Moon-Crane wrote:[Lifestyle: Death - Listen to any religion and they promote the potential paradise of a far, far better 'existence' than any life you could possibly live on Earth (as long as you do what their religion says).
That's not true of Wicca, though. (But perhaps you were referring to the Abrahamic faiths?) Most Wiccans believe in an afterlife, but I think this Wikipedia quote is rather accurate:
"Despite some belief therein, Wicca does not place an emphasis on the afterlife, focusing instead on the current one; as the historian Ronald Hutton remarked, "the instinctual position of most [Wiccans], therefore, seems to be that if one makes the most of the present life, in all respects, then the next life is more or less certainly going to benefit from the process, and so one may as well concentrate on the present".
So I would say that a lot of Wiccans probably believe that living a "good" life will have benefits in the next one, but they don't make a big issue of it, and neither does the faith itself. I think a lot of the other modern pagan religions that have sprung up are similar. It's also worth noting that Wicca, and other pagan faiths, are practically free from any dogma, so there's no "You have to do what our religion says." That's one of the reasons why Wiccans, in general, don't proselytise. They think every path, whether it be a religion or non-religion, is equally valid to all the others. They don't see Wicca as being (generally) any better or worse than any other faith or philosophy or belief system. So they get on with theirs and let other people get about their own business.
The reason I think it's important to bring that up is because I think a lot of people tend to unfortunately tar Wiccca (and other modern pagan religions) with the same brush as the older, Abrahamic faiths. I think they just assume that they're all the same as the older faiths, but in fact, they are a lot more liberal and far less dogmatic. In fact, I would say there is practicaly no dogma at all in Wicca. It's very individualistic, people practice it their own way.
MC - if I end up being right and you and I find ourselves in an afterlife, please,
please can I seek you out and be all smug and rub it in?