Wiccan Soldier Dies

mountainyman

http://indymedia.ie/article/77070&comment_limit=0&condense_comments=false#comment157284

Cactus Col

Kathurlicks? bound to be a great site for even handed and unbiased news reporting. In a fox news sort of way.

Maybe there might be concern in the Department of US Veteran Affairs that the Pentagram is too general a Pagan symbol, and not representative enough of Wiccan?

Nevyn

Actually it is THE symbol for Wicca.

Cactus Col

Okay ..... all I was saying is that the pentagram is very much associated with the Occult, and Pagan religions in general, (while also it has been used in Christianity too). I assume that the Wiccan Pentagram is a specific design, these are things which would delay the us department of veteran affairs from putting a pentagram on somebody's memorial.

If you died in combat would you like a pentagram on your memorial with the point going down instead of up?

Talliesin

Cactus Col wrote:

Okay ..... all I was saying is that the pentagram is very much associated with the Occult, and Pagan religions in general, (while also it has been used in Christianity too).

It is used in other forms of magic, so the association with the occult holds, but working magic isn't a religion.
I can't think of any other Pagan religion that uses it as a symbol of the path.

Cactus Col

Oh, now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every Paganist religion uses pentagrams, just that people associate pentagrams with Paganist religions. As well as satanism and heavy metal.

Talliesin

So what?

Cactus Col

So buttons!

I was just saying that there could have been a good reason that the us department of veteran affairs haven't put the symbol on the memorial, such as researching a symbol that has strong associations.

Nevyn

What rubbish, putting it on the head stone of a Wiccan puts it plainly in it's correct context.
Really they should not because of other peple ignorance and by not doing so foster and surport such ignorance.

The christian cross is a horriffic symbol and was a device for torture and a horrible horrible way to die and it is not possible to calucatle the number of men women and children that were crucified the roads of the roman empire were lined with them.

That is what it repasents to me, it does not to christains but I am not going to tell them not to wear or use the symbol of such a device it that is thier choosing.

With in the pagan communites on Wicca uses that symbol and yes there is a place for it and a mean for it to be point down again which has nothing to do with the occult and satanism and black magic.

Cactus Col

But that's kinda my point (which I'm probably not making very well). A lot of people (myself included obviously) don't know too much about Wiccan. So a bit of research into a symbol with other associations, would make sense.

If one person wears a cross, you recognise it as a Christian symbol (or just a bit of bling, which is probably a bit more common these days) .. but if you wear a pentagram, a great many people wouldn't recognise it as a Wiccan symbol, it's as likely to be thought of a satanist symbol.

I'm not saying that this is the reason for the delay, the article mentions that the lack of a central heirachy for the religion has caused a problems, but that requests for 2 pentagrams would be honoured during the year.

Nevyn

Then they are misinformed there are a lot more wiccans currently then there ever were satanists.

So just because some one is wrong and misinformed then we should leave them to think that ?

type wicca and pentagram into any search engine or the wiki and you would then know about it.

Talliesin

Not that many people. In my experience you'll get fewer people will associating it with Satanism than you will get people who can't count thinking you're Jewish.

That said, there is a general ethos these days of aiming everything at the stupidest people in the population and of expecting the rest of us to dumb ourselves down to suit them rather than allowing anyone to act otherwise, so I can see how that would fit that general ethos. Can't say I approve of it though.

Cactus Col

Thaedydal wrote:

type wicca and pentagram into any search engine or the wiki and you would then know about it.

But would you use that in an official capacity? Or would you rather do a little bit more research? I'm making assumptions that the military there wanted to get things correctly, especially because the pentagrams are to go on memorials for soldiers who have died in combat. Pentagrams have associations with different religions, the occult, heavy metal, would you want to be responsible for putting the wrong type of symbol on somebody's memorial, or would you rather check it out and put the correct one down.

Nothing to do with pandering to people who don't know, just making sure the job is done correctly. Also, in any govt service there is layers of red tape to work through, in the military I would assume doubly so. This could easily account for a delay in putting pentagram on a memorial

Nevyn

If you read the article you will see it is the man's widow who is also wiccan that is behind the request.
She is asking that the symbol of her husbands faith be respected the same as others he has served and died with.

Cactus Col

I know, and it looks like the memorial is going to get a pentagram in october.

monkeyfudge

I'm amused that they even have a simple for the graves of atheists... that seems a bit silly.

Especailly when you consider that one of the reasons they are giving for not having a pentagram is the lack of a Wiccan authority to negotiate with... who decided on the atom symbol for antheists?