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Pagan
Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the Roman Empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not '' milites Christi'' (soldiers of Christ).J. J. O'Donnell (1977)''Paganus'': Evolution and Use, ''Classical Folia'', 31: 163–69. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were '' hellene'', '' gentile'', and '' heathen''. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". During and after the Middle Ages, the term ''paganism'' was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a belief in f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Paganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the Paganism, beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, sharing no single set of beliefs, practices, or religious texts. Religious studies, Scholars of religion may study the phenomenon as a movement divided into different religions, while others study neopaganism as a decentralized religion with an array of Religious denomination, denominations. Adherents rely on Christianization, pre-Christian, folkloric, and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees; many of them follow a spirituality that they accept as entirely modern, while others claim to adhere to Prehistoric religion, prehistoric beliefs, or else, they attempt to revive indigenous religions as accurately as possible. List of modern pagan movements, Modern pagan movements are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animistic
Animism (from meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, Rock (geology), rocks, rivers, Weather, weather systems, human handiwork, and in some cases words—as being animated, having agency and free will. Animism is used in anthropology of religion as a term for the Belief, belief system of many Indigenous peoples in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Animism is a metaphysics, metaphysical belief which focuses on the Supernatural, supernatural universe: specifically, on the concept of the immaterial soul. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one god. According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, or whether the apparent different objects of worship are to be thought of as manifestations of a singular divinity. Polytheistic belief is usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular god who is, in most cases, transcendent. In religions that accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles; they can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle ( monistic theologies), which manifests immanently in nature (panentheistic and pantheistic theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polytheistic Reconstructionism
Polytheistic reconstructionism (or simply reconstructionism) is an approach to modern paganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, which gathered momentum starting in the 1990s. Reconstructionism attempts to re-establish genuine polytheistic religions in the modern world through a rediscovery of the rituals, practices and contextual worldviews of pre-Christian pagan religions. This method stands in contrast with other neopagan syncretic movements like Wicca, and ecstatic/esoteric movements like Germanic mysticism or Theosophy. While the emphasis on historical accuracy may imply historical reenactment, the difference between these two movements can be summarized as one of intent. Historical reenactment seeks historical accuracy as a goal in and of itself. On the other hand, a reconstructionist neopagan views historical accuracy as a means to the end of establishing a harmonious relationship between a belief-community and the gods. In short, the guiding principles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nature Worship
Nature worship, also called naturism or physiolatry, is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of a nature deity, considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in animism, pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, deism, totemism, shamanism, Taoism, Hinduism, some theism and paganism including Wicca. Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it. Due to their admiration of nature, the works of Edmund Spenser, Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Carl Linnaeus were viewed as nature worship. In the Western world Paganism in Europe In ancient European paganism, the deification of natural for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Modern Pagan Movements
Modern paganism, also known as "contemporary" or "neopagan", encompasses a wide range of religious groups and individuals. These may include old occult groups, those that follow a New Age approach, those that try to reconstruct old ethnic religions, and followers of the pagan religion or Wicca. Early movements Pre-World War II neopagan or proto-neopagan groups, growing out of occultism and/or Romanticism (Mediterranean revival, Viking revival, Celtic revival, etc.). * Druidry (modern) ** Ancient Order of Druids (1781) ** The Druid Order (1909) * Thelema (1904) * Germanic neopaganism/ Ariosophy ** Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft (1907) ** Guido von List Society (1908) * Church of the Universal Bond (1912) * Adonism (1925) * Slavic Native Faith (1920s–30s) ** Zadruga (1937) * Church of Aphrodite (1938) Ethnic and cultural * European Congress of Ethnic Religions Germanic Heathenism (also Heathenry, or Greater Heathenry), is a blanket term for the whole Germa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The Western Roman Empire, western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the Byzantine Empire, eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, the city of Rome had expanded its rule from the Italian peninsula to most of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by List of Roman civil wars and revolts, civil wars and political conflicts, which culminated in the Wars of Augustus, victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power () and the new title of ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnic Religion
In religious studies, an ethnic religion or ethnoreligion is a religion or belief associated with notions of heredity and a particular ethnicity. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, which are not limited in ethnic, national or racial scope. Terminology A number of alternative terms have been used instead of ''ethnic religion''. Another term that is often used is '' folk religion''. While ''ethnic religion'' and ''folk religion'' have overlapping uses, the latter term implies "the appropriation of religious beliefs and practices at a popular level." The term ''folk religion'' can therefore be used to speak of certain Chinese and African religions, but can also refer to popular expressions of more multi-national and institutionalized religions such as Folk Christianity or Folk Islam. In Western contexts, a variety of terms are also employed. In the United States and Canada, a popular alternative term has been '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantheistic
Pantheism can refer to a number of Philosophy, philosophical and Religion, religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment, 2008, page 54. as opposed to the corporeal gods of religion such as Yahweh. The former idea came from Church theologians who, in attacking the latter form of pantheism, described pantheism as the belief that God is the material universe itself.Worman, J. H., "Pantheism", in ''Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 1'', John McClintock, James Strong (Eds), Harper & Brothers, 1896, pp. 616–624. Under some conceptions of pantheism, the universe is thought to be an immanent deity, still expanding and creating, which has existed since the beginning of time. Pantheism can include the belief that everything constitute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotheistic
Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God. Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one god without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatry, monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity. The term ''monolatry'' was perhaps first used by Julius Wellhausen. Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Samaritanism, Christi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panentheistic
Panentheism (; "all in God", from the Greek , and ) is the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time. The term was coined by the German philosopher Karl Krause in 1828 (after reviewing Hindu scripture) to distinguish the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) about the relation of God and the universe from the supposed pantheism of Baruch Spinoza.John Culp (2013)"Panentheism" in the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Retrieved 18 March 2014. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical, panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both. In panentheism, the universal spirit is present everywhere, which at the same time " transcends" all things created. Whilst pantheism asserts that "all is God", panentheism claims that God is greater than the un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
