When I was in elementary school at a Catholic grade school, we
frequently prayed for the pagan babies, and on occasion, a collection was taken
up to pass on our small change to them.
Later in life, I came to realize that pagan babies were any
children who were not Catholic. During the same time period, Protestants
thought that anyone who was not a Protestant, including Catholics, was a pagan
baby.
I didn’t think about pagans again until years later, when I
was living in Evanston, Illinois. As you may be aware, Evanston is a city of
churches, and I vowed that I was going to visit every church in town to see
what they were like. Since I always worked on Friday nights, I never had a
chance to visit any synagogues or mosques, but I still managed to view roughly 65
different churches before I ran out of steam. Eventually, I started attending
one of the Lutheran churches because I liked the pastor. In addition to the
fact that he was an interesting guy to listen to, he also hosted beer and Bible
night.
How could I resist?
During the same time period, I also attended a few of the
meetup groups that popped up in the paper. One of the most intriguing was the
pagan group that met in downtown Chicago. Ironically, they met at DePaul
University, which happens to be the largest Catholic University in the country.
At the first meeting, I was struck by how NORMAL the folks in
attendance were. There weren’t any people dressed in witch doctor garb or
wearing witches clothing. Their appearance was no different than what you and I
wear, and no one in attendance was ranting incoherently, or doing strange
chants.
There are NUMEROUS books about paganism on Amazon. If you went
through the entire list, you’d come up with several hundred, since the listings
to on for about 75 pages. I remember reading 1 or 2 of them, and was struck by
the fact that the proper name for pagans is “earth spiritualist” since they
derive their religion from nature, much the same as what native Americans do.
Closely related to paganism are wiccans, which is another name
for witches. Believe it or not, there are a number of pagans and wiccans who
serve in the military, and their gravestones can exhibit the symbol for their
religion.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pagans&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
When we envision pagans, we typically think of ancient
societies who worshipped many gods, which is another name for polytheistic societies.
Polytheism - Ancient World
Polytheism was wide spread in the ancient world.
The Egyptians had a highly developed belief system that was based on multiple
gods. These gods were the cornerstone of Egyptian culture and still fascinate
us today. The ancient Greeks also had an intricate system of myths based on
multiple deities. The Greek gods often took on human forms and personalities,
and in many cases, directly interfered with human activities. When the Roman
Empire conquered the Greeks, the Romans assimilated much of the Greek
polytheistic culture. Over time, as Rome's influence spread, it absorbed other
gods from the other cultures that it conquered. In addition to Egypt, Greece
and Rome, polytheism was widespread in ancient Asian, African, European and Native
American cultures.
Polytheism - Modern World
Polytheism still represents much of the world
today. Except for the monotheistic (belief in one God) religions of
Christianity, Judaism and Islam, most of the world's religions are
overwhelmingly polytheistic. Polytheism characterizes the beliefs of Hinduism,
Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism in the East, and also
contemporary tribal religions in Africa and the Americas. These religions are
widely practiced throughout the world and remain very popular in their
ancestral areas.
Some polytheistic beliefs are also popular in
today's Western Civilization. This appears to be a result of increased
immigration of Eastern cultures and the mainstream popularity of New Age
pluralism. Unlike Christian,
Jewish and Islamic doctrine, there is rarely an absolute truth associated with
polytheistic thinking. Ideas of morality (notions of right and wrong) are relative
to the individual or culture. Each believer is free to worship the god of his or her choice in the manner
of his or her liking. As a result, each person is free to behave as he or she
sees fit. Although polytheistic systems provide flexibility and a relativistic
lack of accountability, they often leave followers with no sense of ultimate
purpose and no prospect for eternal hope. Monotheistic faiths such as
Christianity teach that absolute truth is reality, mankind is on earth for a
purpose, and eternal salvation is possible for those seeking a reconciled
relationship with the one true God.
https://www.allabouthistory.org/polytheism.htm
There is a vast difference between ancient paganism and modern
paganism (which is called neo-paganism.) Another name for ancient paganism is
animism, which is technically the oldest religion in the world, even though
Hinduism is considered to be the oldest FORMAL religion, and it goes back about
5000 years.
