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What is Paganism?
One important thing to remember is that Paganism isn't a religion any more than Monotheism is a religion. Both Paganism and Monotheism are collective terms used to group very different religions that happen to share a few important classifying traits in common. For example, Monotheism includes the all the various forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (and many minor faiths). The beliefs of the individual religions grouped under the term "Pagan" probably vary even more than (say) Reform Judaism differs from Shiite Islam. As Wicca is currently the most well-known modern Pagan religion, many people tend to assume that all modern Pagans share the specific beliefs of Wicca (e.g. belief in a God and Goddess, the eight festival "wheel of the year," the Wiccan Rede, etc.). That assumption is simply incorrect. People who make that assumption generally end up very confused when they encounter some of the many modern Pagan religions that are not based on Wicca.
One important thing to remember is that Paganism isn't a religion any more than Monotheism is a religion. Both Paganism and Monotheism are collective terms used to group very different religions that happen to share a few important classifying traits in common. For example, Monotheism includes the all the various forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (and many minor faiths). The beliefs of the individual religions grouped under the term "Pagan" probably vary even more than (say) Reform Judaism differs from Shiite Islam. As Wicca is currently the most well-known modern Pagan religion, many people tend to assume that all modern Pagans share the specific beliefs of Wicca (e.g. belief in a God and Goddess, the eight festival "wheel of the year," the Wiccan Rede, etc.). That assumption is simply incorrect. People who make that assumption generally end up very confused when they encounter some of the many modern Pagan religions that are not based on Wicca.
