HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: aesba1cph@dct.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Curiosity
Date: 6 Nov 92 12:53:00 GMT
Organization: Dundee Institute of Technology



	Greetings, my most excellent friends.
			Just recently, I wrote a small poem and entered it into
this newsgroup. (see Gen.View).  This is not the first one I've written, and
whenever I do I find myself putting a felling onto paper, without actually
thinking conciously about it.  It has been said that it is a gift, and i can
accept that as far as it goes.  The one thing that I'm curious about is why can
I only write work like that when I am writing on subjects that are personal
and/or emotional.
			There isn't one slightly feasable and logigal answer
for this that I can come up with!
			I would really like some views upon this aparant
phenomina! (Not that it will stop me writing or anything so drastic)

		Blessed Be!
		Taran.
From: ksm@abb-sc.abb-sc.com (Ashley)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Annoying, cloying "wann-be"s (was Pagan Bumper Stickers)
Date: 5 Nov 92 00:45:53 GMT
Organization: Kaos Laboratories


In article <MICHAEL.92Nov4130222@albert.bu.edu>, michael@albert.bu.edu (Michael Chaplin) writes...
>In article <1206@abb-sc.abb-sc.COM> ksm@abb-sc.abb-sc.com (Ashley)

>Just to comment: it occurs to me that, often-times it is people like
>this who make trouble for the images of all sorts of religions. How's
>that? I would think the root of much of this type of behavior extends
>from an insecurity within one's faith. This can happen to Wiccans and
>Christians alike, although the manifestations of this insecurity
>differ according to each individual's religion, culture and personal
>climate. The effects, though, are felt throughout all communities.

>Chaplin



	Well Michael, I think in this case we have something specially set in
the Pagan and Occult religions. It's the use of magic and spells that attract 
these types. You see, they where spotty faced outcasts in their youth who had 
no friends and no status and no power. Instead of growing up, and finding 
their own power and idnetity, they turned to fantasy and never gave up the 
crutch. This isn't to say that all fantasy is a crutch, but in their case it 
is, and an emotionally crippling crutch at that. So they run around 
threatening to turn folks into toads and pretending to be Gandalf the Wizard. 

	Now before folks start defending their own spotty-faced outcasted 
youth, let me reassure you that I am not slamming outcasts! Goddess forbid, 
I am one myself and I suspect almost everyone reading alt.pagan is one in one 
way or another. The folks who I am kavetching about never grew up and have 
no emotional maturity whatsoever. So they live in a fantasy life, blaming 
every little problem in their life on demons, evil sorcerers, wicked ghosts 
and whatever have you. They are useless to the community and take more than 
they give as well as giving us bad publicity. They are not interested in 
the religion at all really, just the magick.



					- Ashley
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: How the hell can religion and action not be related?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 07:46:30 GMT

banerjee@titan.trl.OZ.AU (Arindam Banerjee) writes:
: 
: Westerners have used Christianity as an essential tool to achieve world
: domination. Having done it, they are now discarding it - this seems to
: me the central theme of this newsgroup. This faintly smacks of a kind of
: opportunism we know quite well. 

No, I don't think Christianity is being discarded. There is probably a
larger percentage of the population that is non-Christian now than any
time in the history of the US, but that is all.

: To me the basis for this action of discarding Christianity, and the
: consequences therefrom, is interesting. What is also interesting is the
: almost total ignorance and lack of interest in the genuinely pagan
: traditions of Hinduism - on what grounds I can only conjecture.

I think the consequences are, rather, a too narrow-minded interpretation
of the Christian religion by too many people. It is the fundamentalists
that are the problem - not the run-of-the-mill Christian.

Bill
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Space: the final frontier
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 10 Nov 92 17:33:42 GMT

Someone wrote:
>> I DON'T GIVE A SHIT HOW A TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILISATION WORKS! I MAKE NO
>> CLAIM TO SUPERIORITY IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, ONLY BEING A LARRIKIN
>> CONVICT BLOODY OCKER, MATE, AND I SUGGEST YOU ARE HERE SUFFERING A
>> MONUMENTAL FUCKING INFERIORITY COMPLEX!
>> FUCKING MINDLESS DEADSHIT.
>>                 DID YOU HEAR PROPERLY THAT TIME?

Please, oh please -- try the decaf.

Blessings,
Janis 

Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe)
Subject: Re: Witch Question...
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:39:20 GMT


Witch is a very old word and means many things.  Wicca is a very new, artificial
word.  (Yes, there was a word wicca in Old English, but it was pronounced 
witch-ah, and was the old spelling of witch.  It had nothing to do with any
religion.  Sometime in the last century, someone ran across this word, mispro-
nounced it Wick-uh, and made it the name of the neo-pagan religion that was
being created.)  The way I've heard it, from several sources, is that all
Wiccan-folk are Witches, but not all Witches, and certainly not all witches,
are Wiccan.  The capitalisation is usually used when it refers to a religous
use of the word.  BTW, the word Wiccan is an adjective formed from the noun
Wicca--it is frequently used as a noun, but that is bad grammer.


              Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again,
                               Br'anArthur

Queer, Peculiar, and Wyrd! :-)

******************************************************************************
Newage is hypoallergenic spirituality--
it's for people who are allergic to the word religion.
                                   --Jon Jay Obermark
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: aaldrich@encore.com (Al Aldrich)
Subject: Re: Loo seats (was: Re: hate and anger)
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 13:17:51 GMT

lilleyc@cs.man.ac.uk (Chris Lilley) writes:

>In article <2AF71FFA.22618@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>>And I don't buy it that they're so intimately related.  When TMM leaves
>>the seat up, I am pissed.  Hate, though?  Never in a gezillion years.

>This has always puzzled me. 

ME too..and I might add, my wife.. This has never been an issue with us..
when I find it down, I put it up.. when she finds it up, she put's it
down..what is so hard about that?

It really amuses us, how so much importance is attached to such a silly
thing..when the REAL issue is doing the dishes..:-)

al

-- 
Al Aldrich	inet:aaldrich@encore.com
"..if you understood everything I said, you'd be me." miles davis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MY opinions are not to be construed as those of my employer.
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Subject: Re: How the hell can religion and action not be related?
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:30:43 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b

The gentle from India related a wonderful story, which I have deleted for 
bandwidth. Go back and read it.

At any rate, I *can* understand how the Xians have avoided explaining
xianity to Hindus. It seems to me that they have *immense* difficulty 
understanding (in many cases, and esp. in missionaries) that other peoples 
do not believe in the J-C-I cosmology, much less its theology, (as
a reference, someone recently posted an anecdote about their own family
about exactly this problem - it shook their worldview) and feel 
that they are actually worshipping physical objects as objects of power, 
not understanding metaphor and aphorism (as, indeed, many in this
country demonstrate daily on tv); esp. when they come head-to-
head with a *much* more sophisticated cosmology, developed by
an older civilization, that simply has the misfortune of being
lower on the current level of technology. Further, it threatens
their *own* world-view, and "going native" indicates to them 
the presumed superiority of the other society. Like George Bush,
many people, not only Xians, have difficulty with "shades of gray",
and agreeing on some points, and agreeing to disagree on others.

	mark
From: darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Oregon Vote Results
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:24:57 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Davis

In article <1992Nov4.102653.12483@lclark.edu>, klotz@lclark.edu (Gretchen Klotz) writes:
> 
> 
> With ~50% of the statewide votes in, it looks like Measure 9 is going
> down!  Approximately 45% voted Yes and 55% voted No on this discriminatory
> anti-gay measure.  I still won't believe it until *every*single*vote* is
> counted, but I am experiencing guarded elation! 

   [deletia]

> Blessings, gratitude and JOY!!! (cautiously still, until Friday when all
> the absentee ballots are counted)
> 
> - Gretchen

Many blessings, Gretchen. We all share your joy! 

I too had the unfamiliar sensation of seeing *all* the candidates I
voted for get elected - first time ever that this has happened!

Richard (Tuneweaver)

   :::The price of freedom is eternal vigilance:::
From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: How the hell can religion and action not be related?
Date: 5 Nov 92 21:33:46 GMT
	<1992Nov5.021836.17857@trl.oz.au>
Organization: still tryin' ta be raw and claiming the 60's and never even seen the 'shaw, now back to the story that i'm tellin'

In article <1992Nov5.021836.17857@trl.oz.au> 
banerjee@titan.trl.OZ.AU (Arindam Banerjee) writes:
>I suppose we are talking of European pagans here.

I tried to warn you about that Eurocentric thang. This is alt.pagan, it
ain't alt.european.pagan .

>Perhaps I was under a mistaken impression. I thought that paganism
>included Hinduism, and I wondered why as I earlier wrote no mention was
>made in this newsgroup about Hinduism. Since then, I consulted the
>Britannca and I now find that this is a definition for pre-Christian
>European belief systems. Sorry, wrong group .... so bye!

Don't ever, as Bush would say, never ever ever, let anyone tell you that
"Hinduism" is not pagan. "Hinduism" defines paganism. The history of India
and its struggle for unity of diversity is symbolic of what the rest of
the world is now discovering, mostly for the first time. We are not
homogenious, man can not live by God alone, nor can woman. We the people of
the earth are culturally diverse; now, can we just get along?

>Well score another point against the Christians who have described us as
>idol-worshipping pagans..... they actually caused this confusion for
>me. 

