{"id":3968,"date":"2004-02-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/02\/17\/2004-02-17-paganism-has-gained-momentum-around-the-globe\/"},"modified":"2004-02-17T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-02-17T12:00:00","slug":"2004-02-17-paganism-has-gained-momentum-around-the-globe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/02\/17\/2004-02-17-paganism-has-gained-momentum-around-the-globe\/","title":{"rendered":"Paganism has Gained Momentum Around the Globe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.newsmax.com\/archives\/articles\/2004\/2\/8\/144004.shtml\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>LONDON, ENGLAND, February 9, 2004: During pre-Christian times many European countries practised the religion known as Paganism. In recent times, there has been a resurgence of this religion around the globe. Associated Press explains, &#8220;Wiccans consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans, and say their religion is based on respect for the Earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.&#8221; In Denmark, the government has allowed a group that worships the Norse gods Thor and Odin to conduct legally-valid marriages. Tissel Jacobsen, president of the 240-member Forn Sidr, indicates that about 1,000 people worship the ancient gods in Denmark. In the U.S. in the state of Virginia, a Wiccan named Cyndi Simpson was not allowed to say a prayer to open a Chesterfield County Board Meeting. The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia in collaboration with the Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit on Simpson&#8217;s behalf and they won. A U.S. federal judge ruled that Simpson has been discriminated against. Canada claims the greatest Pagan population of 21,080 and Statistics Canada says that Paganism is Canada&#8217;s fastest growing religion. Heather Botting, vice-president of the University of Victoria&#8217;s 150-member Thorn and Oak Student Pagan Club says, &#8220;Tens of thousands of residents on Canada&#8217;s West Coast practise Paganism.&#8221; In Australia, Pagans are struggling to gain respect after a Christian council member in Melbourne labelled Pagans as members of a satanic cult. Olivia Watts, a self-proclaimed witch, is getting help in the legal battle from the Sydney-based Pagan Awareness Network.  <BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceLONDON, ENGLAND, February 9, 2004: During pre-Christian times many European countries practised the religion known as Paganism. In recent times,,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}