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Can't be a pagan.

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
Who says monotheism and paganism can't mix? Someone needs to lessen up on them defining lines there...

Sounds rather like a fundamentalist pagan. Which, there is certainly nothing wrong with, but like fundamentalism in any religion, it ignores the dynamic humanism that drives religious and spiritual belief.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
Maybe you're right, Guitar.

However, do you think that being a monotheistic Pagan can destroy the richness of Paganism? And how can one be Pagan and a monotheist at the same time? Pagan festivals celebrate different deities. Do you think that it would be better as a sort of soft-polytheism, or inclusive monotheism, in this case?
 

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
Maybe you're right, Guitar.

However, do you think that being a monotheistic Pagan can destroy the richness of Paganism? And how can one be Pagan and a monotheist at the same time? Pagan festivals celebrate different deities. Do you think that it would be better as a sort of soft-polytheism, or inclusive monotheism, in this case?

I think that monotheistic Paganism adds to the richness. For instance, Native American spirituality often falls under the umbrella of Paganism, and--if the argument is made that it is not Paganism, but its own entity--has certainly influenced Neo-paganism. Native American spirituality can be very monotheistic (granted, not always, but often enough).

I am, of course using Pagan in the modern sense of the word. The lines are always blurred when labeling something that is inherently individual. For instance, what of Christian Wiccans? I sometimes label myself as a Christian-Pagan because I borrow from the mythology and symbolism of both.
 

A Truth

Member
I am a follower of father Lucifer and previously Herne.Both have possessed my body and mind. I can tell you now that identifying yourself as part of a faith is very insignificant. I am not religious yet believe in both the pagan and non-pagan Gods of all pantheons. All that really matters is the Astal and the reclaimation of Heaven for both Grigori (your Gods) and Lucifer.
 
I posted this in general debate but I thought it might go over better here.




Late last night I was told that I can not be a Pagan because it requires going back to an older, more primitive style of consciousness...social as well as individual...it requires monotheism to be unlearned. But no matter what I believe I will can not unlearn monotheist. Furthermore all religion is a way of knowing the truth...without having to comprehend the truth.

All I have to say is . . . "Believe you can, believe you can't, either way you're right."
-Henry Ford

No wait I have another good one . . .
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the
limits of the world. "

-Unknown-
 

Mathghamhain

New Member
"Every thing is alive, even the rocks, even that bench you are sitting on. Somebody made that bench for a purpose, didn't he. Well, then, it's alive, isn't it? Everything is alive. That's what we Indians believe. White people think everything is dead.." (Indian Tales. P.242).


From Thomas Bulfinch's Bulfinch Mythology, Age of Fable: Vols. I & II: Stories of Gods and Heroes.
“The Druids taught the existence of one god, to whom they gave a name “Be’ al,” which Celtic antiquaries tell us means “the life of everything,” or “the source of all beings,”
This one I translated from one from a Slavic site
The Sort - Slavic vsesushchy the unified God of all world and a source of all life.

Most had one Great Spirit or God, the Irish word for God is Dia & I read somewhere it was an Irish deity that looked like the Christian God. They normally name them after a god with the same characteristics not for the looks.

Maybe we made God in our image????
 
Late last night I was told that I can not be a Pagan because it requires going back to an older, more primitive style of consciousness...social as well as individual...it requires monotheism to be unlearned. But no matter what I believe I will can not unlearn monotheist. Furthermore all religion is a way of knowing the truth...without having to comprehend the truth.

I don't see why this individual would assume that Pagan religions are more primitive than monotheism? The reconstructionists have emerged thousands of years after monotheism. You definitely would not have to unlearn monotheism to be pagan in the same way that you would not have to unlearn paganism to be monotheistic. If anything, paganism, as it is currently constructed, is more evolved than monotheism, if one wants to buy into such a ridiculous hierarchical conception.

How is religion a way of knowing the truth? What truth?
 

