Types of Pagan?

[originofopinion]

What Are All these Different Pagan beliefs I hear of?
Can Someone Summarize each major one.
I think there is a few misconceptions on what Pagans believe.
Do they Worship Nature or Personal Gods?
Are Some of them Witches and Satanists?
WHAT the Fuck is a Druid?
Where did Paganism Start?
What is Neo-Paganism?

So Just briefly Summarize Pagan beliefs up and the different types.
So Can You all help me understand.

[Comrade Gwydion]

Let me tell you one thing: Paganism is even more sectarian than Communism. (4 r34l!)

I think what they agree on is that there is a force around, an 'energy' so to speak, which is influenced by the state of nature, human emotions, and in turn influences nature and emotions.
The pictures of gods we place on them are merely ways we use to make it easier for ourselves to connect with this energy. This does not mean these gods are non-sense: as they help you connect, they work and are real to the individual pagan.


One mayor current today, Wicca, sees two gods: The God and the Goddess.
The God is the famous Hunter of the Wild, or the Green Man. He represents the sun, and the more base and 'masculine' instincts.
The Goddess is, summarized, Mother Earth. They see three different stages in the Goddess'devoloppement: The Maid, the Mother and the Crone. The Maid is innocent and loving, the Mother is caring and ferociously protecting, and the Crone is the wise old woman at the end of her life, who knows all.
Quite often however, pagans adress them by refering to ancient counterparts, like Hecate, Athena, Odin etc.

A 'druïd' was a priest/healer in celtic ages. However, Druidism is a form of Paganism in which there is much emphasis on nature. These druïds focus a great deal on being in the forest and cultivating herbs and plants, I believe.

About witches and Satanists: All of them are witches, none of them are Satanists. Often they call themselves witches, or druids, or shamans. With this they mean a deep connection with nature and 'magic'. This has nothing to do with Satanism or worshipping the devil.

There are two types of Satanism: religious Satanism and philosophical Satanism. Religious Satanism is the worship of Satan. As pagans do not recognize Satan as a beeing that exists in itself, they most certainly do not worship it.
Philosophical Satanism is founded by Anton LaVey, and is an incoherent philosophy based mostly on egoïsm, hedonism and 'anti-christianism'. Basically, they say: "Don't harm for mere useless pleasure, but if it offers you the slightest gain, do not hesitate to harm anyone." This goes directly against the pagan's creed of not harming anyone. Heck, we don't want to harm the fucking trees, let alone human people!

[eyedrop]

Doesn't pagan vary incredible and usually encompass the old naturalistic religions.

From wiki
Paganism (from Latin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) paganus, meaning "country dweller", "rustic")[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism#cite_note-0) is a blanket term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanket_term) used to refer to various polytheistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheistic), non Abrahamic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic) religious traditions. Its exact definition may vary:[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism#cite_note-1)

It's basically just a blanket label for non Abrahamic religions, which historically satanism also has been. In the dark ages everyone who wasn't a christian was a satanist to the church. (Feel free to correct, history buffs)
Which can be understood in how some christians believe hell to be separation from god.

[Dimentio]

What Are All these Different Pagan beliefs I hear of?
Can Someone Summarize each major one.
I think there is a few misconceptions on what Pagans believe.
Do they Worship Nature or Personal Gods?
Are Some of them Witches and Satanists?
WHAT the Fuck is a Druid?
Where did Paganism Start?
What is Neo-Paganism?

So Just briefly Summarize Pagan beliefs up and the different types.
So Can You all help me understand.

Pagan is a term derived from the word "paganus" which basically mean "countryside-dweller". In the late Roman Empire, the christians controlled the major cities while the countryside was overwhelmingly pagan.

Paganism is just meaning "non-christian" according to that terminology. Today, it is mostly used to describe pre-christian European religions, namely Hellenic religion (Rome & Greece), as well as Celtic, Germanic and Slavic mythologies.

There were a lot of similarities between these religions. They had a pantheon of gods with different characteristics. They also had a lack of religious scripture and preferred to transmit the stories of their gods through story-telling. There was also a lot of local gods and spirits associated with particular rivers, hilltops or waterfalls.

Hinduism was originally probably very similar to European paganism, so it could maybe be seen as a blueprint for what paganism in Europe could have evolved into had it not been erradicated.

[John_Jordan]

In the dark ages everyone who wasn't a christian was a satanist to the church. (Feel free to correct, history buffs)
Which can be understood in how some christians believe hell to be separation from god.

I don't know what you mean by "the church" but most definitely was it not in wide belief that Muslims were Satanists or worshiped Satan. At least outside of the crusades, during which time the view was politically motivated.

[eyedrop]

I don't know what you mean by "the church" but most definitely was it not in wide belief that Muslims were Satanists or worshiped Satan. At least outside of the crusades, during which time the view was politically motivated.

You're right, I was more thinking at the time when Europe was Christened and the differing pagan religions where suppressed. (I'm out of my water here anyway as my historic knowledge of those times is weak)