Actually, it is they who are the idol-worshipping pagans, only they are in
denial and that ain't a river in Egypt.

>But definitely I will keep reading this newsgroup, as I have got a lot
>of interest in the kind of postings I find here ... the ones by
>Eshin-Fun on the evolution of religion was most revealing to me.

Hey, keep reading and post a little too why dontcha? You've already got
some followup requests for information about Indian paganism, so what's
holding ya back?
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: aaldrich@encore.com (Al Aldrich)
Subject: Re: Millenium Mead
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 16:15:27 GMT

corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra) writes:

>Greetings one and all.

>I had a thought the other night, that this is the perfect time to lay
>in a batch of long mead for celebrating the coming millenium. I don't
>know if anyone out there is familiar with mead making, but a good long
>mead should age for five to seven years before being drunk. If you
>start now, it will be ready for opening New Year's Eve, 1999. Or, if
>you are celebrating the millenium as beginning on 2001, then New Year's
>Eve 2000.

Speaking of Brew.. I heard something on NPR the other day about some
5000 year old vessel found in the near east somewhere that was apparently
a vessel which contained remnants of 5000 year old beer. They went on
to speculate about a whole `beer making' culture and a beer god and
so on.. it was all kind of interesting. Any body know the details of
this report? My wife always said she could could tell I was a pagan
because of my love for oak trees and beer.. :-)

al

-- 
Al Aldrich	inet:aaldrich@encore.com
"..if you understood everything I said, you'd be me." miles davis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MY opinions are not to be construed as those of my employer.
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Tipper Gore? (Re: the US elections...)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 11 Nov 92 00:39:31 GMT
Distribution: usa

In article <2B005554.20979@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

[deleted]

>The problem that I have with it is the interpretation that it's bound to
>receive, and that's not so much a problem with the song as with the
>people who listen to it.  I mean, let's face it -- it IS where life
>begins.  Read "The Exaltation of Inanna" a little and you'll find
>sections that are indistinguishable from a Madonna song.
>
>When I hear/read stuff like this and think about how something like this
>-- quite nice and innocent -- has been so damned perverted into filth,
>it just makes me want to scream.

On rereading this, I think I may have given the wrong impression.  What I
MEANT was that when I think of how many people have been so influenced
negatively into thinking that something sexual that is not hostile is
"dirty" just because it is sexual, I want to scream.  I don't consider
this to be filth, but it does bother me that it is so often wrongly
tarred with that brush.  It bothers me that we have sunk to the level of
considering (and I KNOW many people here don't; this is a GENERIC "we")
anything about sex as filth. 

Blessings,
Janis
From: dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Date: 11 Nov 1992 19:33:20 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Stephen R. Figgins) writes:
> 
> I see the female as first, the one from which the male comes.  I see
> the female as containing the male.  And I see the male as being sort
> of a mutated female.

Are you a fan of Valeri Solanas (sp?) and her book _SCUM_, the Society
for Cutting Up Men?  She has some terrific hate quotes about males being
incomplete females and walking abortions because Y chromosomes look like
incomplete X chromosomes.  You might want to look up her book for a good
laugh, she has a very entertaining writing style.  I was a little shocked
to discover that she took herself seriously enough to try to assasinate
Andy Warhol in the 60's, but even though *she* was completely serious it
doesn't make the book less of a scream.  I'll try to look up some of the
best man-hating quotes if people promise not to blame me for them.

> Men are so messed up, in my opinion, partially because they have
> divided themselves from women, set themselves apart, and made up
> different rules for men and women.   They have enforced them with
> strength, and bullying, and peer pressure, and have created a world of
> power-over, of value heirarchies. 
> 
> To me, men are not messed up because of their sex, but because of
> their culture.  Men are scum, and I am a female supremicist.

You're in luck.  I'll send up a couple of friends of mine to convince
you that females are scum too.  No, don't thank me, I insist.  By the
time they're through with you, you will be a sheep supremicist.  Or
perhaps an amoeba supremicist, since your arguement about the male
including the female goes double for one celled forms of life.

(Seriously, I recognise that you're trying to make a point, but I think
you are using imprecise and dangerous language.  If it misdirects more
people than it enlightens, maybe you should say it a different way?
Maybe a radically different way?)

Dawn
"Hello death, goodbye Avenue A.  I'm getting tired of waiting, tired of
being afraid.  Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved.
So I sing hello death, goodbye Avenue A."  "Folk Song" by Bongwater.
From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: raising children
Date: 5 Nov 92 18:38:12 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b

In article <-1364964153snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>In article <1d7cvkINNdoh@manuel.anu.edu.au> Lubosh.Hanuska@anu.edu.au writes:
>
> > honour them. But peole who are brave as single parents would be even
> > better as real mums/dads in a traditional complete family (=M+F+kids).
>
>Sorry, but the biological nuclear family (=M+F+kids) is very far
>indeed from traditional, and by no means complete. It is only at the
>rabid and often violent insistence of patriarchal hierarchies that
>people form such a family unit to begin with. Being based essentially
>on the sexual relationship between the parents (as mated biological
>pairs) the unit is unstable in the extreme, and its breakdown is what
>is bringing about the single parent phenomenon.

