[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Janette]

>
> Goddlefrood:
> Just on this point, and for the record I'm nominally Jewish, but
> with definite atheistic leanings, what would an atheist or agnostic
> be called? They're unlikely to term themselves pagan. The way that
> I understand the word pagan is that it refers to several things.
> One, as in the statement made by momtims that it refers to all
> who are not of one's own religion, like the Jewish use of gentile.
> Secondly, it refers to someone who does not adhere to one of the
> three monotheistic religions, although personally I would never
> describe a Hindu, a Jain, a Buddhist or a follower of Shinto and
> several other religions as pagans. There is no pagan religion as
> such as each belief has its own name, and as we have seen earlier
> we have at least one Wiccan amongst us. The Norse religion is now
> defunct (except in The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul) and would
> surely be referred to as a pagan religion.


montims:

gosh - I hate to always keep coming over as argumentative, but google asatru
for people who follow the Norse religion actively and enthusiastically right
now...  And yes, they are pagans as they believe in other gods than the
Hebrew god.

Also, when pagan was a term that led to torture and/or execution, centuries
ago, an atheist or agnostic would also be defined as pagan.  Although as it
is understood today, you are right that they would probably not call
themselves pagan as that implies having some religion, and perforce an
atheist or agnostic has no religion, and recognises no god.

These days, a pagan generally believes in a pantheon, or worships nature, or
whatever.  In more recent times, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc, were
described as pagan by missionaries (who wanted to convert them to
christianity), as were Native Americans and other cultures in their time of
being persecuted.  Truly, however the word is used today, a pagan has
historically been a non-christian...


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