Why does Paganism scare Christians?

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awitch

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real/ historical pagans are barbaric and supersitious cults, who universally practiced some form of human sacrifice. Modern examples of this are things like Sante Muerta, or some of the african death cults.

fake / western pagans are mostly people who really, really like dungeons and dragons and decided to play a druid IRL.
--
My only problem with paganism is that there seems to be a particularly anti-Christian sentiment; granted that this may have been somewhat provoked or agitated by fundamentalists.

Eh, could be...
 
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Zoness

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I don't hate or fear pagans. There was a lot of 'fear mongering' stuff when I was Pentecostal regarding it though. I have never understood why some churches focus on other beliefs when they should be spending their time focusing on their own faith.

Speaking of curses though: I had a lot of friends that were pagan back when I was in high school. There was a local tea house (at the time) that had a pagan gift shop attached- and I was invited there once by some friends during some sort of holiday. Anyway, it was crowded with pagans of all sorts that evening. There was this one guy around who gave off negative vibes even to other pagans (I recall one older guy trying to talk to him who didn't like the answers he was getting). I'm not much on superstition, but he had some seriously dark vibes going on. He sat in a corner, refused to socialize with anyone, and he concerned himself with focusing on glaring at me the entire evening. I was wearing a cross and I got the impression he had some hang-ups with Christians- so I became the target of his ire. It was literally one of those- 'I want to kill you and/or wish you great harm' continual intense glaring things ALL evening. That bad vibe feeling didn't go away until I left. So, looking back I wonder if he was trying to do the 'evil eye' thing.

Really sketchy. Even when I was a pagan, I highly doubt I'd ever want to be around a person like that. Plus more often than not, I always felt like those people were just showing off how bad they seemed to be intimidating when it just came off as pandering and moronic.

My only problem with paganism is that there seems to be a particularly anti-Christian sentiment; granted that this may have been somewhat provoked or agitated by fundamentalists.

Honestly you are probably right, I think there is some tendency for certain folks to be anti-Christian, especially since many/most of them come from a Christian background that was at best, unfulfilling. Personally I don't harbor any ill will to most Christians but I suppose I could be described as someone who sympathizes with anti-fundamentalist elements in paganism.
 
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Eudaimonist

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When I was initiated into Kriya Yoga by a Hindu Swami the small group I was amongst were each individually asked who their God was. I was caught off guard and said I didn't know, and he said fine. Most in the group said Jesus. He was getting each to focus on their representation of God in physical reality, their Guru (as best they could) and that they shouldn't detract from that, as that was their spiritual identity. I've come to identify with many Guru's over time, they are not God (the ultimate creative entity/force) but they are reflections of this creative force, and they are examples of what it is to create effectively. Of course we are all creative, thus, we are Gods, but most (including myself at time) are less effective in their expression, and so the realization is less apparent.

Interesting.

I had been asked that question by my brother-in-law, who is a teacher of kundalini yoga. It was obviously a difficult question to answer in the affirmative since I'm an atheist, and not even a panpsychist.

What do you mean by "creative force"?


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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EnemyOfReason

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Correct me if I am wrong but isn't most of the pagan religion lost knowledge, no one truly knows what they believed or warshiped (British pagans) it's lost knowledge so must make it a difficult religion to follow? takes guess work?

Some aspects of paganism is around today in the public domain IE horoscopes, movies (harry potter) TV shows ect, good luck charms.

I personally try to stay away from all

I am a Wathani Pagan and it is considered lost knowledge yet there are vast texts on it by people of that time. One of which is Kitab al-Asnam. Paganism is far from lost knowledge. Also Paganism never exactly had many rules or dogma to begin with.
A great portion of the Qur'an for example is spent verifying that prophets exist.
 
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EnemyOfReason

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I believe Satan is at the heart of most pagan religions, using magik you call upon demons, take Wicca for example it is based around calling upon spirits to preform magik, the origins of Wicca lead to Gardener and Alistair Crowley (famous statanist) watch the below video to learn about Alistair Crowley (Wicca is the work of Satan)

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=jsm6WI5i7p0

The issue though is that although the Bible is harmless Christianity itself is primarily evil. Calling upon Jesus in the Christian since is by my sense evil as you are talking about a demigod who endorses deceit and false love. "Love me or be tortured for eternity"
I question the gods you worship, seriously.
 
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EnemyOfReason

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To the extent that I think about it at all, I see it as a passing fad.

Yet Paganism is growing along with open theism and Christianity is half way dead. Do your research before making claims you cannot support.
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With an estimated 77% adult Christian population I find it sad.
I have 30 students in a philosophies class and only 2 are Christian. Tsk tsk tsk shame on you
 
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EnemyOfReason

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real/ historical pagans are barbaric and supersitious cults, who universally practiced some form of human sacrifice. Modern examples of this are things like Sante Muerta, or some of the african death cults.

fake / western pagans are mostly people who really, really like dungeons and dragons and decided to play a druid IRL.

