what do pagan's believe in?

Question

I was just wondering, christians please don't answer this and quote bibble verses at me as I want to hear from Pagans.

Answer 1

I am Wiccan. This is the 13 Principles of Wiccan belief. I hope I can help you understand them.

1. We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the Moon and the seasonal quarters and cross-quarters. (Wiccans believe that the moon is a part of the power of the Goddess. That is relevant by its correlation to a woman's menstrual cycle and the tides. We have 8 Sabbats that make up the Wheel of the Year as well as 13 Esbats-Full Moons.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbaigo8rv...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvtyltahy...

2. We recognize that our intelligence gives us a unique responsibility toward our environment. We seek to live in harmony with nature, in ecological balance offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept. We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than is apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary, it is sometimes called sometimes called "supernatural," but we see it lying within that which is naturally potential to all.
(Magick comes from an ability to control your environment through attuning with the elements and keys)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g3j7pteq...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4quqrsua7...


3. We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than that apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary it is sometimes called "supernatural", but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogT7qXpa3rg

4. We conceive of the Creative Power in the Universe as manifesting through polarity--as masculine and feminine--and that this same creative power lives in all people, and functions through the interaction of the masculine and feminine. We value neither above the other, knowing each to be supportive of the other. We value sexuality as pleasure, as the symbol and embodiment of Life, and as one of the sources of energies used in magickal practice and religious worship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7amcuqnoz...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edltlev1t...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76p-xcsb...

5. We recognize both outer worlds and inner, or psychological worlds--sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconscious, the Inner Planes, etc.--and we see in the interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment.
(Our innerverse is ours to control and as part of that, we can contrl the outerverse)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pqrkigrb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzxdya-qo...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guvf1guac...

6. We do not recognize and authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themselves in leadership.
(We have high priests and priestesses, but we don't let them interpret what we believe. We make up our own minds and lead our own rituals.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sln_q73up...

7. We see religion, magick, and wisdom-in-living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it--a world view and philosophy of life, which we identify as Witchcraft or the Wiccan Way.
(Magick is everywhere and everyone does it. It shapes the way we look at the world.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwossk97y...

8. Calling oneself “Witch” does not make a Witch--but neither does heredity itself, or the collecting of titles, degrees, and initiations. A Witch seeks to control the forces within him/herself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well, without harm to others, and in harmony with Nature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zgbrutbo...

9. We acknowledge that it in the affirmation and fulfillment of life, in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness, that gives meaning to the Universe we know, and to our personal role within it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udy5upzmp...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axykowjsk...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l-hodcsl...

10. Our only animosity toward Christianity, or toward any other religion or philosophy-of-life, is to the extent its institutions have claimed to be “the one true right and only way” and have sought to deny freedom to others and to suppress other ways of religious practices and belief.
(We believe that all people come to their own religious path. To interfere and try to actively convert someone away is a deception of the soul.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qylfbcj3e...

11. As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the Craft, the origins of various terms, the legitimacy of various aspects of different traditions. We are concerned with our present, and our future.
(Some people claim that Wicca is a very new religion, others say it is pre-Christian. This does not concern us as we see our beliefs as personal and not political.)

12. We do not accept the concept of “absolute evil,” nor do we worship any entity known as “Satan” or “the Devil” as defined by Christian Tradition. We do not seek power through the suffering of others, nor do we accept the concept that personal benefits can only be derived by denial to another.
(The Devil or Satan is purely a Christian and Muslim concept. Wiccans don't see our Gods as having a Good and Bad persona. They are Nature and nature is both)

13. We work within Nature for that which is contributory to our health and well-being.
(Wiccans have a strong desire to be environmentally conscious)

Answer 2

Which pagans? "Pagan" is a broad term that includes many philosophies including things like Wicca, Shamanism, Druidism, Asatru, Kemetic Orthodoxy, etc. etc. etc.

