Paganism?

[watershield]

Paganism, just is it? What do you see the defining meaning of the word.

There are a great many paths out there. Wiccian, Saex, Kitchen witch, hedge witch, Buddhist, Hindu, and on and on......

But what does it mean to be a pagan? Ok, I know that the generally accepted definition is, "anyone who does not follow the teachings of the God of Abraham".

But I suspect that most of us have a personal definition to what being a pagan is. So take a moment, think about it. Who are you and just what does being a pagan really mean to you?

[watershield]

For me, well I refer to my self as an Animist. One who believes that all things are capable of having a soul as all things are created from the one divine source and will one day return to that source.

For me. I do not see that Paganism is something that we practice only on special days or just because it's the change of a season. I am a pagan because I have a certain moral code. And I have an understanding of creation and of the universe.
For me, being a pagan is how I go about my every day activity.
It's not about rituals or weaving energy. It is about about how I go forward in this world, how I exist and interact with others. How I live my life. Not necessarily to be a great benefit to society, rather to be a benefit to me. And in so doing, those near me can gain the benefit that may follow.

I accept that I am but a small and dim insignificant spark in the great blazing glory of the universe. But I live my life one moment at a time and seek a balance in all things.
I reach out to the energy of nature and attempt to gain a synchronization with it.
There is a great deal more that I feel about my path, but the words and the space evade me at this moment.

[Jen]

Wow!
I like your definition WS!

For me, being a pagan is how I go about my every day activity as well. I want to exist and interact with people and the universe as gently as possible.

For me paganism is being connected and rooted with Mother Earth. To see and appreciate and understand how there is life and magic in everything and that we are all connected and intertwined.
We are all part of the same big tapestry and all equally as important.
I take responsibility for myself and my own actions.

[lisa]

I consider myself Pagan because:

I understand that I follow one of many religions and spiritual paths, I do not believe I, nor anyone else, has the monopoly on truth. They are all different explanations toward the same end...

I feel the Universe, or "Divine Essence" as energy, although I know this energy transcends what I can rationalize on a human level, I understand it to be broken down into the feminine and masculine aspects, because that is what makes sense to me, what I can wrap my brain around. I also believe that we as humans have depicted the Goddesses and Gods in human-like images rather than the Christian notion that God created humans in his...

I believe in reincarnation...where our souls are expected to achieve something and we keep returning here to figure it out, Death is a new beginning not an end...I do not believe in Hell or the Devil..."dark souls" on this planet simply keep coming back over and over...and may or may not ever escape their loop...negative is necessary to balance positive, so the sick twisted people are necessary in a way I'm sure I'm not supposed to understand...

I do not believe that the Goddesses and Gods control our lives, we choose what we do and how we do it...the strength and weakness comes from within...(contributed to and fostered by other humans)...we can invoke and bend the energy of the Divine to help us move forward and achieve great things...but ultimately we are responsible for our successes and failures.

[PaganOne]

I don't see the world and man's place in it that way most people do, let alone the way most Pagans do. This is a little something I wrote a long time ago on MY view of Paganism. I always get agruments out the kazoo when I post this, but you asked what Paganism means to me and this is it.

Paganism is learning from and living in harmony with nature, all the bloodshed and violence included with all the “love.” Paganism is an inner consciousness that sees the real world/nature in all its glory.

As much as I want to stay away from comparing other religions to Paganism, it is virtually impossible as there is a need to show what Paganism is NOT in order to show was Paganism IS. In that light, it is impossible for me to believe that any “person” was chosen to bring God’s message to man in the “words of man” as the universe made by God is itself God’s language and much more precise and eloquent than man could ever be.

Paganism is about man’s relationship to god, with “god” and “nature” as having the same connotation. Nature is god in action. Man learns from nature what works and what doesn’t work by trial and error. He learns a “sense” of good and evil from the repercussions of his actions. Every man is an “individual” and must prove his own “honor”. In as such he holds honor sacred and not “life”. Not weeding out the unhonorable and/or weaklings is against nature’s purpose and became the downfall of the Pagan way of life due to the influence of Christianity.

Religions such as Judaism and Christianity are about a man/man relationship in which nature and the very essence of god are rendered meaningless. God is a figurehead used to exercise and force morals and values on the community. These religions destroy the individual for the sake of the family and community by requiring servitude and self-sacrifice. This a metropolitan view and not a natural nature-based view.

The original Pagan was a man of freedom from inhibition. He had a robust love of life expressed in his everyday life, eating, drinking, fighting, loving, singing, dancing, and perceiving his god. This spirit is born of his interaction with nature. During the mostly “forced” influx of religion, A dark shadow was cast by a belief that men are born heirs to “the sin of Adam” and has done much to destroy man’s love of life.

The original and only true Pagans were whole beings of individual perception and volition. They were men and woman in true sense of the word. They knew themselves and perceived each other as god-entities. The whole of the world was good to them and that good filled their very souls to overflowing. Their joy leaped and sang in every aspect of their lives. It was a song of harmony and love in a world they knew to be imperfect. The objective of a self-destructing religion was unacceptable to those who postulated the joy of living as good.

