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Originally Posted by tecoyah
The true beauty of Pagan faiths is the general understanding that all faiths are correct, and everyone has a path to follow. This allows us all to be accepting of each other and still maintain our own understanding of sprituality.
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O.K., I admit that I'm confused. As Irateplatypus points out, there are a number of possible definitions for pagan. Hinduism is polytheistic and therefore pagan by one definition, but I've known a practising Hindu and she believed the literal truth of her faith, and absolutely did not accept that "other" pagan faiths were correct (she would be offended to have her faith characterized as pagan).
If all pagans really were accepting of each other, they necessarily must accept that for whatever reason (upbringing, genetics, environmental experience interacting?), they are choosing to accept a belief system wholly on the basis of subjective feeling, and granting it to be true that since there is absolutely no objective basis for the selected belief system, it can have no true validity to make it superior or preferable to any others. This is only an observation, and not a criticism, as whatever comprises objective reality may only be experienced subjectively by us. Fundamentalists of nonpagan faiths would obviously take issue with this, and perhaps that's the true difference between pagans and nonpagans.
My only criticism of pagans applies to nonpagans as well...one's faith or belief system should not infringe upon the health and safety of others, or upon the right for others to follow whatever benign spiritual path is felt to be right.