hecate105 said:
"What if God were one of us, just a stranger on a bus, trying to find his way home." great song and by Joan Osborne!
David - you have led a sheltered life - there are many pagan organisations and have been for many thousands of years. Perhaps you should contact The Pagan Federation for some info - then you will be able to post more accurately....
Hecate - no, my life has not been sheltered at all, quite the opposite - I have met and talked with many who call themselves pagans, have sat round the campfires with them, stood on the hills with them, watched the sun rise with them. I was at the first Stonehenge Summer Solstice gathering and travelled in my living van with the Convoy to the first Glastonbury festival where we went up to the farmhouse to get milk and eggs from Michael, and the next two years - I have not led a sheltered life but I do have an honours degree - what the Americans name 'magna cum laude' - in the phenomenology of religions and theology - that is my lineage, I have worked at this riddle of existence, as it were.
I know about the Pagan Federation, but the lineage only goes back to 1979 - I mean no harm but it does not have lineage; those Pagans (including Druids) who think they are re-creating a pre-Christian Celtic religion are in error as the Celts didn't have a written language so in essence they are making up a new religion and it is a religion of the individual - based on the erroneous idea that "whatever one thinks has merit". Those who believe that they are re-creating a Hellenistic, Grecian pre-Christian belief are also in error as most of those religions were secret initiation religions and there are no records .... if you trace it back you will find that Wiccans base their beliefs on the 1950's Encyclopedia Britannica entry for witchcraft, which was completely invented by a woman who was given the task but could find nothing about it, except for just one 16th century Scottish letter that mentioned how many witches would be considered to be a coven.
I am perfectly happy for folk to have their own beliefs - how else should it be - but the world religions have much to offer - Hinduism, for example, has lineage and serious theologies that come to grips with the nature of reality and our place within it - read the 8th c. works of Adi Shankara, for instance, or the 5,000 year old Bhagavad Gita ....
From your own site -
A definition of a Pagan:
A follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
A definition of Paganism:
A polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
Sure, it is not necessary to belong to one of the world religions to find God - of course - but reading their books is a short-cut and one can test one's thoughts against the thoughts of countless generations of deep thinkers and awakened ones.
Polytheism is a fail as it merely focuses on lesser phenomena rather than the Oneness that upholds all phenomena - and worshiping nature? Why? Which part of nature? A Tree? An ant? and why worship it? Cherish it, yes. Nurture it, yes. Celebrate it, yes. But worship it? There is no
'it' to worship.
I had dinner with James Lovelock's son and his wife a while back - James Lovelock invented the Gaia principle - and was told that his father was appalled that people hadn't read his work but went about telling everyone that he had proposed the planet as a living organism. He said no such thing. What he explained was that the eco-systems of this planet inter-acted with each other in such a way that they could be
mistaken for a living organism. But now we have hordes of pagans going around with this invented belief .... I could go on ... but I won't.
So - I am content that individuals name themselves pagans - this is the Age of the individual and the belief that whatever an individual thinks has merit - but, for me, well, I see it differently.
Buen Camino
