What Do Pagan Mean?
What do PAGAN mean?
Everybody has their own definition of the word “Pagan”. Most people are convinced that their meaning is correct one. But the exact and correct meaning of the word “Pagan” remains a mystery.
The term “Pagan” is from the Latin “Paganus”, meaning “rural”, “rustic” or “of the country”, as a noun it points to “country dweller” or “villager”. The above mentioned is the older sense of the word Pagan.
After the birth and widespread of the Christianity, the word Pagan acquired a new meaning,”not a Christian”. As Christianity spread more quickly in urban areas than in the country side, the word Pagan has been used to refer non-christian people.
Sometimes religious and social conservatives use the word Pagan to refer to cultures or religions that are different from speakers i.e., someone outside of their own faith.
The term Pagan is also used to refer to ancient Polytheistic religion meaning, a religion which worships many deities,especially one which existed before the main world religions.
A rare use of Pagan is to describe a person who doesnot follow any main “Abrahamic religion”, i.e., the individual is not a Christian, Muslim, Bahai or Jew. By this definition, about 45% of the people of the world are Pagans.
The term is also used by Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists to refer themselves. But the usage is dropped and is rarely seen today.
The above definitions to the word
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