As a child in a Catholic home, I experienced the typical traditions of Christianity throughout the year. My family celebrated Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Lent, Easter, and Christmas. We also participated in community celebrations for the holidays, such as Easter egg hunts, Halloween, and decorating a Christmas tree. I didn’t know, at the time, that many modern traditions are derived from Pagan roots.
The word “Pagan” is considered a dirty word in my family. Paganism was basically Satanism. Upon further research, I became aware that calling all denominations of Paganism one group would be similar to saying Catholics worship the same as Baptists, simply because they are both Christian denominations. This is not the case in either situation. According to Pagan Federation International, a pagan is defined as “a follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.” Modern examples of Pagan denominations include Goddess Spirituality, Heathenry, Neo-Druidism, New Age syncretism and eco-paganism, occultism and ethnic
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And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:
Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.”
Molech also can be linked to the Roman gods Saturn or Cronos, who are historically worshipped through sacrifice of a child. In Carthage, a bronze statue of Kronos stood, hands outstretched over a bronze brazier, flames engulfing a child. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus also mentions the statue with “palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with