![\"Tina](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/DSC_0955-199x300.jpg\" "\\"Tina")
In their third year of trying, Doug Hubbard, Tina Porter and Susan Bergeron have not given up on the idea of having an Alternative Religions club at Sinclair Community College.<\/p>\nIn their third year of trying, Doug Hubbard, Tina Porter and Susan Bergeron have not given up on the idea of having an Alternative Religions club at Sinclair Community College.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to get people to commit themselves to put their name on a list that says they are pagan because there is still so much prejudice,\u201d Bergeron said.<\/p>\n
Bergeron believes a lot of prejudice against paganism comes from misinformation and incorrect stereotypes, especially around Halloween.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne statement I always like to say (is) \u2018My god is not a manifestation of the demon figure of your religion,\u2019 which unfortunately a lot of people like to think,\u201d Hubbard said.<\/p>\n
Hubbard, a staff member in the Bursar\u2019s office, will serve as the group\u2019s advisor.\u00a0 He said the prospective club will be diverse and discussion based.\u00a0 Though they may visit religious sites such as churches and parks, Bergeron said conversion to or from paganism would not be a part of the group\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n
The group defines alternative religion as anything that is not Judaism, Christianity or Islam, according to Porter.\u00a0 She said one of the group\u2019s objectives is to expose the different ideas in western and eastern religions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask for an open mind when it comes to religion because there are so many different viewpoints,\u201d Porter said. \u00a0\u201cLook at how many sects of Christianity or Islam there are\u2026 There\u2019s at least three major branches of Judaism and they don\u2019t all agree on the same thing, but they\u2019re all lumped (together).\u201d<\/p>\n
Bergeron said one of the main obstacles that keeps the group from becoming a recognized club is \u201cactive student,\u201d or registered student, involvement.\u00a0 Though many people have expressed interest in the club, she said it\u2019s difficult to start because everyone must be registered for classes at the same time.\u00a0 She\u2019s hopeful that the club will have 10 students or more very soon.<\/p>\n
Hubbard, Porter and Bergeron said they have received many types of feedback about the prospective club, including interest, excuses, mockery and fear.\u00a0 Hubbard said that some people can\u2019t tell certain alternative religions from cults like Heaven\u2019s Gate while others want to know what\u2019s going on without being involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting pagans together is like herding cats, and that\u2019s unfortunately more accurate than most of us would like to admit to,\u201d Porter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In their third year of trying, Doug Hubbard, Tina Porter and Susan Bergeron have not given up on the idea of having an Alternative Religions club at Sinclair Community College. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get people to commit themselves to put their name on a list that says they are pagan because there is still so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[719,1976,121],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-alternative-religions-club","tag-meagan-ewton","tag-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-Le","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2962,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}