Over here in the “I hate Being an Atheist” thread, paganism is mentioned… But what exactly is a Pagan? Google isn’t really giving me much help, but it seems to me that Paganism is just another club of people wanting to identify with some sort of organized religion; you may as well be a Scientologist in my opinion.
From Wiki:
Why Paganism? What is it exactly and why on Earth would anyone want to identify themselves thusly? Do you wear a toga and prance around ancient rocks or something? Please enlighten me.
For the record I’m about as atheist as possible but certainly appreciate any and all religions. One’s esoteric beliefs are fundamental to humanity.
Well, I must object to your comparison with Scientology. Pagan organizations won’t take all your money, brainwash you, force you into slave labor, and sue the balls off anybody in sight for revealing their secret fru-fru.
That said, what you’re probably talking about is not paganism in the classical sense (like ancient Roman and Greek cults) but the various neopagan movements, like Wicca. They appeal to people who already have pantheistic tendencies, don’t like the Abrahamic religions, but want some sort of organized group to join and rituals to follow.
Some organizations get quite elaborate with their rituals, too. People get really into that stuff. I find it equally as goofy as any other religion, but whatever floats your boat, ya know?
Years of previous experience tell me that what the OP will get is debate.
Those who claim to be Pagans will disagree with those who do not, and with themselves. People will point out the faults of other religions, others will point out the faults all religions, and respect will be demanded.
In other words, the topic is religion-there will be debate.
The problem is that ‘Paganism’ as such doesn’t really exist. It’s not a very meaningful word. It is originally a perjorative used by organized religion to refer to a more ignorant time before their religion came about. Neo-Pagans (read New Agers) came around and tried to ‘reclaim’ the word. The thing is it ends up being largely an excuse to make up a bunch of shit about what one believes.
There is no unified paganism, no unified belief that falls under the aegis of paganism. From a Christian perspective for instance, Islam and Hinduism are paganism as well. From an Islamic perspective Christianity and Hinduism are paganism.
No, most religions are not based off of glorifying a perjorative devised by another religion as a catch-all for the beliefs of everyone else. Most major religions have in common that the individual IS NOT qualified to just say whatever they want.
Anyway, you (and the OP) are making the mistake of assuming that “Paganism” (the word) means any specific religious practice or group. It’s a catch-all, much like “Hinduism” is a catch-all for the polytheistic beliefs of India. What we in the West think of as “Hinduism” is really a collection of different groups, to my understanding. Likewise, “Paganism” (or “Neo-Paganism”) is a collection of a large number of different belief groups, some no larger than a single practitioner, some with established organizations with 100s (at least) of members. It’s a lot looser than “Christianity” and its denominations, but it’s similar, with the caveat that there’s not so strong an overarching criterion (i.e., belief in Jesus as savior).
In other words, “Paganism” isn’t A religion. It’s an umbrella term for a wide variety of religions.
That’s actually in direct opposition to what I actually said.
Hinduism is Paganism. Paganism is not LIKE Hinduism, because Hinduism is a subset of Pagan beliefs, IE, anything that is ‘not Christianity or Judaism’ is paganism.
You are right about hinduism but wrong about paganism, as hinduism would be considered a pagan belief.
It’s a derogatory term for every religion that isn’t Judeo-Christian specifically.
In the modern new-agey context, it’s just a fluffy term to describe any sort of thing that someone wants to believe with no cohesion of belief at all.
Since there is no governing body, and no actual rules to determine who is and isn’t one of the chosen, pagan-wise, I think there is a pretty basic disconnect with your derisive and mildly hostile statement about those who ‘claim to be pagan’.
Anyone that wishes to do so is, practically be definition, a pagan 100%.
And while you may be correct in the original meaning, in the modern day (post 70’s, I think) most folks understand that pagan (or Pagan, if you prefer) is a generic term to describe the “new age” and “Earth Based” and “reconstructed” pre-christian or “traditional” faith systems.
Paganism isn’t a religion and should not be treated as one. Respect has nothing to do with it. It’s an insulting epithet. No one in history ever described themselves as ‘pagan’ until recently.
Right, it’s the ultimate in, “I am whatever I a say I am”, self-worshipping individualism., the real test is whether or not you will know more about a person’s religious beliefs by them telling you they are a Pagan than you would have otherwise. The answer is no, being told htat someone is a pagan doesn’t help you to understand what their beliefs are in any way, so it’s really a meaningless term. If someone tells me they are a Jew a Christian or a Muslim that tells me something. If they tell me they are a Hindu that tells me something. Telling me they are a pagan tells me nothing more than, “I have romanticized this put-down created by early Roman Christians.”
And here you touch on the core of the nonsense involved in such a thing. There is no “reconstructed” pre-Christian or “traditional” faith systems. That’s abject nonsense. The term pagan referred to the religious and tribal beliefs of any tribal tradition, none of which considered themselves to be, ‘pagan’.
Calling oneself a pagan today is like if in two-thousand years you ‘reconstructed’ the term, ‘illiterate moron’, into something romantic. Because that’s essentially what pagan meant.
New Agers that consider themselves ‘pagans’ often try to refer to some notion of ancient tradition. Like they say they are a ‘Druid’ which means essentially they made up a whole bunch of crap and claimed that it’s what they think Druids believed back in the day.
This is partially incorrect. It is more properly non-Abrahamic, i.e. the Catholic church at least considers Muslims to be non-pagans. Similarly with Muslims - ‘Peoples of the Book’ are in a separate category from all others.
Evangelicals may have a different take on things, but then some of them don’t consider Catholics Christian ;).
No one described themselves as “queer” until the last decade or so, either. It was an insult, an epithet, a derogatory term.
Are you going to tell all the people that identify as queer that they don’t exist, that they’re not queer, that they deserve no respect?
I get that you are an offensive, probably fundie, Christian who believes that all other religions are wrong and hence ‘pagan’.
I get that you are the absolute arbiter, or shall we say “god”, of what does and does not qualify as a religion.
I get it. However, I should expect to never, ever, EVER hear you complain when people talk about the magic sky pixie, or how stupid Christianity is and what idiots people are for believing in obviously made-up garbage, or anything else of that ilk.
Don’t expect people to respect you or your beliefs when you’ve made it so incredibly obvious that you have nothing but contempt for them and theirs.
Just sayin’, is all.
–redtail, Anti-denominational Existential Eclectic Zen Agnostic, but most definitely NOT a Pagan