Information AboutPaganism |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PAGANISM | |
| christian history | |
| paganismchristian history | |
| paganism | |
| religious faiths, traditions, and movements | |
| polytheism | |
|
Paganism (from Latin ''paganus'', meaning "an old country dweller, rustic") is a term which, from a Western perspective, has come to connote a broad set of Spiritual or Cultic practices or beliefs of any Folk Religion , and of historical and contemporary Polytheistic religions in particular. The term can be defined broadly, to encompass the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic Monotheistic group of Judaism , Christianity , and Islam . The group so defined includes the Indian Religions (such as Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism ), Native American Religions And Mythologies and Shinto as well as non-Abrahamic Ethnic Religion s in general. More narrow definitions will not include any of the World Religions and restrict the term to local or rural currents not organized as Civil Religions . Characteristic of Pagan traditions is the absence of Proselytism , and the presence of a living Mythology which Explains Religious Practice ."And it Harms No-one", A Pagan Manifesto, Janet Farrar & Gavin Bone , 1998. {Link without Title} The term "Pagan" is a Christian adaptation of the " Gentile " of Judaism, and as such has an inherent Christian or Abrahamic bias, and , Mushrik and Kafir (كافر) in Islam. For this reason, Ethnologists avoid the term "Paganism", with its uncertain and varied meanings, in referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring more precise categories such as Polytheism , Shamanism , Pantheism , or Animism . Since the later 20th century, however, the words "Pagan" or "Paganism" have become widely and openly used as a self-designation of adherents of Polytheistic Reconstructionism and Neo-Paganism ."A Basic Introduction to Paganism", BBC, retrieved 19 May 2007. {Link without Title} ETYMOLOGY Pagan ]] The term ''Pagan'' is from Latin ''paganus'', an adjective originally meaning " Rural ", "rustic" or "of the country." As a noun, ''paganus'' was used to mean "country dweller, villager." In colloquial use, it could mean much the same as calling someone today a 'country bumpkin' or a 'hillbilly'. The semantic development of post-classical Latin ''paganus'' in the sense "non-Christian, heathen" is unclear. The dating of this sense is controversial, but the 4th century seems most plausible. An earlier example has been suggested in Tertullian De Corona Militis xi, ''"Apud hunc Christum tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis,"'' but here the word ''paganus'' may be interpreted in the sense " Civilian " rather than "heathen". There are three main explanations of the development:
-- Oxford English Dictionary, (online) 2nd Edition (1989) " Peasant " is a Cognate , via Old French ''paisent''. ( Harry Thurston Peck, ''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquity'', 1897; "pagus" ).
While ''pagan'' is attested in English from the 14th century, there is no evidence that the term ''paganism'' was in use in English before the 17th century. The . Less than twenty years after the last vestiges of paganism were crushed with great severity by the emperor Theodosius I"Theodosius I", The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912. {Link without Title} Rome was seized by Alaric in 410. This led to murmuring that the gods of paganism had taken greater care of the city than that of the Christian God, inspiring St Augustine to write '' The City Of God '', alternative title "''De Civitate Dei contra Paganos'': The City of God against the Pagans", in which he claimed that whilst the great 'city of Man' had fallen, Christians were ultimately citizens of the 'city of God.'"The City of God", Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2003. Heathen ''Heathen'' is from , " Gentile ". It has even been suggested that Gothic ''haiþi'' is not related to "heath" at all, but rather a loan from Armenian ''hethanos'', itself loaned from Greek ''ethnos''. TERMINOLOGY Common word usage Both "Pagan" and "heathen" have historically been used as a Pejorative by adherents of monotheistic religions (such as Judaism , Christianity and Islam ) to indicate a disbeliever in their religion. "Paganism" is also sometimes used to mean the ''lack'' of (an accepted monotheistic) religion, and therefore sometimes means essentially the same as '' Atheism ''. "Paganism" frequently refers to the religions of Classical Antiquity , most notably Greek Mythology or Roman Religion , and can be used neutrally or admiringly by those who refer to those complexes of belief. However, until the rise of Romanticism and the general acceptance of Freedom Of Religion in Western Civilization , "Paganism" was almost always used disparagingly of Heterodox beliefs falling outside the established political framework of the Christian Church. "Pagan" came to be equated with a Christianized sense of " the poet would comment on this same theme: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death." 'Hymn to Proserpine' Christianity itself has been perceived at times as a form of paganism by followers of the other Abrahamic religions Jewish Encyclopedia ". Even between Christians there have been similar charges of paganism levelled, especially by Protestants' Philip Melanchthon 'Apologia Confessionis Augustanae', Jean Seznec 'The Survival of the Pagan Gods', towards the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches for their Veneration of the saints and images. Heathenry "Heathen" ( Old English ''hæðen'') is a translation of ''paganus''. The Germanic Tribes were distributed over Eastern and Central Europe by the 5th century, and their Dialects ceased to be mutually intelligible from around that time. Christianization of the Germanic peoples took place from the 4th ( Goths ) to the 6th ( Anglo-Saxons , Alamanni ) or 8th ( Saxons ) centuries on the continent, and from the 9th to 12th centuries in Iceland and Scandinavia. Pagan classifications Pagan subdivisions coined by Isaac Bonewits {Link without Title}
HISTORICAL POLYTHEISM Bronze Age to Classical Antiquity (as opposed to Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Indian religions)
