Is paganism "nature worship"? A counter to a common but mistaken notion.

From looking around even at pagans, I see this idea. It is a common view dating back from antiquity and the middle ages. Still in anthropology to some extent. Usually an assumption of Abrahamists.

There is truth to it, but I am going to argue that paganism is by no means purely "nature worship". That strikes me as a Christian notion, in particular. Early Christians vacillated between calling pagans worshipers of lifeless idols and dead nature, or worshipers of demons.

Which view they took depended on how rationalizing the Christian was, or even who they were trying to appeal to. I am not going to quote from any of them now, I am still tired of dredging that stuff up.

I won't deny that pagans worship all sorts of things we call "nature" now. But in the past people didn't exactly have that category. Not as something distinct from man, or for that matter distinct from "supernatural". You won't find "supernatural" in any Latin literature.

"Supernatural" as a term came to be as a Christian neologism. Above natura(from a Latin root meaning "birth"). The closest thing I can think to call "nature" in the original sense would be the cycle of change all around, things coming to be. Much more abstract than trees or rocks

The main point I want to make here is that the gods cannot be pinned down as being "nature". Take pagan tree worship as an example. I have never heard of a tree being worshiped just as a tree(though it is alive). It is a spirit worshiped through the tree, maybe inhabiting it.

Or the tree is sacred to a particular god(maybe via a natural association). It is conceptualized much like an image as something with a bit of the god's power or presence. Any tree struck by lightning used to become sacred to Jupiter, because it had been touched by divine power.

Take Jupiter as a broader example. True, he is associated with lightning and the sky. But also with oaths, law, hospitality, rulers, cities, protection of the capitol, divination/prophecy, victory, life, boundaries. None of which are considered part of "nature" nowadays.

There are also goddesses like Hekate that would be really hard to pin down under a paradigm of nature worship. She is associated with 3 realms(underworld, ocean, heaven), has power over boundaries(crossroads), worshiped to protect the home, worshiped to protect ships and athletes

Associated with souls of the dead, as the one who goes in front of and behind Persephone on her cyclic journey, associated, associated with magic, associated with the Moon. Where would we even begin to classify her in such a narrow sense?

Athena is another example. No set natural association. She is associated with all sorts of crafts, knowledge, "civilized arts". Her animals are the little owl and the snake(associated with death and wisdom in Greek culture). No easy "natural" association.

I made a whole thread on Odin as sky god, but just thinking about that in narrow terms would never begin to describe him. So I am just going to shill the thread again. https://twitter.com/GraniRau/status/1300267128755544065

Odin is associated with the sky, weather, war, poetry, healing, prophecy, life force, death, magic, boundaries, hospitality, all sorts of things. Maybe even the Sun, too.

Another great example is the complexity of the Celtic god Lugh. Fortress of Lugh has made several videos telling about that at length. Lugh is otherwise incredibly hard to pin down to a nature association as would be understood in a narrow sense.

My own view of nature and its cycles is that it is a manifestation of divine powers and their interaction, and what we see are forms of the gods themselves(on one level). The Sun and Moon, the ground you stand on, are gods. But what you perceive of them is not all there is.

The big change that Judaic monotheism brought in was blinding itself entirely to this. "Nature" is considered only what is seen, and soon gets reduced to mere utilities, a resource to be bled dry. Materialism wasn't far behind, in some respects they rose together.