What is the Meaning & Definition of paganism
We understand by Paganism to those religious expressions that are based on the belief of gods other than the God of judeo-Christian or even Arabic. The concept of paganism was born in the moment in which the Romans were considered as infidels all those who did not follow the Christian precepts and should, therefore, be converted.
The etymology of the concept has its root in the term "paganus", or the one who played his life and its tasks in the rural areas. Thus, for the Romans (who developed a great empire based on the Foundation of cities) everyone who lived in the field showed true mental and cultural backwardness which made him keep still at that time traditions and religious forms considered by them to be primitive.
However, Paganism is not related to Primitivism if not with another way of understanding the universe in which the gods are not just one if not several, and in which the nature and its observation have very strong importance to the development of human history. Paganism was characteristic of many cultures and societies then conquered by the West, such as the Celts, native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Normans, Vikings, Egyptians and even the Greeks.
All these peoples is entrusted to higher forces is very different from the Christian, numerous and not always merciful. They were the reflection of the observation of the reality that was made in another era of mankind in which the nature and the symbolic magical had much more strength. In the case of the Celts, for example, the most important divinities were those that had to do with the annual cycles in which a harvest began or ended (cycles which coincided, naturally, with the stations). Thus, with the onset of winter was believed they left the dead and spirits than the rest of the year remained asleep, reason why there is the celebration of Halloween.
Paganism has been long understood as a derogatory word since it is loaded a host of negative meanings but actually it wasn't just another religious and mystical expression developed by the human being.
The etymology of the concept has its root in the term "paganus", or the one who played his life and its tasks in the rural areas. Thus, for the Romans (who developed a great empire based on the Foundation of cities) everyone who lived in the field showed true mental and cultural backwardness which made him keep still at that time traditions and religious forms considered by them to be primitive.
However, Paganism is not related to Primitivism if not with another way of understanding the universe in which the gods are not just one if not several, and in which the nature and its observation have very strong importance to the development of human history. Paganism was characteristic of many cultures and societies then conquered by the West, such as the Celts, native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Normans, Vikings, Egyptians and even the Greeks.
All these peoples is entrusted to higher forces is very different from the Christian, numerous and not always merciful. They were the reflection of the observation of the reality that was made in another era of mankind in which the nature and the symbolic magical had much more strength. In the case of the Celts, for example, the most important divinities were those that had to do with the annual cycles in which a harvest began or ended (cycles which coincided, naturally, with the stations). Thus, with the onset of winter was believed they left the dead and spirits than the rest of the year remained asleep, reason why there is the celebration of Halloween.
Paganism has been long understood as a derogatory word since it is loaded a host of negative meanings but actually it wasn't just another religious and mystical expression developed by the human being.