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We can always count on our Wiccan neighbors to make complete and utter fools of themselves at any given opportunity.

LOL…it’s a FOX story. No wonder it sounds nuts. They can’t report on the weather without distorting it.

The thing I don’t get about witch craft is that the first time they cast a spell and it doesn’t work, don’t they figure out that there’s no such thing as magic? So why are they still at it afterwards? Or are the aims of these spells not measurable so they can’t figure out if it worked or not?
I’d trade in my cauldron or use it to make soup in a heart beat if nothing happened after the hocus pocus.

You know, the thing I can’t figure out about Christians is that the first time they pray for something and it doesn’t work, don’t they figure out that there is no such thing as God? So why are they still at it afterward? Or is the whole “ask anything in my name, and it shall be given unto you” thing not clear?
I’d trade in my Bible and cross or use it to ward off vampires if nothing happened after the hocus pocus.
If ignorance is bliss, you must be positively orgasmic.

JPL I’m not a Christian and don’t expect prayer to work either.
As far as witchcraft goes JREF has a million dollar prize for the first person who can prove that it works.

The physicist Niels Bohr was once asked by a visitor to this house why he had a horsehoe hanging over a doorway. The visitor said, “You don’t believe that works, do you?” And Bohr replied: “Of course not–but they say it works even if you don’t believe in it.”
The Marine Corps recruiters say they got a lot of free publicity as a result of Code Pink’s imaginative act of protest (you don’t think they’re actually witches, do you???? How droll!) but it seems to me Code Pink made their point and got some free pub too. Fox will bite at anything.

There can NEVER be positive proof of prayer or witchcraft, by the standards set. Should I have an individual with terminal cancer, and I pray for them or cast a spell, and the next day they go into remission, there simply isn’t any evidence that it was my actions that caused the remission. Simply occurring prior to the effect doesn’t mean it caused the effect, obviously. Demanding scientific proof of spiritual truths is just as silly as demanding that physicist tell me what the purpose of the Big Bang was. Different magisterium.
Just as obviously, people throughout the ages have found themselves comforted, strengthened, healed, made wiser, and generally have found effective both prayer and magic. Mostly these effects are internal, of course. That doesn’t make them less real. Love, hatred, envy, wrath…all internal, and yet clearly “real” elements of our world. As for the external effects of these, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to satisfy many people. But neither prayer nor magic can be guaranteed to have an effect. In both cases, one is petitioning/interacting with forces that just might say “no”. Additionally, one’s performance, even when sincere, might be flawed in some manner which we little understand, since we little understand the efficacy of either.
A little tolerance for other people’s religious beliefs just seemed suitable. Wiccans find their spell casting no less feasible than Christians devouring the blood and flesh of their God, Jews being a Chosen People, or Mohammad taking dictation from an angel.

JPL, I think you’re confusing tolerance with the right to not be offended. I not demanding they stop believing it. I’m expressing surprise they believe it and saying I couldn’t given the lack of evidence.
“Wiccans find their spell casting no less feasible than Christians devouring the blood and flesh of their God, Jews being a Chosen People, or Mohammad taking dictation from an angel.”
I find all religious claims equally unlikely, but I don’t demand people stop believing these things. But I still wonder how they can and I’ll say that.
yelladawgNC, the Niels Bohr quote is interesting but according to wikiquote it is disputed. I’ll grant you it is possible to have a rational world view and be superstitious at the same time. Humans are pretty fragile and the future can seem pretty out of control at times.

“You know, the thing I can’t figure out about Christians is that the first time they pray for something and it doesn’t work, don’t they figure out that there is no such thing as God? So why are they still at it afterward? Or is the whole “ask anything in my name, and it shall be given unto you” thing not clear?”
I’ve seen answer to my prayer, so why would I give up praying?

“The Marine Corps recruiters say they got a lot of free publicity as a result of Code Pink’s imaginative act of protest (you don’t think they’re actually witches, do you???? How droll!) but it seems to me Code Pink made their point and got some free pub too. Fox will bite at anything.”
Yes, but the point is that they are having the opposite effect of what they want to happen. They don’t want more people to join the Marines because they are trying to close the office. Advertising the location of the recruiting office helped get more people to it.

And perhaps, in the past, those who really are Wiccans have seen results for their own rituals. Sure, its not one hundred percent, then again…
You were writing about lowering gas prices through prayer around a week ago.
How’s that working for them?

Christians devouring the blood and flesh of their God
Nice.
If you had to fast an hour beforehand, you’d be hungry too …
Council of Ephesus (451 CE):
And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the Life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the Life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his Flesh, he made it also to be Life-giving, as also he said to us: Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood. For we must not think that it is flesh of a man like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?) but as having become truly the very own of him who for us both became and was called Son of Man.

Ephesus … 431 CE … sorry.