Hate for the Pagan

[Ramadhan]

Those kinds of folks are referred to as fluffies by more serious Neo-Pagans, who tend to find them at least as obnoxious as you do.

Who/what are more serious neo pagans?

 

[Futuwwa]

Neo-Pagans who have no pretensions regarding where their religion comes from. Who actually try to reconstruct an ancient Pagan religion, rather than get their information from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Who don't have any major illusions about what the Witch Hunts were.

 

[UUSeeker]

Neo-Pagans who have no pretensions regarding where their religion comes from. Who actually try to reconstruct an ancient Pagan religion, rather than get their information from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Who don't have any major illusions about what the Witch Hunts were.

This pretty much describes those I know. They may say some of the things they believe have been copied or developed from ancient peoples, but are quick to point out it is their interpretation of what they believe and in no way claim to have some direct lineage.

I have met a few people who claim to to have had their beliefs passed to them from their parents, grandparents, etc., which is possible, but they don't try to equate that with a connection to those who were martyred for their beliefs in a much earlier time.

Some pooh pooh these beliefs because they believe them invented, but all religious traditions were invented somewhere by someone.

Also, pagan is a very broad term. As described above, it can be used by those who follow an Abrahamic tradition to describe those who do not, including Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.

In a more narrow sense, it can be used as an umbrella term for those who follow non-monotheistic beliefs such as Wicca, Druidism, etc., in modern culture.

I know some very devout Wiccans who spend as much time contemplating and worshipping their dieties as do Christians or Muslims. They even have special altars in their homes designed to honor their deities depending on the season of the year.

I believe I should respect the beliefs of others, regardless of whether I, personally, hold them.

Peace,

Seeker

 

[Amigo]

This article gives some very interesting points about monotheism and paganism. I will give quote the parts which I found interesting:

Abraham is at home. He is reflecting on the many idols of metal and stone and wood that his father makes and sells. He has a realization that these idols are dead and inert and he "discovers" the One-God. This is a paraphrase of the traditional story. How are we to understand it? If we, as our scholars, assume that this story is to be taken literally, then Abraham realizes that the idols his father makes and sells are not alive, and thus not able to have any effect in the world no matter what or how they are prayed to and no matter what sacrifice is offered to them. We are assuming that a man whom we are told is educated and sophisticated would make and sell inert effigies as deities. If we met an educated and sophisticated person today we would not find it plausible that they would be in the business of selling idols. Why should we make that presumption about Terach?
Consider instead the following scenario. Terach, as an educated and worldly man, would know and appreciate the arts, sciences and spiritual beliefs of as many different peoples and cultures as were known in his world. We assume this of educated persons today. If this is so, then the "idols of metal and stone and wood" referred to in the traditional story are really the particular cultural embodiments of the arts, the sciences, and the sacred as they are known in various different cultures.
The "idols" of a sophisticated person are not, literally, stone effigies and statuettes. These "idols" are the cultural, political, social, and scientific paradigms comprising the world-views of the societies in which they (and we) live.






topWhen we examine the spiritual beliefs and cosmologies of many ancient and modern cultures we find that they all include excellent models of certain essential qualities of life - albeit each in its own cultural context with its own particular perspective, emphasis and physical analogs.

• The ancient Chinese developed a cosmology and an original ideographic alphabet based on the 28-mansions of the lunar zodiac.
• The Greeks and the Persians modeled the cyclicity of life by a pantheon of gods, goddesses and their familial relationships based on the 12-houses of the solar zodiac.2
• The Druids of northern Europe modeled the self-propagation of life on the life cycles of trees and other growing things.

Each and every culture has made accurate and effective models of the cyclic, self-propagating and self-referential nature of all life in terms appropriate to its needs and experience. These different cultural embodiments of the same universal principles underlying all life are referred to as "idols of metal and stone and wood." These "godlet" cultural paradigms are honored (and, literally, stone statues of these "idols" are worshipped) by the society that makes use of them.

• All cultures model the same processes of the same overall unity of the natural world and each uses a different physical example to do it.

Abraham, seeing through each example to a Singular archetype, DEFINED the One-God as the Unity underlying all of them.Abraham, in this view, acts as a mathematician: he postulates a meaningful and functional definition of Unity. The mathematician's model makes use of none of the "garments" of the many different cultural embodiments. Even though it is a mathematical model that must make use of geometry and form (or formalism) to be expressed, it (the model, not the sacred) MUST be understood as a complete abstraction without physical embodiment. A good mathematician tolerates no unneeded embellishments.


This perspective suggests why the Abrahamic faiths absolutely prohibit "graven images" of God. Any "graven image" would be a physical representation of only one culture's iconography during one historical period - it could never be a timeless model of a universal underlying Unity.
Once we understand this mathematician's idea of God as a DEFINITION necessary for universality we can, perhaps for the first time, see how and why it is possible that the Abrahamic faiths' insistence that God is the ONLY-GOD could be literally true, and not just the chauvinistic religious puffery of these faiths - and in a way that does not impugn the validity of other religions. The definition of Unity is in no way prejudicial to any other view.

And other quote:

SINGULARITY AND THE ONE-GOD
As many musicians and electronics enthusiasts know, "...the harmonic nature of...music demonstrates the great harmony of creation." (See Macaulay quotation, above.) Every musical pulse is made up of the sum of many pure sine-wave tones; an ordinary "square wave" is made up of many odd harmonics, and, by extrapolation, a truly infinite pulse w ould consist of a sum of all possible pure tones.
The way musicians examine the spectrum of musical harmonics is exactly the same as the procedure mathematicians call a Fourier Transform: a sharp loud pulse consists of a broad spectrum of pure tones. Likewise an infinitely loud, short, sharp pulse - which we could compare to a musical Singularity - would produce the harmonic spectrum of ALL tones - which we could liken to ALL-THERE-IS.
The Fourier Transform of ALL-THERE-IS, is a single pulse of infinite intensity and infinitesimal duration at the start of time - at creation. This suggests that the Big Bang unfolds the modern physicist's model of creation from an exquisitely singular and intense pulse that may be mathematically equivalent to Abraham's DEFINITION of the One-God.
THE FOURIER TRANSFORM between UNITY and WHOLENESS

Fourier Transform of ALL-THERE-IS <=> Fourier Transform of PULSEThe Singular Pulse at "Creation" is the Fourier Transform of an eternity of ALL-THERE-IS;
The Spectrum of ALL Tones and Harmonics, representing ALL-THERE-IS
is the Fourier Transform of the "Creation" Pulse. If the universe is limited in extent and duration, then its ultimate source must be less than omnipotent. Thus the presumption of ONE exquisitely Infinite source demands that the universe be infinite, open and eternal. The Singular Pulse may be the Kabbalist's "line" (Qav) that extends from the "creation-contraction" (ZimZum) into All-There-Is. Abraham's definition of the One-God and our modern understanding of this universe may well be based on the same fundamental principles.

The confusion on paganism perhaps comes from the confusion of the real meaning of 'god' which is the same confusion on the real meaning of 'love' to me. I believe that God is love. But just as they are all kinds of ideas about what 'love' is, so it is with 'god'. I am not saying that people mean 'love' when they say 'god'.

 

[IAmZamzam]

I read something in one of the books I've read about Islam. I will try to summarize (I don't have it in front of me so if I make a mistake forgive me). I think it was a saying or something. "I do not believe what you believe, you do not believe what I believe. I will never believe what you believe and you will never believe what I believe. You have your religion, and I have mine."

That's not just a saying, it's scripture. You just recited surah 109.