Pagan/Animists (souls, church, gospel, trinity)

[Lisa_from_Debary]

Originally Posted by maniac

Well, I didn't mean that Pagans were anti-Christians, just my friend who happened to be a Pagan hated all things Christian, claimed Christianity was perverting society and had been for thousands of years. He drew his conclusion from studies of history, his own experiences, and some rather biased books (Letter to a Christian Nation and similar books, as well as testimonials of people who stopped believing) so it was simply a personal bias that I talked about, not the beliefs of all practicing pagans, I appologize if I wasn't clear enough.

I'm affraid what you have is the 'christian' spin on Pagan, not really what Pagans are. Your friend might have hated all things christian but a good pagan has no hate for anyone. They also don't worship the devil as christians are so fond of wanting to believe. Their religious beliefs tend to be more nature centered, they also believe in a female god and a male, not patriarchal religion there.

They believe that hating someone will bring that back on you, sort of like christians are supposed to believe that "do unto others as you would have done to you".

[maniac]

Originally Posted by Lisa_from_Debary

I'm affraid what you have is the 'christian' spin on Pagan, not really what Pagans are. Your friend might have hated all things christian but a good pagan has no hate for anyone. They also don't worship the devil as christians are so fond of wanting to believe. Their religious beliefs tend to be more nature centered, they also believe in a female god and a male, not patriarchal religion there.

They believe that hating someone will bring that back on you, sort of like christians are supposed to believe that "do unto others as you would have done to you".

No, I clarified that what my friend was about was not an "official pagan" point of view. And I think it obvious that they don't worship Satan, if they have an entirely different set of beliefs then they would not even believe Satan exists, thus eliminating the possiblity of worshiping him. One thing I might point out though, you said they believe in a God and a Godess, this may or may not be true depending on what form of paganism, pagans are generally politheists (some may not be), they could beleive in a cast of male gods or a cast of famale gods just as easily as they beleive in a mixed cast. It is difficult to say one thing and speak for all pagans, for instance, the Greeks and the Scandinavians were both pagans at one point in time, the Greeks and Scandinavians both had a God of thunder (Zeus for the Greeks, Thor for Scandinavians) who was very powerful, but it would be inaccurate to say that for pagans the God of thunder is always the head of the Gods as, although Zeus was the King of Greek gods, Odin rather than Thor was the king of the Norse gods, and if you look over at the Mayans who were also pagans, their head god was the god of corn. But you may look over at the Celts, they worshipped a god who did not have a human form, one of thier greatest gods was Epona, god of horses who happened to be in the form of a horse, the Greeks had nothing like that, all thier gods were human. Thus it is difficult to draw conclusions for all of pagans. It is true, however, that they do tend to have nature based religions, but every religion is nature based if you look at it, all the pagans try to do is explain how the universe works, isn't that what any other religion tries to do? And science too for that matter?

[Lisa_from_Debary]

You are very right, there are many different types of pagans.

Why don't you google them? I draw what I know of them from a friend who is Pagan...her belief system includes the god and godess, one which I like because I can't stand the patriarchal system of christianity.

Just be careful who you listen to about Pagans because some christians have vilified them for centuries. Its sad and very judgemental of them.

[Trebek]

This is all fascination stuff for me. Keep it going and let us all know about the Pagan religion. Any Animists (pre-pagans/aborigional) folks out there?

[Predos]

What surprises me (because of their own self proclaimed honesty) is that the major current religions refuse to acknowledge their roots in the so called pagan beliefs. Many of the religious beliefs taught today, when researched, are found to have surfaced with the pagans, long before christ.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by Predos

What surprises me (because of their own self proclaimed honesty) is that the major current religions refuse to acknowledge their roots in the so called pagan beliefs. Many of the religious beliefs taught today, when researched, are found to have surfaced with the pagans, long before christ.

Such as...?

[stretch00]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Such as...?

How about the virgin birth?

Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Egyptian mythology and I think some others all have versions of this story.

[june 7th]

Okay, don't hold me to this "etched in stone" as it is off the top of my head, but:

I always thought that historically, "pagans" were identified as anyone who was not accepting of Christianity. I think over time, however, the term took on broader implications.

As far as "animistic" tribes, their belief system is centered around the primary concept of the soul. They believe that all things, (including inanimate objects) possess a soul. --If you are really interested in animistic tribes, check out "Totem and Taboo" by Freud. He was very, very fascinated by this topic.

[maniac]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Such as...?

Well, like the day Christmas is on for instance. December 25 is the day the Romans celebrated the winter solstace, a very sacred holiday for worshipping the Sun God, when Christianity was allowed by the Roman Empire, because the 25th of December was already a holiday they allowed Christians to worship on that day as well, even though all evidence points to Christ's birthday being in I believe April or May. There are other things as well, mostly everything was to comprimise with the already deeply engrained pagan traditions. Also, mistletoe for Christmas comes from an old Nordic Tradition as well as burning the ule log, Christmas trees as well. Actually, almost everything we associate with Christmas has its roots in pagan traditions, everything except the stuff directly related to Christ.

[maniac]

Originally Posted by stretch00

How about the virgin birth?

Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Egyptian mythology and I think some others all have versions of this story.

That's interesting, can you refer me to some site or something where I can read about that? It would be interesting to learn more.