“The
metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my
understanding, mere lapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being
more unintelligible.”
Thomas
Jefferson
Reflections
All civilizations on our planet
have a god, gods, and goddesses, or at least some important, mythical leader
who created the universe and offered protection from the unknown forces the
people of that civilization faced daily. These beings could be called on for a
variety of reasons including help during times of trouble, help for good
harvests, support during wars, healing during times of sickness, help to
achieve financial prosperity, et cetera.
What is paganism? Paganism is
defined as a religion other than one of the main world religions, specifically
a non-Christian or pre-Christian religion, or a modern religious movement
incorporating beliefs or practices from outside the main world religions,
especially nature worship. When
historians use the word pagan in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world, the term
refers to a person who believed in any of the polytheistic religions that
existed, who was neither a Jew nor Christian. However, in the fourth century
CE, the word pagan became a derogative word invented by Christians to disparage
polytheistic adversaries. The word was equivalent to calling someone a
hillbilly in our culture.
At this point it might be
interesting to give an approximate timeline of ancient civilizations and their
religions, to give you an idea when the religious traditions might have begun.
Prior to the Greco-Roman period which began in 900 BCE and 800 BCE
respectively, other ancient civilizations existed including Ancient Mesopotamia
in 3700 BCE, the Ancient Caral Civilization located in north-central coastal
Peru in 3500 BCE, Ancient Egypt in 3150 BCE, Ancient India in 2900 BCE, Ancient
China in 1800 BCE, and Ancient Israel in 1850 BCE.
Here is a useful summary about the
major aspects of ancient religions outside of ancient Israel and early
Christianity taken from Bart Ehrman’s book, The Bible -A Historical and
Literary Introduction.
·
They
were polytheistic, they worshipped many gods.
·
These
gods had many functions: gods of war, gods of weather, gods of health, gods of
agriculture, gods of forests, rivers, home, the hearth, et cetera.
·
There
could be a chief god.
·
A
person need not restrict their worship to one.
·
The
people worshipped the gods because life was difficult, and the gods could
provide people what they could not provide for themselves.
·
People
thought the gods were powerful and deserved to be worshipped. By worshipping
the gods, they were granted access to divine power.
·
The
gods were worshipped through cultic acts (not some kind of bizarre and
secretive practice). This refers to care of the gods by two chief ways, through
sacrifices (animals, food, wood, etc.) and by saying prayers.
·
Almost
all ancient religions had sacred places such as sanctuaries and temples where sacrifices
and special prayers could be made.
Although these ancient
civilizations were separated by vast distance and time, it is interesting to
note they somehow had similar gods, only with different names. If you really
think about it the logic is not difficult to understand. People, no matter
which civilization they were born into are naturally in awe of things. When
they could not understand something occurring around them, they would become
scared. They found comfort from these things by creating or inventing gods, who
they believed, if worshipped or praised, would protect them. They believed in
return for protection, the gods required prayers of adulation and sacrifices.
Although many ancient religious
traditions lack written texts, cuneiform documents dating back to 2600 BCE do
exist from Sumer and Egypt. Cuneiform documents were formed by pressing a reed
stylus into soft clay tablets that were later hardened in the sun.
From
these sources, these traditions can be thought of as practices created by
humans to compel gods or nature to obey human commands. These religious
practices were then incorporated into daily life.
The Assyrians recorded religious
texts in cuneiform documents in the first millennium BCE. These documents were
collected by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and included the Creation Epic, the
Epic of Gilgamesh, and the earliest account of the Flood. All ancient
civilizations have creation myths, explaining how the world was created from
chaos.
The Creation Epic is an interesting
creation myth that tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the
forces of chaos and his establishment of order at the creation of the world.
This text helped establish a religious context for the Babylonian state and its
system of government. The Egyptian creation story describes how the sun god Ra,
also called Atum, created his son Shu and daughter Tefnut and they worked
together to create order in Nu - the chaos of the universe. They created humans
from tears of happiness and then made Yah the moon, Geb the earth, and Nut
the sky. Geb and Nut had four children - two gods and two goddesses - who
represented the four forces of life. They were:
- Osiris,
god of fertility
- Isis,
the mother goddess
- Set,
god of evil
- Nephthys,
goddess of death.
It is interesting to note the
similarities of these creation stories with the account in Genesis of the
Hebrew Old Testament.
Greek religious practices included
the worship of household and local gods, sacrificial rites, and prayers, vows,
divination, and omens. Although the polytheistic Greek religion included a
multitude of gods, representing a certain facet of the human condition, the
most important gods were the twelve Olympian gods, led by Zeus, who resided on
Mount Olympus. These gods were given human bodies and characters, both good and
bad. In the stories of Greek mythology, these gods directly intervened in human
affairs. These stories were first passed on through oral tradition, but later
were put in writing by Hesiod in His Theogony and in the poems of Homer, the
Iliad and Odyssey.
Roman religious practices began
with early Roman ancestor worship that evolved into a complex system of
household and state gods. A turning point in Roman religion occurred with the
deification of Julius Caesar, establishing the practice of emperor worship.
Before the rise of Christianity led to the end of paganism, Roman paganism had
other rivals such as Zoroastrianism and other various cults from around the
Mediterranean world.
What was paganism and why did it
flourish in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman period? Bart Ehrman describes it well
in his book, The Triumph of Christianity, in this way:
“Pagan religions were almost
entirely about practice, about doing things, about giving the gods their due –
not through mental affirmations of who they were or what they had done, but
through ritual actions that showed reverence and devotion.”
Most of the rites and practices of
Pagan belief systems died out centuries ago.
However, some modern spiritual seekers have recovered those ancient
wisdom traditions and now proudly identify as Pagan. Modern paganism is one of
America’s fastest growing religions. Modern Paganism encompasses a wide and
rich variety of polytheistic religious traditions: Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek,
and Roman practices, as well as Wicca (modern witchcraft), Asatru (the worship
of Norse gods, goddesses, and land spirits), and Druidism (as Indo-European
priesthood).
Unlike Judeo-Christian traditions
that center around biblical authority, clergy and codified belief systems,
Modern Paganism is all about the rituals, that often include drumming, dance,
ceremonial fires, incense, and representations of the four elements earth, air,
fire, and water.
Silent Prayer
Creator
God, we stand in awe of the beauty of nature!
Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS3MU3aqXkI
Barry
English
Lyrics for Yggdrasill
An ash
I know it stands -
It is
named Yggdrasill.
High
tree, sprinkled,
with
white mud.
There
from come the dews,
That
fall on the dale!
It
stands always green, above -
The
source of Urdhr.
There
from come the maids,
Much
knowing.
Three,
their dwelling,
Stands
under the tree.
Urdh
is named one,
The
other Verdhandi,
They
notched wood –
Skuld
is the third.
They
set up the laws,
They
decided on the lives,
Of the
children of time (the children of man)
They
promulgate faith.
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