By Patti Wigington
I was raised Christian, and have been trying to study Wicca and Paganism. For Christians, there is the Bible and the Ten Commandments to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Wicca doesn’t have anything like that, so how do Pagans and Wiccans know what is moral and what is not?
Answer:
Well, first of all, you’ve got to understand that morality is a fairly subjective thing. What is moral to one person may not be necessarily moral to another, regardless of faith or religious upbringing. That having been said, let’s look at it this way. Is the only reason a Christian doesn’t kill is because the Ten Commandments prohibit it? If there were no such thing as the Ten Commandments, would you — as a Christian — think it was okay to kill?
Try reading on the Wiccan Rede and the Law of Three. Those are really the only things Wiccans need to be mindful of. “An ye harm none, do what ye will.”
Is it really as easy as that? What about situations where harm is unavoidable? One hears talk of “perfect love and perfect trust,” for example–but what about a situation in which perfect love requires that a trust be broken? I’m sure that you can think of situations in which that could occur.
Not to mention the fact that not all Pagans are Wiccans. Asatruar and other Reconstructionists, for example, don’t rely upon the Rede or the Law of Three.
Having thrown that out for discussion–welcome to our site. You will find many useful resources here, I’m sure. One of the things that we like to see our newer members do is post an introduction in the Introductions forum. This lets us know a bit about whom we’re interacting with–and, by reading the existing intros, you can learn a bit about us. This makes our interactions more helpful.
I realize that writing about oneself can be difficult. There is a template at the top of the Introductions forum that you might want to use as a starting point. No need to complete every item–share what you feel comfortable with sharing.
Again, welcome to the site. Take what you need, contribute what you can. Looking forward to more posts from you.