Why do you call youself Pagan?

[thalassa]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

I know quite a few dumb ass pagans.

Ain't that the truth.

[WrachDrui]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

I call myself Pagan because I believe that I am. Sometimes I add "just" as in I'm 'just Pagan" (as opposed to a Pagan who follows any particular path such as Kemet, or Druid or whatever) because it's easier than to explain my "melded" hotch-potch of beliefs and practices that work for me because there's no other label that quite fits it.

[faye_cat]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Because I realized that "agnostic" was no longer accurate. I knew what I believed in, and it just happened to be a mixture of things, and pagan is simply the best terminology.

[callmeclemens]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

It's much easier then saying that I come from a Roman Catholic background, but now practice an Earth centered spirituality will elements of modern druid rituals mixed in. Oh, and I'm very interested in Asatru.

[iris]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Because that's what I identify as... I like the term because it's so wide, there's room for a bit of everything.

[anunitu]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

I might mention that in this area(where the Pagan's motorcycle club is) you must explain what you mean by pagan. there was a gathering of pagans in a park(our kind) and the police showed up cause they thought it was the pagans MC...

So specify!!

Quote from Witchvox.
Yes in New Jersey, a little college town 55 miles due west of NYC *someone* felt so threatened by a group of Pagans and *gasp* Unitarians (average age around 75) collecting for hurricane victims that they felt they had to call the cops. Twice (one cop just came cause he heard it on the scanner and wondered if we were the biker gang "The Pagans")

witchvox.

[NeoPlatonic]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Hi,

I wonder, why do people call themselves Pagan? Historically, the term meant anyone who do not worship a Christian god, that is all non-christian religion.

I myself have many aspects in my beliefs that could be considered pagan an ecclectic but it seems strange to use a term that has been invented to define that which is not Christian. As such I prefer to say that I am a panentheist, a polytheist or pantheist ect. and explain my beliefs from there.

What do you think?

I think that, ironically, the term "Christian" was invended by Greco-Roman polytheists to denote a group of people who held to certain monotheistic beliefs while "Pagan" was used by later state-faith monotheists to denote people who clinged to the old traditions. So yes, Christian is a label popularized by Pagans and Pagan is a label popularized by Christians.

[habbalah]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Because it's more specific than my usual explanation of "none of the above".

[Näre]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Sometimes I go by "not religious.... not really.. certainly not like, erm, you know, spiritual".
I guess Pagan is a bit shorter. Not the same though.

[sionnach]

Re: Why do you call youself Pagan?

Pagan has had different meanings over time but we lack words to define beliefs in a world which is beyond just random chance but which does not fit into the more well established religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, and native American beliefs for examples. The term pagan was applied to the ancestors of many of us who did not convert or who were before the conversion of Christianity. It became a term which people thought they might find a connection with others of a similar belief. What has happened is more complex and made the term impossible to define without being so general as to have no real meaning. It has attracted people seeking a belief connecting them with nature, a belief connecting them with gods and goddesses of the past, and connected people believing in the possibility of performing magic or any combination of these.
The problem with the term is the growing diversity of beliefs and combinations of beliefs that defy common ground and a lack of any source or authority to control the words meaning. Yet we have forums to discuss the beliefs with a huge range of views. From a historical view of its return to favor after it was suppressed by Christianity in the European area begins in a fascination with a return to nature as in the romantic period and a fascination in the mystical view of the world. We often divide it based on the geographic source - Greece vs Scandinavia vs Ireland vs Egypt but it also divides on the importance of earth centered beliefs vs gods/goddesses centered beliefs vs ritual/magical centered beliefs with many combinations. Maybe if we can define the type of paganism further we could find better identification with the term.