Adj has a very good point, but naturally most Christians would be too blind to see.

thank you ma'am

Wench wrote:
"I don't know what vast source of knowledge your theory is based on, but you can keep it."



Wench, you crack me up. But I so agree!

Magic is anything that is supernatural. If God exists then God is the ultimate magic man. Pure and simple.

Oo, just reread this and my comment about the vast knowledge was directed at the OP.

So magic or however one wishes to spell it must be defined.

Magic - as in slight of hand, misdirection - entertainment

Magic - as in elixirs, potions, physical dininations, alchemy

Magic - as in utilizing a universal source to attain knowledge, casting spells, automatic writing, prophecy, 'paranormal'

sorry, but there seems to be a couple threads going with words of 'magic' running through them. But not really sure if everyone is in the same mode of thought.

Josh-

I was going to say basically the same thing Wench said (really I was, I'm so not copying you!!!),

"Did Satan not come from God also?"

...especially with one of your opening points about how all the syrups are from the same "tree"...

Is not this particular tree "god"? Doesn't everything come from God? So how can some magic be good and some be bad based on it's source when it's source is all god?

BTW-

DJ had some, to me good examples of bibilcal "magic" and the pentacostal church etc. examples were interesting examples of current christian magic...

Maybe someone already mentioned this one as well but I always thought transubstantiation was a kind of "magic" too... wine into blood and bread into body... drinking blood and eating flesh?

Not to offend anyone but this *sounds* like what the vodou and santaria practitioners here do...

To those that don't "believe" in "magic"- do you call these things something else or have you just never seen such things happen? Perhaps you think of them as psychic powers? Or tapping into frequently unused portions of the brain?

I have seen way too much to not realize that some people can tap into some sort of energy or power and use it to do work in this world... whether the "source" is internal or external- god, satan (again from god) or from somewhere else I don't know but I have seen people who could do things that would fit within the scope of these descriptions of "magic"

BTW- nice topic for Halloween.

anoasis who exactly is DJ? I didn't see a DJ come up with those examples... I did.

There has to be a balance no matter what. Without Yeng there can be no yang. Christianity came along afer Magik was created, Look at the Native Americans for example, magik had been around since the Paleolithic area of mankind. No matter what Magik will endure.

Lady- Sorry I forgot to mention your name with the pentacostal stuff.

ADJ4U (I'm lazy so he's always just DJ to me)- he's being a baby today (no not metaphoricaly- literally, his pic today is the cowboy baby- so cute). He had some other examples- e.g. look back at page 2 of this thread- for raising the dead, water to wine, etc. from him.

God did create Satan but that does not mean that we should worship the cration should we?
Its the fact that God is the source of good and Satan is EVIL so if you take a source from EVIL then you are in fact practicing Evil.
Just because you are taking it from evil doesn't mean that it is coming from God.
God and Satan are two sepporate power sources, things done through God are miracles not magic.
Christians do not actually drink blood, it is grape juice it is a representation of christs blood not the real thing, just like the flesh it is waffers, the whole point is that it is a covenenent between you and God showing a public display of your devotion, which is why it is called communion, because you commune with God in that way.
The anointing oil is sepperate then the other religions although they may look simaler in many ways but they are not.
it is whom you are calling your power from that is the point of this whole thing, if you call upon satan with magic it is evil, if you call on God it is Miracles.
as far as speaking in tongues it is not an unknown language, I have spoken in tongues and have spoken to people from other countries in their native language without knowing how to speak it in the least.
another purpose is for you and God to talk, it is a most sincere way of talking to God.
in the end it all boils down to what I've been saying this whole time which is

It is who you call upon to get your power from that is the issue, Either God or satan.

Well Josh,

We finally agree on something. Yes you're right. It is who you call upon. The intent of the caller definitely comes into play on who is going to be called don't cha think.

The sooner humanity takes a long hard honest look at their intent, the quicker they will see exactly where all that motivation comes from. There are times I often wonder if God and Satan are not just labels for the good or evil intent of man himself. Cause Lord knows, man just can't handle taking blame for his own desire/motivation/actions/choices.

i believe in magic.Its all around many wonderful,unexplainable things.God made a man from dirt and a woman from a rib and the whole earth in 7 days.if that isnt magic what is..

