this guy i unload trucks with is a pagan, somehow we got on the religion subject and he told everyone he was a pagan, and me being fairly open minded i started asking questions...

first and foremost i asked what a pagan was, i knew pagan was a religion of sorts, but i had always put witches and pagan into the same category, never really knew the true definition of pagan.

his definition of pagan was country folks.

he also said that paganism is different things to different people, when i looked up the word pagan @ dictionary.com it basically said a person belonging to no major religion, or people that were before major religions

so i began to question his actual beliefs, and from what i got they pretty much believe the same things christians do, they just do not call them the same things...

he believe in one major consciousness that is basically a omnipresent, he agree, but would not call it an omnipresent. he also said that he believe in reincarnation, but not in the same way some religions do, he said paganism is all based on karma and that good or bad karma would not make you a different animal (because to him animals ot do not souls) you would still be a human but, if you did good in this life, you would be better off in the next, if you did bad in this life you would be worse off in the next, and he also stated that you did not have to be reincarnated, but rather had the option to join the consciousness and know all be all or you could be reincarnated, if you had collected alot of bad karma your best option was to join the consciousness but once you did this you could never return. He also stated that he believed in "purgatory" although that was not his word he felt that if you had enough unfinished business in this life, that you could not move on to the next then you would be stuck in between a "ghost" if you will.

i'm trying to remember our full conversation...

i also asked him if he believed in luck... he said that he did, and karma had an effect on this, i then asked if this is the case then how could so many people that are bad, hit the jackpot etc... i told him that i did not believe in luck but chance rather.

i also asked him if he believe that you had certian objectives in each life that you lived, or a "destiny" he said that he felt you have a ultimate goal for all of your lives, but that he didn't feel you were guided by a "destiny" such "to be the next president or finding the cure to cancer"

he also commented on the fact that he felt atheism was just unrealistic, to believe in nothing, when there is so much out there... he also made the comment that alot of athiest say they believe in nothing, yet they belive in ghost, aliens, and many other things that have yet to be proven, but they don't believe in a "God" or a supreme being, omnipresent or consciousness.

i can't really remember much of anything else if you see my other post u'll know we had some other stuff going on today... he also made it clear that these were his beliefs and that he did not get them from any book or thing of that nature, pagans do not have a "bible" he also said that alot of pagans own all of the biblical type books such as the bible, coran, torra, etc... and that they used them as stories of life and good ideas, but found most to be tainted over time, and he explained this, King James used the bible to control his people, keep them in "fear" and that he probably changed the bible to suit his ways... he also said that the bible was written over and over the years by monks and scribes, and that alot of times by the time they finished writting the entire thing they had to often start over because the first pages had begun to fade, this would often lead people to not be able to read all of the information leading to things that never made it to our age in time... missing books etc... also, if all you did your whole life was scribe books, people were lazy back then as they are now, which probably lead to paraphrasing, or skipping whole pages... possibly.

i just found it interesting and thought i would share it with you... once agian, he said these were his beliefs not based on books or anything like that, just what he believed, and that other pagans may differ from him.

I'd label myself as Pagan as well and I'd say I don't share many of his beliefs. That is definitely an aspect of Paganism because it is very decentralized and it is not a singular religion but a grouping of various religions so there is going to be a wide variance of relief.

I think it's hard to come up with a good definition of Paganism that includes all the groups that are typically considered Pagan and excludes those who are not. I'd say maybe religious beliefs that are based off of religions that existed prior to Christianity and typically are polytheist and have some belief in magic.

ya he said that quite a few times that pagan means different things to different people and that what he believes isn't neccessarily what others do.

Well I'm no expert, but I can attempt to answer any other questions about it.

Well I do disagree with the man on certain things, but I also didn't know a lot about paganism, except that it's generalized as "bad" by people who think that to be civilized is to only have one god, or, more correctly, be Christian or Jewish.

Pagan is not a religion. All it means is someone that has no religion; an unbeliever.

Yay lets just spout crap out of mouths.

Pagan is not a religion, it is a grouping of religions. Just because they do not believe in the same god as you that does not mean that they have no religion and are atheists.

Did you learn this bull from Jack Chick or something?

Look up pagan in the dictionary and educate yourself.
pagan - definition of pagan by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Now if you are talking about paganism, that would be defined more closely to what you are referring to. Paganism is a broad, general term for nature-centered, polytheistic religions.

It's obvious from the context that the definition being used in this thread was the first and fifth definitions.