Why do witches/pagans still get portrayed in an outdated and evil stereotype manner?

[Hammerpsycho]

You can't be serious. I never took you for a troll. Small minded, I guess. Wicca is not a 'small' movement. Fuck, you people are extremely ignorant sometimes.

Yeah! There are literally dozens of them!

[Moralgy]

You can't be serious. I never took you for a troll. Small minded, I guess. Wicca is not a 'small' movement. Fuck, you people are extremely ignorant sometimes.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wicca

The current incarnation is a new age movement basically. It has been around for a few decades in its current form and tried to reach out for more acceptance, but no one cared realistically and it faded back into the shadows of other new age movements. It is very, very, very small in relative to any major religion and has failed to really get any large scale attention like Islam or Christianity has even when activists tried to break down the stereotype that witches=bad/satan/devil/lucifer(depending on who you talk to). It may be old, "witchcrafts" etc, but the current form is far what it was back when witches, I mean pagans were being burned at the stake. It is heavily practiced by women at this point, though some warlocks or what ever the dudes call their selves do exist.

As for small minded, rofl? I'm being realistic that it is really fucking small of a movement so its understandable that people might not know much about it. Wiccans are pretty peaceful overall though, realistically the world would be better if other religions kept to their self like Wiccans do. I feel you kind of flipped out over nothing here, but I am curious what else you think about me. Do share your feelings, I'm all ears.

[Pandragon]

Are you seriously getting upset over a video game? Also, you don't even know what a pagan actually is. Pagan is not a religion/belief, it's a term that christians used back in roman times to refer to anyone who didn't follow their religion.

[Deleted]

well there's alot of reasons why people would look at witches and pagans in a negative light.

First of all there's the stereotypical people you see calming to be witches/pagans, either being a crazy fat guy or a goth girl going through a phase.
then once you get a friend who gets really into it bringining in 3 other factors. the first of these being why are you trying to communicate with a spiritual entity which will give you infinite knowledge in exchange for a 95% chance of him bringing evil guest and driving you insane? then theirs the economic factor where you're like "did you really just drop $90 on dragons blood pillar candles and peppermint oil. then there's the factor 5 weeks in where they say i don't know if this works but it's fun despite claiming to have communed with bune in the second week and had multiple outer body experiences.

these might possibly be contributing factors. frankly if it was just a bunch of people cavorting in the woods i'd be fine with it. But paganism/witchcraft have been grouped in with a lot of hipster attention grabbing.

[Deleted]

Biggest problem for Wiccans is probably that they attempt to actually cast actual spells and do actual magic in the present world. And since they don't actually work, the enthusiasm wears off fairly quickly and most of the claims are easily disproven.

Religious people of more traditional kind (Christians, muslims, buddhists etc) on the other hand, can usually fall back on things that aren't as easily disproven. No one can actually prove that you don't get 50 virgins and free grapes if you die a martyr, for example, or that there won't come a fancy judgement day with flaming swords from the sky and riders of the apocalypse and so on. This gives these religions an advantage over stuff like Wicca, which is probably why they defeated paganism in the first place.

[Deleted]

I'd say less than 1% of the population is small, relatively speaking.

Well... 1% is 74 million... Wiccans is, at most, 1 million (and that's actually including non-Wiccan Pagans), so that's 0,013%

[iamthedevil]

This is looking to be very Witcher based. So go off that lore.

[Evangeliste]

Could turn on that all white straigh males are branded evil cause white male and straight.

Oh definitely, you could literally remove any hot word like Muslim and terrorist and slot in words that are negative and BINGO! You got bad shitty stereotypes.

[Venziir]

Biggest problem for Wiccans is probably that they attempt to actually cast actual spells and do actual magic in the present world. And since they don't actually work, the enthusiasm wears off fairly quickly and most of the claims are easily disproven.

Religious people of more traditional kind (Christians, muslims, buddhists etc) on the other hand, can usually fall back on things that aren't as easily disproven. No one can actually prove that you don't get 50 virgins and free grapes if you die a martyr, for example, or that there won't come a fancy judgement day with flaming swords from the sky and riders of the apocalypse and so on. This gives these religions an advantage over stuff like Wicca, which is probably why they defeated paganism in the first place.