I have an opinion on magick... It does exist and all christians should beleive in magick also... The bible does talk about it. Moses against the egyptians In reality that is a story about a war of magick between gods and their people. And no their isn't just one source where magick comes from.

I must admit that I didn't read all of the posts because on the first page alone I just couldn't fathom the idea of everyone telling each other what is right and what is wrong. I know that what I read was not in any way anyone trying to be mean, just stating your oppinion and trying to convince each other that theirs was right.

My thought is this, why would a God give us a whole brain to use and then limit our use of it. You realize that we only use a miniscule portion of our brain. this is because the rest is locked away from us. Either by social protocol telling us that the use of any powers that the other part of our brain is capable of is wrong or a sin. Well if it was given to us we should be able to use it. Free will was given to us but we are not allowed to use it? Give me a break. Our Gods would not give us something and tell us, "But don't use it or else".

The only time free will is acceptable by christian standards is when our free will encourages us to do everything the christian god says.

As for magic. Let me just say that yes, we "cast spells". Now what exactly is a spell? Better yet, what is a prayer? Hmm, they are one in the same. We just call them by different names.

Just like a christian will pray to God for a loved ones medical condition. Us Pagans will "pray" to our deities for the same. Just because we do it differently means, in a Christians eyes, that we are evil. Then that means we should be saying the same about Christians. You do it different than us so you must be bad. What kind of sense does that make?

As I see it, christians have it easy. They have the bible to tel them how to do everything. And I mean everything. If it isn't justifiable by the bible then you can't do it. However, pagans have to work allot harder because our abilities that we know are there have been locked away in that none working part of our brain, because society made it a sin to use it. We don't have a book telling us how to turn it back on. We have to find it for ourselves.

Just like a computer, if someone doesn't show you haw to use one the first time you have to figure it out on your own. It isn't all that simple. What would make it so much harder is to have half the world telling you not to touch that power button or you are sinning. Half the world downing you for trying tolearn something, or for believing in something is a very frustrating thing to deal with. So I guess you could say that we pagans are genuinely devoted to our religion, because I know allot of Christians that couldn't handle the pressure we are under trying to get us to change our ways. To change our faith.

You know, we don't just read a book and know paganism. We live it and we learn everyday. There is a saying, "if it feels good do it." Well churches and the christian God don't feel right to us. Nature feels right and good. That is what we are devoted to.

Christians use their free will to worship thier Christian God. Pagans use their free will to worship their Gods and Goddesses. If you really want to get technical, the higher up is one in the same, we just believe they are different. Or called different names.

No one will truly know until they are gone from this earth anyways. So there really is no point in debating until one of us figures out how to find out before we die.

Each to their own. It isn't going to change our minds anyway.

"Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." as quoted by Bullwinkle.

Now that was magic.

Jess you crack me up!!

I do not believe that YOU are evil Angel, I believe the practice of it is, hate the sin and not the sinner as I always say.
Like with the gay community, I do not believe in that lifestyle but I still treat the person with respect because they are still a human afterall and don't we all deserve respect?
There is a huge difference between you praing to your "gods/ godesses" and christians praying to the one and ONLY God.
It really doesn't matter who you pray to because outside of Jesus you are praying to noone, Satan figures that as long as you keep your eyes off of God then he doesn't care if you pray to satan or not.
Remember that Satan has alot of names too.
Why would you pray to a creation of God's and not the Creator?
people pray to nature all the time but don't think about who created the nature.
and as far as "unlocking" pieces of your mind goes, like I said, you are calling upon a dark power to get your powers weather you realise it or not.
When God put the tree of knowlege of good and evil on earth he told Adam "you can have anything in the garden, except don't touch that tree over there because you will die"
when he eat of the tree He {the innocent part of Adam} died.
it made Adam fully aware of sin which is why he felt ashamed of being naked when he wasn't before.
Now God gave Adam a whole Garden full of food to eat and all he asked was to not touch one tree but that was too much to ask.
could God have not had the tree there so Adam wouldn't be tempted, of course He could have but he didn't because he gave Adam free will to choose so it was up to Adam weather he was going to obey God or not.
The point is that Just because something is there doesn't mean that it is good or right for you to take part of it.
God put things in front of you and it is up to you of your own free will weather to Obey God or not.
God gives you a world of things to use but tells you not to take part in some things because He knows it will hurt you in the long run.
If you use Magic then it takes away from you "Needing God" you will think that you don't need God and so you slip away from God's goodness and grace.
We all need God and it is when we stop trying to rely on Him that we get in trouble.

