by Horatius Piscinus on Wed Apr 30, 2003 12:34 pm
Salve Ovidi
An aspect of religion, any religion, is that it offers community to an individual. Something that is difficult to find in some places for practitioners of the Religio Romana. It sounds as though the individuals you have been running into need some education, and therefore you will need to do more study on your own faith perhaps, but if you simply explain what you feel, how you connect to your gods then they should understand.
How you deal with the bigotry of others usually depends upon yourself. Usually I find confrontations humorous. I was raised in my tradition, and have fifty years of experience dealing with people of other faiths, so how I handle such matters would likely be different than you might. How I respond depends on how I am approached. I have never hid the fact that I follow a pagan tradition, and when people first come upon me they usually become flustered. My first Sunday in the US Army they called us into formation, the First Sargent said all the Catholics go to the right, all the Protestants to the left, which left two of us still remaining in formation. The First Sargent then barked down at the fellow beside me, "What's your problem?" "I'm Jewish," he replied. "Then choose, Catholic or Protestant, but you're going to chapel today." Then he turn to me, barking some complaint on my lack of hearing." "No, I'm not Jewish, and I am not Christian, I am a polytheist." He got too flustered to know what to do, so he said "Well, then go do whatever it is you people do." Back then, the army not recognizing any pagan traditions, decided to list me as a Buddhist. And so it went, "don't bother him, he's a Buddhist." Growing up it was usually the same. If the neighbors didn't understand what we were doing they would explain it away by attributing it to our being "different". We were Italians living in a Polish neighborhood, Catholics in a Protestant, "Oh, no? Then they must be Jewish" or Muslim, or anything else because it usually upset others that we were pagan, and upset them more that we preferred to remain pagan, and the last thing anyone ever wanted to do was confront us over the issue. And wiccans, I have never had any good experiences with wiccans, or perhaps it is they who have never had a good experience with me.
Vale optime
Moravius Piscinus
M Horatius Piscinus
Sapere aude!