Episode 2--What is Paganism

Hello again, and welcome back to Paganism Today.  I am you host, Heartsvein.  I have added a Google+ account and a Blogger account.  The Google+ will be for networking and the Blogger is for show notes and additional lings.  I will include both of those links in the more info section.

I thought that in order to address different views thoughts and beliefs within paganism we should first define what a pagan is, and therefore what paganism is.  So I did some searching and I found out that we are irreligious and uncivilized.  I know I didn’t know that ether.

From http://www.merriam-webster.com we are defined as:

1: heathen 1; especially: a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)

2: one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: an irreligious or hedonistic person

3: neo-pagan

So then I had to follow the link to heathen which is:

1: of or relating to heathens, their religions, or their customs

2: strange, uncivilized

So then on to Heathens:

1: an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible

2: an uncivilized or irreligious person

So then back to Neo-Paganism:

a person who practices a contemporary form of paganism (as Wicca)

Ok so from the top, we are uncivilized, unconverted, godless, polytheistic, entirely sexual and materialistic practitioners of a contemporary form the same thing.  What?

So let’s see if we can get away from that site and find a better definition.  Amazingly enough Wikipidea had an excellent definition.

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller", "rustic"^[1]) is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions.

And Finally I went to http://www.allaboutspirituality.org/paganism.htm which said that paganism is a broad term for anything that does not fit in to Christian-Judeo-Islamic or Eastern moulds, which includes Hinduism and Buddhism.

Ok well I am gonna take a short break and let you hear from some friends of mine.

I decided to do the last part of this episode with showing me, as I feel that it is important to be able to see the honesty in someone’s eyes when they speak from the heart.

The media views us much like this.  Somehow we are evil and childish if not altogether wrong.  We are seen as fakes or freaks.  These definitions and these explanations are never going to be adequate simply because they will never be all encompassing.  We are what we are and we believe what me feel is right.  Simply because we don’t take some Jesus pill or have a single holy book or try to convert others to our way whether by fear or love does not mean that our thought and ideas are any less, or more powerful.

You can say that paganism is not this and not that, but as most pagans know it is not so easy to say what it is exactly.  The pagan experience is best defined by the one experiencing it.  As I said earlier, paganism is a blanket term.  It can’t be defined as one thing as it is many many different views beliefs thoughts styles and purposes.  Think of it like stokes.  You can describe a single stone very well but when told to describe all the stones of the word, would anyone be able to accurately do justice to every stone in existence.

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Thank you for listening.

Love Hope and Honor.