Why does christian church condems Paganism?

Question

Pagans where first!That isnt fair.But i want to listen to your opinion.

Hmm.. It is just unfair how they stole pagan holidays to make pagans folow their beliefs, how they burnt so many people for being true faithful!

-Instead of so many comandments you should apply to your lives that "If it harms none do what you will."

True evil is in mankind not in a Evil being who resides in a hell... Satan is just an excuse to blame for human faults...

"And do what you will shall be the challenge by magick of old,BE IT DONE!"

The apocalypse will be created by foolish humans!The living prooof! 'GLOBAL WARMING'

Answer 1

They condemn anyone who doesn't blindly adhere to their dogma.

Answer 2

You wrote:

"Hmm.. It is just unfair how they stole pagan holidays to make pagans folow their beliefs, how they burnt so many people for being true faithful!

-Instead of so many comandments you should apply to your lives that "If it harms none do what you will.""

*sigh*

Another person who believes that (a) all Pagans are Wiccans ("If it harm none, do what you will" is the Wiccan Rede, NOT the Pagan Rede), and (b) that during the "Burning Times", Pagans were killed for their religion.

Both points are wrong.

http://wicca.timerift.net/history_real.shtml

http://wicca.timerift.net/burning.shtml

In modern usage, the term "Pagan" generally means any religion that is not one of the "Big Three" (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). The term "Neo-Pagan" refers to a cluster of modern religions (some of them reconstructions of ancient faiths) that are generally earth-oriented and polytheistic.

Why do Christians condemn Pagans (or perhaps more accurately in terms of your question, Neo-Pagans)? Because we're not Christian, and because they have wrong concepts of what we do and how we worship. Neo-Pagans were NOT here first, even though our religions are often inspired by much older faiths, some of which were around before Christianity.

Hope this helps. :-)

Answer 3

Because in the Bible it states not to do as the Heathens do - it does NOT say Pagan. Heathen, according to the Jews, is anyone who isn't a Jew.... a Gentile (that most of Christianity right there). They will say that the Bible upholds the idea that one should convert Pagans or "cut them off" (some will even go so far as to quote "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" without realizing that not all Pagans are witches). The problem with this is, they're hypocritical about it. They follow our holidays, use our traditions and then claim "Well, God makes evil things good", but only for them of course. Now, if they'll just read the verses that states God is not a respector of people... they might see that they aren't following their God like they claim they do.

Answer 4

Modern Paganism bears little resemblance to the paganism that the bible objects to.

5000 years before Christ, people sacrificed to idols. I watched this program recently about an archeological dig where they found this big metal beast which was essentially a stove. Heat was built underneath. Around it, the bones of hundreds of thousands of children. Burned.

So too, people try to "rescue" "old gods." I've known some folks who pick a name out of a book and build a cult around it. They don't ever research this name. What this deity was like. How was it sacrificed to in ages past. Which has led to some really scary hauntings. I suppose one might call that demonic oppression from a Christian point of view.

The counter point being, some of my very best and most trusted friends are Pagans. Different sorts of Pagans. Feminist wiccans. Neo-Pagans. Those who combine Buddhism and Wicca.

Fear keeps us from knowing and loving one another. From a Christian perspective, the bible says BE NOT AFRAID. For the most part, I believe Christians who fear Pagans THAT much are the ones who are demonically oppressed.

I'm sorry if I more or less just put my foot in my mouth with that comment. I have the gift of discernment of spirits. I tend to get a little goofy.

PS: Christians did not swipe pagan holidays. Remember for the first 320 years after Christ died, Christianity was illegal. We HID our celebrations among the celebrations in the areas. If we "stole" easter from anyone, we stole it from the Jews. Easter is a corruption of Festa Paschalia. The feast of the passover. Christians celebrate easter at the same time as the Jews every year. Christ was a Jewish Rabbi. He celebrated Passover on Thursday with his disciples. He died on Friday. He picked up the dead on Saturday. Then was ressurected on Sunday.

As to the Burning Times - if you compare a map and times of Protestant Reformation to a map and times of the Burning Times - you'll see they match. Christians weren't burning pagans. They were burning Catholics and calling them pagan. You might want to check a book by Evelyn Waugh called Edmund Campion. It will help you understand.

Answer 5

It's that whole "Thou shalt put no idol before me" thing. Besides, I used to be a pagan. I bought a couple books on norse religion, and after comparing it to several other pagan cults, like wicca, and shamanism, I realized it was all a scam. Aside from little differences that give each one flavor, it was all the same thing. I mean, the book said "do what you like as long as you don't hurt anybody. When was the last time you saw a viking hippy?

Since I'm pretty sure these were originally not that much alike, I feel that it is all a bunch of new-age, do-what-you-feel bs, with no connection to the real religions they are supposed to be based on. So I went with Christianity, which at least gives more direction in your life than "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody".

