What is the difference between polytheism and paganism

It is true that there are many gods in Hinduism and that it abounds in image worship, but while these various gods are considered different gods in paganism as traditionally represented, in Hinduism they represent the various forms of the one and same God. Thus a plurality of gods does not denote polytheism in Hinduism but rather the plurality of the forms in which the same one God might appear. Similarly, the various images of the various gods also reflect the same point.

Any of the many forms, in which God might be seen as appearing, can be visually represented in Hinduism, as a way of focusing the mind on God. This should not be taken for some new-fangled apologetic exegetical sleight of hand performed by modern Hinduism. When the seventeenth-century French traveler, Francois Bernier, was shocked by what he saw of Hinduism, this is how the pundits of Banaras explained the situation to him:.

We have indeed in our temples a great variety of images To all these images we pay great honour; prostrating our bodies, and presenting to them, with much ceremony, flowers, rice, scented oil, saffron, and other similar articles. Yet we do not believe that these statues are themselves Brahma or Vishnu; but merely their images and representations. We show them deference only for the sake of the deity whom they represent, and when we pray it is not to the statue, but to that deity.

Images are admitted in our temples because we conceive that prayers are offered up with more devotion when there is something before the eyes that fixes the mind, but in fact we acknowledge that God alone is absolute, that He only is the omnipotent Lord. The explanation may not have convinced him, but Hindus apparently have no difficulty with it. Sometimes parents belonging to the Abrahamic religions wonder whether this plurality does not end up leaving the Hindus confused, and particularly their children.

For the Hindus, however, such plurality does not create any confusion of identity, no more than several pictures of us in our albums, taken at different stages of our life and in different situations and clothes, cause us to become confused about our identity.

Many Hindu homes are lavishly decorated with colour prints of a great many Hindu gods and goddesses, often joined by gods and goddesses of other religions and the pictures of contemporary heroes. He may not be able to figure out in theological terms how the many gods and the one god hang together and he may not be sure about the hierarchy obtaining among the many manifestations, but he does know that ultimately there is only One and that the many somehow merge into the One.

This then is the great difference between Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions. Monotheism in Abrahamic religions represents the denial of gods in God, while the monotheism of Hinduism represents the affirmation of gods in God. Two different kinds of monotheism may be involved here.

Failure to recognise this misleads the followers of Abrahamic religions into branding Hinduism as pagan. The more usual error is not to regard Hinduism as monotheistic; Stark seems to have erred in the opposite direction, of regarding the monotheism of Hinduism as identical in nature with Abrahamic monotheism. The crucial difference is that Hinduism combines monotheism with polymorphism, while it is aniconic in the Abrahamic traditions. This has a crucial bearing on his understanding of the nature of missionary activity in Hinduism.

Here again Stark places it on par with that in Abrahamic religions. However, because Hindu monotheism admits of polymorphism, the nature of missionary activity within it is also different. S Radhakrishnan highlighted this difference as follows:. In a sense, Hinduism may be regarded as the first example in the world of a missionary religion.

Only its missionary spirit is different from that associated with the proselytising creeds. It did not regard it as its mission to convert humanity to any one opinion. For what counts is conduct and not belief. Worshippers of different gods and followers of different rites were taken into the Hindu fold. Krisna, according to the Bhagavadgita, accepts as his own, not only the oppressed classes, women and Sudras, but even those of unclean descent papayonayah , like the Kiratas and the Hunas.

The ancient practice of Vratyastoma, described fully in the Tandya Brahmana, shows that not only individuals but whole tribes were absorbed into Hinduism. The point then is that Stark posits a direct relationship between monotheism and missionary activity but in doing so he assumes that there can be only one kind of monotheism which will always lead to one kind of missionary activity — the proselytising kind.

Interestingly, the Hindu evidence in this connection retains the link forged by Stark between monotheism and mission but adds a wrinkle to it. Paganism is a quickly growing spiritual movement, consisting of various groups practicing nature-based polytheistic religions, loosely based on the religions of the ancient world.

Our beliefs are incredibly varied, coming from various traditions, a reverence for nature and the physical world, and a belief in non-authoritarian religion. Some different names you might hear us use to describe ourselves: Wiccan, Witch, Heathen, Asatru, Druid, Faerie tradition, Solitary Practitioner, Eclectic, and many others. Pagans view the world as a place of joy and life, not of sin and suffering.

We believe that the divine is here with us in the natural world, not in some faraway place in the sky. We hold a deep reverence for nature and the earth. Pagans tend to be earth conscious.