The singleness of deity was one of the defining characteristics that originally set early followers of the Messiah apart from most other religious groups.Pantheism isn't a part of Christianity per se, which subscribes to a single God.
And it was this difference which was the motivation for inventing a trinity.
No matter what your beliefs are, the question remains, Did God invent man, or did man invent God? The absolute truth is that as long as we exist on this earth, we will not know for sure. I know that some of us believe that religion has been invented by men, the rules determined by men, and the stories written by men. The good thing is that we are free to believe or not, and most of the rules of society have come from believers. Note that those rules have been passed down from generation to generation by men, and many of those rules have been changed, liberalized, or done away with al together.
We have historical data that suggest that nudity in the past was much more the norm and accepted by many societies. Then as some say we went in the wrong direction and considered bare skin obscene. Those in this forum tend to say the obscenity is requireing clothing for things in which it is not necessary or even desired.
We can read of those chosen by God to do their work naked. We can also read of those who chose to do God's work among the naked and they believed that putting clothes on the naked was their calling. It is just a matter of opinion as to who is right, and though I believe in God, I also believe there is no wrong in living naked.
Stoneandy wrote:PanENtheism can be part of Christianity. One God's spirit is in nature, as exemplified in the hymn "How Great Thou Art."
My mistake. I'd never heard of the term before, and confused it with pantheism.The sweat lodge was advertised as coed, but it didn't advertise itself as male hostile. Given the strong militant feminist, greasy fast food munching pagan culture I encountered, I didn't relate to it as a place to return to.
I'm sure there are other places that are more hospitable. I'd write this one off as a learning experience.
My experience is that the Christian church isn't the problem, organized religion is.There is a part of Christianity called panentheism, that the spirit of God is embedded in nature, that appeals to me a lot. It's an idea adopted from pagan ideals which also include pantheism, that God=nature.So I attended a three day pagan retreat to celebrate the summer solstice. I was shocked how it was open to being skyclad, but only for women. I tried to attend a sweat lodge ritual naked but the woman in charge was so misandristic that she considered my penis a sexual weapon of violence. I was also mistaken how unhealthy and junk-food munching participants were. Not any closer to nature than your average church basement gathering. It's an American thing.Understand it right, pagan is a typical american thing? We have also pagans in Germany. But I dont know, are they typical american pagans or just pagans?
It depends on how you define pagan. Americans are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and None for the most part. Our two most celbrated holidays are Christmas and Halloween, both with Christian origins that have taken on secular customs and traditions. Though many still believe in the God of Abraham, there is a growing number of Nones. That is they have been brought up as Christians, Jews, or Muslims but no longer belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque community. Pagan tends to refer to those who are not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim or those who believe in multiple gods.
nudeyooper wrote:Our two most celebrated holidays are Christmas and Halloween, both with Christian origins that have taken on secular customs and traditions.
That's an interesting comment, considering that both of those holidays had pagan origins. Christmas co-opted the Roman festival of Saturnalia, the feast of the Winter Solstice. (Contrary to common belief, most Bible scholars today agree that Jesus was born in the springtime, when warmer weather allowed shepherds to graze their flocks by night. The New Testament itself provides no clues to the actual date.)
And Halloween was borrowed from the Celtic religions that Christianity supplanted in the British Isles. They simply took the Samhain festival and moved it over a few days, to accompany and then replace All Hallows Eve, the prelude to All Hallows Day (better known in the Roman Catholic church as All Saints Day).
And Easter? Likewise borrowed from a pagan spring festival dedicated to the goddess ostre, and this time they didn't even bother to change the name of the holiday, although they assigned to it a different significance: the resurrection of Jesus.
As for "pagan," I'd go with a small-p definition, at least in Western European culture, as not being affiliated with Christianity, Judaism, or Islam or subscribing to the notion of a single God. But I doubt if Hindus would consider themselves as pagan. It's a catch-all term coined by early Christians to denote any pantheistic or animistic belief they wanted to stamp out.
Big-p Paganism is a bit murkier. Since the rituals of pre-Christian cultures were largely obliterated by the Christian churches, the religious Paganist movement of today appears to be a blend of several non-Christian and largely pantheistic or polytheistic believes, rearranged to fit modern sensibilities. AFAIK, there is no centralized organizational hub or accepted common dogma for its practitioners.
For more information, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism
I was well aware of the ancient connections to our modern holidays, but brought them into the conversation as something that for centuries had a Christian religion cause for celebration. Christ's birth, death, and resurrection have not been pinpointed on a calendar because the dates are not as important as the celebration. What I find as rather strange is the Gregorian calendar was commissioned because the church needed one that was more accurated to the movement of the earth around the sun so the correct date for Easter could be determined. Though it is thought that Christ's birth was actually in the springtime, and I believe that it was with about 6B.C. considered to be accurate. Easter, with it's connection to Passover would also be in the spring and having two holidays of near equal importance so close together might not work very well.
Also puzzling to me is why the date for Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox when the Jews already had a way to determine the date for Passover, and Easter and Passover are connected, but not necessarily on the calendar.
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