When I was a kid in Catholic school the word “pagan” was used to describe anybody who was not an atheist but did not follow Yaweh in one of the three Judeo/Christian/Muslim paths. Whether you were a an African animist (small A because there are many poorly or unrelated forms of animism in Africa), a Buddhist, or a Hindu you were lumped in the general catagory of “pagan.” I hear people here describing themselves as Pagans (capital P because it sounds specific the way they describe it) yet I don’t know exactly what they are talking about. Are they Wiccans? Where did the tenets come from–were they cherry-picked from many traditions like the belief systems of the women my wife works with who call on the Spirit of the West Wind to help them keep meetings short and productive? (And boy, does it piss my wife off when they do it. She doesn’t shove HER Christian religion down THEIR throats. How’s that for a twist?) Was modern Paganism developed by a specific person or group of people? Or has there been a continuous line of people who considered themselves Pagan though Western society persecuted all who were not Christians?
I know a few Pagans. “Pagan” is not synonymous with “Wiccan”. Wiccan is a variety of Pagan. At the risk of offending Pagans, let me state that “paganism” seems to be a series of beliefs rooted on non-Judeo-Christian belief systems. Ostensibly a lot of these are Pre-Christian. You’ll find some types that worship Graeco-Roman gods, or Norse gods, but more commonly sort of generic Indo-European “Lords” and “Ladies” There’s a lot of folk religion and folk belief in modern paganism.
Although modern pafanism seems to be a smorgasbord of belief systems, with different people drawing from different sources, and with some meticulously researching while others take their practices from manuals they buy, there are a fewbig names that have been heavy influences. Go to your local New Age bookshop and browse the shelves.
It shouldn’t need pointing out, but paganism is not Devil-Worship. Adherents don’t go around reading the Necronomicon, either (except for fun).
Paganism originally referred to the various folk religions practiced by pre-Christian Europeans. They tended to be nature religions centered around Goddess worship (often as embodied by the earth). The term was also extended to the classical Greco-Roman religions and sometimes it was used for any non-Christian religion.
Neo-Paganism is pretty much any number of new practices patterned after ancient European nature religions. Wicca is one example of Paganism but it isn’t the only one.
I consider paganism the practice of any polytheistic religion. The ancient Greeks and Romans, Hindus (Though I know it gets complicated), and Wiccans are all pagans.
Okay, if one consults the OED, one sees that “paganus” meant “civilian”. It was used by the Christians, who called themselves “milites”, as in “enrolled soldiers” (of Christ). Note that they did not invent the paganus vs. milites distinction but adopted then-current army usage.
No, it was not a matter of city-folk Christians making fun of country-folk non-Christians. That theory’s been rather well demolished, according to the OED. The term was in use by Christians as early as the 2d century AD.
Emperor Julian then adopted the term “paganus” for himself in the 4th century and gives it a fashionable polish.
Over the centuries, it was simply applied broadly as it was originally used–anybody not among the “milites” of Christ.
No and no. I demolished the former rather nicely, already. When “paganus” was first adopted as a term by Christians, it referred more than anything to the official Roman state religion and to the religious practices that were dominant in the Roman empire of that time. Thus, “folk religion” is quite off the mark.
As for the whole “White Witch Universalist Unitarian Goddess Religion” thing–that’s an old 19th-century chestnut with no good basis in fact. Gimbutas is not the be-all and end-all of religious archeology.
Of course, not all Wiccans are polytheists. 
I tend to roughly categorise “pagan” as “a religion without a Holy Book”. Polytheism is common in such, but not universal, as are a fair number of other traits, none of them universal. It’s a broad category. Neo-paganism (the slightly narrower broad category of ‘paganism’ which contains Wicca and its spin-offs, all of them of modern creation) often has an earth-centric focus and some fairly feminist content.
The other form of modern paganism I know of is reconstruction, an attempt to recover the religious practices of a specific civilization with forms and meanings as complete as possible; these tend to be very different paradigmatically than neo-paganisms. (I know of a number of such traditions – Asatru, which is Norse recon, Hellenic recon, Roman recon, Kemeticism, which is Egyptian recon, Aztec recon, Druidry, and there’s probably Celtic recon out there that hasn’t been devoured by Edain McCoy’s legion of ahistorical minions.)
