User talk:80.195.55.47

The Catholic Encyclopedia, though scholarly, also reflects a particular sectarian point of view, and I do not take it as authoritative on the definition of "paganism." In any event, my point was not to replace one definition with another, but to suggest that there are alternatives. It seems important to put the narrower definition of "paganism" on the table for four reasons: (1) Many scholars explicitly distinguish the Axial faiths (Western and Eastern alike) from their "pagan" predecessors; (2) most modern Hindus, Buddhists, etc., would not describe themselves as "pagan"; (3) most modern self-described pagans are not Hindus, Buddhists, etc.; (4) there are any number of important conceputal ways in which "pagan" traditions, narrowly defined, differ from "Axial" traditions.

Response re paganism
I'm still not sure what your complaint is, since I've only sought to add an alternative definition, not eliminate one that is already featured in the article.

But I would just add a few points: (1) In the course of history, Westerners had relatively little contact with, or knowledge of, Eastern religious traditions, occasonal exceptions such as Clement of Alexandria notwithstanding. When Christians and Jews in the middle ages and earlier referred to paganism, they most clearly and consistently had in mind the polytheistic religions of Greece and Rome, and similar traditions. (2) Jewish discussions of paganism, captured somewhat in the concept of "Avodah Zarah," often (though not always) focused on the distinction between true montotheism and something other than true monotheism. Jewish authorities were, therefore, generally agreed that Islam was not pagan, but (as the article itself points out later down) had vigorous debates about Christianity. Had those same Jewish authorities known much about Eastern religions, they might have concluded that Buddhism was certainly not pagan, and that Hinduism might or might not be pagan, on criteria not all that different from their discussions of Christianity. In other words, the lines between paganism and non-paganism are necessarily complex and contested, and I see no need to suppress that complexity in favor of one, narrow, definition. (3) The article, as already written before I got to it, already discussed, not only traditional Christian view of paganism, but also paganism as a modern self-avowed faith. In the light of that, any definition that treats all non-Western faiths as "pagan," without distinguishing between the Axial and non-Axial faith traditions, is misleading and confusing.