And while those paths may share similar characteristics (most are polytheistic, for example), they are also very different in the details.

In general, pagan beliefs include polytheism (either hard "All Gods are different entities" or soft "All Gods are different aspects of one Higher Power"), observation and honoring the natural cycles of the earth, and a belief in magic.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism.htm may have more information that you might find helpful.

Answer 3

Anyone who doesn’t believe in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim god is a pagan. That’s what pagan means. But for some reason most people associate it with Wicca or Druid or similar. So your question is difficult to answer without being more specific.

Answer 4

We have a wide range of beliefs. For example, I'm a pantheist, as I see each thing having God within, but I go further up the chain until I find multiple deities, and at last "God." I believe that I should tap the god in me, and be all that I can be, eventually becomming a god-thing.

Some believe in something less heretical too. What group do you want to know of?

Answer 5

I'll be more then happy to try an answer your questions. But Paganism covers a wide range of religions. Care to be more specific on what you're looking for? :-)

Answer 6

This is rather broad question. I'll be nice and instead of just telling you to go to a certain site I'll just put the info here.

Well, "pagan and neo-pagan refer to a collection of separate religions. Neopagan religions are reconstructions of ancient Pagan belief systems which had been abandoned"

"Neo-Pagan religions are modern-day reconstructions of ancient Pagan religions from various countries and eras. They experience a high but diminishing level of discrimination and persecution in North America. They were once rarely practiced in public for reasons of safety. This is rapidly changing for the better."

Some examples of pagan/neo-pagan religions are:

Asatru (Norse Paganism)

Asatru Beliefs:

Asatru is a polytheistic religion. There are three races of Deities in the Norse pantheon. They are all regarded as living entities who are involved in human life.

Life Values: Asatruars in North America have created a list of Nine Noble Virtues: Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance and Perseverance. The family is greatly valued and honored. They reject any form of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, language, nationality, race, sexual orientation, or "other divisive criteria".

Creation Story: A poem Voluspa (Prophecy of the Seeress) contains an Asatru story of the creation of the universe. Between Muspelheim (The Land of Fire) and Niflheim the Land of Ice was an empty space called Ginnungigap. The fire and ice moved towards each other; when they collided, the universe came into being. Odin, Vili and Ve later created the world from the body of a giant that they had slain.

After death: Those who die in battle will be carried to Valhalla by the Valkyries. There they will eat Särimner (a pig that is daily slaughtered and resurrected) with the Gods. Some, but not all, Asatruars believe that those who have lived a very evil and treacherous life go to Hifhel, (a.k.a Hiflhel). This is a place of torment. The remainder go to Hel, a place of calmness and peace, from which the name of the Christian Hell was derived. However, Hel is much closer to the Christian view of Heaven than to its concept of Hell.


Druidism

"Druidry is not a religion. It's a philosophy and you can worship a God or a Goddess, it's up to you. You can be a Christian or a Moslem or anything else and still be a Druid. "But while a Christian will say God made that tree, a Druid will say the energy of a creative force is in that tree." Kieron, a North-East UK Druid.

Modern Druidism is one of the Neopagan family of religions, which includes Wicca and recreations of Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Roman and other ancient Pagan religions. Some present-day Druids attempt to reconstruct of the beliefs and practices of ancient Druidism. Others modern-day followers of Druidism work directly with the spirits of place, of the gods and of their ancestors to create a new Druidism.

