I had a conversation with a man, I will call Tony. The conversation started among a group of us, about a recent murder where a self proclaimed witch murdered a man. The murder was rather brutal, and from what the news said, was more about not being in control of ones reality than it was about witchcraft.

Tony said he had been told as a child there used to be a lot of witches around here. I mentioned I knew two people who have witches in their families and live in the area. I said witchcraft is alive and well in our state, and has been for hundreds of years, if not longer.

Tony said he is a Catholic and does not believe in witchcraft, the boogie man, old stories, demons, the devil, or anything like that. He said all he believed in is God. Well it is hard to argue with someone about their beliefs. Beliefs are after all are what one chooses to believe, right or wrong.

Tony is partially correct in his beliefs, though he is also wrong in his beliefs. I did not question him further or comment on his beliefs because each of us believes what we want to be true, and we don’t change our opinions until we want to. This does not change the we could be wrongs.

It is impossible to believe in any God, especially a Christian God, and dismiss all other supernatural possibilities as non-existent. That is a major flaw in ones understanding. Especially when a God uses physical and non physical angels and other beings to do work on the earth, and in the heavens.

The greater flaw in Tony’s belief is dismissing everything, such as the Devil, and demons, deciding they do not exist. It would be different if the Christian bible made no mention of the Devil, or demons, but they are in the bible along with Angels, giants, and various other named and unnamed entities.

Christianity is a religion that wraps itself in the supernatural by default. God does not exist in a form anyone can see or touch. If one believes God exists, then one should be prepared to accept other things we can not see or touch also exist.

One last comment made by Tony is a sign of an unbalanced belief system. Tony mentioned that people who practice witchcraft, even though he does not believe in witchcraft, are evil people. I hear this said often in christian religious circles, people essentially saying,  “People not like us are evil”.

These types of people believe there are two types of people in the world. How can people who do something one does not even believe in be evil? Tony should have said misguided, silly, or maybe ignorant, but evil? Where does evil fit in where there is only room for God?

It is interesting how many people decide to define their world. People hold beliefs that are often have conflicts in their very foundations. People see the face of Jesus on a cookie. The outline of Virgin Mary when the sun shines through a room at a certain time. Yet these same people can’t imagine them actually appearing in physical form. For them it just could not happen, God and the Virgin Mary don’t do that!

Yet people often choose conflicting beliefs. Beliefs such as: I choose to believe in flying saucers and ufo’s, but nothing religious. I choose to believe in God, angels, and demons, but not ghosts, or other spirits. I choose to believe vampires exist though no record of one factually exists. I choose to believe even though there are billions of stars and in an untold number of solar systems, though only Earth has life. I choose to believe when I die, that is the end of me, even though I saw a ghost once.

Many of us shut out beliefs we don’t care for. When man went to the moon for example, many people believed it never happened, it was a stage production. Yet those same people put their belief in a pill to cure them of almost any illness. What if the pill isn’t even made of sugar?