Judeo-Christian Theism
Judeo-Christian Theism, while having been pronounced dead over and over throughout the last several hundred years, most notably by Nietzsche, is actually the backbone belief of the West, and accounts for the great strength of our current culture, however far backwards we may have gone in the last few decades. The motto of the great theists of history is "To the glory of God." Theism is the belief system of the Founders of the American experiment and the men of the Renaissance and Reformation. Judeo-Christian Theism teaches a constrained view of man, in that man is in need of a rule of law and responsibility, although originally made in the very image of God. This view at once acknowledges God's hand in making man and the man's fall into sin. Man is free to follow God or not and may exercise an immense amount of freedom while also remaining accountable to God's law. This view is supernatural in that it allows for the God who made the universe to act upon it. Men are held together in relationship by the dual responsibility to God and to others. There is a deep and profound respect for truth in this view, with an emphasis on absolutes. All people are responsible to the revelation of truth as revealed in nature and the creation itself. Judeo-Christian Theism also insists that God is a knowable, personal being that speaks, acts in history, reveals His will and desires all people to have relationship with Him.
New Age Pantheism and Paganism
Pantheism is the worldview of the eastern religions of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism, as well as that of the New Age movement. The phrase that describes Pantheism is "All is God, and God is all." This view is primarily concerned with the spiritual, since it holds that matter, and by extension the world itself, is an illusion. The dominant goal for a pantheist is to escape into the ultimate nothingness that is God. The concept of sin for a pantheist is simply that he or she does not understand their own deity. The familiar picture is often given of a man pouring milk into a cup, and is explained as "this is god pouring god into god." Pantheism is relativistic in it's concept of truth, having a belief that good and evil are just two sides of the same coin. Reincarnation is the idea in pantheistic religions of life as a constantly repeating loop of experience on which the individual must attempt to come to the perfect spiritual state, and thus succeed in escaping the loop. This view sees the individual and the universe as ultimately impersonal. Pantheistic religions are also well known for their positive aspects of emphasis on meditation and the search for personal peace.
Although the numbers of people involved in pagan practices is not nearly the great percentage of people in the world as it once was, paganism has had a great resurgence in the last few years, particularly in the U.K. and Europe, as well as parts of the U.S. In their attempt to "go back to nature" many have sought to resurrect the old nature based religions of the old cultures of Ireland, Scotland, and Europe. The term "Pagan" used to be understood to mean basically "those who are not of the Christian faith." This new resurgence is an attempt to revive the Goddess religions and practices, and is most known in the group known as "Wiccan." Technically they would be best described as "Neo-Pagan." There is also an interest in the old religions of many ancient cultures, like those of the Native Americans and the tribal religions of Greece and Sumeria and the pre-Christian Celts. If there was an old religion somewhere, rest assured there is probably someone who is trying to bring it back. It is also possible that this movement owes it's strength to the influence of Postmodernism. Don't be surprised to run into someone in your travels who holds this view, because their numbers are indeed growing.
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