Pagan



What are contemporary Paganisms?

 

 

Are Paganisms religions?

 

According to Chambers Concise Dictionary, religion is defined as “belief in, recognition of, or an awakened sense of, a higher unseen controlling power or powers, with the emotion and morality connected with such; rites or worship; any system of such belief or worship; devoted fidelity; monastic life.”

 

A comparison of Paganisms with other religions

 

One religion or several?

 

 

What constitutes "a" religion?

 

 

Defining Paganism

 

 Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "a country dweller" or "civilian") is a blanket term which has come to connote a broad set of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices of natural or polytheistic religions, as opposed to the Abrahamic monotheistic religions. "Pagan" is the usual translation of the Islamic term mushrik, which refers to 'one who worships something other than God'. Ethnologists do not use the term for these beliefs, which are not necessarily compatible with each other: more useful categories are shamanism, polytheism or animism. Often, the term has pejorative connotations, comparable to heathen, infidel and kafir in Islam.

 

Within a European Christian context, paganism is a catch-all term which has come to connote a broad set of not necessarily compatible religious beliefs and practices ... of a natural religion (as opposed to a revealed religion of a text), which are usually, but not necessarily, characterized by polytheism and, less commonly, animism. There is little organized "-ism" in paganism.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

 

 

Another attempt at a definition

 

 

Definitions by Isaac Bonewits

 

Paleo-Paganism: A retronym coined to contrast with "neopaganism", denoting a pagan culture that has not been disrupted by other cultures. The term applies to Hinduism, Shinto, pre-Migration period Germanic paganism as described by Tacitus, Celtic Polytheism as described by Julius Caesar, and the Greek and Roman religion.

Meso-Paganism: A group, which is, or has been, significantly influenced by monotheistic, dualistic, or nontheistic worldviews, but has been able to maintain an independence of religious practices. This includes Native Americans and Australian Aborigine Bushmen, Viking Age Norse paganism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, as well as Sikhism, and the many Afro-Diasporatic faiths like Haitian Vodou, and Santería.

Neo-Paganism: An attempt by modern people to reconnect with nature, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition may include reconstructive or semi-reconstructive as Ásatrú and other groups, as well as New Age and non-reconstructive groups such as Neo-Druidism and Wicca.

 

Is there continuity between ancient and contemporary Paganisms?

 

Differences:

 

Similarities:

 

What about other cultures?

 

 

19th century discourses about Paganisms

 

  1. “Pagans are people who bow down to idols, offer up blood sacrifices, and represent the religious aspect of human savagery and ignorance”
  2. Paganism was “a religion which had been associated with magnificent art, literature and philosophy, and was deficient to Christianity only in its ethics and in its lesser component of divine revelation.”
  3. There was once a single revealed religion (and Christianity is merely a garbled version of it); ancient paganisms were closer to this and therefore worthy of respect (Deism, started in 18th century; syncretism)
  4. Ancient Paganisms were “joyous, liberationist and life-affirming traditions, profoundly and valuably connected with both the natural world and with human spiritual creativity” (circa 1800 - 1940)

 

Source: Ronald Hutton (1999), The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford University Press: Oxford

 

 

 

Further reading

 

 

Religious Traditions