Running Head: WORLD RELIGIONS 1

World religions

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Introduction

Religion is the belief in worshiping a divine power that is often referred to as God or

gods. Most of the world population has their own beliefs and religions. This religion is usually

dictated differently majorly by what each group believes in and also what each group’s pedigree

holds. There are a variety of religions from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, paganism, atheism,

Buddhism, and Rastafari amongst many others. We aim to try and comprehend as many religions

as possible, and so far we have already looked into some of the religions in class. In this paper,

we are going to take a look into paganism as a religion, understand the beliefs of the religion,

their perspective on the world existence, how evil entered the world in their belief and their

belief of the afterlife.

Part 1

Religious beliefs by the pagans

In the conceptual sense, paganism is usually defined by many as not having a religion.

When one is not part of your common religions such as Christianity, Islam, and even Judaism,

the layman term is usually a pagan. However, on a logical basis, paganism is the authentic

religion that was practiced in ancient Greece and its environs such as Rome. The religion

originated from a time in history, which was referred to as the Neolithic phase commonly

referred to as the Stone Age era in historical terms. The pagan word originated from a Latin word

paganus which described a country dweller. The pagans usually attribute their religion to several

gods. However, they only believe in one as the chief god whom they worship (Teixidor, 2015).

Several beliefs are associated with paganism. Pagans teach the presence of several and at times,

no god. The religion does not have a reference text which they consider guidelines for their
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activities and as a set of rules for their religion. Some of the pagans do believe and acknowledge

Jesus as one of the gods, but they do not have much emphasis on his importance in the same

fashion that Christians believe Jesus was the son of God (Teixidor, 2015).

Belief in world existence

The pagan creation story is a bit unique in the sense that, as the other religions have a

single story on how they believe the world was created; the pagans have several stories on how

they think the world came into existence attributed to their vast and highly different belief

systems. We will sample a few to try and understand what some of the pagans think in terms of

world existence (York, 2015).

The first theory is the scientific principles. Some pagans, especially those who have a

significant accolade, tend to take the practical side of life where everything needs to add up

based on facts and proof. They believe in the evolution theory, which was the brain child of

Darwin. The theory explains that everything came into existence as a process. Organisms

changed over time, and this was attributed to the behavior and physical traits. They believe that

life was created by the natural selection process in which certain traits were more synchronized

with the environment than others allowing for the existence of several humans at different times

(York, 2015).

Some pagans believed in Gods and Goddesses, where the Goddess is believed to have

created everything through giving birth, which filled the world. They believe that God and

Goddesses came together, fell in love, and produced humanity.

Belief on how evil entered the world

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In other religions, a sin is a form of transgression, especially against the guiding laws

coming from some form of written materials. The pagans, however, are unique when it comes to

the concept of sin. The pagans have a god, and you might tend to think that for them to sin, they

must have gone against some laws of their god, which is not the case. In their religion, it is not in

their belief to follow blindly the laws of god but to take responsibility for their actions (Harvey,

2016).

The pagans believe that evil was a reserve for the Christians. And most of them do not

believe in evil as an attribute of religion. They believe that everyone should stand up and take

responsibility for the wrongs they do and that the origin of these wrongs are not from some form

of supernatural being or some mythical story but the judgment of man and the actions they

decide to take for every situation they are faced with.

Belief of afterlife

The afterlife is the life that one lives after they die. Most religions have their own beliefs

of where people go after they pass on with the common denominator being two places. A place

of happiness and a place of suffering. The person’s character dictates this while they were on

earth and what they did that will determine where they go. Pagan is no different as they also

believe that one’s afterlife is a gift based on how they lived their lives while they were on earth.

The different schools of thought in the pagan religion will have different ideas. However,

they strongly believe in the existence of heaven and hell. Heaven is the place where everyone

will want to go with the belief of it being a high place. Hell, in contrast, is a low place that will

contain a lot of suffering and pain to the person. When a person passes on, they are either

incarnated or enter heaven as souls.

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Others believed that the dead would have their body and personality split, and this was a

common practice in ancient Egypt.

Part 2

Why paganism

Numerous religions are more appealing and rather complex as well in terms of what they

believe in, their values, attributes, and stories. However, the reason I chose pagan as my

reference point was to comprehend better what religion is all about. Most of the time, before

understanding the religion, I would refer to a pagan as someone who has no belief in religion.

There was an interest to try and understand why someone would decide not to follow any

religion, and so I chose paganism to try and shed some light on the matter.

Questions to ask a pagan

Having researched the religion and have come to understand its dynamics, there are still

certain things about the religion that I am not well acquainted with and especially the simple

issues. There are numerous ideas and views on the questions. However, it is more cognizant of

getting the facts from a member of the pagan religion.

Some of the questions I would ask the participant of the religion is how one can become a

member. Unlike the other religions where one would easily join, I need to understand the process

of becoming a pagan. The second question would be the most important rituals that are

associated with religion. There is not much light when it comes to the rituals associated with the

religion. Thirdly would be what those in the religion do specifically do they have meetings or

prayer services.
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Conclusion

Paganism is a unique religion that has several parameters that some make sense, and

others do not. The paper has looked into paganism as a religion, understood the beliefs of the

religion, their perspective on the world existence, how evil entered the world in their belief, and

their belief of the afterlife.

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Reference

Teixidor, J. (2015). The pagan god: popular religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton

University Press.

York, M. (2015). Pagan Ethics: Paganism as a World Religion. Springer.

Harvey, G. (2016). Paganism. In Religions in the Modern World (pp. 361-384). Routledge.