Last first, didn't live in that year. Messiahs were very popular then.
First last first, on his birthday.
First last second, it is a pagan holiday commemorating the successful passing of the shortest day of the year!
i love that word "pagan" didn't it originally mean something about rural people kinda like we might say hicks or rubes or something like that? anyway i always considered myself a pagan.
Today, 21 December, is of course the Winter Solstice, the day of the year with the least amount of daylight.
So why wasn't Jesus's birthday celebrated then?
Middle English, from Late Latin pāgānus, from Latin, country-dweller, civilian, from pāgus, country, rural district.]
Hello dyslexia.
Webster's Dictionary has the following definitions for PAGAN:
1 : HEATHEN 1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)
2 : one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person
The Cambridge International Dictionary has the following definitions for PAGAN:
pagan
adjective
belonging to a religion which worshipped many gods and which existed before the main world religions
The Easter egg has both pagan and Christian origins.
Some altars to pagan gods still remain.
The pagan festival of Eostre was converted into the Christian festival of Easter, celebrating Christ's Resurrection.
pagan
noun [C]
A pagan is a person who has pagan beliefs.
Pagans thought that eclipses happened when a powerful witch hid the moon in a cave.
A pagan is also a person who has no religious beliefs.
The American Heritage Dictionary has the following definitions for PAGAN:
NOUN: 1. One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion. 2. One who has no religion. 3. A non-Christian. 4. A hedonist. 5. A Neo-Pagan.
ADJECTIVE: 1. Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. 2. Professing no religion; heathen. 3. Neo-Pagan.
Hello Phoenix.
Disagreeing with Webster's Dictionary is one thing, but are you going to disagree with the Cambridge Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary also?
The Oxford English Dictionary has this to say about PAGAN:
pagan
/"pegn/ noun 1 heathen. 2 pantheist. adjective 1 of pagans; heathen. 2 pantheistic. paganism noun.
·noun 1heathen, infidel, savage, unbeliever. adjective 1godless, heathen, idolatrous, infidel, irreligious, polytheistic, unchristian.
so sorry, i used the American Heritage Dictonary, my fault for such a grievous error.
BG, if you care to scan down the listing in American Heritage it also gives the root meaning.
I noticed the following definition in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Paganism, in the broadest sense includes all religions other than the true one revealed by God, and, in a narrower sense, all except Christianity, Judaism, and Mohammedanism. The term is also used as the equivalent of Polytheism.
It is derived from the Latin pagus, whence pagani (i. e. those who live in the country), a name given to the country folk who remained heathen after the cities had become Christian. Various forms of Paganism are described in special articles (e.g. Brahminism, Buddhism, Mithraism);
Dyslexia: notice the reference to "country folk" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. This ties in with what you said earlier about Pagans.
Buddhists are Pagans?
Who knew?
Phoenix: I guess you are not happy with ANY of the definitions gvien in the dictionary citations I have listed?
My OED says that Pagan is from the Latin paganus, meaning villager or rustic, and was first used by Augustine to describe a "heathen" as opposed to Christian or Jewish; indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had generally been accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire.
The first definition is "One of a nation or community that doesn't hold the true religion or worship the true god."
Hey guys, I'm only quoting the definitions that are in the main international English-speaking dictionaries.
I guess that with the passage of time, or perhaps through personal interpretations of the meaning of words, the meaning of PAGAN has lost its ORIGINAL definition, which is still quoted in ALL mainstream Dictionaries.
It just goes to show...you live and you learn. :wink:
