Tell me how you feel about Pagans

[StephieNorthCo]

I work with a “born again pagan”. She’s a nice lady. I have no problem working with her. Nor does she have a problem with me being Catholic. Interestingly, she is married to an Orthodox Jew.

 

[LateranBasilica]

Pagans are children of God as well. God created everyone, pagans included.
Love thy neighbour

 

[AlmaRedemptorisMater]

I hope you leave paganism behind and come home to Christ.

 

[PetraG]

I’d rather be free than having a god telling me what i can and can’t do…

You don’t think a creator deity might not actually understand how you tick better than you know yourself?
It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

“Real” god…
Hmm, how do you know that?
I thought you beliefe in your god, not know as a fact that he exists?
Well, i beliefe in my gods, maybe i’m wrong, maybe i’m right.
Do i care?
Nah, i’m just living my life happily as a pagan, it feels right…

I’m really fuzzy about the degree to which you believe in your deity or deities if you don’t even care whether or not any of them are a figment of your imagination.
You have to admit, when you say things like “my god might not exist and I don’t really care one way or the other,” it kind of sounds more like an agnostic who enjoys playing flute in the company of an imaginary friend.

My gods don’t care if anyone beliefes in them, they don’t need us humans, we need them (or rather i need them, you guys need your god).
And, if you really think like that too, how could your god be so loving if he’d throw me in hell only for doing the most human thing of all, a mistake?
But that question doesn’t matter that much to me, only how you feel about pagans and what you think will happen to a guy like me.

I’m a little curious about why you’d care what we think when you’re happy with a deity who doesn’t give two figs whether you worship them or not. By their example, why would you care what we think?

Which leads me to “what I feel about pagans.” I guess it is impossible to answer the question because most of the pagans I have known are what I call a “denomination of one.” They have very different beliefs and their religion has a whole different range of effects on them as people. This is not a big surprise or inconsistent–there isn’t a Druid Pope or anything. Some are open to the idea of being challenged into some “best version of themselves” and others want the most spiritually-undemanding religion they can get, like people who visit their parents when they feel like it or when they want something from them and pretty much ignore them otherwise. (Of course, with well over a billion Catholics we have everything from Mother Teresa to people aren’t even sure they believe but figure there is no harm to buying “fire insurance.”)

As for the Catholic Church, we do teach a concept called “invincible ignorance.” It is the belief that if someone were to really go on a quest to find out what the truth of the universe is and to conform themselves to it but due a lack of the gift of faith could not honestly give consent to a belief in the tenets of Christianity, that person could still be saved in the end. That’s someone who is just one puzzle piece from salvation, someone who has done their part to the best of their ability.

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)

 

[PetraG]

Here is the section from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

[1790] A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

[1791] This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

[1792] Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

[1793] If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

[1794] A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."60

The more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by objective standards of moral conduct.61

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm

 

[AlNg]

i’m a pagan.

Can you tell me what is paganism? For example, are Buddhism or Hinduism considered to be pagan religions? I understand that there are Hindus in India who don’t like it when Catholics in India go around saying that all Hindus are pagans. I can understand why Hindus would not like it because the word pagan can have a bad connotation. A connotation of something inferior or deficient as a lifelong religious program. I notice though that the Catholic monk and later priest, Thomas Merton, had a keen interest not only in Buddhism, but also in Hinduism and Sufism. As I remember it , Thomas Merton thought that Zen Buddhism was compatible with Christianity and in one of his writings wrote that if he could not breathe Zen Buddhism, that he would then die of asphyxiation. After his death Buddhist and Catholic monks met to discuss the spiritual life. Please read: The Gethsamni Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics New York: Continuum, 1998.

