Christians and Pagans:

Please if you are deeply religious and think you maybe offended by what I post DO NOT READ past this point. No offence is meant. Cheers.

I was looking on the net last night and I found some interesting points...

Pagans: There is no real definition of the word 'Pagan' except that the name was given to small groups of CHRISTIANS that practiced Herb Lore (today's Herbal Medicine). So in conclusion
Pagan = Christian

Now Pagans are also associated with witches, witchcraft, wizardary and wiccans which all are SORCERY. Therefore
Socery = Witches, witchcraft, wizardary, wiccans and PAGANS

The Old Testament Exodus 22:18 (I think!) states:
'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'

BUT!:
Witch = Sorcery, Sorcery = Pagan, Pagan = Christian
Therefore:
Witch = Christian

So what our Bible is really saying:
'Thou shalt not suffer a CHRISTIAN to live!'

So anyone wanna have a debate? Knock yourselves out ;)

Man......Talk about taking something & twisting it....

This isn't even worth a debate.

I could be wrong but I believe the scriptural reference associating pagans with herb lore is found in the Old Testament (Torah), representing the era before Christianity existed.

How can Pagan = Christian, when the Christians gave that name to a group of people that practiced blatantly different ideas?

That has to be the most blind accusation to ever make. If I call a group of people goths, does that suddenly make me goth? Good grief.

~Ciao Lipton

man pagans and druids came before christians try not to mix it all up.

the saint bridget was named after the druid goddess brigid thus christianity came after and therfore pagans are not christians

besides pagan means not a chirstian or not belonging to a religous belief

britt mention the druids come on nobody ever remembers the druids :( they're all for nature too

this is a pretty obvious fallacy of equivocation, similar to:

Curiosity killed the cat
JPM's enormous balls are a curiosity
therefore
JPM's enormous balls killed the cat

Maybe, JPM sat on the cat, and the cat sufficated from the weight of his hugs balls. Did you think of that? Hmmmmm?

I think we should all read a science book and athiesm will rule the world...

i don't even know what a faciast is, but I'm pretty sure whatever that is, it didn't have much to do with early christianity. You can say what you want about catholic dogma and whatnot, but there is a fair bit of documentation that says that the mainstay of catholic tradition has roots over 400 years after anyone remotely resembling Jesus Christ was dead. Early christians on the other hand...

Lol it's so funny when something about religion is posted and how many people get on there high horse about it. Laugh guys! It was a joke ;)

Yes, but because of you a cat died!

And, a cat died. *tear*

emily it was a hypothetical cat

and hypothetically, it could have been a really evil cat.

God Is Against Witchcraft And If You Say That Christians=Witches....Then I Guess God Would Be Really Stupid, I See It This Way Either Your Really Stupid Or God Is *Thinking* I Doubt That God Is The Stupid One (No Offense) xoxo-Nikki-xoxo

God wouldn't be stupid, just contradicting himself...

//Ari\\

Originally, being a pagan is wrshiping the earth and nature. Whats wrong with loving nature and the earth so much that you choose to worship it?
A little off topic. but, Im sick and tired of peolpe being like"IM A PAGAN! OMG! LOOK AT ME!"

I don't understand how God even came into this conversation, it is just a massive misunderstanding. On the other hand, I think we should be focusing on the cat.

loll

emily do people actually say "im a pagan look at me"?

and paganism/druidism started in britian with the celts and gaul tribes while r.c. (roman catholic) started in .... Rome thus when rome invaded everything they took ideas from pagans way of life

also Julius Caesar(a roman) recorded: "The institution (Druidism) is thought to have originated in Britain, and to have been thence introduced into Gaul; and even now those who wish to become more accurately acquainted with it, generally repair thither, for the sake of learning it"

Hahahaahahaha....

The Meaning For The Word PAGAN:

The term pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "rural", "rustic" or "of the country". As a noun, paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager". "peasant is a cognate, via Old French paisent. C. f. Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquity (1897) [1].

