Is it fair to lump all the pagan religions togather?

a reply to: beansidhe

God knows if this happened in the USA it would be all out freaking WAR! Americans are armed to the teeth...


Europe will be crying in the streets for the Americans to come and save them yet again, the only thing history ever does bro is repeat itself.



same play time and time again, just a different venue...

a reply to: AinElohim

That's a lot of dollars. Maths isn't my strong suit, but I'd say a lot.

Aye, jihadis are a bit odd. Here's how we deal with terrorist attacks in Scotland (no guns, mind you. We just kick the sh** out of them, when they're on fire):



We'll set about yiz! Always makes me laugh

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: AinElohim

That's a lot of dollars. Maths isn't my strong suit, but I'd say a lot.

Aye, jihadis are a bit odd. Here's how we deal with terrorist attacks in Scotland (no guns, mind you. We just kick the sh** out of them, when they're on fire):

We'll set about yiz! Always makes me laugh

hahaha!

I thought that was the Irish?

they'll kick the crap out of you then sing about it... (Irish American's anyway)

"but if you want a linguistic adventure go drinking with a Scotsman
-Robin Williams"

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"

a reply to: frostjon361

See but they don't. Every modern form of paganism is from the 1950s on. There are no survivals. Wicca is a creature of the 20th century, Druidry outside the very Christian centric lodges (which are like the Masons) likewise. Heathenism came about in the 1970's, the late 80s gave us the first Celtic Recons etc.

Now perhaps I am being a little picky here, but Hindus I exclude (umm because they are hindus and the modern soft polytheistic faith is different that the hard polytheistic early vedic indo-european practices), Shinto, Buddism etc.

So perhaps it depends on what you mean by "pagan". If you mean non Christian, sure, if you mean the modern groupsings which are commonly considered neopagan, heathen, etc .... they are modern, there were no survivals

a reply to: BlueJacket

Umm no, pagan had a connotation even in the pre-Christian Roman empire. So Christians did not make up the term, they just used it (inter changably with heathen) in a certain way.

Pagan meant "people of the land/countryside" (ie not cities), heathens lived on heaths. Somehow Christianity used them as a pejorative, and then it was cahnged again by Gardner et all in the mid 20th century. Words change meaning, and implications.

Ghost once meant stranger (and is related to guest and host through the proto Indo-european root *ghosti)
Nice meant strange
etc (avoiding the naughty words)

a reply to: beansidhe

Oh gods its "Arthur" and his "loyal war band". Many of us in the Druidical world (so that is both Druidry, and Druidism) crnge every time he opens his gob. Don't even get me started on his fetish for stone circles that are not Celtic Hmm I'll avoid the rant on that for now. I will say I do agree with protecting the circles, its a shame HE wants all the new age twats to come celebrate a solar event at them, but never reminds them to clean up, and not mess with the antiquities

But one has to realise that every faith, or group of faiths has its idiots. Christianity has among others, the Westbro Baptist Church, who seem not to have read what Jesus stood for, and stood against Similarly many of us have Mr "Pendragon" and "King Kevin" (google Kevan king of the witches .... ugh) who make us look like a bunch of hippy dippy twits.

For rebuttal, I'm a professional scientist, I don't own ritual robes, my swords are hand forged and not for ritual (no they are for martial practice thanks), and most people would assume I was either an athiets (viz the Scientist bit) or a lower case c christian. Looks are deceiving