Answer 6

The bible says so. The church long ago turned anyone that isn't Christian into something evil. They used to forcibly convert the Pagans at sword point. Now they just try to make you at least live by their rules through politics.

Yes, Pagans were here first but Christianity doesn't care.

Answer 7

In most ancient cultures, religion and state were one and the same-- refusal to bow before the Roman gods, for instance, was seen as disloyalty to the Emperor, since his authority stemmed from Jupiter's supposed patronage of the Imperial household. In ancient times, wars were fought between rivaling nations over trade or for political reasons, yet the outcome of the war was later seen as a referendum on which state had the mightiest gods. Christianity, after it was made the official Roman state religion, was no different; if the Emperor was ordained by the Christian Church, a denial of Christianity's role as "the one true faith" was seen as a refusal to accept the Emperor's God-given right to rule. So when you look back at most of world history, most of the world's conflicts that have been painted as religious wars were really political or economic conflicts fought between people of differing faiths. Even wars which were truly "religious" in nature usually had political or economic dimensions. Christians in the ancient world saw themselves, surrounded by enemies who happened to mostly be pagan, or who happened to believe in an un-orthodox form of Christianity, and it was quite natural for them to see their political and economic rivals as 'heretics' and 'infidels.' I think that this intolerance was really a product of political and social prejudice, since there's really nothing in the Christian canon to support religious intolerance or bigoty. Unfortunately, many of these prejudices are still with us today.

You have to keep in mind that separation of church and state is a relatively new concept. It's really only in the last two to three centuries that notions of an individual protected right of freedom of faith have come into being. We wouldn't have been having a conversation, three hundred years ago, about whether our national enemies were godly people who just happened to follow another belief-- this concept didn't really exist at the time.

Christians believe that Jesus is the only key to salvation. This belief is what distinguishes them AS Christians. From their perspective, then, any belief system which contradicts Jesus' role as savior is a false teaching. This is why most Christian denominations are against paganism today-- because, in their view, paganism prevents people from discovering God's plan for them and for their lives. I don't think that most Christians would say that pagans are "bad" people (although many Christian individuals certainly would!).

While I think most Christian churches condemn paganism as a religious practice, because they see it as a false teaching, I don't know that all denominations condemn pagans. I think that some congregations are more tolerant than others.

Answer 8

To disguise the fact that most of their beliefs were ripped off from Pagans.

Historians and writers at the time actually described the new budding "christianity" religion as being basically Judaism with pagan pieces thrown in.

Almost everything Jesus said or did was done before by a previous pagan god. Born of a virgin in a barn on december 25th with a star to mark the birth, visited by 3 wise men (frankincense, gold and myrrh were standard pagan offerings), baptized, turned water to wine at a wedding, rode into town on donkeys, stood up against tyranny, promoted the golden rule, was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, lost favor with his people, nailed to a tree, died for sins of mankind, came back to life 3 days later before ascending to heaven, and a lot more. This was all done by earlier gods as far back as 2400 BC.

To hide the fact that their beliefs were stolen from pagan myth, they sought to wipe out the pagans and burn as much of their texts as they could.

Answer 9

Every religion that has come into being thinks that it knows the best. Based on what? The prophets/preachers proposed a theory which appealed to a set of people and they became the followers. After some time comes the next preacher and another set of people starts following him 'coz his theory seems right to them. I think that is the freedom of choice. But what happens when a group feels they are being outnumbered? Their ego is hurt and they start abusing/condemning others and make certain rules for their followers by showing them the fear of future. Here 'fear is the key'.

The truth is every religion is as ignorant as the next.

Answer 10

because we came first. and we are apparently the devil.
there are so many wicca/pagan bashing sites that have their eyes set on putting us down.

this is the time for us to stand up and forget thier rude comments. i mean if anything we are more "godly" then they are.

Why?
-we don't shove our religion down peoples throats
-we don't say other religions are completely wrong
-we don't accuse people of being satanic
-we don't shun people because they don't follow the old ways.

and what have we done to them to deserve being hated and in past times stoned hanged and burned? what did we do?
Love nature?
Love Eachother?
Not following a big book of rules that someone(a mortal) wrote?

We are Mysterious.
We are The Life.
if they dont like us, all we can do is sit back and watch them make fun of us when we are DOING THINGS with our lives :]

Blessed Be!
)O(

Answer 11

Money, Christians are programed by their "spiritual leaders" to condemn Pagans because they don't give tithes to the churches. Have you seen some of the homes and vehicles these Priests, Pastors, Reverends, and Preachers have?

In their sermons they will tell parishioners to give 10, 20, 30% of their earnings to the church.