ABSOLUTELY! The modern apparition of the nuclear family (hmm, good choice of
words, considering how easily it breaks, and results in a chain reaction....)
is absurd, ESPECIALLY the "boy virgin (or maybe not) meets girl virgin, date,
get married, & live happily ever after" is incredibly cloud-coocooland. 
something like it make have worked a hundred years ago, when the average
marriage lasted about seven and a half years, at which time the wife usually
DIED from childbirth or related problems, but expecting two individuals, who
have not lived together for any length of time, to remain a stable pairing
for 30-50 YEARS is on par with the tooth fairy (no, Corum, not your dentist...
(B-)} ).

And let us not forget the hypocritical "oh, we love children (DON'T you play
with THOSE kids, their parents are (shudder) divorced/they're illegitimate/
etc.)".

	mark

Ah, for the good old days of communes & collective houses (gee, *those*
aren't so long ago...), when people could pick house mates who cared about
each other better than some families.....
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: dwindsor@nyx.cs.du.edu (David Windsor)
Subject: Re: greetings
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 21:16:36 GMT


=8-) Yes bathing a cat can be an adventure in is self, they say you can't
teach an old dog new tricks, it goes double for cats.  You have to bath a
cat the right way, droping the feline into a tub and turning on the shower
will probably get you killed (or at least in need of lots of whole blood) 
If you have a kitten and get it used to being bathed you will have no
problems at all.  With an older cat you just have to be ALOT more careful
go VERY slowly, and you should have a hyo-alogetic cat in no time.
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: grimmea2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bouncey the Super Happy Fun Ball)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Reply-To: qsc@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Bouncey the SHFB)
Organization: Super Happy Fun Balls for World Pei^Hace.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 07:00:09 GMT

Personally, I find women to be a bit milder on the average, and that
would be a definite plus.  I also think they are generally a lot
prettier, and I would much rather have an attractive president ;-}

However, just because I think women would be slightly better than
men as rulers doesn't mean that I think that men should never rule.
After all, many women do have some silly ideas that some men don't
have.  (For example, many women think that all toilet seats should
be down, all the time, no matter what.  Flames, reply, don't clutter
the newsgroup.)  In cases where it is between a man without silly
ideas that would clutter the position and a woman with silly ideas
that would clutter the position, the man should get it.  Otherwise,
usually woman should.  (They're prettier.)

Bouncey the Super Happy Fun Ball
'Position 9, my goal in life.  What does the ace of swords mean?'
'Your goal in life is to create life.'
'Oh.  That fits.'
From: wolfe@wolves.uucp (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Date: 7 Nov 92 13:28:00 GMT
Organization: Red Wolfe @ The Wolves Den
X-Md4-Signature: 7e58dc799b6180c6d5a460f06ba81888

gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>radzy@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>
> > The talk about eastern and western cultures is a red herring.
>
>I don't think so.

What do you know!  Something Gil says that I can agree with! :-) :-)

I'm beinging to realize too quickly that my technical education has
sorely neglected ethnology.  Time for auditing some more courses at the
University!

Gil:
	how about some quick observations on the electronic cultures,
and how they might differ from the verbal/visual cultures?
-- 
Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den  (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
news@wolves.durham.nc.us  news%wolves@cs.duke.edu  ...duke!wolves!news
"The flame war is a specific Usenet art form." --me
[This site is not affiliated with Duke University. (Idiots!) ]
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Subject: Re: How the hell can religion and action not be related?
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 18:51:41 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b

In article <1992Nov7.080429.27323@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com> billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:
>pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
>: 
>: That's right. Christianity teaches that man has dominion over the earth and
>: non-Christians are doomed to Christian Hell and all other religions are
>: Christian Devil worship and a good Christian must seek to convert the world
>: to the "Absolute Truth" of Christianity. When Jesus became blond, Europeans
>: adopted Christianity as justification that they should rule the earth and
>: all should be converted to European culture. "Convert or die" is the motto.
>: Luke 14:26 is the justification. "Fair trade" meaning the right to rape.
>
>No, all Christianity does not teach that. The fundamentalist sects certainly
>do so - many others do not.
>
>Bill

How about the RC's, and their financing toward the anti-choice candidates
on the west coast? And then, of course, there's the Morons, er, Mormons
(well, their beliefs *were* revealed by the angel Moroni...(B-)} ). 
*sigh*

	mark