Welcome to Gaia! ::

I didn't even know Catholicism was a word, but my spell check said it was. I am shocked.

Here is a laundry list, that will help you out a lot. Hope you like it. It's 100% me.

Basically here is how it happened. Paganism was around for many many years, long before Christianity. When Christianity tried to get itself off the ground and running they didn't want everyone to be overwhelmed by the culture shock. so they blended ideas. As in most cultural diffusion, pieces of the old culture are morphed into the new in some way. This is how most every Christian Holiday received it's date on the calendar. The most interesting of the holidays is the one with what seems to be no specific day, Easter. I have tracked this holiday for about 5 years now and it always occurs after the first full moon after the first day of spring. There the spring equinox and the goddess symbol are married together. What a pagan/christian miracle.

Even odder coincidences are found with Brigid/Saint Brigid. Saint Brigid and Brigid have the same Brigid cross. The only irony is Brigid is a goddess, and Saint Brigid converted a dying man over to Christianity.

The biggest difference between Catholicism and Paganism is monotheistic verses Polly theistic. Paganism has gods and goddesses that have all the aspects of divinity: elements, feelings, items, exct. Catholicism focuses all of the positive aspects of divinity into one being, God.

Another big difference is good verses evil. Paganism often as gods and goddesses with both good and evil in them. As humans are neither all good or all evil, neither are the higher forces. In Catholicism however, all aspects of good are given to the God, and all aspects of Evil are given to the Devil.

Convincing a religion that their philosophy was wrong was a feat for Christians. To help this they had to make Paganism appear evil. This is where the devil was born. The Pagan god is often refereed to as the horned god. In this he literally has horns on the top of his head. Looking at an image of the perceived Devil, it is clear that he has many characteristics of the Pagan God. The horns, the male figure, and the element fire are all good indicators of this connection.

The female figure is dropped from christian deity entirely. This is because at that period in time, women were not seen to have power, but to please the man of the household. The goddess is lost because of this and another step in keeping women down is activated. The Christian creation theory of Adam and Eve further the slander of the female sex. In this parable Adam is gods first creature, "in his own image." Then from Adam, Eve is born from a rib, mocking the feminine ability to reproduce. Then they are warned never to eat the fruit of knowledge. Eve is the first to eat it, because she is seduced by the Devil. This making all women appear more wicked and evil than man, and cursing women with periods and childbirth.


I think I pretty much covered everything. Good luck with the essay.

If I were you, I'd look the Holidays and maybe how their celebrated with a focus on the ritualization of it all.

You can also look at the persecution side. Chrsitians (which at the time were Catholics because there was yet to be a division of Christians [keep in mind Catholic actually is an umbrella term referencing Christians in general. Roman Catholic is the denomination] ) Pagans were persecuted as we all know but so were the early Christians-they were persecuted heavily in the Roman empire for many different reasons including incest and cannibalism.

No, I don't think it's how most Christians would view it either. But that's part of the fun of comparative religion. You can, for intellectual curiosity, more objectively look at what is going on and make some interesting observations that passionate religious emotion would get in the way of. wink We shouldn't discount their own interpretations of their theology either, though.

Catholics don't worship saints. They venerate them. While some people equal that with worship, in the Catholic Church the word venerate is used to mean "To regard with respect, reverence, or heartfelt deference." The two words are very similar and can sometimes be interchangeable in every day speech but the Church has made a point of separation their two meanings for their followers. :3

Just throwing that out there.

One thing I noticed just in general was how Pan (greek mythology and seen quite a bit in paganism) was transformed in Christianity. Before Christianity, Pan was a happy spirit. When people were trying to make the new religion grow, they scared some people by making Pan evil and calling him the Devil. Looking at the pictures parallel to each other, it's actually kind of easy to see the major similarities between Pan and the Christian Devil.

i dot know if this is against the rules
but i really just needs to say i like your work here
it makes sense and shows you have brains
it makes me think to wink

so thank you for activating my brain again in this state of my life wink