While I don't practice or condone Paganism, I know a pagan/Wiccan lesbian who also happens to be one of my best friends. And while it may not be one of the more acknowledged religions, it still is one...what are your thoughts?

my thoughts: um, why do you feel like telling us?
and
define Paganism

Paganism is a religion that depcits the fact that multiple greater beings create us and rule us. And I got that from my Pagan friend, so HA!

no mocking/offense intended, but what is depcit?

if you mean depict, then your sentence makes little sense

I meant depicts, but I see what you mean. What I meant was they believe in many gods, but they still make their choices, the higher powers have no control, over them.

i like pagans. all anamists are cool.

Yeah, expecially Wiccans...silly pagans who think their witches...

my thoughts are these people are the devil 0.o and super kirbee will save use

(>")>===============)))))))<(xx)> <(blarg im dead)

Uh-huh...well, shows how much you know, because these people don't believe in satan, so they can't be satanists!

well than, where do they go if they die sinful/badness

Vashies, shut up, that's trolling, don't like pagans, don't post. Pagans are cool. As a matter of fact, Christianity was heavily impacted by Paganism, stole their holy day as a matter of fact.

They use their holy days on pagan harvest festivals, but as an example, Easter is not very similar to Eostre. Christmas borrowed some things, but the general story that is strictly worshipped was not stolen.

By the way, labelling Paganism as a general religion is not a great idea, but I think it's generally just any non Judeo-Christian religion, but generally refers to European religions (Buddhists and Hindus are not generally referred to as Pagan, same with Jews and Muslims).

There are many monotheistic religions which are pagan - I forget the name, but there was a religious movement in Egypt under one emperor for a monotheistic religion, but it was crushed (but had great momentum).

I'm not necessarily defending Christianity - I've got some serious problems with Paulus of Tarsus, mainly - but in general I think it's wrong to spread the idea of Chrsitianity stealing paganism's holy ideas.

It does do it at times - look at the sheer injections of Christianity into Beowulf, it's actually kinda disgusting to read it.

EDIT-I have some problems with Pagans who worship Viking religions. I don't see them pillaging, raping, and looting any villages, as far as I'm concerned any (astorians?) are just ripping off a religion that they don't even understand. My main problem with Paganism, though, is the same problem I have with any other religion, and just because I disagree with it doesn't mean I have any problem with the people. I don't agree with religion, but it often encourages peace at times, if not tolerance, which is better than war all the time.

Of course, Christianity has a gargantuan history against it that's only beginning to be rivalled by radical islam. Islam has gargantuan acts of violence on its side, Christianity has the imperialism and no excuse for it's own actions, pushing out for centuries trying to absorb other cultures. I hope there aren't any portugese here, but the Fado is a good example of something I disagree with (though it's more cultural than religious). While I may have some kind of misunderstanding, I got an explanation from someone from Portugal - apperently it's a mournful song about the pain of Portugal in it's attempts to expand its empire so they could spread Christianity. Right, poor them, they had an empire that I believe was larger than the British empire, oh the pain they must have felt. But again, perhaps I misunderstood.

youse right, buckets-san. the portugese empire was the second biggest ever. breifly. before about 1495.

Wouldn't the mongolian empire pwn it for sure, and the roman empire?

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not actually sure about the expanse it covered.

roman empire was the largest. until the british andfrench. thats why the portugese is second.

and no, ghengis' khans empire was constantly fractioning between sons.

bucket-san = LOL!!!

anyway, now that I understand a bit more...I feel more justified in my disagreement :)

Bucket, you have got to be one of my favorite people here now, because you actually know what you're talking about. And for my own input, it was not only the christians who stole pagan holidays, such as the new age Halloween, which was originally a pagan-new year type holiday, and now we've made it all about dress-up, along with easter and christmas. I just think that paganism is a religion that no one acknowledges, and I think that people should start remembering those that are pagans, with the exception of the rape and pillage type you spoke of earlier. It just seems unfair that you take someone's religious aspects and don't give them even some credit for it.

what is allso unfair that all pagans are grouped together.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=paganism

see?

Ya, it's true. I think Christianity certainly has it's ceremonial roots in other religions in many ways.

Actually, I'm surprised Christians don't celebrate Rosh Hashannah (I probably spelled it wrong, BAD JEW), which includes apples in honey, or Purim, which is the holiday where you're supposed to get drunk! Sheer awesomeness, the holiday is actually about breaking the taboo on getting drunk, in fact there's this song about a scholar who gets totally wasted.

ALSO IT'S TRUE THAT I AM AWESOME!!

OMG JEWS SOUND SO COOL EXEPT MY MATE IS JEWISH AND HIS FAMILY IS FUCKED LIKE HIS GRANDMOTHER KILLS PALESTINIANS FOR FUN


omg, ECW shellshock.

Well, hopefully we can get things resolved. I think I'm a little more inclined towards Israel, though I'm not particularly pro Jewish.

i'm pro palestinian.

Ultimately, I'm pro just going in there and rebuilding destroyed stuff and cleaning up the mess of the two factions, both of whom I consider rather stupid.

I just sympathize with Israelites in terms of the bombings - if the Palistineans stop any kind of military activity, so will they. But I think that most of the violence done by the Israelies is meaningless nonetheless.

EDIT-Ok, to be honest I have some vested interest. I don't consider myself Jewish in any way, but I've been to Israel and I love the place. I do have some hard feelings towards Israel in some regards. Basically, I like Israel a lot more because while they have problems, they're a lot better in terms of tolerance (see the Druze and Bahai). Muslims live in Jerusalem, but not many Jews are going to be found living comfortably in many arab countries.

EDIT2-Are the Bahai considered pagans, or part of the JudeoChristianIslam religions?

any non jew, muslim or christian is a pagan.