Yet the BIble is filled with human sacrifice and even genocide. Actually there are very few Pagan mythologies involving genocide yet your Bible is filled with it.

Judges 11:29-40 "So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. He thoroughly defeated the Ammonites from Aroer to an area near Minnith – twenty towns – and as far away as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter – his only child – ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. "My daughter!" he cried out. "My heart is breaking! What a tragedy that you came out to greet me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and cannot take it back." And she said, "Father, you have made a promise to the LORD. You must do to me what you have promised, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin." "You may go," Jephthah said. And he let her go away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept his vow, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter."

Deuteronomy 13:13-19 "Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him."

Joshua 7:15 "The one who has stolen what was set apart for destruction will himself be burned with fire, along with everything he has, for he has broken the covenant of the LORD and has done a horrible thing in Israel."
 
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EnemyOfReason

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the germanic tribes practiced human sacrifice up to their christianization, the celtic up to their romanization. Hinduism is a dreadful religion that belongs in a lovecraft pulp comic, full of rat shrines and abused dalit temple prostitutes. Babur and Timur did nothing wrong imo in obliterating such an unnatural supersitition.

...Says the person who literally worships a human sacrifice, wait:idea:. I meant a divine sacrifice :doh:
 
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PersephonesTear

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Speaking of curses though: I had a lot of friends that were pagan back when I was in high school. There was a local tea house (at the time) that had a pagan gift shop attached- and I was invited there once by some friends during some sort of holiday. Anyway, it was crowded with pagans of all sorts that evening. There was this one guy around who gave off negative vibes even to other pagans (I recall one older guy trying to talk to him who didn't like the answers he was getting). I'm not much on superstition, but he had some seriously dark vibes going on. He sat in a corner, refused to socialize with anyone, and he concerned himself with focusing on glaring at me the entire evening. I was wearing a cross and I got the impression he had some hang-ups with Christians- so I became the target of his ire. It was literally one of those- 'I want to kill you and/or wish you great harm' continual intense glaring things ALL evening. That bad vibe feeling didn't go away until I left. So, looking back I wonder if he was trying to do the 'evil eye' thing.
Meh... Any time you are with any given group of people, there's always going to be one turd in the punch bowl, yah know?

smaneck said:
Most of the current 'human sacrifices' today take place in Africa by evangelical preachers who claim that their victims are witches.
That is not ritualistic human sacrifice at all. Let's call a spade a spade.

It is, however, religiously motivated murder - and there is absolutely no excuse for it. It just plain needs to stop, and those who perpetrate it should be punished according to law. The fact that most of the "witches" who fall victim to this are children makes it that much more heinous.

It would be disingenuous, however, to pretend that what is going on with these Evangelical preachers in Africa is a symptom of Christianity. It is very much cultural, as their ideas of witchcraft and witches have stood since long before Christianity arrived... and now, unfortunately, continue in spite of it.
 
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Eyes wide Open

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Interesting.

I had been asked that question by my brother-in-law, who is a teacher of kundalini yoga. It was obviously a difficult question to answer in the affirmative since I'm an atheist, and not even a panpsychist.

What do you mean by "creative force"?


eudaimonia,

Mark

Electromagnetism.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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I think it is also the case that sometimes mentally unstable people become attracted to paganism.

Or other, more dominant religions, for that matter:

three out of the four schizophrenics I've personally met were EXTREMELY devout Christians, to the point of fanaticism.
One of them started to see Satanists everywhere when she went off her meds.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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Concerning mental illness and paganism:

I'd council any mentally unstable person to stay away from spiritual paths that involve working with the psyche (i.e. shamanism, the Western Esoteric Tradition, ceremonial magic, paganism, etc.), as these very much require a stable mind.

In some rare cases, these paths might actually HELP somebody who suffers from mental health problems, but I'm certain that in most instances, the inverse will happen. Just as in the case of psychoactive/psychedelic substances.
 
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ihavefoundgod951

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The issue though is that although the Bible is harmless Christianity itself is primarily evil. Calling upon Jesus in the Christian since is by my sense evil as you are talking about a demigod who endorses deceit and false love. "Love me or be tortured for eternity"
I question the gods you worship, seriously.

The Christian God is a loving and merciful God, I don't understand which part of our religion you find evil. Is it the part where we should love our neighbors, or thy shall not judge, thy shall not murder, thy shall not lie (false testimony)

Im sorry if you find what I wrote about pagans insulting, but I am speaking from personal experience I had with Wicca, the use of magik imo is evil!
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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Alot of modern paganism is based on the work of Margaret Murray, whos work is widely recognised as false information.

