You searched for: “paganism
paganism (s) (noun), paganisms (pl)
1. A spirit or attitude about religious or moral questions: One element of paganism is the worship of idols or false gods.
2. Etymology: from Late Latin paganisnus, "heathenism"; from paganus "villager, civilian"; from pagus, "rural district, village" or "country area" because ancient idol worship continued in rural areas after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire as the true religion.

When new customs and manners reach the big cities, the rural areas are usually behind the times and remain old-fashioned as they tend to keep the "old-time religion" or paganism.

Worship of many gods.
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This entry is located in the following units: -ism, -ismus (page 41) pago-, pag-, pagan- (page 1)
Word Entries containing the term: “paganism
neopaganism, neo-paganism (noun) (no plural)
Identified as a 20th-century revival of interest in the worship of nature, fertility, etc.; as represented by various deities: Neopaganism is said to combine the worship of nature deities of the earth, with benign witchcraft.

Adherents of neopaganism often have deep ecological concerns and an attachment to nature; so, many worship an earth-mother goddess and center their rituals on the change of the seasons.

Neopaganism is considered to be a combination of historical inspiration and present-day creativity.

Those who are part of neopaganism rely on pre-Christian and folkloric sources and so many of them follow a spirituality, which they consider to be entirely modern, while others attempt to reconstruct or to revive religions from historical sources as accurately as possible.

This entry is located in the following units: ne-, neo- (page 5) pago-, pag-, pagan- (page 1)