The Halloween holiday is commonly thought to have pagan roots, even though the etymology of the word is Christian.

John Francis Wilson thinks it possible to have been a pagan bronze statue whose true identity had been forgotten ; some have thought it to be Aesculapius, the God of healing, but the description of the standing figure and the woman kneeling in supplication is precisely that found on coins depicting the bearded emperor Hadrian reaching out to a female figure symbolizing a province kneeling before him.

It has been noted that Atilla the Hun of the Hunnic Empire was a pagan according to Roman records, however it is also thought that monotheistic Tengriism was practiced by the Mongolian Empire before the advent of Buddhism which explicitly rejected a creator god.

She went on to remark that she had encountered pagans in jobs that ranged from " fireman to Ph. D. chemist " but that the one thing that she thought made them into an " elite " was as avid readers, something that she found to be very common within the pagan community despite the fact that avid readers constituted less than 20 % of the general population of the United States at the time.

The developments of Late Antiquity in the religious thought in the far-flung Roman Empire needs to be addressed separately, as this is the context in which Early Christianity itself developed as one of several monotheistic cults, and it was in this period that the concept of " pagan " developed in the first place.

Also, while Rosenberg thought Christianity should be allowed to die out, Himmler actively set out to create countering pagan rituals.

The epilogue details that " there was a belief in the pagan religion, which we now reckon an old wives ' tale, that people could be reincarnated " and that " Helgi and Sigrun were thought to have been reborn " as another Helgi and valkyrie couple ; Helgi as Helgi Haddingjaskaði and Sigrún as the daughter of Halfdan ; the valkyrie Kára.

Mainstream theologians believe it contained liturgical details and certain other pagan traditions which remain a part of some branches of mainstream Christianity ( for example, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is thought to have been a part of this by Catholic theologians ).

Following this line of thought, Alexander Nazarenko suggests that Yaropolk went through some preliminary rites of baptism, but was murdered by his pagan half-brother ( whose own rights to the throne were questionable ) before he could be formally received in the Christian faith.

The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum were part of a renaissance of syncretistic and intellectualized pagan thought that took place around the 2nd century.

Religion historian Otto Schrader has suggested that kobold beliefs derive from the pagan tradition of worshipping household deities thought to reside in the hearth fire.

He prefixed a long metrical explanation of his reasons for considering it a work of edification in which he asked his readers to look past the heretical content of the pagan poem and set forth the moral which he supposes underlies the stories and attempts to show how the pagan machinery may be brought into line with Christian thought.

This, coupled with the fact that among the pagan Scandinavians the horse was often the sacrifice made at the winter solstice to Odin for success in battle, has been thought to justify the theory that " hodening " is a corruption of Odining.

The burial is thought by some to mark a Christian centre of that time ( possibly reusing the site or building of a pagan temple ).

The circular dance is regarded as the most common and ancient form and is thought by some to have Germanic pagan fertility symbolism, although there is a lack of evidence to support this.

It used to be thought that these sections were all part of one continuous undertaking, especially during the Middle Ages when the pagan name Wansdyke was applied to all three parts.

This theory raised the prestige of old Lithuania ( thought of by neighbors as " pagan " and " barbarian ") firstly in the eyes of Lithuanians themselves, and had the same effect on foreign people ( especially Poles, who often treated their mediating in Lithuania's Christianization as their own cultural achievement against " eastern " or " pagan " " barbarism ").

The sculpture is thought to be part of a first century ancient Roman fountain, or perhaps a manhole cover, portraying one of several possible pagan gods, probably Oceanus.

The extent of the evangelization they performed is unknown, although it has been thought by some that it was done at least somewhat covertly, giving the hostility the pagan population demonstrated to the new faith.

This " dwindling " of the Tuatha Dé Danann ( thought to be the gods of Irish mythology ) to the fairies of folklore represents an adaptation of earlier pagan traditions to the later Christianized Ireland.

Previously names relating to pagan religion were extensively studied as these were thought to be early.

Statues were also destroyed because medieval Christians thought that they were pagan idols.

While in popular usage the term " myth " is often thought to refer to false or fanciful stories, creation myths are by definition those stories which a culture accepts as both a true and foundational account of their human identity.

In most of these stories the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator's bodily secretions.

Cyril ’ s many works stay within the realm of biblical stories and religious thought contrived from other Christian authors.

While there is no scientific basis in Darwinism for the Darwin Awards, the stories are nevertheless entertaining, and can be thought of as an example of schadenfreude – deriving entertainment value out of the misfortune of others.

Breaking from Fanck's style of setting realistic stories in fairytale mountain settings, Riefenstahl — working with leftist screen writers Béla Balázs and Carl Mayer — filmed Das Blaue Licht as a romantic, wholly mystical tale which she thought of as more fitting to the terrain.

Nonetheless, von Stein thought the tales were credible: trusted native guides had related the tales to him, and the stories were related to him by independent sources, yet featured many of the same details.

As Bunyan's popularity came only after the stories appeared in print, some commentators have thought of him as an inauthentic " fakelore " character.

Within the framework of his science fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought.

After lukewarm reviews of the former novel, set in the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le Fanu signed a contract with Richard Bentley, his London publisher, which specified that future novels be stories " of an English subject and of modern times ", a step Bentley thought necessary for Le Fanu to satisfy the English audience.

Christians mostly shared their beliefs with the Hebrews and thought that dreams were of the supernatural element because the Old Testament had frequent stories of dreams with divine inspiration.

While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues.

He thought that the tales were not direct representations or allegory, but that they might evoke or remind readers of Biblical stories.

Boromir was unnerved by the thought of entering the elvish forest — he pleads with Aragorn to find another way " though it led through a hedge of swords ", citing the stories of elvish witchcraft he had heard about in Gondor, and the " strange paths " they had been taking which had already caused them to lose one Companion.

When Chandler merged his stories into a novel he spent more effort on expanding descriptions of people, places, and Marlowe's thought processes than getting every detail of the plot perfectly consistent.

According to the narrative of the synoptic Gospels, an anonymous disciple remarks on the greatness of Herod's Temple, a building thought to have been some 10 stories high and likely to have been adorned with gold, silver, and other precious items ( Kilgallen 245 ).

Other stories say that Asclepius was killed because after bringing people back from the dead, Hades thought that no more dead spirits would come to the underworld, so he asked his brother Zeus to remove him.

Schulberg responded to this accusation in the 1990 reissue of the novel by adding an introduction to the short stories that provided his rationale for giving many of the other characters in the book Jewish-sounding names: " Since Sammy is obviously Jewish, I thought it should be clear that nearly all his victims –- Rosalie, Manheim, Blumberg, Fineman, his brother, Israel –- were also Jewish, suggesting the wide range of personalities and attitudes under the one ethnic umbrella.

The fictional town of Castle Rock, which he used in several stories, is thought to be based on Lisbon Falls.

To Polly Nelson he spoke of perusing detective magazines, crime novels, and true crime documentaries for stories involving sexual violence, particularly when illustrated with pictures of dead or maimed bodies ; yet in a letter to Rule he asserted that he " never, ever read fact-detective magazines, and shuddered at the thought " that anyone would.

On the film's initial release, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times praised the cast ( save Connery whom he described as " merely tall, dark, and handsome ") and thought the film an " overpoweringly charming concoction of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and romance.

* Urban legend, a modern folk tale consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them

From the standpoint of religious thought, the world has an objective purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: " Myth teaches man the primordial ' stories ' that have constituted him existentially.