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Pagan History. Pagan History by Tim Maroney (1986) Paganism is a loose word
for the large variety of polytheistic, shamanistic, and ...
... for them: (a) An opposition is established to the paradigm of history created by ...
counter point to the colonists concept of the evil, inferior, pagan empire (c ...
... Christmas History The word Christmas comes from the old English "Cristes maesse ... old
Roman Saturnalia festival (17 - 21 December), a traditional pagan festivity. ...
... The most important sources about runic history are ancient texts of Scandinavian
pagan religion – Old Edda by Brynolf Swesson and Lesser Edda by Snorri ...
... Retrieved on June 26, 2007 from http://www.masters-table.org/pagan/cross.htm This
is an article that discusses the history of the cross symbol use in the pre ...
Submitted by nycfinestjatt1 on April 19, 2005
Category: American History
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Pagan History
by Tim Maroney (1986)
Paganism is a loose word for the large variety of polytheistic, shamanistic, and mystical non-monotheistic religions. Paganism exists in all cultures, from paleolithic to technological, but has historically waxed and waned. The ancient Egyptians are an example of a highly pagan society; so are the ancient Romans; and all paleolithic cultures from the Old Stone Age to the present have strong pagan elements. An example of a less pagan culture would be the West for the last thousand years or so, since the centuries following the Fall of Rome. The domination of the Middle East by Christians and Moslems has also largely shut out paganism.
Characteristic of paganism is a tolerance for other paganistic ideas, even those that literally contradict one's own. Such persecutions as have been directed against paganistic religions by each other are by-products of political struggles and mass population movements rather than ideologically motivated. The same is to some extent true of early Judaism, which was the direct inheritor to the traditions of a strongly pagan society. A slave revolt apparently led to a few hundred thousand slaves with no place to live; to get them, they butchered the inhabitants of pagan cities and took up residence in the cities themselves. They invoked their war god to justify this action. Similarly, when the beginnings of the modern Greek mythology were laid down, it was as a result of invading Northern barbarians supplanting the earlier (and somewhat gynocentric) Titan mythology with their imported religion, which grew more refined and less aggressive later on, as happened with Judaism.
Before it came under the thumb of monotheism, the West was dominated by the highly civilized Roman culture. The Roman Republic and Empire were characterized by an unusually large number of religions together in a single social whole, frequently sharing the same geography and even the same...
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