Is it possible to be Wiccan and not believe in a god and goddess?

For a long time, I was confused on the idea of there even being a high entity. I was focused on, instead, the idea of worshipping Mother Nature, but as I came to research Wicca, I found that the God and Goddess are nature. They're constantly with us in the breeze, the heat of the sun, the glow of the moon. Once I came to realize this, I realized that they were always with me, but my eyes were not open to see that. I was not aware.

I believe that the God and Goddess are the basis for the Wiccan religion. It is what draws people to it, because they don't have to be any god or goddess in specific. It is flexible, not constricting like the elements of other religions.

So, no, I don't believe that you could truelly be Wiccan without having some, if not a lot, belief in the God and Goddess.

I cannot tell you what all (or even most) Wiccans believe. Wicca is more a framework for beliefs than a religion that specifies particular dogma. Therefore, my answer here will be about what I believe.

The archetypical Great Goddess & God are more analogies for something more mysterious (hence, the mysteries). They are SYMBOLS that allow us to connect with and express a greater idea. That idea is that any creation or manifestation requires a projective force and a receptive force (think if Yin-yang). An IDEA or ENERGY must exist to bring about the manifestation, and it must be projected onto something in order to take form. The male God is the projective force, and the female Goddess is the receptive force.

This does not mean, however, that I do not also believe in literal Gods and Goddesses.

Wiccans are a decidedly eclectic bunch. They have found belief in many, many different things to be a wonderful part of their religion. The basic tenets of their beliefs may be the same, such as reverence for the natural order of things and the unseen world around us, but who they worship , invoke or draw down may be very different from one another.

Just a note here... isn't it odd that something so misunderstood by the vast majority of people (at least here in the US) is really such an inclusive, "big tent" group?

I even happen to have a friend who has successfully blended his Christian upbringing with his newfound beliefs in Wicca.

So, I don't think there are any requirements, such as belief in a god/goddess, within the realm of Wicca.

One can be a wiccan and not belive in the litteral exsistance of a god/dess. I think then the term you would be looking for is "pantheist".

I shouldn't think so, but don't rely on my private opinion, and don't quote me.

Yes it is possible, I'm an atheist Wiccan.

According to this website, atheist Wiccans are termed "Zororastrian Pagans", or in other words "Gods would only get in the way."

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=11726

It is possible, but then you would have no real powers, they would be just in your head!

teknimage said, "...the term pantheist refers to the belief in multiple of deities, hence "pantheon"."

You are confusing pantheist with polytheist.

The reason that people have such difficulty pinning-down what Wicca is, is that New Age Wicca (to be distinguished from Gardnerian,ie. original,Wicca) has developed a "whatever" tradition in which anyone can make up anything and call themselves a Wiccan. This has served the purpose of increasing their numbers but has understandably led to derision and will, in my opinion, eventually devolve the religion into meaninglessness. To add insult to injury, all too many New Age Wiccans feel free to expound on paganism in general, about which most know exactly nothing.

saint_halloween said, "One can be a wiccan and not belive in the litteral exsistance of a god/dess. I think then the term you would be looking for is "pantheist"."

That would make one a non-Wiccan. It also does not necessarily follow that not believing in a literal Goddess/horned god makes one a pantheist.

Calling oneself an "atheist Wiccan" (which saint did not do but someone else did) is also an absurdity.

When you don't believe in the basic tenets of a religion, you do not believe in that religion and should not be identifying yourself as a follower of that religion. Imagine someone who doesn't believe in a literal Judeo-Christian God calling themselves a Christian or, God-forbid (pun intended), an atheist Christian. Absurd.

Depending upon one's point of view, Wicca can be considered a monotheistic, duotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, or atheistic religion, Hang onto your hat; this gets a bit complicated:

Wicca is monotheistic (belief in a single deity): Some Wiccans recognize a single supreme being, sometimes called "The All" or "The One." The Goddess and God are viewed as the female and male aspects of this single deity.
Wicca is duotheistic (belief in two deities; a.k.a. rarely as bitheistic): Wiccans often worship a female Goddess and a male God., often called the Lady and Lord.
Wicca is polytheistic (belief in many deities): Many Wiccans recognize the existence of many ancient Gods and Goddesses, including but certainly not limited to: Aphrodite, Artemis, Briget, Diana, Dionysius, Fergus, Hecate, Isis, Pan, Thor, etc.
Wicca is henotheistic (belief in a single main deity among many): Many Wiccans view the many ancient deities as being aspects of the Lady and Lord, and view the latter as the male and female aspects of "The One."
Wicca is atheistic (no belief in a deity or deities): Some Wiccans view the God and Goddess as symbols, not as living entities. Depending upon which definition of the term "Atheist" that you adopt, these Wiccans may be considered Atheists.

