Someone once tried to tell me how similar Christianity and Paganism was but I wouldn't listen..I "knew better". Then I started to research Paganism and realized how many parallels there are.
What is the difference between Christianity and Paganism?
by CruithneLaLuna 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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William Penwell
The problem is that most pre-Christian writings have been lost or destroyed. Christianity has unfortunately lost this link to their past. That is why a lot of Christian rituals are shrouded in mystery, not knowing its exact origins but what we do know the "pagan" link is there.
Will
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Gretchen956
If you want to know how similar christianity is to paganism, read the watchtower. They go on about it all the time. Thats why Christmas was not hard for me, I embraced it's pagan origins.
Gretchen
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CruithneLaLuna
Could you please post the information sources that you're evidently drawing from? Or at least offer a "serach path" that will turn up such information?
Thanks,
George
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CruithneLaLuna
Thanks for that lovely, well-stated post. I love it when other people articulate reasons why I self-identify as Pagan. As far as authors and books go, I have found Starhawk's writings to be very helpful in that regard.
George
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Narkissos
Words story.
"Paganism" is a Jewish and Christian negative word/concept. "Pagan" is everything which doesn't belong to the "history of revelation" as made up by Judaism or Christianity (a "history" which is everything but historical). I wonder to what extent those who term themselves "pagans" in the Western world are conscious of this: without Judaism and Christianity, there would be no "pagans" at all. Only religions and philosophies which wouldn't be connected to each other without the Jewish/Christian embracing concept of "Paganism".
Leolaia: IMO what we usually call Jewish Christianity should be most accurately called Nazorene Judaism. The teaching and practice of Jesus (?) and James (which were perhaps more different than Eisenman, for instance, would have us believe) are practically unrelated to what we term Christianity. One cannot, at the same time, say "Christianity begins with Paul" and "James' teaching is true/original Christianity".
Two somewhat connected questions concern the "Q" logia. The fact that these are used by the Epistle of James (which I hold to be pseudepigraphical) makes me wonder if they are really 1) Palestinian (the overall connections of EpJames rather points to a diaspora Hellenistic background, in my view) and 2) "Jesuanic" at all (the fact that EpJames uses them without referring them to Jesus is telling to me).
My provisional conclusion at this point is that "Christianity" really begins in the fringes of Hellenistic Judaism, with only a tangential contact with palestinian "Nazorene Judaism". In this Hellenistic milieu many "pagan" ideas rejected by Palestinian Judaism (including Nazorenes) found their way into Christianity itself through Mystery cults, Gnosticism, Philonism and the like -- which led in time to a slightly different definition of "Paganism", nonetheless reinforcing the general negative notion.