People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

[Heka]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I'll see you at sunrise!

(pics not working!)

[Aeran]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

It's just two dudes having an oldschool duel, like this:

[Starless]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I don't know about former Jews, but almost all non-mainstream (mostly Pagan and Buddhist) people I know, including myself, come from a Christian background.

[Gleb]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

It is complicated. People with Jewish backgrounds who turn to paganism don't automatically become Neopagans. I think it depends on every person's view and beliefs. As Orecha wrote - there are those who totally converted in different paths of paganism and there are those who probably keep some things from their Abrahamic beliefs.

[Denarius]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

there are those who totally converted in different paths of paganism and there are those who probably keep some things from their Abrahamic beliefs.

Which still makes them neopagan. Unless you are talking about the reverse, which is incorporating pagan elements into their beliefs.

The point I am trying to make is, this is a grey idea no matter how you slice it. You have non-abrahamic paganism, abrahamic paganism, pagan abrahamism, and non-pagan abrahamism.

Judeo-pagan syncretism is a spectrum, and depending on how you view things anything that isn't strictly and completely non-pagan abrahamism could be interpreted as a form of paganism.

The hard and fast rule with grey areas is that you are what you identify as, unless you are wrong. Some people like to make grey where none exists, but that's an entire discussion in and of itself.

[Gleb]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

Which still makes them neopagan. Unless you are talking about the reverse, which is incorporating pagan elements into their beliefs.

The point I am trying to make is, this is a grey idea no matter how you slice it. You have non-abrahamic paganism, abrahamic paganism, pagan abrahamism, and non-pagan abrahamism.

Judeo-pagan syncretism is a spectrum, and depending on how you view things anything that isn't strictly and completely non-pagan abrahamism could be interpreted as a form of paganism.

The hard and fast rule with grey areas is that you are what you identify as, unless you are wrong. Some people like to make grey where none exists, but that's an entire discussion in and of itself.

I worshiped Judaism many years ago. Now I am totally devoted to Kemetism. Does it make me Neopagan according to what you are saying?

[Denarius]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I worshiped Judaism many years ago. Now I am totally devoted to Kemetism. Does it make me Neopagan according to what you are saying?

Yes, because kemetism is a non-christian reconstructionist faith. It is therefore by definition neopagan. I don't see how anything I said has anything to do with that.

[Orecha]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

Yes, because kemetism is a non-christian reconstructionist faith. It is therefore by definition neopagan. I don't see how anything I said has anything to do with that.

I think the issue may have to do with the term "Neopagan." Most people I know, both in the academic field of religion and among practitioners, tend to view Neopaganism as a particular form of modern paganism, generally sprouting from and influenced by Wicca. Kemetism, by and large, is a reconstructionist/revivalist movement and is, therefore, no more "Neopagan" (by this definition) than Sami religion.

[Rowanwood]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I think the issue may have to do with the term "Neopagan." Most people I know, both in the academic field of religion and among practitioners, tend to view Neopaganism as a particular form of modern paganism, generally sprouting from and influenced by Wicca. Kemetism, by and large, is a reconstructionist/revivalist movement and is, therefore, no more "Neopagan" (by this definition) than Sami religion.

But considering the word pagan means a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions and neo means new, wouldn't all revivalists technically be neopagan?

Just because there's a misinformed connotation of neopagan as meaning Wiccan, doesn't make it so.

[Gleb]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I can't see how it makes me Neopagan. Here's a defenition that I have found in the web:

Neo-Pagans are a community of faiths bringing ancient Pagan and magickal traditions to the modern age--including mostly Wicca but also Druidism, Asatru, Shamanism, neo-Native American, and more. Neo-Pagan is an umbrella term for various and diverse beliefs with many elements in common. Some Neo-Pagans find no incongruence practicing Neo-Paganism along with adherence to another faith, such as Christianity or Judaism.

from here- http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2001...s-Believe.aspx.
It says that Neopagans practice various things along with an Abrahamic religion; though I don't worship Judaism anymore.
Though, I don't give such a big meaning to being neopagan. I follow the path I feel bonded with and it's all that matters to me

[Denarius]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

Neo-Pagans are a community of faiths bringing ancient Pagan and magickal traditions to the modern age

Are you arguing that Kemetism is a new religion or that it's an abrahamic faith? Because I'd be very interested in how you came to either of those conclusions.