That is just it. The God of the Christians gives his followers things and tells them not to dare use it. I give you free will but you can only use it, without being a sinner, if you do as I want you to with it. What is the point? I see none. I don't see christians going after budhists like they go after pagans with telling them they are wrong because they don't call their God by the same name. So we see that our god has many names and many forms. So what? It is all the same. We do not do evil with it unless we are only in it for the "magic" Which by the way, the only reason that pagan magic is spelled with a k is to differentiate it from illusionary magic. You know like David Copperfield magic.

When you pray to your God you are relying on the magic of prayer, the magic of your God. Whether you want to believe it or not, that is exactly what it is. You believe that if you live exactly the way your God tells you, he will be good and gracious. He will take care of you. Correct? So where is your free will? The same free will that HE gave to you. The free will that you are not supposed to use for yourself. That isn't free will, sorry to say.

Why are there commandments in the bible? Because the people that wrote it had to find a way to control the people that read it and worship the God in it. Thou shalt not kill (unless your God tells you to in order to prove your loyalty to him). Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife (unless your neighboring brother dies, then it is your duty). Thou shall not have any other Gods before me (that statement in itself admits there are other "GODS" not only the one in the bible, but ones before him as well, so he isn't the one and ONLY God. He just wants you to worship ONLY him)

And just for the record. If Satan was created by the Christian God, then how were people worshipping any satan "BEFORE" he even existed according to the bible?

It is proven that there was religion long before Christianity. It wasn't wrong before Christianity was created but somehow it became wrong really quickly.

No I am not a sinner. Working evil? How when we are devoted to HARM NONE? I have a pure religion that is based on all the creations on this earth. If you believe that your God Created this Earth as it states in the Bible, then how can you possibly have a problem with that? I have read the bible, I used to be able to recite all those so important verses from the bible. (I probably still could if I tried hard enough, it just isn't something that seems prudent to me so..) Something just didn't seem natural about a God that loves his children but wants to control EVERYTHING THEY DO.

Don't get me wrong, I commend you on your faith. It is what you believe and that is great. There are too many people out there that don't believe in any path or religion.

I just really find it hypocritical to be so devoted to your religion, to your God and his ways that he lays down so vehemently for you in the bible, and then to go against him. Remember in the 10 Commandments, Thou shall not judge lest thy be judged. When you presume to know that a religion is good or bad you are judging, thus putting yourself in the seat of judgement. But then we aren't supposed to defend our religion. Because you will always have a comeback about how it is the work of Satan. I don't believe in Satan. I believe that the evil on this earth is man made and the only ones that can stop it is the human race.

I have the right to my own beliefs, just like the budhists, the jewish, the indians, the christians etc....

You don't see Christianity the way I see it. As I don't see paganism the way you do. However, we all have the right to believe what we choose. But in doing so, should you not still obey your God? To "FORGIVE" us for what you believe are sins is so gracious of you. But what would it take for you to "ACCEPT" that there are different beliefs regardless of how you feel about them?

"it is whom you are calling your power from that is the point of this whole thing, if you call upon satan with magic it is evil, if you call on God it is Miracles."



It is all the same. It is power and power is magic. Like it or not. Call it what you will. It is still the same. Calling it different doesn't make it different. This is magic, that is a miracle. If I do magic and something miraculous happens, it doesn't change the fact that it was magic that made it happen.