A letter I sent to a girl....
Hey everyone,
This is a letter I sent to one of Mandy's friends who turned her back on Mandy just because of what I believe in. I just wanted you all to see this so you know how I feel on the subject.
You probably don't know me so let me introduce myself. My name is Joe Marciniak. I'm Amanda Graves' boyfriend. It recently came to my attention that you found out that I'm Wiccan/Pagan. It has also come to my attention that you uncouthly admonished my girlfriend for going out with me because I'm not Christian.
I would kindly ask that you get to know me before judging me or Amanda, for that matter, or at least learn something about my religion before forming an opinion on it. We're no different from any other person. We have morals, and we're not in league with the devil/Satan as other ignorant people would like to portray us.
The way I see things is that every religion worships the same basic concept of the creator or god whether they believe in one god, a god and a goddess, or many gods. The only difference is how we acknowledge/worship them.
One of the reasons I'm not Christian is because of the growing hostility between Christians and other religions. This especially vexes me when one of the teachings of Christianity is tolerance for those of other religions. However, I realize that the hostility against those of other faiths does not reflect the teachings of Christianity but rather the ignorance Christian's have for other religions. It's easy to portray those of other religions as evil or unworthy especially when all we hear from the media is how some terrorist group killed some number of people in the name of Islam. However, ignorance is no excuse.
I am not sending this to you because I'm angry or because I have some vendetta against Christianity. I am sending this to you because I want you to understand how I feel. I love Amanda very much. I would give my life to see that she is happy and safe. It pains me greatly to see her hurt mentally, physically, or spiritually.
Believe me when I say it that Amanda and I have discussed our spirituality to a great extent. We both agree that to deny the other of what they believe in would be a worse crime than each of us believing in something different. In fact I would not convert to Christianity because I respect the religion and people’s choices to worship that religion. It would be disrespectful for me to pay lip-service to something I can not and will not believe in.
I would hope that you can understand my perspective on this topic. Please don’t judge Amanda negatively for who I am as a person. If you have any questions feel free to contact me through facebook or AIM (my AIM is thtrproc88).
Thank you for your time,
Joe Marciniak