores (we eat both meat and plants) and strongly carnivorous (meat only diet). The scientific fact is that a diet very high is meat and animal fats produces optimal health in humans.

sorry you didn't like me linking up to that site, wild blackberry. i linked to it because many people here were posting about wanting to look further into wicca and i thought it contained some interesting and well-written stuff about the history and reality of wicca, as opposed to the "fluff bunny" stuff that seems to be so prevelant.

certainly the person who authored that site is angry about how his former religion has been misappropriated by pseudo-wiccans, but i didn't think the whole thing was created to mock them. i saw it instead as an opportunity for someone to point out how the original ideas behind wicca have been twisted and how many people who claim to practice wicca don't really have a clue. i found it quite funny, to tell you the truth. it's witty, it's humourous, and it's informative. i think it's a great site.

my problem with it is just its arrogance. although there are certainly people who are attracted to wicca for shallow reasons, they are quickly in and out of it and i don't feel they're anything to worry about. as far as the original ideas behind wicca being twisted, i think that the religion has grown and changed over the years as any is bound to do, and because of the nature of the religion, it is going to vary with among its followers. i consider church of christ members as christian as catholics, even though catholics came first. it just frustrates to see people judging others in such a callous way regardless of the situation.

sigh. i suppose it's just a difference of opinion, then, wild blackberry. what's great about the 'net is, if you don't like something you see, you can just surf away.

Originally posted by wild blackberry
my problem with it is just its arrogance. <snip> it just frustrates to see people judging others in such a callous way regardless of the situation.

I agree with you. It's arrogant, mean-spirited, and filled with stereotyping. If the only way someone has to express their opinion or share their information is by relentlessly insulting a whole group of people, they don't impress me, regardless of whether I agree with their opinions or not. We need more religious tolerance in this world, not less, and this site is a step in the wrong direction.

As for the historical tidbits he weaves into his rants, these are all old news - and his treatment of them is not at all thoughtful. There are legitimate reasons for modern Pagans to identify with their pre-Christian antecedents, even in the absence of an unbroken tradition of practice, for example. But there is no serious reflection on these questions at this site. He just sets up a mean stereotype, asserts repeatedly that it describes everyone who might disagree with him, and then piles the scorn and contempt on.

It's juvenile flame-baiting, seems to me.

Originally posted by wild blackberry
i consider church of christ members as christian as catholics, even though catholics came first. it just frustrates to see people judging others in such a callous way regardless of the situation.

Orthodoxy came first then the schism which divided the church into the Church of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodoxy) and the Church of Rome (Roman Catholic) :)

I think those are great points, Seusomon. :)

And regardless of the history of Catholicism, I'm sure you agree that Catholicism came before Church of Christ, hmm? :)

I have read respected sources that say pagan traditions have never fully been wiped out... they were incorporated into Christian rituals thus never fully died out.

Here's an excerpt from something I wrote not long ago...

"In Ireland Christianity and Paganism lived side by side until the arrival of St Patrick in 448, who established Christianity as the official religion. Yet the Normans invaded Ireland sometime in the 1100s because they were “Christian only in name, Pagans in fact” (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 130). In Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Brittany the old gods were worshipped under the guise of saints, and in Brittany old women kept shrines to teach shamanistic practices to young women until the seventeenth century (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 104-105). In the nineteenth century places were spoken of as shrines of goddesses and gods, and in the twentieth century Pagan observances continued in Celtic countries (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 106-108)."

So there is a very good argument for the continuation of old pagan to modern pagan... but just as all religions evolve so has paganism. What's so wrong with that?

Oh, hang on, there's more.

"In about 785, the Frankish monarch Charlemagne instituted the death penalty for Pagans who refused baptism and conversion (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 127). Yet the Saxons remained stubbornly Pagan. There was intense conflict between Pagans and Christians between 700 and 800 (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 131). In the north, Iceland adopted Christianity as its official religion in 1000 due to a bribe (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 135), and Sweden practiced Paganism openly until 1120 when a Christian Norwegian king declared a crusade against Pagans south of Sweden. The Swedes were the last to adopt official Christianity (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 137)... The period of 950-1350 saw militant monotheism (Christianity and Islam) imposing influence on leaders. However Pagan practices and beliefs continued unnoticed in some areas, and were being incorporated into Christian practices. Islam remained militantly anti-Pagan (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 196). The Protestant Reformation of the early sixteenth century rejected many of the compromises the Church had made with Paganism (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 203), and Protestants attacked many of the old Pagan practices. However the Renaissance saw a revival of Pagan beliefs (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 200). Although the hunting of witches was widespread between 1480 and 1650, only the fringes of Europe saw the Witch-Hunts attacking Pagan magic (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 205). Only women were considered weak and stupid enough to sell their souls in return for no real benefit, which is the reason women were targeted over men (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 205). The Witch-Hunts do not seem to be an attempt to weed out Paganism, rather they focus on devil-worship. Paganism steadily revived during the Age of Reason, and Druidism became known nationally in Britain in 1792 (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 210). Some esoteric movements claim an unbroken continuity, but that is hard to prove or disprove due to the lack of documentation (Jones and Pennick, 1995: 211)."

Can't prove it, can't disprove it... LOL

Here's another site on Wicca, from a Wiccan, that offers thoughtful criticism and an honest assessment of Wicca (imo).

http://wicca.timerift.net/index.html

I'm also vegan and Wiccan, and while they go hand in hand for me, most religious or spiritual people do not make the connection. I've had a few other pagans label me extremist and on one occasion tell me that I was going against the natural law and cycle of life by not consuming animal products. I didn't even know where to start with that one . . .

Olive, that's easy, ask them if mass agriculture is really that natural. If feeding pigs, chickens and cows hormones and antibiotics is natural. If not slaughtering our own food but instead purchasing it in neat little vacuum packs completely removed from the animal and not offering the animal any respect is natural.

Mass agriculture is incredibly unnatural and most pagans are fooling themselves into believing it's okay because we're "meant" to eat meat. The lack of respect shown to animals in our society is NOT okay. Start there. :D