It was recently brought to my attention that some of my thoughts and writings are radical. I’ve also been labeled a heretic and called a pagan. Oh, if only they know what these words really meant…
To put it mildly, words such as heresy, pagan, and even demon have been vilified and defamed by our “wonderful” organized religions. I will elaborate:
Heresy: [Greek: hairesis] – The act of choosing; derivative of hairein: to choose. So a heretic [Greek: hairetikos] is someone who is able to choose. Just think about all the persons condemned to burn at the stake for the crime of having a mind free to choose!
It gets even more evil and hypocritical when we look at the word Religion: [Latin, re-ligare] – To bind, tie, fasten…in other words: bondage!
To sum it up, if your mind is bound (never mind who does the binding) you live; however, if your mind is free, then you must die. I’ll give you a few seconds to soak in this act of pure cruelty by our “great” religions.
…[seconds]…
Moving on to Pagans: [Latin: paganus] – peasants, civilians; derivative of pagus: village or rural district. Now, the reason pagans were vilified was because they were civilians, as in “not soldiers of Christ”. How interesting, right?
Demon: [Greek, daimon] – thing of divine nature, indwelling spirit, genius! In ancient times, genius is a spirit or some kind of producer of natural intelligence or talent. In Plato’s ‘Apology of Socrates’, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion, literally, a “divine something”. [3] So in fact, to be demonic is to possess something divine, or simply to posses genius!
And for my grand finale, Radical: [Latin, radicalis] – of or going to the root or origin; fundamental. This word was vilified and continues to suffer its negative connotations because it challenges the status quo. During the 1800’s the British Liberal Party called for “radical reform”, via the notion of creating change from the roots. Of course, this was not well received by the ruling class, hence its current political use.
Here’s a question for the reader: How much of what you know has been told to you versus the knowledge you achieved through critical inquiry? The answer may shock you.
So Yes! I’m proud to be a radical, proud to be a demonic heretic, proud to be a pagan and most of all proud to know what these words really mean.
Thanks for reading,
Notes:
- Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 2ND Edition, Random House, 2001
- The Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
- Plato, Apology 31c-d, 40a; p. 16, Burnet, Plato’s Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito, Oxford University Press, 1977