There's been some mini-debates on some threads over the term 'pagan', and who is and who isn't one (or at least have implications of such a thing, in my twisted mind at least :} ).

The word pagan comes from the Latin word paganus which was basically the Greco-Roman equivalent of "those-weird-country-bumpkins". And during the various currents dedicated to the revival of various 'pagan' religions that started during the Romantic period and kinda died out and then came back swinging in the 1960's in the wake of the birth of Wicca and it's various Wiccan-esque offspring. For a long time Wicca was the big kid on the block and had it's own tradition and actual religion, and as time went on, various groups went about trying to revive and reconstruct cultural specific religions, like that of ancient Greece, Egypt, Iceland, etc. And pagan was an automatic catchword for most of them (well, except most Germanic/Norse recons and revivalists: "we're heathens, NOT pagans, thankyouverymuch"). But, of course because of the popularity of Wicca, neo-pagan religions were conflated with Wicca and witchcraft movements, so pagan gradually became "something a lot like Wicca".

Well, as time goes on, more and more reconstructionist [recon for short] groups have emerged { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polythe...onstructionism } and aimed to duplicate ancient pre-Christian religions. And as such movements within movements grow, the whole label of pagan is becoming like saying "I live in North America!". It's not very specific, and because of the youth of neo-paganism it makes dialogue hard because once you start talking about beliefs with people unfamiliar with it, you have to dispel all kinds of ideas that are attached to popular conceptions of what paganism is: like all pagans being nature worshiping, or believing in a Great Mother Goddess, and so on.

Sooooooooooooooo... it has me thinking about a growing number of people eschewing calling themselves simply 'pagan' and becoming more specific about what they believe - for instance, Celtic polytheist, Hellenic polytheist, etc.
Is 'pagan' going to be useful in the future? Is it even an issue?

I don't think it means it should be a dirty word or anything, but as neo-pagan religions in general grow, it has to be acknowledged that there's no overarching agreement on anything save perhaps that those ancient peoples had something right, lol.

And now I'll end this ramble with: what does pagan mean to you? If you call yourself one, why? Why not?

I know there aren't that many self-identified pagans on here, but I felt like this might help stir up some good discussion.