Is Pagan an ugliy term?

Question

Many people use the reference pagan to refer to other religions, but there are so many people that can be lumped into the group pagans, that are actually very wonderful people. They do more for man kind than those who call them by this title. So I ask do you think it's an ugly and not to mention rather uninformed derogatory coment.

Answer 1

most people who use the word 'pagen' as a classification of all 'non-christians' are ignorant. Rome was widely pagen before they adopted christianity as the official religion. They gathered at the council of Nicea and had a vote, and decided the easiest way to transition the masses from one to the other would be to take a bunch of pagen symbols and incorporate them into christianity (for example: the halo.) Paganism IS a religion unto itself....I dont know a lot about it but I believe it's centered on worshiping the earth and both the male and female forms.....there's nothing evil about it and it has nothing to do with satan.

Answer 2

To me 'religion' is an ugly term. I cannot really label myself as anything other than a Dark Pagan or Occultist. I guess I could call me self a Satanist but i do not follow the bible or know enough about the organization of Satanism to be associated with.

I believe in Nature and worship both darkness and light to the extreme. Pagan mythologies is just as valid as the Quran, Bible or Torah in in my opinion. It's way way more ancient too...

I am an agnostic with Pagan beliefs.

Answer 3

I do not like it because it defines something by what it's not, and it doesn't do it very well. A pagan is someone that isn't Christian. There are MASSES of peole that aren't Christian. Most of them belong to other religions. So I think it is insulting.

However, some people call themselves Pagan. So it can't be that bad.

Answer 4

The word comes from the Latin paganus, which meant "rural" or "civilian," derived from pagus, a village. The secondary meaning of the term as "one who worships false gods" came about by contrasting the idea of "civilian" against that of the "soldier of Christ." So the term has always had partisan connotations.

Today it's still used in a derogatory sense by "Christians" to refer to the old nature religions that were once its rivals, but also proudly by people who seek to identify with those religions. It can refer to practitioners of "wicca" or ceremonial magic, to so-called "satanist" groups, neo-gnostics, etc etc.

Answer 5

It's not an ugly term. It simply means not Jewish, Christian or (usually) Islamic. True, many people use it derogatively, but plenty of other people are proud to call themselves Pagan. It's not an intrinsically insulting word.

Answer 6

Quite an amusing little anecdote that once happened to me:
I was talking about a friend of mine to my father once, years ago.
I also told him:
"Eric is a pagan."
and my father, raised by a borderline fanatically catholic mother, went all angry:
"How can you say he is your friend and then call him ugly names like that! Have some respect for him!"

Took me half an hour to explain, LOL...


Edit: sledge, there is a special and very hot corner of hell reserved for the hateful and the intolerant. Hope you make yourself at home there.
While the good but unbelieving, according to Dante, just go to the outer pre-hell. In your beliefs, anyway.
I don't believe in going to hell.

Answer 7

I prefer to be called a Heathen... I'm an Asatruar. When I call myself a Pagan too many people assume I'm Wiccan.

Answer 8

When I hear Pagan I think of people who worship many Gods and Godesses. Who have a great respect for Nature.

I think of my Sister.

Answer 9

Every time someone says something that is judgmental like 'anyone that worships any other god then the one true God is a pagan.', someone claims that it is an ugly statement.

grace2u

Answer 10

Blessed Be!!! as a practicing witch with no religious affiliation I would say NO WAY!!!!...
I refer to myself as a) simply a witch...or b) PAGAN!!!!!!!!!