> From: Pippin Michelli [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> Don't just dream - ban it! I do. Every semester I forbid my students to
> use the word. Usually they are trying to convey the idea of a Classical
> or
> Norse mythology, so I remind them of those words, and explain that the
> term
>
<applause> Well done! Your approach requires that your students do
the thinking and considering necessary to be precise. The opposite
approach--to lump all non-Christian Indo-European belief systems and
mythologies under a single label--glosses over the differences among them
and tends to suggest that such differences do not exist.
> Pagan may not be literally pejorative but it has come to be so in
> practice.
> And since we find such propaganda counter productive in today's society,
> "pagan" is a word we can do without.
>
Agreed on both counts.
> More important from my point of view, when they use the word "pagan", they
> think they are using an incompatible opposite to Christianity, and that
> really confuses them when it comes to Botticelli, Michelangelo et al.
>
Indeed, careful investigation of many sources suggests that lines
between belief systems were not as hard and fast in practice as the
apologists may have liked their audiences to believe. For example, an Old
Irish healing charm invokes both the Trinity and Diancecht, a pre-Christian
Irish god of healing.
Francine Nicholson
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|