The majority, if not all of us describe ourselves as Pagan. If not, we at least have a theoretical interest in it or we wouldn’t be on a website called the Modern Pagan. So what does the word Pagan mean to us? I’ll save a bit of time and provide everyone with the dictionary definition.
Pagan –
- heathen: a person who does not acknowledge your god
- a person who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion (not a Christian or Muslim or Jew)
- hedonist: someone motivated by desires for sensual pleasures
- heathen: not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Personally I like the first one very much. A person who doesn’t acknowledge your god, I find the broad all inclusive of the definition amusing. Effectively it makes everyone a pagan to someone and could dramatically change the focus of this website. In the end none of the definitions provided by Princeton University are really very useful. So how do you define the word? What made you decide to use it as description, assuming that you do?
As pagans we use a lot of different words to describe things. Often without even giving them to much thought, the bottom line is that words have power and we should know what they mean and why we use them. Up till now most people just use the words they see others use and while there might not be anything wrong with those words. Wouldn’t it be better to educate yourself a little more and decide for yourself rather then going with the flow?
Describing the word Pagan is similar to attempting to describe a color. None of us sees color in the same way and I think that’s also true of the word Pagan.
I like the word Pagan and use it because of its inclusivity of the many different expressions of Earth based spirituality, mine being just one of them. It’s a “big tent” word which can open the door to meaningful discussions with other Pagans and non-Pagans who have open minds.
.-= Delphyne´s last blog ..Here in this house… =-.
I was going to reply to this, but I think Delphyne has already said anything that I would have said, but better. lol I couldn’t agree more with the idea of Pagan being a big tent word. And no two people in the tent are ever going to describe how they see the tent in the same way and that’s really probably as it should be.
.-= Lyon Mercaeant´s last blog ..Rambling on Scripts and Repetition in Worship =-.
I’m very late in answering this. So here’s a short excerpt from my blog on this.
Being Pagan is about being a member of a modern religious movement:
* that’s not rooted in Abrahamic religious tradition,
* that has romanticized the past and other ancient religions,
* and focuses on exploratory worship and ritual.
.-= Isabella Lecour´s last blog ..Question of the Week #12 – Is it just a word =-.