Religion is a man culture and breeds its own kind. We have co-existence of the strong and the weak, adult criminals and juvenile delinquents, welfare for those who cannot feed themselves, and medical aid keeping those alive that nature would have discreetly weeded out. We have “states” so large and powerful that they lay claim to all the world’s land making it impossible for a man to detach from said state and be “free” rendering him a slave and keeping him within “boundaries” both physical and mental by teaching the “good” of community and the “evil” of selfishness/individualism. Spirit was bred out of man in favor of the letter of the law, and honesty was replaced by legality.

When the Ten Commandments where imposed on Pagans, the first three dealt with the concept of God as supreme and replaced all other gods, hence a decision needed to be made as to for or against and the deciding factor was sometimes life or death at the end of a sword. The fourth commandment of resting on the Sabbath gave a welcomed holiday of celebration. Honoring the father and mother (whether they were worthy of honor or not), instead of finding honor within oneself, was designed to preserve the family unit. Not stealing and not coveting were meaningless as Pagans measured a man by heroism and not by possessions. But not killing was foreign to the Pagan way of life and was seen as utterly ridiculous. Not to kill would upset the weeding out of undesirable and unworthy and unhonorable men. Not killing meant the world be populated with the undesirable and the weak, defeating nature’s law. But as the Christian’s of the time were involved in “killing for the glory of God”, killing was still possible.

“The whole of the world, the whole of the creation that we perceive objectively, is good; and the good that is within ourselves fills our beings to overflowing. Our joy leaps and sings. This good is presently existing, not something to be achieved. It is a song perceived during the singing by the being that knows harmony with it. It not ‘good’ conceived as ‘fitness,’ a concept that can undermine joy, but of being by the claim that both we and the world are ‘imperfect.’” *

* The Pagan Bible, Melvin Gorham

[audreyriverstar]

Wow, how do I follow that?

I'm still trying to figure out how I view paganism, but I think that's part of the point... but here's what I have so far.

To me, to be Pagan is to attune oneself to the Great Spirit (I use this term because of my Native American background, but it can also be called "Life Force", "Collective Energy", "God and Goddess", "Spirit", and goodness knows, by any other name you'd like).

To be Pagan is to realize that we are all connected... that everything on Earth is made up of this collective energy, including us... which means that we are equally divine, all subject to the joys and sorrows of life. We can also tap into this energy and direct it with intent, or simply let it flow within and through us.

To be Pagan is to also come to terms with the fact that the Universe requires balance... of both positive and "negative" energy... we may not comprehend why, but we know deep down that there cannot be light without darkness, it is the way of the world.

We are all here to acheive something; to learn all that we can and influence our Universe in some way... of which the consequences may be unknown to us, but which help our Universe to change, evolve, and grow.

Eventually we return to the Great Spirit... that Life Force which emanates from everything on Earth... and are reborn many times, in order to fulfill our full potential.

That's my two cents (a.k.a. what I've come up with so far, I still have much to learn!)

[Avaros]

Pagan can mean a great deal of things to many people, something different to each and every person. The word Pagan, itself referring to most of the base religions or older believes can withold a great deal of beliefs.

To me, Paganism is a broad term, which I use to discern my belief one of which is that you should be content with what you are given, instead of asking for more.

The length of your posts, compared to mine however, makes me jealous that I could not think of more to write, although I did enjoy reading through each and every one of your posts, because I'm always interested in the perception of others.

[Heka]

Paganism is different for everyone. But to me it means a belief that there is something important and alive in everything, that nothing is better than anything else, that everything is equal.

From WS's definition, I could call myself an Animist, though I'm not sure as to what exactly that means. I am also pagan because I have a certain moral code, and I do incorporate my pagan values into my everyday life.

I do this mostly by being vegetarian. Because of my believe that you shouldn't kill anything, and that animals are not lesser beings than humans (and I wouldn't eat a human) I don't eat meat.

That's probably the main way I live my brand of paganism (Hedge I'm suprised you didn't bring the vegan element into yours). Also all the products I use are animal/enviromental friendly.

Oh, another big thing about Paganism for me is the mother earth, the enivroment, looking after it and helping to sustain it (another vegetarian thing). Also helping people, and kindness, are big parts of being a pagan.

I also believe in reincarnation, or a similar concept. I think that we keep going around and around, back into our earthly incarnations again and again, and experience different lives.

I've spent ages thinking up and writing that. Wish I could write more too.

[Jen]

Oct 2, 2008 3:18:48 GMT 1 Heka said:

Hedge I'm surprised you didn't bring the vegan element into yours

I didn't really bring much into mine as at the time of typing that I was pushed for time. I would like to extend on what I wrote for sure, might do it later.

[Heka]

Fair enough then

[muladzh]

Paganism to me is the act of not being anything else. The branch of Paganism that I/We follow is Bodach Uaine - Green Man, so am a devotee of the Goddess and Horned God. I do not regard myself as Pagan first, Bodach Uaine second, but rather the other way round. I am Pagan only because others call me it, not through choice of my own.

In Scotland, I was regarded more as a Heathen, than a Pagan. Either serves as accurate - it means I am not a follower of the Church folk.