Late Antiquity to High Middle Ages (as opposed to Abrahamic and Indian religions) CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC RELIGION .]] procession in Klagenfurt .]] There are many surviving traditions of Ethnic Religion . Organized ethnic religions that achieved the status of a Civil Religion are Shinto , tied to Japanese identity, and Judaism , tied to Jewish identity. In Nationalist definitions, Hinduism may be tied to Indian identity. Uninstitutionalized Folk Religion is found mainly in rural and sparsely populated areas. These include Animism , Ancestor Worship and Shamanism of Asia , Africa , the Americas , as well as Papua and other Pacific Islands . Chinese Folk Religion is an umbrella term for uninstitutionalized folk traditions under a secular regime. All World Religion s, however, also include folk religious aspects, as opposed to their theological or philosophical aspects, see Folk Christianity , or local institutions of revealed religions may become strongly tied to ethnic identity, e.g. Yazdânism (Kurdish faiths descending from Zoroastrianism ), Tibetan Buddhism , or various Christian National Church es such as the Armenian Apostolic Church , the various Syriac churches, and the various branches of the Orthodox Church, e.g., Anglican Orthodox , Greek Orthodox , Russian Orthodox and other non-Roman churches. Africa See Also: African traditional religion crab sorcerer of Rhumsiki .]] During the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa, Islamic Fulbe (Fula) labelled their non-Muslim neighbours, such as this Kapsiki Diviner , '' Kirdi '', or "pagans". Eurasia Eurasian ethnic religions became largely extinct in the course of the Middle Ages , first with Christianization in the West and the Spread Of Buddhism in the East, and then with the Islamic Conquests of Persia, Central and South Asia. A notable survival of pre-Islamic traditions are the people of Kafirstan , now shrunk tothe Kalasha people, inhabiting three valleys in the NWFP , Pakistan . The 2002 census of the Russian Federation reports 123,423 people (0.23% of the population) as belonging to ethnic groups predominantly adhering to "traditional beliefs", mostly in Siberia and the Russian Far East . In Japan, there is the Ryukyuan Religion . Central America See Also: Maya religion In spite of five centuries of persecution Mayan paganism is alive and well in Guatemala, and is experiencing a resurgence of interest among young Mayans. Recent peace accords signed by the Guatemalan government have provided funds to teach Mayan language and traditional religion in rural schools. PAGAN REVIVALS AND NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Neo-paganism See Also: Neo-paganism '' festival of the Greek polytheistic group Supreme Council Of Ethnikoi Hellenes , June 2006.]] Neopaganism includes Reconstructed Religions such as Hellenic , Celtic or Germanic reconstructionism as well as modern eclectic traditions such as Discordianism , and Wicca and its many offshoots. Many of the "revivals", Wicca and Neo-druidism in particular, have their roots in 19th century Romanticism and retain noticeable elements of Occultism or Theosophy that were current then, setting them apart from historical rural (''paganus'') folk religion. The '' Íslenska Ásatrúarfélagið '' is a notable exception in that it was derived more or less directly from remnants in rural folklore. Neopaganism In The United States accounts for roughly a third of all neopagans worldwide, and for some 0.2% of US population, figuring as the sixth largest non-Christian denomination in the US, after Judaism (1.4%), Islam (0.6%), Buddhism (0.5%), Hinduism (0.3%) and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). ARIS 2001 figures. Modern nature religion Many current Pagans in industrial societies base their beliefs and practices on a connection to Nature, and a divinity within all living things, but this may not hold true for all forms of Paganism, past or present. Some believe that there are many deities, while some believe that the combined subconscious spirit of all living things forms the universal deity. Ancient Greek Paganism, which tended in many cases to be a deification of the local deity, as Athena in Athens , saw each local emanation as an aspect of an Olympian deity during the Classical period and then after Alexander to syncretize the deity with the political process, with "state divinities" increasingly assigned to various localities, as Roma personified Rome. Many ancient regimes would claim to be the representative on Earth of these Gods , and would depend on more or less elaborate bureaucracies of state-supported priests and scribes to lend public support to their claims. In one well-established sense, Paganism is the belief in any non- Monotheistic religion, which would mean that the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece would not be considered Pagan in that sense, since they were monotheist, but not in the Abrahamic tradition. In an extreme sense, and like the pejorative sense below, any belief, ritual or pastime not sanctioned by a religion accepted as Orthodox by those doing the describing, such as Burning Man , Halloween , or even Christmas , can be described as "pagan" by the person or people who object to them and the individuals who choose to claim this title. DEMOGRAPHICS Paganism has been previously defined broadly, to encompass many or most of the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism , Christianity , and Islam . If the Indian Religions are included, then 50 percent of the worlds religions would be considered pagan. 1998 Cambridge Fact Finder . The term has also been used more narrowly,http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism.htmEisenstadt, S.N., 1983, Transcendental Visions -- Other-Worldliness -- and Its Transformations: Some More Comments on L. Dumont. ''Religion''13:1-17, at p. 3.Michael York, Paganism as Root-Religion, The Pomegranate, 6:1 (2004), pp. 11-18 (distinguishing the main streams of developed religion as gnostic, dharmic, Abrahamic and pagan). however, to refer only to religions outside the very large group of so-called Axial Age faiths that encompass both the Abrahamic religions and the chief Indian religions. Under this narrower definition, which differs from that historically used by many Catholic Encyclopaedia (1917 edition) on Paganism Hindu rites at a famous Catholic shrine shocks many Catholics (though by no means allDavid Scott, Christian Responses to Buddhism in Pre-Medieval Times, Numen, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jul., 1985), pp. 88-100Audrius Beinorius, Buddhism in the Early European Imagination: A Historical Perspective, ACTA ORIENTALIA VILNENSIA 6:2 (2005), pp. 7–22) Christians and other Westerners, contemporary paganism is a relatively smaller and more marginal numerical phenomenon. NOTES AND REFERENCES LITERATURE
SEE ALSO
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|