How I came to paganism...
Here's a cross-post from a site I was on...
My first spiritual views occurred either in preschool or at the same age in Sunday School. (It occurred in the same room in the same building, so it is hard to say.) I was at the sandbox, after having been doing some drawing earlier. It didn't occur to me to doubt the existence of God or the Devil, but a different thought occurred to me. The two of them were like sides of the same coin. Forever locked in balance. As neither side could ever win, both are fighting battles that can never be one. I wanted nothing to do with either one.
At a later point, this evolved to a point that I had a clear aim for the afterlife: As I wanted nothing to do with either heaven or hell, my goal was to be a ghost and wander the earth forever. I later had a dream in which I was in hell, riding an amusement park ride over and over again. There were long periods of time waiting in line, waiting for the ride. In the dream, I knew it was possible to get out of hell, if only you knew how. When I awoke my periodic thoughts of suicide stopped cold, as when I died I wanted to make sure I avoided either option, and I thought I needed more knowledge before I made the journey.
While I was busy being agnostic, my mother was trying to raise us as good Christians. Around the point where my parents became separated, I was invited to go to a Christian youth conference of some sort. My mother's brother-in-law (Mr. C.) was taking some kids from his school, and my father's brother (Mr. B.) would be doing the music there. I decided to go. Skipping the details, before I was home, I had been "saved" with the assistance of my uncle (Mr. C). I was 14.
It turned out to be an important turning point in my spiritual development. Important enough that years after I became pagan I thanked that uncle.
You see, I was a *very* bad Christian. First, I didn't believe in evil. I thought anything that could be called evil could more accurately be called confused. Second, I thought as a Christian it was my /duty/ to question the faith, so that I would better understand it.
I thought that if the Bible says you should pray for your enemies and Satan was the enemy of all Christians all Christians should be praying for the salvation of Satan -- something virtually no Christian does, and something which actually offends some of them. I thought that if everyone is raised from the dead and is immortal and there's a final battle between Good and Evil... The *only* type of battle it can be would be that of words and ideas. Both sides are immortal, so any other sort of battle would be pointless.
By that time, however, I had had a different sort of dream. In the dream I actually felt that I was very literally and seriously in control of every action in the dream. What I later was called a lucid dream. That experience was extra-lucid, to the point I came to the realization that I was in control of my actions in every dream. (And indeed, this has been proved with time.) My understanding was that everyone is always in control of their actions in their dreams, it is just that some people don't realize it.
Oh, I was also a pantheistic Christian. This was backed up by the Bible. If God is in all powerful and in all places at all times, then perhaps God was actually *in* all things and places... Only the fact that I went to churches that were "non-denominational" or otherwise open to variations of the Christian meme allowed these thoughts to exist without external parties complaining.
Then things started breaking down, as far as Christianity was concerned.
It turns out that in the Bible there is a story which, among other things, includes the Holy Spirit talking to people who were neither Christian nor Jew. To me, this fit reasonably well with the pantheist approach. This also fit reasonably with the complaints of Jesus about those that follow the letter of the law without understanding that which is behind it.
With a pantheist view of God, and without believing in evil, there was one problem answered. If Hell, by definition (in the Bible), is outside of God's presence, then it simply can never exist except as an individual's refusal to acknowledge the ever-present existence of the Divine.
This led to my feeling that an understanding of God could occur without the Bible, and without Jesus.
This clearly points to people of all faiths who do the right thing as all being equivalent. They're all acting with respect to what they view as right and correct. As there is no Hell, everyone is going to Heaven unless they explicitly deny that which is good and right in their lives.
I then had a dream in which some Norse deities were looking for a magic rag that had belonged to a handmaiden of one of the Goddesses, but which had become lost. They very clearly weren't evil. I expanded my idea to be, "God is in all things, including other deities."
That idea of divinity then remained, while the importance of Christianity degraded further to the point it was no longer important. My beliefs not changing, I realized I could no longer describe myself as a Christian. I had become, in my words, a Pantheistic Polytheist.
