Can you folks give me a brief overview of Paganism, and what it means to be Pagan?

7331421
Pagan is an umbrella term. It pretty much means worshipping non-Abrahamic gods. Most pagan gods are Pantheons and such. Like the greek and Egyptian gods.

Abrahamic being Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

7331430
That changes the question to: Can you give me a brief overview of worshipping the Gods, and what it means to be worshipping the Gods?

7331437
I believe you should turn to one more knowledgable than me.

The founder of the group is one such person

7331442
And I believe you underestimate yourself. I'm not expecting expert answers. If you worship the Gods, then you must have some understanding of what that means. I think your answer, even if you have to wing it, is worth more then you think it is.

7331444
......ok

Pretty much similar to worshipping the Abrahamic god. Just with more specific gods to pray to and such

7331444

7331448
Also, you tend to more focus on connections rather than serving. You don't exactly see it Boss God,.and you're below them. You see it more as we are all connected together, some just happen to be more connected than others to the spiritual realm.

7331458
Thank you, Pony

7331462
👌

7331458

7331448

7331444
Ponybird 21 said it well. Paganism puts a lot of emphasis on a connection to the Gods who are metaphorically our kin. One can think of themselves as serving the Gods of course. But the dominant image, at least in European varieties of Paganism, tends to be to see the Gods as our Elder Kin. The Latins for example said that Venus was the literal mother of their people.

The main form of worship is the offering a shared meal between Devotee and Deity. This can be as elaborate as the animal sacrifices of yore or a simple libation.

7331473
Indeed.

(This is also why I prefer paganism over Abrahamic. since Abrahamic is more subservient. Whereas Paganism is familial)

7331476
I do as well.

7331473
Aww thank you. And yeah, I prefer paganism as well, it really allows me to share my good energy to someone who might need it, and I feel a greater peace than I do with Abramanic religions

7331444
One more thing, I don't necessarily worship the gods like how people worship Abrahamic God. I'm a color witch and thus I use my color magic to connect to the world in different ways. Say I choose green colors for my eyeshadow or clothes. This is what I use to tap into nature's karma. When I am kind to people, my specific karma will go into helping the environment. If I choose blue, it is for the spirits. My kindness will transfer specifically to the spiritual realm, where hopefully I can help the spirit guardians use my strength, along with the strength of other witches, to help others. That is how I 'worship'. I also do lots of meditating to meet my spirit guardians.

Edit: and Tarot cards. I use those almost every day.

7331545
What would you say the difference is between witchcraft/magic and prayer? Or for that matter, between the magic you use and that magic Twilight uses?

7331549
Twilight's magic is much more mythological. Most witches I've met don't have glowy magic that lets them do whatever the fuck they want. Our magic is only to create a bridge between the spiritual and the physical realms.
And magic and prayer go basically hand in hand, aka one is not more important than the others. They are just two different ways of achieving the same goal, which is to meet with the gods and receive answers. Of course, I consider the gods more as spirits, but that's just a personal thing. The world of paganism is very flexible, there are no really set of rules.

7331552

Most witches I've met don't have glowy magic that lets them do whatever the fuck they want.

Any witch who says they do is either possibly mistaken or a heavy drug user (or casually uses hallucinogens for ritual) who 'sees' glowy stuff.
Or had a close encounter with a wild electrical current.

That aside: you pretty much covered everything I might have said.

7331552
I've seen prayer vs magic described this way: Prayer is asking a God to do something. Magic is compelling a God, or the universe, to do something. Would you agree with that?

7331612
Not at all. I would say Magic and Prayer can be the same and different at the same time. Two different names for one action, as it were.

7331613
It sounds like, by the definition in my last post, what you're doing is prayer. Not magic.

But what Twilight does is magic (by that definition). She's not asking a God to do something for her, she's manipulating the environment herself. And what I'm doing now, typing this post on my computer, could also be called "magic". Because I'm not asking a God to type this post for me, I'm doing it myself. Leaning about the universe, and how to manipulate it for the benefit of mankind, is called "science". But there was a time when it was called "magic".

