There are no "true" pagans.

Yesterday  was a stressful day in my life, I  was dealing with people that were counter productive for the pagan community. On a facebook group there was a young man that gave a terrible rant. I  am so  happy that I  saved it.

Justin J. Lynch ‎"Most" of the people that you are speaking of don't want anything to do with the Goddess. They are what I politely refer to as "Wanna Blessed Be's"! They use their new found faith as a way to attract attention and nothing more. These people I DESPISE! They make it 10 times harder for true Pagan's. We have enough issues with the "Normals". We don't more "Bad press". As for the few that truly are Pagan and are just trying to "Shock the sheep"... Every faith/religion in the world has morons who think that THEIR religion is the best and must force that knowledge upon everyone they meet. Just be happy in the knowledge that YOU'RE not one of them and move on. Blessed Be ~Love and Light~

Here are the things that  strike me wrong. He is classifying  pagans as true and false pagans. How is this tolerant of  other people's religious views. His comments are as bad as those fundamental Christians that  go around telling who is a true christian and who isn't.  That is one of the aspects of Christianity that  drove me away from Christianity. Every group of people are going to  have people  like this, but nobody said anything about this but me. I  asked this young man to  define his views on what  makes a true pagan, but he refused.

In the post he declares that he "DESPISE" these pagans that  doesn't agree with his way of thinking, and he ended his post with "Love and Light".  Despising people is hateful, it is negative and then ending your post with love and light makes it all  better? I  don't think so, If you are going to  walk  a path of "Love and Light" you can't go  around saying that  you despise certain people. That is being a hypocrite.  And here is where even more hypocrisy comes into  the picture. Others from this group started to  complain about my comments, saying that I  was being negative, but not one word from anybody about Justin despising people and declaring some pagans as false pagans.

If you are going to  complain about negativity  in a group, you should comment about all  people that  post negative comments. Nobody in that  group  was willing to  stand up and admit they  were negative.  I admitted that  I  was negative and the reason why  as well. I  was fighting fire with fire, someone declared that  there are guidelines on being a pagan and I  called him out.

I  had some things to  do and a couple of hours later I  went back  to  this group and saw that they  deleted the two  threads that I  had commented on earlier. I  was told that  "the posts were too negative".  Mostly people didn't like be called out on their biased actions.  They  can't handle negativity or conflict. I  was told by one lady that  she didn't like drama, but went around telling people not to  respond to my  posts. If you didn't want drama , don't get involved in a situation. Her actions were hypocritical of her statements.

Why  does this matter to me?  In the religious debate group  that I  am a part of we have talked to many christians and muslims that said they weren't like those fundamentalists.  Most of us believed that if you are a part of a group  and do  nothing about radicals, you are enabling them. When you see something wrong, you are to  speak against it, well it goes for religion as well.  I  find it disturbing that christian fundamentalists attack and harass non-believers constantly. But not one television preacher has the guts to  tell  his group that  they are not following the teachings of Jesus. How how can you harass others about religion and complain when they comments about your beliefs. You  can't be a pagan and say you believe in tolerance but yet classify pagans  as true and false pagans.

One of the main disciplines that  I  have read in various pagan beliefs is holding yourself responsible as you hold others responsible.  One of my  personal rules is " The moment that  you look the other way  for a friend is the moment the battle of right and wrong is lost.  I  can be negative at times, so I  can't complain about others being negative.  But I  have to speak my mind when I  see hypocrisy in action.

Hypocrisy is my favorite word because it is what  I  battle against on my  journey.