Pagan?

[Captain Obvious]

so, like the Greeks/Romans werent pagan then? or, they were semi-pagan?

without trying to hijack the thread, what exaclty do you believe RTB? as someone with no knowledge of paganism (apart perhaps from some of the crap that gets thrown around) i am curious. (and it is probably easer to get an idea from your beliefs than trying to understand every variety of pagan).

[Harkoliar]

had that thread discussion before. I mentioned that Paganism in the old days would mean satanism by the catholic church. But satanism isnt exactly worshiping satan but just a belief similar to "power ethics". my 2c

[SpiritWarrior]

They weren't Pagan IMHO. They paid tribute to heavenly deities the same way christians do.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Sometimes polytheism gets mixed up with paganism, but these days that's not always the case.

[Kakero]

I don't know, whenever I said "I don't have any religion". People will say "Oh, you are pagan." They don't seem to make a big fuss about it.

However, when I say "I don't believe in god." People will often gasp and looked at me as if I'm crazy.

Is there a huge different in saying " I don't have any religion" and "I don't believe in god" ?

[robertthebard]

Without getting too far into what is taboo territory here, I can define my basic beliefs with a quarter. Lumina brought up polytheism in regard to the Greek/Roman pantheons, and while I don't have 12 Divine Beings, I do have three. Firstly we'll take heads, and assign this the masculine side. This is the part that represents winter, and death, to oversimplify. We hunt for food, or harvest crops for food. All of this is a natural cycle, and it all kills what we hunt/harvest. The tails side of the coin is the feminine aspect, which represents fertility. The crops we have harvested will be replanted in the spring, and will grow, to be harvested, and the game animals will breed, so that some of them will be hunted for food. These are intermediaries to the main divine spirit, which is the whole of the quarter. In my belief, you cannot have the quarter w/out both sides. They are separate, but intertwined in so many ways. I really don't know how to explain it much better than that, in a short amount of time, but I hope that this sheds some light on it.

Satanism is an offshoot of Christianity, Judaism religious beliefs. He is taken straight from the Bible, although his physical appearance was contrived from within Pagan temples. I can't go into this w/out violating our TOS. Somebody would be offended, and I'm not trying to offend.

[Spirits Reborn]

Wow, That's alot and Thanks! [img]smile.gif[/img]

So technically speaking Hinduism wouldn't be considered pagan right?

And kakero, i think that people assume that you still believe in god , just not in a religion- when you say it the first way.

while the second, is just blatantly telling them.

[Lucern]

Spirits - I think this is a fruitless exercise. The reason is that people around you defined it for you! You're not going to take what others tell you and then apply it to the people who already told you what it means for them, are you? As in, correcting them? "Actually you believe this..." I doubt that. Pagan is a term with a lot of meanings to a lot of people, and there isn't a simple way to understand its totality. Simplest thing to do is figure out what your friends mean by it - which is what you've already wisely done.

[Spirits Reborn]

Yea, I agree with you lucern. I posted this, since I heard a couple different definitions of it. And simply it piqued my interest in what others thought it meant.

You know how that goes [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Captain Obvious]

Very nicely put RTB - probably one of the best, easiest to understand descriptions i have ever seen.

cheers!