 

[PetraG]

Can you tell me what is paganism? For example, are Buddhism or Hinduism considered to be pagan religions? I understand that there are Hindus in India who don’t like it when Catholics in India go around saying that all Hindus are pagans. I can understand why Hindus would not like it because the word pagan can have a bad connotation. A connotation of something inferior or deficient as a lifelong religious program. I notice though that the Catholic monk and later priest, Thomas Merton, had a keen interest not only in Buddhism, but also in Hinduism and Sufism. As I remember it , Thomas Merton thought that Zen Buddhism was compatible with Christianity and in one of his writings wrote that if he could not breathe Zen Buddhism, that he would then die of asphyxiation. After his death Buddhist and Catholic monks met to discuss the spiritual life. Please read: The Gethsamni Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics New York: Continuum, 1998.

a few years ago i found the practice of druidry for myself.

Druid.
The OP went on to describe his/her practice in more detail later, such as:

I beliefe in a few gods, my main gods being Danu (a river goddess, also the sun) and Cernunnos (lord of the hunt, also the moon).
I pray or rather talk to them, sing songs for them and ask them to help me.
I guess just as any other religious person would do with their god/s…

 

[StillWandering]

When you say you revere Cernunnos, what exactly do you mean? Why do you revere it? Miyolangsangma is a Tibetan goddess if I’m not mistaken, but Cernunnos is probably “Celtic”. Does Wiccanism usually mix and match deities from various traditions and mythologies?

 

[AlNg]

Druid.

So paganism is Druidism? Why then are there Roman Catholics in India who say that Hindus are pagans?

 

[PetraG]

So paganism is Druidism? Why then are there Roman Catholics in India who say that Hindus are pagans?

No. I mean the OP was specific about what kind of pagan he/she is and asked, “what do you think will happen to me once I die.”
Yes, in our times the people who self-identify as pagans are often adherents to what they consider a modern form of the nature religions that existed in Europe prior to the arrival of Christianity: that is, they are what is called neopagans (which may or may not be to their liking; I don’t know). They usually aren’t using the word to mean polytheists generally, because they assume Hindus would refer to themselves as Hindus specifically and polytheists generally. There are some Catholics here who use it that way, but it really works better to use terminology that people in those religions would self-identify with. Yes, I think you’re right that Hindus and Buddhists aren’t fond of being called pagan because in their history with Christians the term was too often meant pejoratively or in a derogatory way.

 

[AlNg]

they assume Hindus would refer to themselves as Hindus specifically and polytheists generally.

IMHO, Hindus are not polytheists unless you also consider Catholics to be polytheists or tri-theists. Hindus believe that all of their gods are avatars of the One God. At least that is what the local enlightened Vedic Master has told me.

 

[Darryl_B]

Are you lonely? I think maybe you are, for you seem to be seeking affirmation, which you have turned into the desire for judgement, and then chosen Catholics as the judge, and then questioned Catholics how they feel and relate to what is running through your own soul, when in fact maybe you sit on that seat.

 

[StillWandering]

Yes, in our times the people who self-identify as pagans are often adherents to what they consider a modern form of the nature religions that existed in Europe prior to the arrival of Christianity

You see thats the part that baffles me. The fact is, at least from my own encounters with “Pagans”, is that the majority of them adhere to the religions we know the least about. I can understand if a person took to venerating the deities of Hellenic civilization or the Egyptian deities because our knowledge of those religions is pretty good. Lets face it, our knowledge of all extinct European/ Mediterranean religions is defective and we can probably never know and understand exactly what their adherents believed, but at least with Hellenic or Egyptian religions we have a fairly complete mythological cycle written by adherents of those religions and partially complete descriptions of ritual practice etc. You could conceivably resurrect a kind of Hellenic paganism for example. However, when I speak to, or read the works of, modern “Pagans”, they seem to mostly be drawn to Celtic, Slavic, Livonian and Norse paganism. Quite a few have expressed a belief in Mithraism.

This is completely bizarre to me, as I stated earlier, we know virtually nothing about Celtic paganism, we know about as much regarding Slavic paganism, we know a little more about Norse paganism, we know less about Mithras than we do about Celtic paganism. As far as I can see, all modern paganism is, is people applying their own personal, modern, spiritual ideas, formed within a Christian cultural framework, and attaching to it the names of deities we know nothing about. Correct me if I’m wrong please! I have full respect for people reclaiming roots and preserving heritage but this just seems kinda silly.

