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Plato and Aristotle, Fresco from The School of Athens in the Apostolic Palace, Vatican City. Virtuous pagan is a concept in Christian theology that addressed the fate of the unlearned—the issue of nonbelievers who were never evangelized and consequently during their lifetime had no opportunity to recognize Christ, but nevertheless led virtuous lives, so that it seemed objectionable to ...
Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". [1] [5] During and after the Middle Ages, the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a belief in "false gods". [6] [7] The origin of the application of the term "pagan" to polytheism is debated. [8]
The concept of virtuous paganism became relevant to Romanticism with its interest in North European mythology or enthusiasm for the rediscovered pagan ethos of the Icelandic sagas. Shippey argues that the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien is significantly based on this concept: [ 34 ]
Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion is a taxonomical study of various world religions which argues for a new definition of the word "paganism". It was written by American religious studies scholar Michael York of Bath Spa University and first published by New York University Press in 2003.
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
The Roman emperor Constantine the Great was one of the first major figures to believe that Eclogue 4 was a pre-Christian augury concerning Jesus Christ. [9]According to Classicist Domenico Comparetti, in the early Christian era, "A certain theological doctrine, supported by various passages of [Judeo-Christian] scripture, induced men to look for prophets of Christ among the Gentiles". [10]
Secular paganism is an outlook upholding virtues and principles associated with paganism while maintaining a secular worldview. Alternately called naturalistic paganism or humanistic paganism , approaches vary, but typically include the respect for living creatures and the Earth itself, while rejecting belief in deities.
The challenge for the psychology of religion is essentially threefold: to provide a thoroughgoing description of the objects of investigation, whether they be shared religious content (e.g., a tradition's ritual observances) or individual experiences, attitudes, or conduct;