Any Pagans? 11 Days til solstice...

[TgirlloverinPA]

Blessed be to all!

[Ecstatic]

Thanks for the solstice blessing, tgirllover. Whatever your belief system, the turning of the year on the shortest day when the days start to lengthen here in the Northern Hemisphere is auspicious.

And a Happy Belated Bodhi Day to any Buddhists in the group (Bodhi or Enlightenment Day was Dec 8).

[Hugh Jarrod]

Not really sure if I'm a pagan. Infadel yes, as in one who isn't a member of any of the Abrahamic religions. Remember christians and jews are not infadels, buddhists, hindus, daoists, shintoist, rastafarians etc. are. What's the word for word definition of Pagan?

[sjamaica]

it's about being connected to the world around you

the concept of time is based on our observations of the world around us
a day is a revolution around our own axis

a year , is when we get back to the same place around the sun


i am maried to a christian, and this time of year is ALLWAYS a strain, as I am not a christian, or jew, or islamist,

peoplr who observese these dates are CONNECTED to our palce in the multiverse ( still a theory)

[December]

Blessed be to all!

Indeed. :D

[Ecstatic]

Not really sure if I'm a pagan. Infadel yes, as in one who isn't a member of any of the Abrahamic religions. Remember christians and jews are not infadels, buddhists, hindus, daoists, shintoist, rastafarians etc. are. What's the word for word definition of Pagan?
Pagan comes from the Latin paganus or "country dweller"; used in English since the 14th century, it traditionally refers to a follower of a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Roman and Greek religions. It is wrongly applied to Hinduism (which itself is actually a Western-defined group of related religions), wherein in fact the multiple gods and goddesses reflect aspects of the divine unity in the manifest world. That unity is usually referred to as Brahman or Shiva (depending upon the tradition).

The more accurate term today is Neo-Pagan which Isaac Bonewitz defines as "polytheistic (or conditional monotheistic) nature religions that are based upon the older or Paleopagan religions; concentrating upon an attempt to retain the humanistic, ecological, and creative aspects of these old belief systems while discarding their occasional brutal or repressive developments, which are inappropriate." Otto Zell of the Church of All Worlds writes that Neo-Pagans "see divinity in all the processes of nature."

[Caleigh]

"i need no god but nature""
anon.

[Trogdor]

*raises hand* Yo! :D