 

[Calliope]

Generally the umbrella term Paganism covers all religions that don’t fall under the Big Five… Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It’s a term that doesn’t have a nailed down definition, but the above explanation usually covers it. However, it’s common for Christians to refer to Hindu deities as pagan deities, most other pagans don’t consider Hindus to be pagan.

This is based on my thirty years in the pagan community. Pagan faiths tend to be not organized or to be only loosely organized. Among modern pagans there are reconstructionalists who attempt to follow a traditional faith from the past in an authentic manner. Soft polytheists who believe the various deities are or might be metaphors for a greater power or avatars of a larger truth. Hard polytheists believe that the various deities are in fact distinct entities. Neopagans follow faiths that have been created or cobbled together in the last hundred years or so. There are also atheistic pagan religions.

Saying that you are a pagan gives very little information about what a person believes or practices, there are thousands of pagan religions and even more individually created spiritual paths that fall under the term.

Some practice magic, many do not. Some have a lot of dogma, others hardly any. Some have complex moral codes, others very simple ones. Some have strict practices, others put few demands on their followers.

This is a very general overview. It’s best to ask individual pagans what they practice and believe because the term pagan tells you very little.

 

[PetraG]

IMHO, Hindus are not polytheists unless you also consider Catholics to be polytheists or tri-theists. Hindus believe that all of their gods are avatars of the One God. At least that is what the local enlightened Vedic Master has told me.

Thank you for the correction. I did not know that.

This is completely bizarre to me, as I stated earlier, we know virtually nothing about Celtic paganism, we know about as much regarding Slavic paganism, we know a little more about Norse paganism, we know less about Mithras than we do about Celtic paganism. As far as I can see, all modern paganism is, is people applying their own personal, modern, spiritual ideas, formed within a Christian cultural framework, and attaching to it the names of deities we know nothing about. Correct me if I’m wrong please! I have full respect for people reclaiming roots and preserving heritage but this just seems kinda silly.

The skepticism you’re expressing does float about, since there seems to be a plethora of spiritual teachers who describe learning the basic tenets of their religion from a grandmother that is conspicuosly not around to teach it or talk about it herself. In other words, some strains claim an unbroken lineage of belief that doesn’t have a lot of evidence to support it, the claim being that practitioners have all been underground for centuries. I am not anything like close enough to these movements to have any idea (a) whether the claims are credible and (b) how much anyone is concerned about that.

If you think about it, there are even Catholics who draw elements of Eastern religions into their prayer lives even though the elements could be all but unrecognizable to anyone who actually practices the religion without any of the Catholics being the wiser or even really caring. In the end, when people find a practice that works for them they may or may not care how much continuity it has with anyone else’s beliefs. As the OP said, many people are attracted to pagan practices because they don’t want to be told what to do or what to believe. That’s 180 degrees different than wanting reliable and authoritative guidance to do everything as it has always been done.

 

[NeedANap]

I wonder if part of the draw of the ancient European paganism is part of a search for roots? A lot of Americans have no connection to their ethnic heritage. I know what countries most of my great grandparents came from, but that’s really it, and that is more than a lot of people have. So maybe that is part of it? I know I have Celtic and Slavic heritage, so I guess I would go with that if I turned to paganism.

 

[PetraG]

It is sad, though, that the Christian faith of perhaps a thousand years or fifteen hundred years or more is being lost in so many families. It isn’t as if the Irish, as an example, didn’t willingly embrace Christianity. St. Patrick didn’t have an occupying army. He had the story of the Passion, the story of the martyrs, and the first Irish converts were taken by the level of sacrifice, the willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I think a lot of Americans have lost their connection to wanting that kind of commitment, to wanting their religion to have that kind of place in their lives, which is to say a place that demands as well as supplies. What is worship, though, if not connecting to a power you recognize as far greater than yourself and as being worthy of giving your whole self to?

