Ancient Religions Misunderstood
When most people think of Paganism, it conjures up images of primitive savages painted with mud dancing wildly around a fire or evil spirits and demons or wicked people sacrificing maidens to a golden idol or old hags in black cooking evil spells in a cauldron. Most Christian-raised people think Paganism is either an evil devil-worshipping religion or a religion of mindless primitives who don't know any better. Many also believe that Pagan religions are long dead, destroyed by righteous warriors of God, and good riddance! In reality, they couldn't be farther from the truth.

Paganism is not a primitive religion. It an ancient religion, the oldest religion on Earth in fact. But it is not practiced by sacrificing savages, nor is it a religion of devil-worshippers casting evil spells. Most Pagans don't believe in any sort Devil figure. Some have a Devil-like figure that they see the same way Christians see their Devil, as Evil to be avoided. Pagan religions are not opposed to Christianity or any other major religion, not seeking to undermine, overtake, or destroy them as many right-wingers would have you believe. Their followers are not amoral perverts, murderers, racists, torturers, rapists, pedafiles, etc. There are in fact far more members of the mainstream religions that fit into those catagories than Pagans.

What Paganism IS
The word "pagan" is Latin for "country dweller." It referred to the people who refused to convert to Rome's Christianity in favor of their ancient traditions and were therefore made to live outside the city. It has since been used to mean any polytheistic (more than one god) religion such as Native American, Mayan, Incan, Egyptian, Celtic, Norse, Viking, Pre-Christian Greek and Roman, etc. Paganism, like I said, is the oldest religion on Earth, older than Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by thousands of years. This is because Paganism focuses on Nature, the world around us, which was the only thing our ancient ancestors knew. The God and Goddess "myths" were metaphors for the natural processes happening around them that they could not explain any other way.

In most Pagan religions, the Earth is the Mother Goddess because she gives birth to all forms of life. The Sun and Sky is the God who's light and rain helps the Mother bring forth that life. The Moon is also seen as a part of the Goddess because her changing phases seem to control the emotions of people (emotions are considered feminine territory) as well as women's monthly menstrual bleeding. By observing the movements of the Sun and Moon and Stars, the ancients formed a picture of the divine world. They learned how to use these movements to make a calendar to tell them when to plant crops and when to harvest them. They created special festivals to celebrate the never-ending cycle of the seasons, the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.