From that point things progressed relatively smoothly. However, I no longer self-identify with that label. As this was a description of how I came to paganism, I'll stop there. :)
My first spiritual views occurred either in preschool or at the same age in Sunday School. (It occurred in the same room in the same building, so it is hard to say.) I was at the sandbox, after having been doing some drawing earlier. It didn't occur to me to doubt the existence of God or the Devil, but a different thought occurred to me. The two of them were like sides of the same coin. Forever locked in balance. As neither side could ever win, both are fighting battles that can never be one. I wanted nothing to do with either one.
At a later point, this evolved to a point that I had a clear aim for the afterlife: As I wanted nothing to do with either heaven or hell, my goal was to be a ghost and wander the earth forever. I later had a dream in which I was in hell, riding an amusement park ride over and over again. There were long periods of time waiting in line, waiting for the ride. In the dream, I knew it was possible to get out of hell, if only you knew how. When I awoke my periodic thoughts of suicide stopped cold, as when I died I wanted to make sure I avoided either option, and I thought I needed more knowledge before I made the journey.
While I was busy being agnostic, my mother was trying to raise us as good Christians. Around the point where my parents became separated, I was invited to go to a Christian youth conference of some sort. My mother's brother-in-law (Mr. C.) was taking some kids from his school, and my father's brother (Mr. B.) would be doing the music there. I decided to go. Skipping the details, before I was home, I had been "saved" with the assistance of my uncle (Mr. C). I was 14.
It turned out to be an important turning point in my spiritual development. Important enough that years after I became pagan I thanked that uncle.
You see, I was a *very* bad Christian. First, I didn't believe in evil. I thought anything that could be called evil could more accurately be called confused. Second, I thought as a Christian it was my /duty/ to question the faith, so that I would better understand it.
I thought that if the Bible says you should pray for your enemies and Satan was the enemy of all Christians all Christians should be praying for the salvation of Satan -- something virtually no Christian does, and something which actually offends some of them. I thought that if everyone is raised from the dead and is immortal and there's a final battle between Good and Evil... The *only* type of battle it can be would be that of words and ideas. Both sides are immortal, so any other sort of battle would be pointless.
By that time, however, I had had a different sort of dream. In the dream I actually felt that I was very literally and seriously in control of every action in the dream. What I later was called a lucid dream. That experience was extra-lucid, to the point I came to the realization that I was in control of my actions in every dream. (And indeed, this has been proved with time.) My understanding was that everyone is always in control of their actions in their dreams, it is just that some people don't realize it.
Oh, I was also a pantheistic Christian. This was backed up by the Bible. If God is in all powerful and in all places at all times, then perhaps God was actually *in* all things and places... Only the fact that I went to churches that were "non-denominational" or otherwise open to variations of the Christian meme allowed these thoughts to exist without external parties complaining.
Then things started breaking down, as far as Christianity was concerned.
It turns out that in the Bible there is a story which, among other things, includes the Holy Spirit talking to people who were neither Christian nor Jew. To me, this fit reasonably well with the pantheist approach. This also fit reasonably with the complaints of Jesus about those that follow the letter of the law without understanding that which is behind it.
With a pantheist view of God, and without believing in evil, there was one problem answered. If Hell, by definition (in the Bible), is outside of God's presence, then it simply can never exist except as an individual's refusal to acknowledge the ever-present existence of the Divine.
This led to my feeling that an understanding of God could occur without the Bible, and without Jesus.
This clearly points to people of all faiths who do the right thing as all being equivalent. They're all acting with respect to what they view as right and correct. As there is no Hell, everyone is going to Heaven unless they explicitly deny that which is good and right in their lives.
I then had a dream in which some Norse deities were looking for a magic rag that had belonged to a handmaiden of one of the Goddesses, but which had become lost. They very clearly weren't evil. I expanded my idea to be, "God is in all things, including other deities."
That idea of divinity then remained, while the importance of Christianity degraded further to the point it was no longer important. My beliefs not changing, I realized I could no longer describe myself as a Christian. I had become, in my words, a Pantheistic Polytheist.
From that point things progressed relatively smoothly. However, I no longer self-identify with that label. As this was a description of how I came to paganism, I'll stop there. :)