Difference between Pagan and Pilgrim

What is Difference between Pagan and Pilgrim? Pagan and pilgrim are two words that are often used in the religious context. These two have completely different meanings, implications and origins.

Difference between Pagan and Pilgrim

The term pagan is used to denote a person who worships nature, the earth and the Gods of the golden age. The Wiccans and certain aboriginal tribes are considered as pagans by many people. A pilgrim is a person who has a firm belief in a particular religion and who makes a spiritual journey for a spiritual reason.

This spiritual journey is known as a pilgrimage and may be somewhere considered sacred by that specific religion. For example, Mecca is the destination of the Muslim pilgrimage and Jerusalem is the place where Christians and Jews go on pilgrimage. A pilgrim can go on a pilgrimage to any place of pilgrimage that he wishes. A pagan does not travel anywhere to show his devotion.

There are different types of pilgrims. The most common are religious and cultural pilgrims. As mentioned above, religious pilgrims make pilgrimages to sacred places of their religion. Sometimes pilgrimages do not need to be in a physical location. You can travel to many destinations in search of spirituality and meaning of religion. In those pilgrimages, pilgrims trust in divine power and thus make their journey. The cult pilgrims involve a secular thought. They can be based on hobbies, interests and cultural instincts. For example, if a community visits the birthplace of Karl Marx, this is known as a cultural pilgrimage. Similar to the visit of a person who is interested in arts and culture, museums and historical sites, they are a cultural pilgrimage.

The term pagan is used by Christians and Muslims to denote a person who does not believe in the practices and gods of their own religion. Sometimes it is used as a pejorative term. For a certain period of time, different terms such as pantheism, polytheism and shamanism have also involved the denotation of different types of pagans and their beliefs.

In Summary:

  1. Pagan is a person who believes and worships nature, earth and the old gods and goddesses. Peregrine is the person who believes in the god of a specific religion.
  2. The pilgrims go on pilgrimages that are trips to the sacred places of their religion. There are no such trips for pagans.
  3. There are different categories of paganism such as polytheism, shamanism and pantheism. Pilgrimages can also be different types such as religious and cultural pilgrimage.
  4. In a religion, the term pilgrim is used to denote or refer to a person who is very devoted to religion and its principles. Pagan refers to a person who does not believe in a religion.
  5. Pilgrim is the term used in all religions while pagan is the term most used by Christians and Jews to refer to people outside their religions.