 

[StillWandering]

In other words, some strains claim an unbroken lineage of belief that doesn’t have a lot of evidence to support it, the claim being that practitioners have all been underground for centuries. I am not anything like close enough to these movements to have any idea (a) whether the claims are credible and (b) how much anyone is concerned about that.

But surely people can see through such BS. Any casual examination of modern “paganism” would immediately demonstrate how little, if anything, it has in common with the tradition it supposedly represents. Take the OP for example. I have no doubt whatsoever that he is a sincere, genuine person. I imagine, from the brief posts he has written, that I would quite like his character and if we knew each other I’d probably suggest we grab a drink sometime. Now, he describes his faith as “Celtic” but I sincerely doubt he is engaging in ritualised human sacrifice by wounding, choking and drowning. I doubt he is putting dogs into earthenware pots and burying them under his kitchen. I doubt he sits over the disembowelled entrails of a sheep trying to figure out the weather next tuesday. I doubt he is ritually bending swords and kitchen knives, and depositing them in bogs and lakes. So in what sense is such a faith “Celtic”? Let us imagine that he has, in good faith, consulted a “teacher” who supposedly forms part of a 1700 year old unbroken underground secret cult that has kept the druidic faith alive. If such a person were to read the historical practice of the religion and compare it to their own, surely they could see that it bears no resemblance whatsoever. Surely they could see that the designation of patronage of some of the long dead gods was mistaken, like Cernunnos being designated god of the sun, and ask why such a basic mistake that strikes at the very heart of the religion, such as the patronage of the gods, especially in regard to Lugh who was a major deity, could really represent genuine transmission of pagan beliefs and practice for 1700 years, grandmother to grandchild.

Let us imagine that Christianity died out 1700 years ago. Now, if I came to you and said " I’m a Christian"; I practice zen meditation, chant the Quaran, and pray to the third person of the Holy Trinity, John Paul the II, would I really be in any sense Christian. I dont think so.

 

[PetraG]

…Surely they could see that the designation of patronage of some of the long dead gods was mistaken, like Cernunnos being designated god of the sun, and ask why such a basic mistake that strikes at the very heart of the religion, such as the patronage of the gods, especially in regard to Lugh who was a major deity, could really represent genuine transmission of pagan beliefs and practice for 1700 years, grandmother to grandchild…

I think you have to understand that there is a basic agnostic premise at work that says it is all guesswork, anyway:

Real” god…
Hmm, how do you know that?
I thought you beliefe in your god, not know as a fact that he exists?
Well, i beliefe in my gods, maybe i’m wrong, maybe i’m right.
Do i care?
Nah, i’m just living my life happily as a pagan, it feels right…
Maybe i’ll rot in hell, maybe we both end up in helheim or the otherworld…
Maybe there’s no god at all, all of them or one we humans didn’t “invent” yet…
We just can’t know, we can only beliefe…

There is a song in Spanish that says, “No creer en nada es creer en todo”; which roughly means to believe in nothing is to believe it all. There is some truth to that.

At any rate, the OP didn’t come here to debate his beliefs, and I kind of doubt he or she hasn’t heard the questions we’re asking.

What he wants to know is what Catholics feel about pagans. The answer is that there are about as many answers as there are Catholics and pagans. The Church teaches that a person who lacks the gift of faith and acts on a misinformed conscience while on a good faith quest to submit their actions to the truth won’t be condemned, whereas a person who withholds faith in order to preserve a worthless clinging to their own desires whether it conforms to a greater truth or not would be liable to judgment for rejecting that participation and alignment with reality that was open to them.

That boils down to, “You’ll only be worthy of blame if you could have done better and refused to do it, something that only God the Just Judge can know. Our duty is to share the better way with those who can hear it.”

 

[Salibi]

Indeed. We must be careful when ignoring the concept of the Brahman in Hinduism, we Catholics suffer from people ignoring our theological concepts and calling us Mary worshippers or tri-theists ourselves.