Quote:

wannabuyamonkey said:
Quote:

magicjay38 said:

The opium quote is by Hagel, not Marx.



No, it was Marx

"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes".

Translated as:

"Religion ... is the opium of the people."

From the entire quote:

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx

At least when I quote scripture I know who I'm quoting.

Seriously I can quote a reaonable passage of scripture and it would have every bit as much wieght as a "reasonable" quote from Marx or Hagel or whoever you think your quoting. True "God says so therefore it's true" holds no wieght for someone who hasn't accepted scrpture as the word of God without err, but if you were more familiar with scripture you would know that it often contains dialecticle arguments. The logic of scripture is still logic, but I will gladly provide a logical argument without refering to scripture when you can provide one without siting the works or other known secular philosophers, because I'm tired of hearing "Hegel (or Nietzsche or Marx or Kant or Camu) says so".



It's Hagel. At least that's who Marx attributed it to in his doctoral dissertation.Since you don't want to answer a secular question with secular reasoning, we can do it your way.

The Goddess has nothing to say about human institutions, including religion. She wants you to be in touch with her directly. A High Priestess or Priest may offer guidance and accumulated knowledge of the ways of the All but it's really up to the individual to intuit their own path. The Pagan Way has very little heirarchy and sole practioners are common. But beliefs and traditions vary widely. Trying to get a group of Wiccans to act in an institutional way is a bit like herding cats I'm afraid. Thus, there is little institutional structure to interact with society. We seek to advance our lives on our own chosen paths while paying respect to the Reede, the Law of 3 and our Karma.

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." John Stuart Mill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. Oscar Wilde He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.