I'm 43 myself and feeling every day of methuselah's age some mornings so that was very much appreciated here in my corner...
Actually there is a reason for the 'dark and forboding' look... well two actually...
1) My eyes aren't the best for close up work (eg reading, sitting at the 'puter, etc) and I prefer Hi-Contrast settings just for ease of reading and as white background and black type faces get to the eyes after a while especially on the 'puter screen... so the black background and white type face is better for me if I'm going to working on the site for a long stretch...
...and frankly some Christian sites I find kinda 'twee' ops: ... all rainbos and sparkles and stuff... It may well reflect the 'sunshiney nature' of the site owner but *sighs* not only does it hurt my eyes after a while but I just don't like that 'look'...
...There are a number of other Christian sites (like exWitch and this one for example) that are neither 'sparkly bright' nor 'dark and forboding'... but rather neat and business like ...the colors are more 'subdued' and the layout is very efficient and 'clean'... but ...well that wasn't the 'look' I was after either...
...I could keep the same color scheme as now and make it look more business like I guess but...
2) For a long time I guess I knew that there had to be other ex-Pagan Christians around but didn't know of any (I'm from a small country town of 50,000 in the Bible belt of SW Australia... and there aren't THAT many openly pagan ppl here let alone ex-pagans...) so after a bit of trolling thru the Net on and off looking for 'kindred spirits' for want of a better term I came across a whole pile of Christian sites that dealt with the Occult and Paganism and even the occasional Testimony...
Only problem was that all the testimonies I found at that time were just soooo out there as to be beyond belief... LITERALLY!!! ...and 99% of the Christian sites that specifically dealt with Paganism, etc I encountered were very much of the same ilk...
y'know the sort of thing... All Witches are Satanists and eat babies and have sex with goats when they are not busy plotting the destruction of western civilization thru the Illuminati ... :roll:
One thing that they all had in common was a 'look'... 'dark and forboding' as you put it...
this went on ...on and off for some time until by chance(?) I stumbled across a Links Page somewhere that had a link to 'ex-Witch Ministries'...
Like I said i knew that there just had to be others like me out there... somewhere... :roll: ...and here was a whole web community of them...
Well cutting a long story short I call the place 'home' now... and in short order and inspired by the testimonies of others there I typed up my own testimony and created a website... My standard' 'white on black look'...
Keeping in mind the 'dark and forboding' nature of the bulk of the Christian sites I had up until that time encountered that dealt with the Occult I opted for the same look and added a few 'touches' like the lighning and thunder on the front page and the 'witchy' looking font for the titles etc....
The reason being that although partly evangelistic it's main purpose is "To educate those who have not yet found Christ and those within the body of Christ about the occult in a fair, truthful manner - To support, educate, and equip other Christians to do the same..."
Although there are a lot of 'fluffy' pagans who go in for the 'sparkly shiny' look on their websites the majority of pagan sites I used to regularly check out were pretty dark looking themselves I fugured that the look wouldn't be 'off-putting' to the majority of Pagan visitors and ...
...as the darker looking the Christian site on the Occult was the more bizarre in terms of inaccuracy was I figured that these were the ppl I wanted to 'attract' and - hopefully - 'correct'...
*shrugs* In a way I guess it's also (sadly) the look one almost 'expects' a Christian site on Witchcraft to have... :roll:
I have since come across a cpl of the better Christian sites on the occult and they've all opted for the 'business like' look of these forums and eW... but at this point I don't plan any changes to the 'look and feel' of the site...
Anyway thanx for your input...
...and it was certainly taken in the spirit intended...
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