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So, Just What is a Pagan?

We are not evil. We don't harm or seduce people. We are not dangerous. We are ordinary people like you. We have families, jobs, hopes, and dreams. We are not a cult. This religion is not a joke. We are not what you think we are from looking at T.V. We are real. We laugh, we cry. We are serious. We have a sense of humor. You don't have to be afraid of us. We don't want to convert you. And please don't try to convert us. Just give us the same right we give you--to live in peace. We are much more similar to you than you think. ~Margot Adler When one defines oneself as Pagan, it means she or he follows an earth or nature religion, one that sees the divine manifest in all creation. The cycles of nature are our holy days, the earth is our temple, its plants and creatures our partners and teachers. We worship a deity that is both male and female, a mother Goddess and father God, who together created all that is, was, or will be. We respect life, cherish the free will of sentient beings, and accept the sacredness of all creation. ~Edain McCoy When most people hear the word Pagan they immediately assume that it means something bad or evil, however, that is not true at all, just many years of assumed negativity from assumed definitions and the influence of many of the major organized religions of the western world. What exactly do people think Pagan means. Many people think that it means "non-Christian." In fact, this is incorrect, are Muslim's, Hindu's, Taoist's, Buddhist's and others also then all Pagan by definition? I think not! Yes, they follow different religious Paths to the Judo/Christian, but they are not all Pagan! There are also many people that take the connotation one step further and define Pagan as something "bad." I imagine that images of orgies and demons accompany this particular feeling. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary does, after all, starts off its definition of Pagan as "heathen." However, neither of these ideas are actually accurate. Their presence in the modern "vocabulary" is a result of the circular nature of word definitions and the dominance of some religions, including Christianity, in today's society. One of the best sources to examine for a definition of Pagan is the Old Testament. The word Pagan is used numerous times throughout the work to refer to non-Israelites. This is an immediate tip-off that Pagan does not mean "non-Christian," as the concept of "Pagan" is used in the Bible many years before Christ is even born. We examine a bit farther to find what our disputed word does mean. The Israelites were different from rest of the world in two major ways. The first was their monotheism. Worshipping a single god was an incredibly radical idea during Abraham’s life in Ur. Most people worshipped thousands of gods, from gods of the sun and the rivers and the sky to gods dealing with each individual city, profession, and time of day. Many monotheists were even ostracized, for their refusal to worship the gods of the city could bring downfall to the entire population! The other fundamental difference between the Israelites and their neighbors is not so obvious and takes an above average understanding of the Bible to comprehend. The nature of Yahweh, the god of the Israelites, and the gods of their neighbors were very different. For instance, Baal, the principal God of Abraham's neighbors, was a fertility and harvest god. Worship of him ensured a good harvest and, in turn, survival. Yahweh, however, was never worshipped particularly to ensure a good harvest. When the Israelites followed Yahweh's laws and kept the faith, Yahweh protected them from invasion. However, when they strayed from his laws and broke the covenant, they were conquered and endured hardship. This is the fundamental nature of Yahweh--a god of war and of history, not of fertility and nature. The Pagans were different from the Israelites not simply because they weren't Israelites, but because they worshipped many gods and worshipped directly in nature. We can see this in all of the societies described as Pagan in our well-taught but forgotten high school history classes--the Galls, the Romans, the Greeks, the Norse... The Biblical evidence is supported by our current English language. Yes, it is true that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary starts off its definition of Pagan with the word "heathen." This word has negative meanings to everyone. However, if we take the time to look up the definition of heathen to which it is referring, we find: an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible This certainly does not mean "evil"! In fact, all it’s really saying is that a heathen is a person who has not been exposed to the ideas of Judaism or Christianity. The Merriam-Webster definition of Pagan continues as: a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome) This supports our finding of Pagans as polytheists from the Old Testament. We can also examine the word origin that Merriam-Webster gives for Pagan: Middle English, from Late Latin paganus, country dweller; from Latin pagus, country district This further supports our sense of Paganism as a nature-based religion. And this is, in fact, what myself and a whole burgeoning world of Pagans (or "neo-Pagans," as we are often called) mean when we present ourselves. The fact that I am Pagan means that I follow one of many religions that are polytheistic and nature-based. I myself am Wiccan (Wicca is a form of Paganism, but not all Pagans are Wiccan's!), a religion that worships both a goddess and a god and does so within a natural, fertility-based framework. Other Pagan religions include Druidism, Astratru (Norse), Native American spirituality, Ancient Egyptian religion, and many others--all of which still have many followers. It can be difficult for some to understand all the different paths of Paganism that exist today, but if one looks at the various sects of Christianity, Church of England, Catholic, Mormon, Methodist, etc, then one gets the idea that within the blanket term of Christian there are many sub-divisions, much as there are within the Pagan community. The best ways I have ever been told to understand it are by visualizing a great tree, the branches of which are the various Pagan Paths, or to imagine a beautiful Forest with a Glade in the center, which has many paths leading through the forest, all of which lead to the same place, the central Glade, but by differing routes. This article was taken from Silver Wolf's Lair http://homepage.ntlworld.com/spiritwolf/
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