In its distant origins, these usages derived from pagus, "province, countryside", earlier "something stuck in the ground", as a landmark, cognate to Greek πάγος "rocky hill". The root pag- means "fixed" and is also the source of the words "page", "pale" (stake), and "pole", as well as "pact" and "peace". Later, through metaphorical use, paganus came to mean 'rural district, village' and 'country dweller' and, as the Roman Empire declined into military autocracy and anarchy, in the 4th and 5th centuries it came to mean "civilian", in a sense parallel to the English usage "the locals". It was only after the Roman introduction of serfdom, in which agricultural workers were legally bound to the land (see Serf), that it began to have negative connotations, and imply the simple ancient religion of country people, which Virgil had mentioned respectfully in Georgics. Like its approximate synonym heathen (see below), it was adopted by Middle English-speaking Christians as a slur to refer to those too rustic to embrace Christianity.

Neoplatonists in the Early Christian church attempted to Christianize the values of sophisticated pagans such as Plato and Virgil. This had some influence among the literate class, but did little to counter the more general prejudice expressed in "pagan".

Christianity and Paganism Although the word Witch is hated the word Pagan still rings alarm bells in the minds of many Christians or people in the sub-Christian culture. Why? Because Paganism was the enemy within. The church of Rome was determined to stamp it out by any means available and successfully built up an image of evil around Pagans so that even today ordinary people think Pagans and/or Witches sacrifice babies, perform evil spells and so on.. The church also masked out or absorbed Pagan celebrations, for example Jesus was not born on the 25th December but was more probably born Spring-summer time in 7 BCE. This was moved to the 6th January (the Eastern Orthodox church still uses that date) then the western Christian church persuaded Emperor Constantin at the council of Niceae in 325 to move the celebration of the birth of Jesus to that other celebration of the birth of the sun, in Roman times the festival of Mithras, the God of Light at the winter solstice (which was thought to be 25th December). Some fundamental differences between Christianity and Paganism It sometimes helps to define Paganism by making comparisons with Christianity:

1. Christianity sees life and the world as linear i.e. having a beginning and an end, creation to the day of judgement. The Pagan view is circular - the endless cycle of the seasons, of death and rebirth. There will be no end of the world or the universe. The big bang was not the moment of creation but the last rebirth of the universe. For example Christmas celebrates an event which happened 2000 years ago. Yule celebrates an annually recurring event, the rebirth of the sun.
2. The bible tells that people were made in the image of God. (Note: this is really a Hebrew concept; the word God in the first chapter of Genesis is a mistranslation of the word Elohim which means Gods, plural and genderless. The creation and fall of Adam comes in chapter 2 and essentially describes the creation of the Hebrew tribe. The old testament is a chronology of the development of the Hebrew nation and the new testament is a continuation of this. Therefore Christians are, in a sense, subscribers to the Semitic lineage.) The Pagan Gods and Goddesses were really made in our image which is the other way round. Pagan deities are images or symbols of deep rooted memories which Jung called archetypes. The more ethereal 'God' and 'Goddess', which relate to Binah and Chokma in the Qabala, or Shakta and Shakti in the Hindu system do not have any particular form. Artists may present them as human but that is personal choice.
3. Pagans have no concept of sin and no Satan. So there is no fiery hell to worry about either. They have their own values and ethics.
4. The bible and gospels are the guiding rules for Christians (though the interpretation varies immensely); Pagans are responsible for their own actions.

The Devil and Satanism The Pagan view of the universe is one of complimetary opposites - light/dark, yin/yang, earth/sky, male/female, Shakta/Shakti. The major patriarchal religions have a duality of good and evil, God and Satan. The concept of Satan has been around for thousands of years, not only in the Hebrew tradition. The Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Persians believed in a dualism between the forces of darkness and light. Even Paganism has it's Hades and Hel (A Northern Goddess of the underworld), however the concept of Satan was developed by the Church and eventually he was called the Devil, a term meaning 'little God'. While God was originally responsible for good and bad (for example he sent plagues etc. to punish his followers) it was slowly assumed that God did only the good things and the Devil/Satan all the bad things. The Christian church developed the concept of Lucifer, the fallen angel. The Devil was officially adopted by the Christian church in 447 and he was pronounced immortal in 547. Consequently it is impossible for Pagans to adopt the concept of the Devil which is a Judeo-Christian concept. Likewise the Satanists are, in a sense followers of the Judaic/Christian belief system because they worship an anti-god figure which belongs to that system.

^^ what she said *sticks tongue out*