Its mostly used to describe tribal, decentralized religions that were extinct until modern contrarians brought them back. One of the most important signifiers that it counts as pagan in the modern era is that "no one seriously believes this in any major numbers."
Because most pagans now are generic witches or Norse LARPers who aren't anything but a loose association of pretend players who could barely define their own faith.
I believe "paganism" is primarily applied to polytheistic Gaia-centric belief systems. Buddhism is polytheistic, but does not have a god of the skies, a god of the seas, a god of lightning, a god of beasts, etc. as most of the Indo-European pagan systems had (have? I am assuming that there are no unironic pagans, and those who claim to be are just edgelord atheists with a bit of stubble below the jawline).
Islam is a sex cult built around a scaffolding of stolen Judeo-Christian myths, adapted to fit Mohammad's need to get his dick wet and keep it that way.
Its mostly used to describe tribal, decentralized religions that were extinct until modern contrarians brought them back. One of the most important signifiers that it counts as pagan in the modern era is that "no one seriously believes this in any major numbers."
Because most pagans now are generic witches or Norse LARPers who aren't anything but a loose association of pretend players who could barely define their own faith.
I believe "paganism" is primarily applied to polytheistic Gaia-centric belief systems. Buddhism is polytheistic, but does not have a god of the skies, a god of the seas, a god of lightning, a god of beasts, etc. as most of the Indo-European pagan systems had (have? I am assuming that there are no unironic pagans, and those who claim to be are just edgelord atheists with a bit of stubble below the jawline).
Islam is a sex cult built around a scaffolding of stolen Judeo-Christian myths, adapted to fit Mohammad's need to get his dick wet and keep it that way.