Animism is the oldest religion
on Earth. Still practiced today, this ancient way of thinking has roots in the
earliest religious thoughts of mankind. Animism is the belief that all things,
from animals to rivers, are alive and animated. It dates back to the
Paleolithic Age, far before organized religion was ever even considered.
Frankly, animism predates organized society, much less organized religion. It
was the belief system of hunter-gatherers who were still far from becoming the
dominant species on Earth. The sheer age of the religion, however, goes to show
that even when humans were struggling to survive, they believed that there was
something more to this world.
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/what-faith-is-the-oldest.aspx
Hinduism is often considered to be the oldest of the world
religions with a history stretching back over 5,000 years. This would make
Hinduism the oldest major religion by far. Unfortunately, there is no proof
that Hinduism as it is known today was practiced in the lost culture of the
Indus River Valley Civilization. Many of the carvings from that period resemble
more contemporary depictions of Hindu gods, and it appears the ancient people
worshiped a pair of male and female deities who are often associated with early
depictions of Shiva and Shakti. There is a great deal of writing that survived
from this society, and those texts may have the answers scholars seek.
Unfortunately, no one alive
knows how to read the ancient language. As such, a better date for the
beginning of Hinduism would be in 1500 B.C. when what is known as the Vedic
period began. This still makes Hinduism noticeably older than most other
religions, but it is in serious competition with Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism or Mazdayasna is
one of the oldest religions in the world. It is a monotheistic religion that is
believed to have begun between 2,000 and 1,000 B.C. but would not be mentioned
in surviving records until the mid-5th century B.C. The founder of
Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster or Zarathustra, is believed to have lived between
1200 and 1500 B.C.
The older religions are, the
harder they tend to be to accurately date. As Judaism lacks a single founder as
is found in Christianity and Islam, Judaism has to be dated through other
means. While there is considerable debate about what should be considered the
beginning of Judaism, most scholars place the religion’s birth in the Bronze
Age. This would make Judaism more than 3,000 years old. Depending on how one
dates the religion, however, it could be markedly older.
Rather like Christianity,
Buddhism can be dated from either its founder’s birth or from the event that
would come to define the religion. Siddhartha Gautama, who would come to be
known as Gautama Buddha or simply the Buddha, was born in Nepal in the 6th century.
The actual date of his birth is widely debated, but the general timeframe would
place Buddhism as being around 2,600 years old.
Taoism is a religion that was
begun in China in the late 4th century B.C. by a man named Lao Tzu. Also
spelled Lao Tsu and Laozi, Lao Tzu is believed to have been a great philosopher
and writer of the “Tao Te Ching.” Taoists and scholars disagree on when exactly
Lao Tzu lived. Most Taoists believe that Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius.
This would place Taoism as beginning in the 6th century B.C. Most historians,
however, believe that Lao Tzu was born during the Warring States period in the
early part of the 4th century.
The Gregorian calendar, the
calendar most commonly used in the world today, is based on the birth of Jesus
Christ. As such, Christianity is almost painfully easy to date. Christ was born
in the year 0 A.D. Christians tend to hold this as the beginning of Christianity
because Christ’s birth on Earth was the beginning of the fulfilment of the Old
Testament prophecies. In reality, however, Christianity would be best dated to
be a little younger than the current calendar year. While the birth of Jesus of
Nazareth would be an event that would come to shape the modern world,
Christianity did not truly begin until the death and resurrection of Christ in
A.D. 30. Without that event, Christ would have remained a powerful, charismatic
prophet. It was His resurrection that forever separated Christianity from
Judaism. As such, Christianity would be just under 2,000 years old.
Islam is the youngest of the major world religions. Its
founder, Muhammad, was born in Mecca in A.D. 570. When he was an adult,
Muhammad received a series of revelations from the angel Gabriel. These
revelations would become the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and Muhammad’s
followers would come to be known as Muslims.
