<<<<Anyway, I wax verbose. I assume that your comment, Nimbrethil, is based on the idea that there are more definitive differences between Christian sub-groups and Pagan faiths .i. there’s only one God for Christians, but one must chose from a set of pantheons or mixtures of panthea if one is Pagan. I would say that the subtleties of Christianity make lighting on one group over another more difficult rather than easy. There are significant differences between Pagan religions and only modifications of Christianity — even if some, like Gnosticism, are more distinctive than others.>>>>>>

For me it's that there are certain concretes that can be found within Christianity. Jesus Christ, for example, is _the_ central figure in nearly all Christian sects. It's worth pointing out that even though there are sects within which Christ's role is considered to be quite different from the mainstream, he is still in nearly all cases a very prominent figure at the very least. Likewise with Mary. Some consider her a holy figure, almost herself divine, whereas others assign her a more humble role, but in the majority of Christian sects she's accorded enough prominence for it to be a reliable expectation in most cases. Going beyond the personages within Christianity, there's, for one, the concept of sin. Most Christian sects believe in some variation on the idea of original sin. Not all agree on the details, but the concept of sin is damn near universal.

None of this, near as I can tell, can be said of Paganism. There are far fewer common beliefs that can be said to be universal, or near-universal, to Pagans, and of those that are, they are less easily defined. The one thing that comes to mind is polytheism. Even then, there are a number of pagans who are monotheistic. For another, so many pagans _define_ what they mean by both polytheism and monotheism in wildly different ways. And you pointed out one characteristic yourself: though Wicca is by and large considered to be pagan, there are Wiccans who consider themselves to be Christians. The same is true of Druids. There are druids who consider themselves to be wholly pagan, and there are others who believe that druidism is a-religious and therefore persons of any religion can also be druids. Nebulous concepts...

<<<Here's a question for you. Would you consider Native American religions to be Pagan?>>>

I have two answers: one, I consider Pagan to be a rather broad term and in my view, any religion which is not one of the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) to be Pagan. But at the same time, I consider it _very_ important for the individual to define themselves. So yes, with the caveat in mind that I don't speak for all pagans, I would answer that yes, I do consider American Indian religions to be pagan, but I would also quickly point out that it is my preference to let the individual define him- or herself. So if a given American Indian were to tell me that she or he saw their religion as _not_ Pagan, I would concede to their personal definition.

No No! I am sure somebody out their wants to feed me to their shetland pony! (Oh the ignominy!)

... ok, ok, I'll let it go :)

oh yeah .. no worries ... I knew what you meant ..