Goddesses and Gods: The Celts did not form a single religious or political unity. They were organized into tribes spread across what is now several countries. As a result, of the 374 Celtic deities which have been found, over 300 occur only once in the archaeological record; they are believed to be local deities. There is some evidence that their main pantheon of Gods and Goddesses might have totaled about 3 dozen - perhaps precisely 33 (a frequently occurring magical number in Celtic literature). Some of the more famous are: Arawn, Brigid, Cernunnos, Cerridwen, Danu, Herne, Lugh, Morgan, Rhiannon and Taranis. Many Celtic deities were worshipped in triune (triple aspect) form. Triple Goddesses were often sisters.
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Afterlife: They believed that the dead were transported to the Otherworld by the God Bile (AKA Bel, Belenus). Life continued in this location much as it had before death. The ancient Druids believed that the soul was immortal. After the person died in the Otherworld, their soul reincarnates and lives again in another living entity -- either in a plant or the body of a human or other animal. After a person has learned enough at this level, they move on after death to a higher realm, which has its own Otherworld. This continues until the individual reaches the highest realm, the "Source." A Druidic visitor to this web site wrote: "All things are created from the Source, including the Gods. We are just sparks from its flame." At every birth, the Celts mourned the death of a person in the Otherworld which made the new birth possible.

Values: Celtic Virtues of honor, loyalty, hospitality, honesty, justice and courage.



Wicca:

Wiccan Deities: Beliefs differ:

Most Wiccans believe that a creative force exists in the universe, which is sometimes called "The One" or " The All". Little can be known of this force.

Most regard the Goddess and the God as representing the female and male aspects of the All. These deities are not "out there somewhere;" they are immanent in the world.
bulletMany regard various pagan Gods and Goddesses (Pan, Athena, Diana, Brigit, Zeus, Odin, etc.) as representing various aspects of the God and Goddess. The term "Wicca" normally implies that the person's religion is based upon Celtic spiritual concepts, deities, and seasonal days of celebration. Some Wiccans include beliefs, practices and symbols from ancient Pagan religions (e.g. Egyptian, Greek, various mystery religions, Roman, Sumerian) or upon Aboriginal religions (Native American Spirituality, Shamanism).

Some Wiccans are actually agnostics, who take no position on the existence of a supreme being or beings. They look upon the Goddess and the God as archetypes, based on myth.

It cannot be stressed enough that Wiccans have no supernatural being in their pantheon of deities who resembles the Christian-Muslim Satan.

Afterlife:

Wiccans have a wide range of beliefs.

Some believe in ancient legends of a Summerland where souls go after death. Here, they meet with others who have gone before, review and integrate their previous lives on earth, and are eventually reincarnated into the body of a new born. Some believe that after many such cycles -- perhaps some as female and others as male; some lives with a high standard of living and others in poverty; some in positions of power and others suffering oppression -- that the individual accumulates sufficient experience to go on to another level of existence about which we know nothing.

Some see an individual's personality, memory, abilities, talents, etc. as functions of the human brain, which degrades and disintegrates at death. They no not anticipate any form of continuity after death.

Other Wiccans anticipate continuity after death in some very narrow senses:

That the molecules that go to make up our bodies may in turn be incorporated in other living entities;

That our influences on children, friends, and society in general will continue to have influences on the next generations.

Three-fold Law (a.k.a. the Law of Return) The law states that:

"All good that a person does to another returns three fold in this life; harm is also returned three fold."

This belief strongly motivates each Wiccan to avoid attempting to dominate, manipulate, control, or harm another person.


The Wiccan Credo:

The Wiccan Credo is a Wiccan poem. Some Wiccans believe that it was written circa 1910 CE by Adriana Porter. Others suggest that it was created during the very early years of Gardnerian Witchcraft, during the 1940s and 1950s. 1 It includes the text of the main Wiccan rule of behavior, the Wiccan Rede, and a reference to the Threefold Law.

The third last stanza refers to the Threefold Law. It states, in part:

"Mind the Threefold Law you should,
Three times bad and three times good."

The end of the Credo contains one version of the Wiccan Rede. It reads:

"Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill:
An' it harm none,
Do what ye will.
Blessed Be to thee."


Here's some insight into just a few of the pagan/neo-pagan religious that are out there. Check out the site that was my source. It has a lot of good information if you want more details about these religions or others.

Answer 7

The motorcycle club? I think they believe in Harley Davidson as god.