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>Namaskaar!
>In which other newsgroup is the discussion taking place?
The discussion was on alt.pagan and soc.religion.paganism. Basically
people were attempting to define the terms 'Pagan' and 'Neo-Pagan', and
also find out just how many Pagans there are. There is confusion on this
issues because Pagan has been defined in many different ways. I beleive
Pagans are followers of any religion other than the Judeo-Christian ones.
Many other Pagans agree with this definition. Other people have varying
ways to define the term , some of which exclude Hinduism, Buddhism, and
any other 'Eastern' religions like Taoism. I basiclly lost interest in
continuing the discussion on those NGs when I encountered statements like
'Most Hindus are illiterate and cannot read therefore they can't be
Pagan because they don't understand English'.
>People are free to interpret definitions in their own
>way but if one is to consider one of the basic definitions
>of "pagan" one encounters "heathen - 1. a person who is not
>a believer in any of the world's chief religions;
>especially one who is neither Christian, Jew, nor Muslim.
The term heathen is derived from some one who lives in the country not
in a city. In Europe, the country dwellers were the last ones to convert
to Christianity from there former Pagan traditions. They were looked
down upon by city dwellers and that is why this term (heathen) has such a
negative connotations today.
>2. an unenlightened person, one regarded as lacking culture
>or moral principles."
I don't know anyone who calls themselves a Pagan who would agree with
this definition. Again it is all a question of how you choose to define
the word. I am not defining the term as someone who is immoral,
illiterate, or uncultured. That is a very ethnocentric view that has
advance by fundamentalists. I see Paganism as an extremely positive,
life-affirming, religion with tolerance for other spiritual paths as
well.
I just dislike people who know little or nothing about Hinduism defining
it as 'this' or 'that' and promoting misinformation about our faith.
There is also evidence that Hinduism was influenced by the same group of
Indo-Aryan peoples that later migrated into Europe to establish great
civilizations such as that of the Celtic people. Some also beleive that
these ideas originated in India and later spread outward to influence
other European traditions. I prefer to classify religions by what people
believe and practice not by geography or the number of followers. I
don't really believe there ever will be one definition of 'Pagan' that
everyone will agree on.
Thanks for you interest and feedback.
Om shanti,
Radha
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