I feel that this article needs to start with a very simple, yet infinitely important statement, one so crucial that it needs to be set apart as it's own paragraph:
Paganism IS NOT Wicca.
Any time I see an attempt to define Paganism online, the explanation is at least very heavy with Wiccan ideology, if it mentions anything else at all. Wicca is not, in any way, the summation or evolution of Pagan beliefs. It is, in fact, an extremely young religion, having been founded by Gerald Gardner is approximately 1954, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he drew information from allegedly ancient sources. Most people who call themselves Pagan follow gods and traditions that are older than Jesus.
My first major point of contention regarding this topic is the widespread belief that all Pagans follow the Wiccan Rede, the core of which is "An it harm none, do what though wilt". This is a purely Wiccan concept, and should not applied to any other type of Pagan. Now, granted, any decent person has a baseline morality that will deter them from harming people, animals, and things, but only in Wicca do we find such a naive concept as this. At this most basic level, we perform harm unto something every single day just by eating. And if you eat meat, this concept is totally undeniable. Something had to die to provide you with that food, and what greater harm is there than killing? As a non-Wiccan Pagan, I have no qualms about participating in cycles of life, which includes consuming other living things in order to survive. You will also find in any non-Wiccan magical path the means to intentionally harm someone. And let's face it, honestly, sometimes people need to be hurt.
This leads well into something that, while I've never seen it as an "official" belief of Wicca, is perhaps even more naive than the Rede: the concept of "black" and "white" magic. This, in a nutshell, is absolute rubbish. Magic doesn't come in flavors, people, it simply is. Aleister Crowley defines magic as "The science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will". While I'm certainly not attempting to preach about Crowley here, I personally feel that his definition of magic is the best I've ever seen. Notice, if you will, that morality is not mentioned in the least. That's because magic can be used for any purpose that the practitioner desires. It's our own morality, not some cosmic decree, that decides if a particular magical affect is "good" or "bad". While generalities will usually apply, the specifics must always be taken into account. Let's say I've magically healed someone to prevent them from dying. This is a good thing, right? What if the next day that person goes on to kill someone else. Now, was my healing good, because is always supposed to be good, or was healing of this individual a bad thing, because it allowed this man to perpetuate evil? On the opposite side of the coin, let's say I raise someone from the dead. Necromancy is always an evil, evil thing, yes? But what if the person I've raised is a murder victim, and I manage to learn who killed them before allowing them to return to rest. These are perhaps extreme examples, but I believe I've made my point.
Next I'd like to a moment to talk about the "Rule of Three", or however a particular Wiccan path would wish to designate it. This is basically the concept of Karma, which almost every religion throughout history has had a concept of, but for some reason the Wiccans have tripled Karma's impact. I can't, for the life of me, offer an explanation as to why. Three has always been a very magical number, even Christianity has a penchant for three, but I've never seen a manifestation of three such as this. Most Pagans believe that the universe is, regardless of what our human senses can perceive of it, balanced. Even Sir Isaac Newton knew that the universe was a balanced place. This being the case, how can I get back three times my investment, be it positive or negative, from a universe striving for balance? Quite simply, it can't, and non-Wiccans don't expect it to.
The last topic I have for this article is one of paramount importance, and that is the subject of Divinity. Wicca has an extremely simplified view of Divinity, boiling it down to a single God and Goddess. This seems, at least to me, a very Christian influence on a Pagan path. The ancient pantheons are veritably brimming with deities, each one watching over his or her own realms of influence. Wicca seems to brush that information aside, simply saying that all gods and goddesses were different manifestations of the God and Goddess. This strikes me as intensely belittling to the ancient gods, and I just can't get behind that concept. I know no few Pagans who bristle at the idea that their deities have anything to do with the Wiccan ones. I feel that Paganism loses so much of its lore, beauty, color, and charm with such a gross oversimplification. I believe that part of the reason Paganism is making such a strong comeback these days is because of the vibrant pantheons, filled with gods and goddess for every walk of life. Also, in the ancient Pagan traditions, the gods were much more human than the God and Goddess of Wicca. What I mean by this is that they were not perfect; they were not all-knowing, all-seeing, or all-powerful. The old gods could make mistakes, they could, on rare occasion, be duped by mere mortals, and they could be talked to without all the trappings of ritual so redolent in Wicca. I love the myriad gods who have touched my life, and I simply cannot lump them together as just a manifestation of either the God or the Goddess.
Upon reviewing this article, I realize that I may have come across as anti-Wicca. I would like to stress how totally untrue that is. I believe, with every fiber of my being, that each and every one of us has the inalienable right to worship who they please, how they please. I am not contending that other Pagan traditions are "better" or "more right" than Wicca. I am simply trying to point out that the tenants of Wicca should not be used to provide any type of overriding definition to what Paganism is. Most paths have numerous ideological conflicts with Wicca, and it isn't fair to either side of the discussion to make summations that are grossly inaccurate.
So, in closing, we come to the question "What is Paganism?". My definition is fairly simple: Paganism is an umbrella term encompassing any polytheistic, Gaea-centric religion that allows both the belief in and practice of magic. I feel if you put more into the definition than that, you risk stepping one someone's toes.