Yes, and it is very possible to be an Atheistic Wiccan, Wiccan Atheist, whatever.

The key in the issue is Pantheism. There are three main different types of Pantheism. 1) Naturalistic/scientific Pantheism 2) Monist idealist Pantheism and 3) Dualist Pantheism.

Pantheism in all it forms believe in All is God, that God is nature, - that natural law, existence, the universe, the sum total of all that was and shall be, is sacred. Now lets look at the different forms of Pantheism and see what they think.

Naturalistic/Scientific Pantheism is very interesting. There is no collective consciousness, no intention behind the flows of nature. More on that later though. For now, realize that this concept includes people like Einstein and has been called "Sexed-up atheism" by Richard Dawkins. This is important because in English the word we use for "God" really doesn't fit and many Pantheism sly away from the term "God" altogether to avoid confusion. It's the difference of how you define god and whether god has to be a transcendent entity. Scientific Pantheism is heavily based in science and observation of the natural world, and Wiccans that hold this view of Pantheism have some interesting concepts when it comes to spellwork. This belief, which can be called Atheistic by some and is the general root of where "Wiccan Atheist" come from.

Monist Idealist Pantheism is typically an older school of Pantheism few believe in today. It differs from Scientific Pantheism in that there is a consciousness that is intertwined throughout nature.

Dualist Pantheism is the most common, especially in any Neopagan community. It's very diverse, but it's core idea is that there are two types of substance (the physical, and the spiritual).

All the ideas are very close together, and can be mixed even under the umbrella of pantheism. As Scientific Pantheism is the closest to what most people consider Wiccan Atheism, the focus will be on that. I should mention, I'm not the most versed in this subject and most of what I know was passed on to me by a "Wiccan Atheist" a while ago. I apologies if the view presented here isn't typical of Wiccan Atheist. So lets now get on to how it relates to Wicca. I'm not going to cover everything, but usually were conflict comes in from traditional wicca and highlight some core concepts of Wicca that support the beliefs.

The third principal can be looked at as "you must believe in magick" by traditional Wiccans, or "The superpower of the natural world" as Margot Alder once put it. The later is important as she goes on to describe it with "There is so much in the natural that is powerful. For me, when people ask me 'well, what about magic? Witches do all this magick, what about that?' And I said, you know, I'm not sp sure there is much difference between psychology and magick. That half of what goes on in magick is really getting your mind into a different place so the world seems different so your more able to access certain things. It's alot of the insights that almost all the psychologist had from Maslow to Freud and whatever, you know all those insights are basicly psychological insights. Now that doesn't mean maybe we'll find, that science will find there are certain abilities some people have, maybe there is some small amount of telepathy in the world. Who knows? But I don't think you need a magickal, supernatural explanation for any of these things that we're talking about." To give you another perspective on the idea, lets talk spellwork for a moment. Not every Wiccan cast spells, but those who do generally each write their own spellbook and each spell is personal. Why? Why does one spell not work for all witches to get x result? I've heard every answer from "It's the nature of magic", "it's how you focus the spell to affect only what you need to specifically", and the most relevant to what I'm talking about "It's about perspective." Perspective? Yes, perspective. Afterall, one of the root ideas in the Wiccan Rede is that you need to look at as many points of view in order to know what might harm someone. The concept behind A year and a day is to explore, to find your own perspective, to experiment with other perspectives. Well how does spellwork tie into perspective? When you create a spell you consider how everything ties into the situation your casting for. "This herb, being the element of earth in this spell, represents x, because like the herb has this trait so does x", "This material represents y, and I'm using that for y because they hold this factor in common", and so on. You are identifying the factors of the situation and laying them out in a clear manner which allows you to gain insight on the situation your casting for. The ritual becomes a way to remember, to ingrain the new found ideas into your head so you can make use of them. Our memories work on cues, the smell of this herb, this movement, chanting this, all sets up cues in our minds. When a cue is triggered, we remember everything related to it. So you cast a spell to help you break a drinking addiction, and you use hops in the spell. Well because of that, when you run into that ingredient that is often in brews today, you have more ability to resist the urge to drink. How does that work, and I'll go back to quoting Margot Adler here, starting in the middle of the story because it's the relevant part. "So he then gave us this long lecture, in which he said 'Magic is getting results'. And then he made us go through this thing: he made us imagine ourselves, that we were hungry bears. And he made us imagine that we really needed these fish. And we had to go down and sorta act. What would we do if we were a bear and we had to go down? So we went back down to the river and suddenly...we started thinking of ourselves as bears. Went into the river up to here...and we just went (dramatic bear-like catching motion) and we catch a fish and throw it back to the beach. And you start doing this weird bear-like exercise..and an hour later we had a truckload of fish." Magick doesn't need to be supernatural, but a way of opening how super-powerful your mind is to new options you wouldn't have considered. Magick is exploring perspectives. It's a means to focus. If you do tarot cards, your looking for more answers to whatever situation through the cards. You don't need to believe them to be supernatural to get anything out of it. The Wiccan Rede stays "As long as it doesn't harm anyone, including yourself and future generations, do whatever you want to do." It's looking at all the factors and finding out what causes what. You need to look for different perspectives other then your own if your going to be able to follow this at all. It's a matter of perspective and perspective is important to the ideas I'm trying to pass on here. If a Wiccan Atheist doesn't explain their innermost ideas to you, you would never be able tell the difference.