Huge
Christian army, inquisitions, persecutions and other such delights played a much bigger role than spellcasting not actually working

[Moralgy]

Well... 1% is 74 million... Wiccans is, at most, 1 million (and that's actually including non-Wiccan Pagans), so that's 0,013%

High ball i saw 3mil world wide, lowball 100k when searching numbers to respond to that guy that flipped out. It all depends on who you get estimates from, but I would go half a mil to be safe. That is just purely Wiccans.

[Nerdpuncher]

Being a Pagan has no connection with Wicca. Pagan is specifically a Christian insult for a bunch of different religions/peoples.
It's really no different to using the word HERETIC *blam* it doesn't bother me in the slightest, cause its not worth being bothered by. Scary fictional witches are actually older than Wicca itself so that is a tough one.
Wicca is a lifestyle with some assorted bits and pieces borrowed from other faiths, Paganism is a broad term referring to basically anyone following an old world religion.
In a game where fully half the voice acting is Americans bunging on accents different countries in an effort to sound like a rasta or whatever the hel, this issue is just not worth the effort. If you can't help but associate the witches in Kul Tiras with Wiccans, that's on you. If you see the word Pagan and feel it is an attack on your faith, that's on you. Its grasping at straws to pretend this is a real issue, and if it truly bothers you I suggest giving up on WoW because you have clearly missed the whole cartoon animation silly over the top game aspect of it.

[KrakHed]

Yes. Anyone practicing Wicca is considered a witch. Even males. Warlocks, on the other hand, are usually what people would call the 'evil' witches, people who have more or less been kicked out of a coven.

Yes, but Wicca is a relatively recent thing, isn't it? "Witch" itself generally has a historical connotation with evil, or anyone people wanted to label as evil, and I'm not sure if anyone liked calling themselves a Witch. Whatever the case, cultures often seem to draw some line when it comes to approved and nonapproved magic and its practitioners. The line might be different from culture to culture.

Trolls have witch doctors and they are not more positive / negative than troll shamans or hexpriests. Tbh I'm not even sure what exactly are the differences between each of those titles / occupations in troll society.

Yes, they have Witch Doctors. Based on what people called Witch Doctors back in the day, which is a very different thing than the idea those cultures had that's been translated as "Witches". I'm pretty sure Witch Doctors actually help with finding and killing "Witches". Of course, these people come from different cultures with different languages, but this shows how the word "witch" has been historically understood.

The "Witch Doctor" or "Sorcerer" wasn't a Witch. It was the taboo magic sort that was a Witch. This seems to be how people apply the term even among Native Americans. It's those who break taboos, and who would often be killed if they were discovered, that were labeled "Witches".

[Nerdpuncher]

Wicca was created in the 1940s by a retired British government employee. It is an assortment of borrowed religious icons and concepts lifted wholesale from old world religions/cultures or just invented.
To some people, a Wiccan claiming to be a witch whether you like it or not (a very important aspect of some religions) and using symbols of the Astaru faith that they have stolen is pretty offensive.
This is a case of adopting a term that already had a definition/implications/stereotypes and then being shat off at that definition. Its a cop out.

[Ticj]

People still actually worship paganism?

[KrakHed]

People still actually worship paganism?

Considering how broad that label can be stretched, most definitely.

[Merryck]

People still actually worship paganism?

A lot of spiritual religions, including paganism, have been revived in recent years.

- - - Updated - - -

Why does a video game upset you so much

To some, it is not just a video game; To some, it is a way of life.

[Halicia]

How can you constructively participate in this conversation without it being a "religion thread" ?

[Dark-Zarupia]

Why do zombies eat brains?
Why do vampires drink blood?
Why do werewolfs transform at full moon?
Why are ghosts haunted?
The list can go on and on
none of it is real and is pure fiction and if fictionary stuff upsets you then WoW isn't you type of game

[Logwyn]

Pretty sure they've said it's supposed to be based on the Salem Witch Trials, but if there were actually witches. The women accused in game are in fact the player's ally, and you help them prove their innocence.

I'm betting five bucks that Blizzard is getting it wrong and having the "witches" burned at the stake....... Which never happened in Salem....

[Deleted]

I'm betting five bucks that Blizzard is getting it wrong and having the "witches" burned at the stake....... Which never happened in Salem....

By Thaurissan's beard, riding a hippogriff while being feared by a warlock, who's being polymorphed by a mage, who's being sapped by a rogue while being placed in an ice trap by a hunter who was just hexed by a shaman. Something in wow that never happened? You might be on to something. Better alert the President, just in case.