Yeah we are off topic, but only one level off topic, the point under contention is wether there is a universal meaning of the circle and other symbols found it the komerex stela among 'pagans'.
Funny personally I prefer a source with hundreds of editors to correct errors rather than one with a handfull of editors and fact checkers. Changes are tracked and reviewed so although "anyone" can change it, "anyone" can also change it back, until some form of concensus is reached. At least in theory.
When you question the credibility of a source, it helps to cite a source that does not confirm the one you question. Answer.com says the same things wikipedia does. It does come form the latin "country dweller", it is used offensively and it is defined by what people do not believe in. Pagan in and of itself is not a belief system, it only means the pagan's believe falls outside of Christian, Muslim or Jewish bounds. So it's not as if you can say pagans believe X, because of all the hundreds on nonJudeoChristain belief systems that could be called pagan there is far too many differnt beliefs to say and one belief represents all paganism, except to say "the JudeoChristians are less right than we are". That's technically the only belief that you must have to be a pagan.
To say someone doesn’t know what they talk about simply because they call themselves “pagan” is gross ignorance (how ironic) and your insult was wasted on me, for I am not a Pagan.
My insult wasn't directed at you. But I see it struck close enough to home that decided to defend yourself against it. To call yourself a pagan, a word that only describes what you don't believe in, without a word or phrase that describes what you do believe in, that, as I said is "a good sign". Not 100% proof, I never claimed it was, but indications you should maybe ask more questions about what it is they think they know before believing them. Since there are so many different non-JudeoChristian beliefs, you should find out what the pagan actually believes.
I have many books about many religions on my bookshelf and Paganism is just one.
I am not religious in any way.
Answer.com says by definition 1 and 3, you are a pagan. But you know you aren't a Pagan(at least not by definition 2) }}:P Now the author of the book on Paganism... I'll ask you, is the book about Neo-paganism such as Wiccan religions, or a catalog of classic paganistic beliefs, such as animism, druidism, etc.? Does the author draw the distinctions or just pretend that there is only one set of universal paganistic belief called Paganism and that's all there is to it?
In all religions one must take that “leap of faith’ – to blindly believe in some all powerful being/beings with out proof of existence. That is irrational.
So, you aim to be a rationalist. I see. Though a rationalist should read more carefully what I am actually saying instead of reading their own beliefs into what they think I'd be saying.
Paganism pre dates Christianity, so of course Christians would use this term as derogatory. The “winners” write the history books!!
If you take the time to “delve” into the subject a little deeper, you may be enlightened.
Now, if you are going to claim to reject region for being irrational, you must be able to follow a rational argument. Try this one, see how it feels.
Assertion: Pre-Christian pagans doesn't call themselves Pagans.
Mutually accepted Fact: Per you link at answers.com, The word pagan comes from Late Latin
pāgānus, which was used to describe people living in rural areas.
Historical fact: The intellectual and cultural center of Latin speakers was the city of Rome. There were much fewer Latin speakers in rural areas where books were almost unheard of, since all books had to be hand written because the Gutenberg press had yet to be invented.
Logical Conclusion: Latin speaking city dwellers considered people who lived in rural areas to be less educated and would likely have used
pāgānus in a consistently disparaging manner.
Historical Fact: The center of Christianity also happened to be Rome
Logical Conclusion: Early roman city-dwelling Latin-speaking Christians tweaked the word to refer to the beliefs of the rural folks, who they did not like at all and thus formed the root that would one day become the word pagan to deride them in hopes to discourage people from embrace paganism, in hopes to make them more likely to accept Christianity
So if Roman Catholics used the word Pagan first, it makes sense that pre-Christian romans didn't use the term first. It's only in the last few decades that neo-pagans have adopted the long held slur as their identity word to replace the negative connotations with more positive ones.
So where have i shown myself to have delved insufficiently deeply on the use of the word pagan? By all means, enlighten me. Because here I thought that the word pagan had always been used in derision, and that the people who the latin speakers called pagans, instead they were likely have had their own words to describe themselves. Perhaps words like druid and shaman...
Druidism and Shamanism are specific pagan belief system. There is no single "Paganism" belief system even less than there could be said to be a single Christianity. Unlike Christianity which had a single point of origin and naturally splintered along regional and philosophical lines, classic "Paganism" is a number of belief systems, many are unrelated to each other, which were artificially grouped by early Christians on the basis of not being Christian and being accepted mostly outside of Rome and other large Italian cities.
Because of the incredibly diverse set of believe systems that are pagan (which again is everything except Christianity, Judaism and Islamism), when someone describes themselves only as a pagan, without thought as to which of the hundreds of pagan religions you might subscribe to, kinda tells me that maybe they need to delve deeper to find out what they are really talking about. Because I know enough pagan religions to be pretty confident that there really can't be any one set of pagan beliefs that all pagans agree on.
I wasn't saying that every one who calls themself pagan is an idiot who doesn't know what they are talking about. I agree there is definitely many people who are aware of the term pagan was originally a term of derision and are doing there best to change that. I'm sorry if I game the wrong impression, but I was talking about people who identify themselves as pagan, but don't drill deeper to figure out of they are more into Asatru, Egyptian mythos, animism or any of the other specific and diverse pagan beliefs. I'm laughing at people who try to make paganism one belief system when it is many. As far as I understand, you wouldn't (do example) see Egyptians or the Norse drawing circles around themselves to summon their gods and cast spells. There are too many huge exceptions to make this claim.
The word you look for is colloquial not connotation. Although you already know that.
No I don't know that. Kehlan is right. Connotations, the word I used, is exactly the word I wanted.
Thats it from me.
Cheers
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