posted on Mar, 30 2015 @ 08:44 PM
a reply to:
Entreri06
Well (speaking as a Pagan for the last .... # 30 years), It depends what you mean by lump. We can and often do lump Islam, Judaism, and the many form
of Christianity under the banner of "Abrahamic Religions". Given they can all trace their lineage to Abraham (in some way). Then you have the term
New Age (which is not paganism, more on that soon), for many religious practices. Now lets look at Neopaganism.
Neopaganism is just that neo (new) paganism. There are other forms, MEso (middle) paganism, heavily influenced by Christianity, this would include the
Golden Dawn, OTO, and other Ceremonial practices, and Paleo pagansim, which generally is extinct, unless we go to some aborigional cultures that were
never converted. Neopaganism started with Gerald Gardner, Ross Nichols and some other middle class white centerist English folks. It grew, and became
more liberal. From this its mutated (its a good word folks) into many forms. Wicca, Druidism, Druidry (both are different, one a philopophy, the other
a religion), heathenism, neo shamanism, reconstructionist faiths etc. But with-out Gerald, and his nudist buddy Ross, to be honest, I doubt there
would be much in the way of a movement like we have today. While their current influence is minimal, it was the start, just like the Abrahamic faiths
can look back at Abraham.
So yeah you can say all these disparate faiths are "pagan" (for some reason the term neo squicks some of us. Oh well). Our differences are vast, but
our history shared
So rambling post summed up: "Yes no kinda maybe"
edit on 30-3-2015 by Noinden because: (no reason given)