Personally, I get irritated at people who capitalise the word; it’s a generic, a broad category. (I get into arguments on this subject occasionally; people will say to me “I’m a Pagan! They capitalise Christian, so I should get a capital letter too!”; I point out that ‘pagan’ is a generic term of about the same level as ‘monotheist’, which isn’t capped.)
And then you run into the real crackpots, like the guy who won’t consider anyone “pagan” if they have any male gods at all. He wants his Mother Goddess to rule unchallenged or something, and down with the patriarchy. :rolleyes: (I really do know such a person.) Seriously, though, there’s very little agreement even among pagans what the word means.
So, when someone here describes himself as a “pagan” he is using it as a general term of convenience, like another might call herself a “Christian” rather than the more specific “member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America?” Among other pagans he might get more specific as she would if among Baptists and Catholics? And then he’d get into theological arguments just like she would in a roomful of assorted Christians? And when they are with members of their own faith do the neo-Romans laugh at the belief systems of the neo-Druids?
And why didn’t anybody tell me that James Frazer was the Charles Fort of comparative religion? I finally (after thirty years)started reading The Golden Bough and it’s a rollicking good read, full of poorly documented and anecdotal snippets of culture with absolutely no context! You can play the ever-so-much-fun game of connect the theological dots when many of the dots are missing and few are numbered. Cecil gets pissed when his readers do it but he’s got a stick up his ass, anyway.
So you then say that some Hindus are not pagan?
Term of convenience? Probably, yeah. I tend to use it because it’s the most specific word that I have any confidence that anyone will have heard of. Paganism is a really, really big umbrella.
As to the rest, some do, some don’t, just like more or less everyone else. There are some organisations that have a sort of pan-pagan, ecumenical thrust (there’s a gathering called ‘PantheaCon’ in the San Francisco area each February that’s an example of this; I know about it because my temple discusses it occasionally), and some which are more separate. For pointing and laughing at other people’s beliefs, the primary target isn’t generally other paganisms, but Christianity, and some people can get pretty hostile about it.
[please pardon if multipost happens; I can’t get through to the hamsters well enough to see if it went through, even]
Pagunus is a derivation of the Latin word {i]pagus* which means “village.” A paganus was a villager, a country dweller, a “bumpkin” if you will. The pre-Christian folk religions of rural Europe tended to be nature religions with an emphasis on Goddess worship. While the word pagan, as used in ancient times, was not synonomous with those religious practices, the practices were seen as an unfortunate quality of rural culture that had to be corrected. The word as it is used in modern times denotes a renewed practice of nature religions.
IOW, back then, pagans were country folk. Now Pagans (capital “P” as it denotes a religion) are people who seek to revive the religious practices of those ancient country folk.
As an Asatruar I have to say that the word ‘pagan’ has become almost synonomous with ‘wiccan’ or ‘eclectic neo-pagan’ within the ‘pagan community’. This is largely why Asatruar usually prefer to call themselves ‘heathens’, as it is derived from Old English and Germanic, originally meaning ‘one who dwells on the heath’. When you tell people “I’m a heathen.” people usually don’t make a link with wicca but often ask you to elaborate which I happily do.
There were/are a few notable people who influenced neo-pagan religions. Alister Crowley is probably the most well known but some pagans will vehemently disagree that he had much of an influence at all. There are some who claim that there has been a continuous line of “Pagans” since the “burning times” but I’ve not seen any credible evidence that this is the case. So far as I’ve been able to figure out modern paganism is really just a modern invention.
Marc
PS: Not that being new or old has a darn thing to do with whether a religion is valid or not.
The rubbish about “paganus” used to refer to “villager” by Christians has been long debunked and is generally only believed by those ignorant and proud of it. By the time it was adopted by Christians, it meant “civilian”. It was adopted in contrast to the “milites” (soldiers) of Christ. As for “Pagans” seeking to revive the practices of “ancient country folk”, they’d first have to abandon a lot of wishful thinking and flights of fancy. What we can determine about pre-Christian European religions very often is very different from what modern self-styled “pagans” do.
This is MY thread so I get to be the thread nazi!
Dogface, please avoid the personal insults. A citation showing that “The rubbish about “paganus” used to refer to “villager” by Christians has been long debunked” would go much further to support your argument than does calling anybody “ignorant and proud of it.”
**
Was that really necessary? If you’re going to be such a smarty pants you could at least provide us with a cite.