7331617
For my definition, I use magic. I am changing my environment, wether that is nature or society or spiritual, by using a specific color to channel all my energy into that one thing to change it for the better, manipulation if you will have it. When I meditate, that would be my 'prayer'. I am asking the spirits for guidance and to answer my questions. Tarot cards are that mix of magic and prayer. Make sense?

7331620
Still kind of lost. You said that you use green colors to tap into nature. Do you think the color green itself has the power to tap into nature? Or is the color arbitrary? Does it work for you because you associate it with nature? In other words: If you associated brown with nature same as you did green, would brown work just as well?

7331628
Exactly, brown could work just as well. See, I was being very general, but the color spectrum is so large, you can mix colors to channel your energy into a multiple of things if you want. Like I said, VERY flexible

7331630
So, the color green has no power by itself. You give it power. But where do you get that power to manipulate the environment? Does it come form you? Or is a God, spirit, or something, doing it for you (of his own free will)?

7331634
Depends on what you believe! One of my bestest friends is a Christian witch, meaning he believes he gets his power from God. He uses crystals to channel the energy, like how I use color.
Now I believe I receive my power from spirits/the collective energy of the entire race of humanity.

7331640
That sounds more like doing something yourself, then asking someone else to do something. I'm part of humanity. And if you tapped energy from me, then (at least as far as I know) I was just a battery. A power source. What you did with that power was not my decision.

7331650
Exactly. But I know that while I can tap into and use this power, I only can do so because the spirits allow it. I could cease to be a witch at any moment should the spirits decide so. That's why it's so hard.for me to say it's definitely magic or definitely prayer. Irs a mixture of both, though most certainly it's more magic that prayer for me personally.

7331657
So humanity and the sprites are batteries. But the sprites have the master controls. Whatever control they let you have is a privilege, that can be revoked at any time.

7331670
Exactly. But keep in mind this is how I see it, other people interpret it different ways. :)
Hope this answered your question!

7331676
I think it did.

7331476
True, though Christians do see God as our spiritual Father, and king

7331572
What about auras?

7331549
Also, there is Henotheism, basically, you can believe in X, but don't discount that Y exists. Ergo, one can be Christian, but still say that the non Christian deities exist. I mean, there are times when God has, to one extent or another, showed up other deities.

7331841
Christianity's greatest mistake might be rejecting that. If you dismiss the Greek Gods as just fiction, if you dismiss Greek Mythology as just man-made: Why not do the same for the God of Israel and the Bible? I think mainstream Christianity is dangerously close to Atheism.

7331851
I mean, when you think about it, it is often implied that the other deities DO exist, just that well, God is basically awesomer. Like how the 10 Plagues were, in essence, the finger to the Eygptian pantheon (which if you believe Ovid is the Greek pantheon after they fled Typhon), for what Pharaoh did

7331856
I would tend to dismiss things like that, as the equivalent one one kid telling another "My daddy can kick your daddy's ass!". The Israelites thought that their daddy could kick the ass of Egypt's daddy, and told stories about their daddy kicking the ass of the other daddies. That doesn't make it true.

7331861
Eh fair. Personally, I could see God getting along with more kind and least dickish of the other deities, like Hades. I mean yeah, dude wasn't well liked, but he did his job, didn't cheat on his wife, and also was fair. Like with Orpheus

7331838
I'm personally skeptical that physical beings can visually perceive spiritual auras. If you genuinely spot one: you're possibly dying and therefore your drifting outside the Material, or your sensation of feeling one is vivid enough that the brain 'edits' the visual information it receives based on what your other senses are picking up on.
If that makes sense

7331910
Fair. Then you have people who claim to see ghosts. I mean, I've seen a ghost once, and that was of a relative.

7332421
I'm not challenging that

At most I'm proposing that you sensed your relative and your brain 'corrected' the empty space by filling in what your eyes wern't picking up on

Basically the same idea as the mind blocking memories to cauterize trauma, only instead of sealing something off your brain edited optical info to avoid contradicting your other sences

7332476
Perhaps. The brain is weird, yet wonderous