Kemetism is a pagan religion, by most definitions. It's polytheistic, historical, ethnic, and non-christian.

If the point you are making is that paganism is necessarily rather incidentally practiced alongside abrahamic faith... then you got a very wrong impression of it somewhere. Paganism and abrahamism are (debatably) not mutually exclusive, but one is not a requirement of the other.

[Gleb]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

I am saying that I worship Kemetism only - without Abrahamic beliefs.
Though, I am not certain about the definition it gives to me as a religion follower.

[Orecha]

Re: People With Jewish Backgrounds More Likely To Be Neo-Pagan?

But considering the word pagan means a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions and neo means new, wouldn't all revivalists technically be neopagan?

Just because there's a misinformed connotation of neopagan as meaning Wiccan, doesn't make it so.

I never said that Neopagan=Wiccan, just that from an academic point of view, most Neopagan movements are formed from and/or influenced by Wicca, a religion that also is one of the earliest and most prolific Neopagan relgions (which developed in the 1940s and forms roughly 80% of the total of the Neopagan population as defined below).

From the standpoint of the academic study of religion, modern paganism (the correct term, or simply "paganism" or sometimes "contemporary paganism") divides up as follows:

• Neopaganism (roughly 1 million practitioners)
  • Esoteric
    
  • Syncretic (and Eclectic)
    • Contemporary Witchcraft (Wicca, Hedgecraft, etc.)
    • New Age
    • Goddess Movement
    • "Eclectic Reconstructionism"
  
  
• Ethnic Paganisms (roughly 941 million-1 billion practitioners, not counting Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists, and Taoists, which are considered "World Religions")
  • Traditionalist
    • Pristine/Uncontacted/Isolated (like Sentinelese religion)
    • Contacted (most tribal religions of South America and Africa)
    • Diasporic (like Yoruba; also Traditional Diasporic Eclectic, like Vodou, Voodoo, and Santeria)
    • Modernized (like Shenism, Shinto, and Mazdaism)
    
    
  • Reconstructionist
    • Academic/Purist
    • Conjecturist
    • Revivalist

The primary difference between Neopaganism and ethnic paganisms in this definition is approach. Modern Neopaganism often sees the community as Paganism with a capital "P." Ethnic paganisms are just that: paganisms. They tend to not see themselves as connected to one another, except perhaps as unifying in their status as minority religions. Neopagan religions often have common themes and language that have spread throughout the community, such as "handfasting," duotheism, spellwork, Jungian archetypal deities, and Wiccan-derived holiday cycles (Wheel of the Year). Neopaganism also tends to take (though not always) a soft-theistic approach (poly- or otherwise). Ethnic paganisms, on the other hand, tend to not have any (or very little) common vocabulary with often very few common concepts, and they take a hard-theistic or non-theistic approach, with soft-theism not appearing in traditionalist ethnic paganisms.

While self identification is taken into account with classification, as are the works of pagan authors attempting to identify variances within modern paganism (such as Isaac Bonewits), the academic study of religion generally seeks to devise its own categories for religious classification, often separate from how a practitioner or community may classify themselves. So while there is a common enough usage of the term "Neo-Pagan Reconstructionist" within the pan-pagan community and the internet, the scientific classification is pushing toward a different direction based on religious taxonomy, origins, and ethnic roots, thereby viewing Neopaganism and pagan reconstructionism as two separate categories. Revivalists, for example, are not always the primarily white, western individuals that populate the Neopagan religions listed above, but are often individuals seeking to reclaim their own ethnic roots, stolen from them by missionary movements, such as with Mongolian tribal revivalism (nomadic peoples reclaiming their ancestral religion from Buddhism and Islam which destroyed it). Also, revivalism does not necessarily imply that the religion is completely dead either, just that it needs new life breathed into it in order to survive into the future, such as what is happening with Sami religion. Because reconstructionists are seeking to recreate or revive a historical ethnic tradition, scientifically, they are grouped with traditionalist ethnic pagans like those from Siberia, the Amazon, etc. Of course, there are some recognized grey areas and religions that do not always fit neatly in the system, but it is the current system all the same.

Anyway, all of this has gotten terribly off topic and has become an argument of semantics (and about a page on Alyson Hannigan)... Isn't the discussion about whether or not individuals of Jewish descent represent a disproportionate amount of the pan-pagan community for such a small ethnoreligious group?