The fifth principal does seem to support a dualistic Pantheism view however. "5. We recognize both outer and inner, or psychological, worlds -- sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconscious, Inner Planes, etc. -- and we see in the interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment." (1976)

And the seventh principal states "7. We see religion, magick and wisdom-in-living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it -- a world view and philosophy of life which we identify as Witchcraft, the Wiccan Way."

So how do those two fit into the Wiccan Scientific Pantheism idea? It took me a while before I managed to get enough of an idea of it without seeing it as a perversion of the concept, especially concerning the fifth. The fifth is harder to explain, but I'll try. You might need to hunt down an "Wiccan Atheist" to explain this to yo better. Interconnection of the universe. Chaos-theory comes to mind and is pretty popular and well known as an example. You are interacting with people on a subconscious level all the time with your non-verbal actions. You walk down the street and you are communicating to other people non-verbally, and they are communicating to others. It's a chain reaction. You can theoretically pass on information, or influence, someone you can't see on the other side of the city with enough people in between - A collective Unconscious that has the basis in magickal exercises (established as ways to focusing to gain new perspectives). This chain reaction comes into play even more when you begin to consider the base of the three-fold law. The seventh really comes in handy here. "We see religion, magick, and wisdom-in-living as being united". It confirms their view of a more scientific approach to magick. But it goes on to say "A worldview and philosophy of life which we identify as Witchcraft, the Wiccan Way." Again, it doesn't not have to be supernatural or paranormal. Wicca is a worldview, a philosophy of life that promotes the pursuit of wisdom of the world and the lives within it. And that's just from the seventh principle alone. You start combine all of this and you get a very rational, very scientific based view of nature, that draws heavily on the Wiccan Way of understanding (in particular, the God and Goddess archetypes applied to Pantheism).

The quotes from Adler can be seen on google video. NYC ATHEIST LIVE #7 and #8 is her giving a presentation on Wicca/Neopaganism. She is also the author of the book, "Drawing down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshipers, and Other Pagans in America" and is considered a leading figure in Wicca today.

So while I've focused on Wiccan Atheist, Atheistic Wiccans, etc. I'm hoping this view of the extremely nontraditional, philosophical arm of Wicca provides insight to the different perspectives out there. It's one hell of a headache to sort out yourself, so I also hope I saved someone from that mess. I suppose the correct terminology would be "Wicca with Scientific/Naturalistic Pantheism Ideals" instead of confusing people with the terms of Atheism, but there is an overlap due to most people defining atheism as "lack of a belief in an entity/entities". And Pantheistic followers who worship the sacredness of nature, and who understand the avatars (Gods and Goddesses) are just that, avatars - so that they can relate to nature on our level of understanding. They belief in God/Goddess, but at the same time they don't and the weakness is the definition of "God" in the English language.