hizgeorgiapeach
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ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou
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Slaveboy - you are both correct and incorrect concerning the use of the term "Pagan."
How am I incorrect? I said it was originally a term of mockery. That was the "correct" portion of your original statement. The "incorrect" portion of the statement was that it was coined By Christians in reference to Non-Christians. It wasn't. It was coined by City Romans in reference to Non-City anyone, Roman or otherwise. Religion had nothing to do with it - place of origin, city or country, did.
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You are also incorrect in thinking that it does - or should - mean only Polytheists, or Any non-Christian.
I didn't say that. I said that people who refer to themselves as "pagans" would be more correct in calling themselves polytheists. You didn't? Then I guess it was your evil twin that said
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I also find the term, "Pagan" to be a bad one. Technically anyone that is not a Christian is a pagan. The word comes from early Christians, and it was a word used in mockery. A more appropriate term would be, poly-theist.
This group of sequential sentences - quoted from Your original post - is not "most" or "many" or "those who refer to themselves as". It is, quite bluntly "all" and "anyone" and applies a term (polytheist) that is blatantly incorrect Because of that "anyone." You cannot have it both ways as they are diametrically opposed to each other. Either everyone who is non-Christian - whether they are Monotheist in an Abrahamic tradition, or Polytheist of whatever tradition - is a pagan and the term you propose all of them use is Inaccurate (as you are complaining "pagan" is inaccurate) - or - they're not all pagan, and therefore your supposition that "all" non-christian religions are pagan is in error. You decide for yourself which statement of your own was the mistake.
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My main gripe with many "pagans" is some of the claims that they make. It seems most neo-pagans that I meet are devotees of Celtic belief systems. The only problem with that is that very little is known about their practices. The ancient Celts didn't leave written records. Most of what is known about them is from the writings of Julius Ceaser, which may or may not be embellishments or outright lies.
No, the Celts - and Gauls, Picts, and a few other tribal types from the same general region - did not leave Written records. They had Oral traditions passed down over generations, and the skills of the Bard and Druid as keepers of that sort of oral tradition/living memory system were held in much higher esteem than written records. From what references I've been able to find in my various studies, it seems that most of the various peoples now refered to as "the Celts" actually considered writing to be something akin to academic laziness - useful for those who weren't adequately intelligent to Remember and Pass Along the tribal histories without some form of external aid. Since a great deal of those Orally kept histories became Taboo due to their very Non-Christian Nature/Origin - those histories died out of living memory, or were kept only sporadically and in great secrecy. Obviously some portions survived - otherwise there would be no record of things like the Irish legend/myth series including Cuchulain (sp?) and such - which predate Christianity coming to the Isles by quite a bit, when there were only Oral records kept.
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I also have a problem with someone cramming the beliefs of many different peoples into one belief system. I just think that dishonors them.
Why should it bother you, for someone who isn't attempting to convert you, to find bits and pieces that are comfortable to Them from several originally seperate sources? Christianity itself borrowed heavily from a number of pre-existing belief systems, and lumped them all together, prior to becoming finally codisized around 300 AD, not that long after it became the official state religion of the remains of the Roman Empire. It relied heavily on it's Jewish roots, along with smatterings from Zoroastrianism and a couple of pre-hindu systems that helped spawn Zoroastrianism, various symbology and holidays that were borrowed from local religions in regions that the remains of Empire were attempting to convert, etc. Would it make you happier if, say, I were to term my personal belief system "zycadulathism" to differentiate it from Everything else on the planet - supposing of course that my personal path took bits and pieces from several already existing religions, and formed them into a whole that I personally found coherant and comfortable? That's essentially how all the Existing religions (including Christianity) came into being.
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Yes, I have a problem with this myth propogated by many modern pagans that Christianity was forced on ancient European peoples. Christians did persecute people in the name of their faith, but Christianity by and large was adopted willingly and peacefully by many.
After a very general Peaceful acceptance of Christianity by Some, it became nearly a death sentence to NOT proclaim yourself a Christian - even if you were lying through your teeth to avoid your own untimely death. If not via outright murder condoned (and sometimes instigated) by the Church, then by Shunning and being turned out of the community, because the Priest instilled Fear of Damnation into your neighbors if they did Not shun you on his orders - because You weren't a member of his obedient, ignorant flock. Instill sufficient fear into the masses - especially the superstious masses - and you win. And during that time period - everyone..... Everyone, from lowest peasant to highest nobility - was Superstious to the Nth degree. Everything had Some sort of Divine Origin, from whether you were lucky at dice to whether it rained enough for your crops to thrive to whether you did/did not come down with a winter fever and Die from it - and that divine origin depended upon you being sufficiently welled versed in propitiating whatever diety controled that specific aspect of life with the proper sacrifices and reverence.