The Neo Nerd

Well-Known Member
I posted this in general debate but I thought it might go over better here.

Late last night I was told that I can not be a Pagan because it requires going back to an older, more primitive style of consciousness...social as well as individual...it requires monotheism to be unlearned. But no matter what I believe I will can not unlearn monotheist. Furthermore all religion is a way of knowing the truth...without having to comprehend the truth.

What a load of tripe. There are monotheistic religions under the pagan umbrella Wicca for example has the goddess.

It seems a shame that paganism can only really be explained as any religion that is one of the abrahamic faiths.

This person who told you this, was he/she christian? Has he/she never heard of hinduism? Just because this person doesnt have the requisite intellectual maturity to embrace a larger view of their own consciousness does not make them right.

-Q
 

Azakel

Liebe ist für alle da
There are monotheistic religions under the pagan umbrella Wicca for example has the goddess.
Wicca also has the Lord(god). It's a Dualistic religion not a Monotheist one(even though it seem the goddess gets more mention).
 

The Neo Nerd

Well-Known Member
Wicca also has the Lord(god). It's a Dualistic religion not a Monotheist one(even though it seem the goddess gets more mention).

Christianity has god and the devil (dualism) and they also have the holy trinity as well. But they still say they are monotheistic so i think the same theory can apply to wicca.

-Q
 

Azakel

Liebe ist für alle da
Christianity has god and the devil (dualism) and they also have the holy trinity as well. But they still say they are monotheistic so i think the same theory can apply to wicca.

-Q

Not really it different all together. The Devil in Christianity doesn't hold the same power and isn't worshiped ;ike both the Lord and Lady in Wicca. And then the Trinity really is more like Monism which is close to Monotheism.
 

AlsoAnima

Friend
Wicca also has the Lord(god). It's a Dualistic religion not a Monotheist one(even though it seem the goddess gets more mention).
Allow me to say. "Actually, that's wrong. Well it's right, but it's also wrong. The God and Goddess are both manifestations of a single Divine Force, that is truly Deity, it is separate to allow understanding by the fragile human mind". But then, I'm a heretic, what do I know. :rolleyes:
 

Azakel

Liebe ist für alle da
Allow me to say. "Actually, that's wrong. Well it's right, but it's also wrong. The God and Goddess are both manifestations of a single Divine Force, that is truly Deity, it is separate to allow understanding by the fragile human mind". But then, I'm a heretic, what do I know. :rolleyes:
Well that's not the way my Wiccan friend explained it to me.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
Well that's not the way my Wiccan friend explained it to me.
I've heard it before now (not by any of my RL ex-friends though) but one I used to speak to but lost contact with. I find it kinda cool to view a male and female Divine source as emanations or aspects of the Ultimate, Unknowable Divine Force. :D

[On Wicca, am I the only one who thinks the horned God is more or less effectively useless?]
 

Azakel

Liebe ist für alle da
I've heard it before now (not by any of my RL ex-friends though) but one I used to speak to but lost contact with. I find it kinda cool to view a male and female Divine source as emanations or aspects of the Ultimate, Unknowable Divine Force. :D

[On Wicca, am I the only one who thinks the horned God is more or less effectively useless?]
Well then a guess it would depended an what "branch" of Wicca they follow.
 

Gentoo

The Feisty Penguin
I've heard it before now (not by any of my RL ex-friends though) but one I used to speak to but lost contact with. I find it kinda cool to view a male and female Divine source as emanations or aspects of the Ultimate, Unknowable Divine Force. :D

[On Wicca, am I the only one who thinks the horned God is more or less effectively useless?]

It all depends on how the individual sees the world and their place in it.

And no, I too find it a large shame that the God is so underrepresented in Wicca...
 
[On Wicca, am I the only one who thinks the horned God is more or less effectively useless?]

I don't think it has to be that way, although I'm not Wiccan so who am I to say.

I myself am drawn to male aspects such as Cernnunose, the Green Man and the Wild Man of the Iron John story.
 
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