Tell me about being Pagan

bgruagach said:
Lots of people misspell Stewart's name.
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Oopsie :eek:

bgruagach said:
There are lots of great books available on doing spellwork. I just saw one by Judika Iles in the store the other day. It's called "Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting" and if it's like her excellent "Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells" it should be good.

I also really liked Nancy B. Watson's "Practical Magic" as it's a solid nonsectarian introduction to magickal work.
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I'll have to look those up. :) Great, my amazon wishlist shall grow yet more....
 
enlightenment said:
Some general questions

1) To be a Christian and pagan would be a contradiction in terms, yes or no? I mean, did the former not essentially sort of steal many pagan festivals, including that of Xmas, not to mention the fact, am I right in saying that in history, Chritians often persecuted pagans, to use the generic term?

2) Bit confused about the Roman thing. As far as I have been lead to believe, the Romans went around doing their thing, conquering this and that, and sort of picked up bits and pieces of all religions, and therefore, they were not Christian, they worshipped many gods, indeed, they had a god for just about anything, is that right?

3) In what nations is Paganism most popular?


4) Do those who are Pagans believe in the power of magic, or are there those that just embrace nature, etc, and reject 'magic', as either folklore, or natural events that have been misunderstood?

Sorry if these questions seem a bit rudamentary, but you have to start someplace!


Steve

:)
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Please don't apologize for asking. I'll gladly answer your questions.

1) This is a hotly debated topic within Paganism. My opinion is that one can be a Christian with Pagan influences or a Pagan with Christian influences, but not entirely both religions at once.

2) The Roman Empire was Christianized before its fall. History books go into much more depth than I can here. Gibbon's The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ought to be available online. Chapters 15, 16, 20, and 21 are relevant, if my memory serves me well. It's long (12 volumes), so you might not want to read all of it unless you have more than a passing interest in history. The chapters I mentioned should all be contained within volume 3.

3) I don't know. That depends on how we define Pagan. Defining what does and does not qualify as a member of a specific religious category can be a dangerous business.

4) Not all Pagans revere nature, and not all Pagans practice magic. Additionally, most practitioners of magic consider magic to be natural, rather than supernatural.
 
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