My best friend/old mentor had a mental breakdown (talking schizophrenia, bipolar, etc.) some time after I had moved to Colorado in 2009. She was a practicing Wiccan for a very long time (in the range of 30+ years). I've been to my home state to visit a handful of times since I've been out here and when I was home last week, we started talking about religion. I was explaining to her how I was having some issues with faith and my beliefs since my mom's death/my divorce and she started talking about how she was getting rid of her Wiccan stuff (she gave me back one of my books she'd had for years, which is kind of how we got on the subject). She said she was able to give all of her books to her daughter, however, she couldn't get rid of her chest full of supplies for some reason. She was talking about how she was going to church twice a week, how she was supposed to go to this big convention type thing but doesn't know if she will continue to go to church after because she doesn't know how she will handle the convention (she has a hard time around people and being in our small town is about the best interaction she gets). She was talking about how she's still able to "see" a lot of things (highly skilled in divination), but for the most part, she'd gone Jehovah's Witness and was happy with her choice. She gave me the whole talk on how this is the time when Satan is turning God's people against him by practicing other religions, etc. etc.
I asked her what would happen if the convention didn't go well, and if she was going to go back to being Wiccan/practicing since she can't bring herself to get rid of her chest of Wiccan things (to me, I think there is a reason she can't, because she's not a material person at all). She said no, so I asked why. She said as much as she enjoyed Wicca all those years, there seemed to be a lot of pain and punishment that came with it, and instead of that pain and punishment, she believed that all of Christianity was about blessings and she wanted to receive God's blessings every day instead of punishment. I didn't say anything at the time, because I couldn't really think of anything to say, but I started thinking really heavily about it and started thinking of why I left Christianity and Catholicism to begin with when I was a teenager. So as I'm flying home yesterday, I thought about it some more and thought, "Christians believe in Hell. That's punishment, right?"
I'm a seeker and like to ask questions. This whole thing baffles me. What do you guys think? And this whole conversation was weird to have with her… we used to be able to discuss theology and talked about everything, but I think it was strange for me to see her going from one extreme to the other.