Why is everthing besides the most obvious religions labeled "pagan"?

[Atlas Mugged]

As in, there's Christianity, Judaesm, Budhism, Islam, Hindu, Shinto and a few others. But everything else, like what the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans (admittedly overlapping), Gaelics, Druids, Germanics, etc., engaged in are all "pagan". Don't those religions have a name? Were those who worshipped Thor called "Thorians"? Okay, a stupid example, but not EVERTHING can be lumped together as "pagan" without sounding a bit obnoxiously exclusionist. Among other things.

[saltpoint]

1. I wonder if it's a similar construct to Aristotle's worldview --

-- that held generally that anybody outside the city limits of a Greek City state was "barbarian."

"Heathen" -- a person of the heathers, of the fields and meadows beyond the city.

And leave it to the early holy originals of the Church to make "pagan" a perjorative term.

Shame on those old hatemongers.

[rogerashton]

2. Pagan means country.

Way back when, the city people were first to come around to sophisticated new religions like Xianity and Buddhism, and the country people clung to their old gods and rituals -- thus those religions became the religions of the pagani (pisanni, paysanne, peasants, piss-ants, dumb peckerwood hillbillies).

By that standard, what are today the pagan religions?????

[UdoKier]

3. A lot of people call THEMSELVES pagans...

But all religions fit neatly in the category of "mumbo-jumbo" IMO, no discrimination there!

[rstlne]

4. Because that's what it means

One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. "Pagans" came to mean Indo-European polytheists

Here's what I got --

The post above, that gives the Latin origin of the word pagani, shows how it started. I would only add that it was not used quite as pejoritively as "redneck", and that the word came from a pre-Latin word meaning "land".

After the opening of the Silk Route to China and the partial Christianizing/Islamizing of Africa, its common meaning was narrowed down to Europeans. The Church later popularized its definition as "non-Christian".

The original pagani were the Gaulish tribes who lived in northern Italy. They were part of the wave of Celts who had occupied the area in the first westward Indo-European migration. The Romans had a number of run-ins with them from 400 BCE until Caesar vanquished the Gauls and took their leader, Vercingetorix (the elected king of the Arnerni), prisoner, in 52 BCE. Other Celtic Pagans established footholds in Turkey (Galatians) and Spain (Galicians) but made peace with Rome.

Teutonic and Slavic tribes took over the older Druidic traditions from the Celts. Many anthropologists have made the case that the Druidic lines pre-dated the Indo-European invasions, especially in northern England (the Picts), the Pyrenees (the Basques/Aquitanians), and southeastern mountainous Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, etc). "Druid", I believe, is a Gaelic word, but the Druidic priesthoods existed throughout Europe. It is difficult to track some of these changes since the original Europeans named themselves as cultural and linguistic, not tribal, groups. "Picts" were both Celts and pre-Celtic peoples, and to this day "Basque" is defined as anyone who speaks Basque.

Today, Paganism is a loosely defined term for Wiccans, devotees of the two branches of Asatru (neo-Pagan and neo-Nazi), and various Gaelic groups. The term was brought into wide use in the early 1970s by Isaac Bonewits, who seems to have been the one to coin the term "neo-Pagan". Wicca, which is usually grouped with neo-Paganism, was invented by Gerald Gardner after WWI. He developed Wicca from Celtic, Teutonic, and Gaelic pagan folklore.

--p!