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Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.
IMO, its the practice of a number of the overlapping characteristics of a set of distinct religious traditions and mythologies that are outside of the major historical religious traditions. How and what is practiced and what beliefs are adopted vary by group or practitioner, but it generally involves some variation of polytheistic practice and/or belief and/or earth or nature-centered practices and/or beliefs. Often practices and/or beliefs are based upon the religion and/or mythologies of the Ancient world, either as a reconstruction or just as a source of inspiration.
Being semi-serious, Paganism has a multitude of different and sometimes contradictory uses and meanings. Attempts to give it a clear definition tend to have interesting results.
life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.
Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
"But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."
John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper
"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."
so a pagan is mostly with ancien wisdom and\or with different belief than the main religion of this world am i right or wrong?
Some people believe they can practice one of the Big 5 religions & still be Pagans... but...
No, no, never mind. Yanno what? I'm not going to indulge myself in yet another one of these threads. I'm going to finish my beer and go to bed instead. :P
The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.
life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.
Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
"But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."
John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper
"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."
I agree that its a nature based kind of spirituality & is sometimes centered by monothiesm or polytheism & some practice rituals and/or spells to ask for understanding and/or help from the god/s on how life should be lived. IMO at least. ^_^
Can someone do me a brilliant favor... sum up paganism in a few sentences.
Difficult to do, but I think I can manage. Keep in mind, this is mainly my own opinion, based on linguistic research and anthropology. I define Paganism fairly narrowly, though still broad enough to capture a lot of different things. To me: Pagan describes a religion, attitude, practice, or worldview that is oriented towards nature, folklore, hearth and home, and the cycles of seasons and -this is important- agriculture. This last bit might strike some as odd, but I find it to be as integral to being Pagan as nature worship. As much as our modern society has divorced itself from traditional agrarianism and pastoralism, these aspects still exist and are among the fundamental parts of paganism's focus.
Agriculture and animal husbandry is how, for better or for worse, humanity interacts with and harnesses the natural world and is the practice around which much of human civilization has organised itself. The root Latin term from which "pagan" is derived refers to the rural, superstitious folk of the Roman provinces to whom agriculture and safe interaction with the natural world were central parts of their society, culture, and religion. I see modern paganism as a continued expression of this principle. "Earth-Based" is good for a very brief descriptor, but I feel that it is much more complex than that. Continuing from this, I use Neopagan to describe iterations of Pagan thought and belief that have come about from the 19th century onwards, based on but modifying Isaac Bonewits' terminology.
As such, I do differentiate between Neopaganism, Polytheism, the Polytheistic Revival, and the Witchcraft Revival. There's a great deal of overlap, especially when it comes to Wicca and Neo-Druidry. But not all polytheistic revival religions are pagan; some simply don't have a major focus on agriculture and nature. For example, Wicca is generally polytheistic, pagan, and a witchcraft religion all at the same time. Neo-Druidism could be described as just pagan and polytheistic. Whereas most Hellenists I've met would describe themselves as polytheistic, but not "pagan" and certainly not "witches". On the other hand, there's plenty of non-Wiccan witches that would define themselves as pagan witches, but might not necessarily be polytheistic; Dianic Witchcraft and Christian Witchcraft comes to mind, as those are or seem to be monotheistic.
Oh dear, those "few sentences" have turned into "a few paragraphs".
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