True, and there's a whole lot of blessed wannabes/fluff bunnies about who still rant about the "Burning Times" and insist that they are practicing an unbroken tradition reaching all the way back to the dawn of man.

But you know what? The same applies to virtually all other religions, even major ones.
There are Christians who believe that their religion is the oldest on the planet (and that the planet is but six thousand years old, tops).
There are muslims who believe the same, arguing that the other abrahamic religions are but corruptions of the True Message.
And I'm sure similar positions exist in religions such as Hinduism or Buddhism: ahistorical mythmaking is almost a staple of a rather naive approach to religion.
 
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ihavefoundgod951

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True, and there's a whole lot of blessed wannabes/fluff bunnies about who still rant about the "Burning Times" and insist that they are practicing an unbroken tradition reaching all the way back to the dawn of man.

But you know what? The same applies to virtually all other religions, even major ones.
There are Christians who believe that their religion is the oldest on the planet (and that the planet is but six thousand years old, tops).
There are muslims who believe the same, arguing that the other abrahamic religions are but corruptions of the True Message.
And I'm sure similar positions exist in religions such as Hinduism or Buddhism: ahistorical mythmaking is almost a staple of a rather naive approach to religion.

But when a religion is based on the work of a scientist (Murray) whos work has been proven to be false information. How can you worship and follow the traditions that she set? When you know that the information she gave is false?

All 3 Abrahamic faiths start with the old testament, some might say we all believe in the same God.
 
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ihavefoundgod951

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True, and there's a whole lot of blessed wannabes/fluff bunnies about who still rant about the "Burning Times" and insist that they are practicing an unbroken tradition reaching all the way back to the dawn of man.

But you know what? The same applies to virtually all other religions, even major ones.
There are Christians who believe that their religion is the oldest on the planet (and that the planet is but six thousand years old, tops).
There are muslims who believe the same, arguing that the other abrahamic religions are but corruptions of the True Message.
And I'm sure similar positions exist in religions such as Hinduism or Buddhism: ahistorical mythmaking is almost a staple of a rather naive approach to religion.

Whos to say the earth isn't 6000 years old? Theoretical Science is always proving itself wrong. It's debatable. You know scientific theory is just that, a theory.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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Whos to say the earth isn't 6000 years old? Theoretical Science is always proving itself wrong. It's debatable. You know scientific theory is just that, a theory.

And with painfully ignorant opinions such as that, you STILL want to be taken more seriously than the "Wicca is a stone age religion"-fluff bunnies?
Good luck with that. You'll need it.

This isn't the topic of this thread, but let me try to clear up all the misconceptions and nonsensical assumptions you managed to cram into four little sentences.

1. "Who's to say the earth [is no more than] 6000 years old?"

Every single piece of evidence ever discovered. No, seriously, it's not just radiometric dating, or tree rings, or ice cores, or any other of the many, MANY facts that point to a significantly older planet: it's ALL of them, and those that can be used to actually pinpoint the age of the planet always point to the same result. The Earth is 4,54 billion years old, give or take 0.05 billion years.
So, with all the facts pointing to this, what do you have to offer? Personal opinion and an anthology written during the iron age? Yeah, right.

2. "Theoretical Science is always proving itself wrong."

And that is one of science's STRENGTHS, not a weakness. It's unfalsifiable beliefs that boil down to nothing but opinion. Aside from that, it's only in the thoroughly arcane regions of theoretical physics that you'll still find the kind of fundamental overhaul that topples entire models. And even there, it's mostly just a question of replacing a somewhat good predictive model with an even better one. Remember when Einstein overhauled Newton with his general theory of relativity? Newton's equations will still give you pretty accurate results, most of the time - it's just when you come to truly large numbers such as the speed of light that you'll end up with significant discrepancies between Newtonian models and reality.

3. "You know scientific theory is just that, a theory."
In scientific parlance, "theory" denotes a hypothesis that has already been repeatedly proven to be pretty accurate. It's the virtual opposite of blind speculation. So no, it's not "just a theory" in the sense that you are using that term.
 
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dazed

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The Christian God is a loving and merciful God, I don't understand which part of our religion you find evil. Is it the part where we should love our neighbors, or thy shall not judge, thy shall not murder, thy shall not lie (false testimony)

Im sorry if you find what I wrote about pagans insulting, but I am speaking from personal experience I had with Wicca, the use of magik imo is evil!

Read the Bible lately?
 
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awitch

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Im sorry if you find what I wrote about pagans insulting, but I am speaking from personal experience I had with Wicca, the use of magik imo is evil!

We get that. But I'm still hoping you'll share some of the beliefs you held and practices you performed during your time as a Wiccan (which tradition did you say you were part of, again?) and how you determined they were evil.
 
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