Crossword clues for paganism
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Paganism \Pa"gan*ism\ (-[i^]z'm), n. [L. paganismus: cf. F. paganisme. See Pagan, and cf. Painim.] The state of being pagan; pagan characteristics; esp., the worship of idols or false gods, or the system of religious opinions and worship maintained by pagans; heathenism.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., from Church Latin paganismus, from paganus (see pagan).
Wiktionary
n. 1 Indigenous and polytheistic religions. 2 A class of religions often associated with nature rituals.
WordNet
n. any of various religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islamism [syn: pagan religion, heathenism]
Wikipedia
There has been much scholarly debate as to the origin of the term paganism, especially since no one before the 20th century self-identified as a pagan. The term pagan first arose among the Christian community of southern Europe during late antiquity as a descriptor of religions other than their own, or the related Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam.
Once the Abrahamic religions started to become more widely adopted (in processes known as Christianization and Islamization), various names to describe those who did not adhere to them started to develop; some of these included Hellene, pagan, and heathen, and at times these names were used as slurs. In the 19th century, paganism was re-adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. In the 20th century, it came to be applied as a self-description by practitioners of contemporary pagan, or neopagan, religious movements.
Contemporary knowledge of old pagan religions comes from several sources, including anthropological field research records, the evidence of archaeological artefacts, and the historical accounts of ancient writers regarding cultures known to the classical world. Forms of these religions, influenced by various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, exist today and are known as contemporary or modern paganism, also referred to as Neo-paganism.
While most pagan religions express a worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans.
Usage examples of "paganism".
Latin peruse the extracts I give from Bishop Kenrick, Debreyne, Burchard, Dens or Liguori, and the most incredulous will learn for themselves that the world, even in the darkest ages of old paganism, has never seen anything so infamous and degrading as auricular confession.
In the works even of those mystics who efface the limits between things human and divine, who put Judaism, Christianity, and Paganism on the same line with the revelation of Mohammed, and who are therefore duly anathematized by the whole orthodox world, almost every page testifies to the relation of the ideas enounced with Mohammedan civilization.
To the paganism that preceded Christianity we must look for the origin of that Christmas feasting which has not seldom been a matter of scandal for the severer type of churchman.
No wonder paganism seduces the commonfolk, who welcome any gaudery and ostentation that brightens their meager lives.
Sometimes he felt as if he toiled in the German salt mines of the soul for no result and that public revels such as May Day stripped away a thin veneer of goodliness to show the evil pits of paganism lurking under the skin of everyday life.
And it all fits perfectly with their fascination for goddess iconology, paganism, feminine deities, and contempt for the Church.
Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honor of their gods.
The philosophers of the Platonic school, Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism.
At worst, specialists in the new field of SRA warned, teenagers who started out innocently playing with Ouija boards or reading books on paganism and magic could be drawn into rites involving the use of dangerous symbols, and from there into vandalism, animal mutilations, ritualistic abuse of children, and suicide, or even murder.
The worst sort of superstition, straight out of the darkest days of paganism, when people still lived like beasts, possessing no keenness of the eye, incapable of distinguishing colours, but presuming to be able to smell blood, to scent the difference between friend and foe, to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies, all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking, smoking burnt sacrifices.
The Christians sometimes supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely disturbed the public service of paganism, and rushing in crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law.
But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism.
God and the sincere profession of Christianity are much decayed, and in place of it, partly papistry, partly paganism and irreligion have crept in.
But I have reviewed, with diligence and pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected, the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into a Roman province.