precisely. if you're looking for origins of paganism, you're better off with maybe picking specific religions and tracing origins for a more in depth understanding.
Of course it did. If Christianity came from Judaism, which came from Hebrew polytheism, which had influence from Egyptian polytheism. Like the kevin bacon game. And as to your posts about calling old cultures "pagan" in general, what would you propose we call them? They wouldnt have called themselves that, they wouldnt even had known the word. Just like the Gauls didnt call them, the Irish, and the Scots "Celtic", they had their own names for the people. Just like the older people had their own names for their religion, but in general, they were all pagan beliefs. What you say is like saying that the people of 10,000 years ago werent human because "human" isnt a word in their language. "you cant say that humans built the great wall of china" doesnt that sound retarded?
"pagan systems" or "egyptian systems" ? You cant speak so broadly at the beginng of a very specific point. You make it sound like paganism, as a whole, is like the masonic order. That is that most are in the dark, and a few know the truth. Granted, the druids new more of the universal than the tribesmen, but both were legitimate worships. And there were like 20 "one true gods", just depended on which short-lived monotheistic culture you asked.
nope. the "out of africa" theory is a flawed one, and even if it were "true", the different faiths would have evolved completly seperatly. The first buried dead were from the Neanderthal in Europe. Burying dead is the earliest sign of a belief in an afterlife or even a spiritual part of life. Who knows what was believed before then, there isnt any archeological findings to give any clues. But it is safe to say that it didnt have a single starting point in africa.
Yeah its like saying there is a Church of Pagan or something. Pagan would be like a Genus... while something like "Celts" or "Druids" would be the species. Or at least explaining it that way makes sense to me. pagan was invented by the romans because they needed a word to describe the non christians... which mainly lived in the country... it was like pagnus.
lol I said Africa because that was where man originated or at least I thought. I saw a thing on national geographic about how Neanderthal were the first ones with religion and they gave it to Modern man... some say they interbred and others say they couldnt because of seperate species... what do you think?
I think they could have interbred, sure, but i dont think they gave religion to modern man. Neanderthal had a very very primitive religion, while Cro-magnon had a very deep, illustrated understanding of nature and Her ways. Both were indeed "pagan" and neither one truely superior to the other, just so different. besides, religions were in places that neanderthal wasn't, so it can't be a direct link. If Neanderthal could come up with spirituality "all by himself", then dont you think that modern man could have too? There was a point in our history that we didnt need religion. We were part of the cycle, but we became seperated from it all, and sought to explain it every since.
That makes sense... what I heard was that Neanderthal just developed it before Cro-magnon and then passed it on to them... but yeah what you say makes good sense.