The early Muslims emigrated from Mecca to Medina
in A.D. 622. It is in this year that the Muslim calendar begins. Either this
year or the year when Muhammad is said to have received the first vision from
Gabriel would be best considered to be the birth date of Islam.
Neopaganism is one of the
youngest religions in the world. Wicca, arguably the best known Neopagan
religion today, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century.
It was not until the 1950s that the movement became known to the general
public.
Neopagan beliefs and practices are derived from
and based on the religions of the ancient Greeks, Celts, Egyptians and
Mesopotamians. Contemporary Neopaganism, however, differs greatly from its
ancient ancestors. Modern Druids, for example, often see themselves as
peacekeepers and work to live lives that avoid violence of any kind. Ancient
Celtic Druids most likely participated in human sacrifice.
The Baháʼí Faith (/bəˈhɑːʔiː, bəˈhaɪ/; Persian: بهائی Bahāʼi) is a relatively new religion[a] teaching the essential
worth of all religions and the
unity of all people.[b] Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the
19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the Middle East,
where it has faced ongoing persecution since its inception.[13] The religion is estimated to
have over five million
adherents, known as Baháʼís, spread throughout most of the world's countries and
territories.[14]
The religion has three central
figures: the Báb (1819–1850), considered a herald who
taught that God would soon send a prophet in the same way of Jesus or Muhammad, and who was executed by Iranian
authorities in 1850; Baháʼu'lláh (1817–1892),
who claimed to be that prophet in 1863 and faced exile and imprisonment for
most of his life, and his son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921),
who was released from confinement in 1908 and made teaching trips to Europe and
the United States. After ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death in 1921,
leadership of the religion fell to his grandson Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957). Baháʼís annually elect
local, regional, and national Spiritual Assemblies that
govern the religion's affairs. Every five years the members of all National
Spiritual Assemblies elect the Universal House
of Justice, the nine-member supreme governing institution of the
worldwide Baháʼí community that is
located in Haifa, Israel, near the Shrine of the Báb.
According to the Baháʼí teachings, God is
single and all-powerful. Baháʼu'lláh taught that
religion is revealed in an orderly and progressive way by Manifestations
of God, who are the founders of major world religions throughout
history; Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are noted as the
most recent of these before the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh. Baháʼís regard the major
religions as fundamentally unified in purpose, though varied in social
practices and interpretations. The Baháʼí Faith stresses the unity of all people, explicitly rejecting racism and nationalism. At the heart of Baháʼí teachings is the
goal of a unified world
order that ensures the prosperity of all nations, races,
creeds, and classes.
The Baha’I faith is unique in that it
respects ALL of the world’s major religions. All Baha’I temples have 9 pillars
around them, each of which pays homage to one of the world’s major religions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%CA%BC%C3%AD_Faith The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, believe it or not,
is actually considered to be a legitimate religion.
The Church of the
Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM, Pastafarianism) teaches that the creator of the
universe is an invisible and non-detectable being that resembles spaghetti and
meatballs1. To win favours with the savoury
saviour, prayers should end with "R'amen". A collection of writings
of fans has been compiled as the Loose Canon, and the founder Bobby
Henderson has earned the epithet of "May Pesto Be Upon Him". The
Church of the FSM argues that Pastafarianism should also be taught in school
alongside evidence-based teachings such as evolution, and that the FSM planted evidence of
evolution to confuse scientists. Their true argument is that the whole concept
of teachings religious beliefs in science education classes is ridiculous and
inappropriate2. The Church of the FSM is also famous
for its adherents presenting arguments for the right to wear colanders on their
heads - the truth being that of course, the exact opposite is the case: exemptions for religious folk
are daft, and should be dropped.
http://www.humanreligions.info/flying_spaghetti_monster.html
I have friends who adhere to a variety of religions, so I’m
never going to criticize anyone’s religions, but I also will admit that I’m
never going to promote the last religion on the list, since wearing a colander
on her head looks a little silly.
None of us really knows where all those pennies that we
collected in grade school went, but I’m pretty sure that Father John V. Ryan
put them to good use, even if they helped pay for his new DeSoto in 1960.