Now, think logically, and let us set aside (for a moment) Modern reasoning and attempt to feel what it would have been like for those pre-technological, agrarian, primarily peasant folks. They were tied to the land and the small, insular, clan/extended family based community they were born into. Most of them considered anything further than 2 days walk in any direction to be another country altogether, with different beliefs, different traditions, and a completely different set of Authority (other than the Unifying Authority of the Church once it became the sole Acceptable religion in the region.) Death was only a heartbeat away on a Good day. Disease was rampant, hygene practically unknown, malnutrition (at least by our standards) unknown to everyone except the lucky, and famine a constant threat.
Along comes a wandering Priest of this New religion - Christianity - and he makes it sound great and wonderful and full of promise. Instead of making sacrifices and the proper reverences to a whole slew of divine spirits, there's only one that you need to worry about keeping happy. And he - the priest - has a direct line to that deity, and can tell you exactly what that diety wants at any given moment to Keep him happy. Life will be much simpler, you won't waste so much time possibly making a sacrifice to the Wrong Divine Spirit for a good harvest, happy happy joy joy. Most of your village - in fact everyone except you and one other - all decide to peaceably convert. And of course, if the local noble happend to convert First - you might as well take it as a given that you're GOING to be converting, whether you believe or not, whether you agree or not - because in your mind, he holds rights over your very existance by right of his birth - and it's inconcievable to you Not to do what he tells you to do, even if it goes against the grain and includes abandoning your previous system of supernatural beliefs/observances. Instant peaceful "conversion" to christianity - and quiet death by various ugly means that never goes into the noble's records for any who happen to disent, because he effectively owns your life anyway and doesn't Have to answer as to the Why you put to death.
What does this give the Priest? Power. Power over the minds of Everyone Else In Your Insular, secluded little Village. He's annoyed - after all, you and this one other person - the village wise woman or Druid, perhaps - are the only hold outs keeping him from having Absolute say over what people think. He is, after all, the Direct Conduit to The Divine - he has God's ear, and can call down God's Wrath if you do anything Wrong (according to him) or God's Blessing if you do things Right (again, according to him.) He now has a taste of power, having all but those two under his Spiritual thumb - so he sets out to have Absolute power. He can't - since you're all Related to each other by Blood to some degree - simply tell the village elders that "God says to kill so-n-so because they're a Non-Believer." It would never fly, family ties are Tight, and he'd likely be run out of town to lose everyone as a convert - or he'd end up with a knife in his heart for making such an outrageous suggestion as to kill one of your own. Instead he preys upon the superstious fears that are common at the time. He starts telling people that if they don't shun you - the Non-Believer - then God's Wrath is going to be visited on the village, all the crops will fail, the game that you depend upon for protein will be hidden from your sight in the forest, and you'll all die and burn in eternal agony because you allowed this UnRightous - this Non-Believer - this Witch - this Agent of Evil - to remain among you. It'll all be The Non-Believer's Fault, but They will pay the price. So they're frightened. They don't want famine, they don't want Divine Wrath brought down on their heads - so what can they do? Who would know, except the very same Priest that told them they were inviting said Wrath in the first place. And what is his solution? Shun you. Turn you out of the community to live or die by "God's Will" - at the mercy of the elements, outlaws, and animals. And that's exactly what they do - after all, they're Believers, and they're Superstious (just like you are, considering the time frame we're talking about) - and they want to avoid that Divine Retribution for NOT doing what the Priest says will sucessfully avert the Wrath of God on everyone ELSE in the clan. If you're smart - ya get the duck outta fodge before ol' 2nd cousin Rufus, who still holds a silent grudge against you for being the one who got to marry pretty 3rd cousin Mhari instead of him, decides that if Shunning you will keep God from bringing disaster on the village's collective head, then perhaps killing you outright will curry God's Active Favor! Of course - in order to survive after leaving like that (which will make many assume that you Must be Guilty of Evil, just like the priest said *gasp*) - you'll have to either be exceptionally lucky, or turn outlaw. Luck your clan will never know about, and outlaw will simply confirm for them what the priest said - that you were an agent of evil that needed to be turned out of their midst before corrupting them all. Either way, if they see you again, they'll likely kill you out of hand to avoid that incipient corruption.
Your second option of course is to Convert, Post Haste, at least to outward appearances, and simply keep your mouth shut about your True beliefs, and do all of your Actual worshipping in absolute secrecy. With this option, you end up hating yourself, and feeling guilty as all get out for appearing to abandon your beliefs - but hey, ya don't have to turn outlaw to survive, and Rufus puts away his budding thoughts of killing you to curry favor with the Priest/God - after all, you're a fellow convert, and "god" probably wouldn't like it if he killed ya now. Chances are you won't get an opportunity - or at least not Much of one - to pass along your True beliefs to your spawn this way. Well, maybe a few of them, carefully guarded as family secrets, or hidden in "family legends and ghost stories."
Give that a few generations to seep into tradition, and pretty soon it's not "shun them or you'll invite divine wrath" - it becomes (because they've gotten used to the Priest being pleased at Rufus's thinking and expanding on it) "kill them or you'll invite divine wrath."
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