Marc
I don’t know what you mean by “debunked” but dude, check out any Latin dictionary. Paganus means “villager,” not “civilian.”
“Civillian” may have been a nuanced use of the word but that was not its primary definition.
Here is the entry for paganus from Cassell’s Latin Dicionary (my college reference):
Paganus -a -um: (pagus), belonging to a village, rural.
M, as subst paganus -i: a villager, countryman, yokel.
There is no listing of “civilian” as a possible definition. Maybe the definition changed when it went from Latin to Italian or something, I don’t know and I don’t know Italian. I do have three years of college Latin, however, and I know that there are references to pagani by Cicero, Tacitus and Juvenal in which they are definitely talking about rural country dwellers, sometimes derisively.
FWIW, I agree with you that Neo-Paganism has little or nothing to do with ancient European practices, the specifics of which largely have been lost. Many Neo-Pagans will be the first to acknowledge this. They are attempting to emulate those practices in spirit not in detail.
Right, such well known “Goddess” faiths as the Greek (Zeus, Apollo, and others, including of course Hera & Athena, but not a “Goddess” religion), Roman (Jupiter, Mars+), Celtic (the Dagda, Lugh, + ), and Norse (Odin, Thor etc). :dubious: :rolleyes: Nor was the Russian or Finnish pagan faiths “goddess” worship religion. So- that covers just about all of pre-Christian Europe. Where were these “Goddess” worshiping pagans? The Sumerian, Egyptian & Babylonian faiths also were all headed by a male God, and they go back further than any other recorded faith.
Not that there weren’t goddesses, certainly. Many such were indeed worshiped- usually by the women, of course. Every Pantheon had it’s share of goddesses- Athena, Astare, Aphroditi, Epona, the Morrigan, Isis, etc. And in many cases they had some strong centers of faith, and were the predominate faith amoung both sexes in one local area. But still- as one goddess of a Pantheon, headed by a Male Father God. And, the worship of Yaweh is certainly male dominated, and one of the oldest.
Back in paleolithic & pre-historic times, we don’t know much concrete about the religion. There certainly seemed to be quite a bit of worship of a “Goddess”, often represented as a zaftig female with swollen breasts. Also of a male god with horns, a “bull” diety, a “sky” diety, and others. Some neo-pagan writers and even some archaeolgists have hypothosized a rather widespread “goddess” faith- but it is only guesswork. Some have even gone so far as to write about a “golden age of WOman” where all was happy & peaceful, where there was no war or hatred, and the wise Preistess of the Goddess led all in their idilic life. Pure bushwah. Like was “nasty, brutish & short”, and there is no justification for a widespread worship of a single “Goddess”, nor that Her worship might have been predominant for most of pre-history. In fact, the evididence is that there were many Gods & Goddeses and some of these likely jelled into our historic known bronze age Pantheons.
Modern Wicca (which some would call a branch of Neo-Paganism) is a new faith, made up within the last century. True, when doing so, they “borrowed” from some older pagan rites & symbology- or perhaps one might rather say “from their perception of older pagan rites & symbology”. The Pentagram, for instance, really isn’t very common in the pre-christian period (but note that Asarte was represented by a star, which could be represented by either a * or something which looks like a pentagram) it was more common as a symbol of “Satanism”- or what the Witch finders thought was Satanism, anyway.
Neo paganism does have it’s roots in pre-christian cultures & faiths, but there is no “continuous line of persecuted pagans” who passed their traditions and ceremonies from the past. Thus, altho some folk traditions are very likely pagan in their roots, and somethings can be gleaned from them- most Neo-Pagan ceremonies & beleifs are based upon ancient writings (and here, altho we have many legends, few “ceremonies” and such were written down and survived) archaeological digs, and inspired guesswork. Thus they are more “an attempt to recreate an ancient faith - the way it should have been” perhaps.
I didn’t say anything about a “Golden Age” of goddess worship and I didn’t say that these religions excluded male gods. Regardles of formal pantheistic protocols, in practice there was a great affection for goddesses in in pre-Christian folk religions. Isis was arguably more revered than any other Egyptian God and her counterparts like Esther also inspired great reverence. This aspect of those practices, the affection for goddesses is an aspect which is picked up on now by neo-Pagans.
This affection is not entirely absent in Christianity, btw. The adoration of the Madonna still runs strong in some Christian pockets even though formally the Madonna is not supposed to be an object of worship.