What is a pagan?

What is a pagan?

Is it any non-believer?

What about Jews and Muslims, with whom we share a common history/beliefs in part?

Or only people who worship idols?

What about people who don't have idols, but look to nature and are more spiritual in that sense?

"Pagan" has several meanings, and you would need to consider the context to determine which. It can mean any follower of a non-Christian religion, a coarse or uncultured person (slang), an irreligious person, or a follower of the specific "pagan" (druidic) religion. In Scripture, it means a person who is neither a Christian nor a Jew. Most people who were neither were still religious in some way.

There are pagans and there are heathens. Pagans worship ancient gods and goddesses, or spirits, and have various rituals to communicate with them. The heathen are all a part of the false religions which dominate the world -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. However, Jews practicing Judaism are simply in a false religion, and cannot really be regarded as heathens, since the OT is their Bible.

PAGANISM IS NOT DEAD

VIDEO: Chicken Sacrificed As ‘Offering to Rain God’ at Mexico’s Senate
A Mexican Senator from the Morena Party drew widespread condemnation after he organized the ritualistic killing of a chicken as an “offering to a rain god.” The incident took place in one of the courtyards of Mexico’s federal senate building.

The ritual occurred this week when Mexican Senator Alfredo Gomez Hernandez had a group of indigenous people set up a series of offerings to the rain god Tlaloc.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2024/04/27/video-chicken-sacrificed-as-offering-at-mexicos-senate/

I was taught that a pagan was someone who had heard and rejected the gospel while a heathen was one who had never heard the gospel.

i was born and raised in rural north georgia. in the 60's and 70's and 80's, a heathen was someone who drank, smoked and cussed and did not go to church,...

now, the folks who did those things and went to church were sometimes elders and deacons.

i know this because said church folks would sometimes go to my heathen dad and slip him a $10 to get them a pint at the liquor store...

A lot of my ancestors were moonshiners. Your post reminded me of an ole, old song:

"The preacher walked by with his head heisted high, said his wife was down with the flu,
and he thought that I ought to sell him a quart of that good ole mountain dew"

Aren't these people who deal only with finding money, without working, for drugs, opiates and alcohol, and spend their free time listening to great music and looking at Facebook?

pa·gan
[ˈpāɡ(ə)n]
noun

1. (especially in historical contexts) a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions:
   "the incoming Germanic peoples were pagans"

pagans are when people invent religions and worship false deities it involves the creation of false religions tbat arent of the main steam. thenYou have pagan worshippers who are those who worship these man made pagan religions and deities.

Pagan is a word to describe those who worship other gods other than the One True God