My strength, my cornerstone

Sometimes I almost feel like an atheist, except that I'm not. It's a position I can sympathise with. I only ask that it be well reasoned and based on true facts.

I sorta have sympathy with paganism. I can understand enjoying the beauty of nature and respecting it, though I draw the line at revering. I tend towards the CS Lewis approach: that God, being God, is ipso facto so fundamentally embedded in his creation that sheer logic says you're likely to find signs of him there.

Deeper aspects of paganism range from leaving me cold to making me want to run screaming – or, failing that, just to bang my head against a trilithon in frustration and shout "why, you fool, why??"

The lovely and totally level-headed Liz Williams, among her many other talents, runs a couple of witchcraft shops in Glastonbury, and blogs about it on the Diary of A Witchcraft Shop in Avalon. The latest entry includes:

"Spent some time this morning explaining to a very nice customer who is new to all this why it probably isn't a good idea to begin one's magical life by working directly with demons, especially those to whom the traditional offering is apparently excrement (mind you, at least it's cheap)."

Now, you see, here's one of those head-banging moments. Here's a thought. Why deal with demons AT ALL, excrement-demanding or otherwise, when for absolutely no cost you can get the services of he whom demons tremble at the thought of? It really is setting your sights way too low.