I reading about wicca, but I'm still trying to remember the difference between pagan and wiccan. Does anyone have a simple answer for me to remember??
thank you!
by 
Sailor Saturn
ANSWERS: 9
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Pagan generally means anyone who reveres Nature as some kind of divine. Wiccans believe in the Rede, Law of Three, and a dualistic Goddess and God. They are also usually centered around initiatory rites and covens (there are the solitaries, too). Wicca has specific beliefs and "rules". Paganism is a very vague term for a Neo- nature worshipping (most likely polytheistic) spirituality. It encompasses a bazillion different religions.
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Pagan is a grouping of religions, and Wicca is a specific religion under that grouping. Pagan comes from Latin, and it literally means "country dweller". It was used to refer to the indigenous peoples who were colonized by the Roman Empire. With the advent of the Holy Roman Empire, it came to have a religious connotation, referring to the indigenous religions (those not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, hence, those not Abrahamic) of those people. This, it now refers to non-Abrahamic religions: those that do not worship the deity of the Bible. In modern usage, pagan (lowercase p) means these actual, pre-Christian religions, and Pagan (capital P) refers to Neopaganism (new religions that are not Abrahamic, such as Wicca). Wicca, as said before, is a specific religion that is Pagan.
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Paganism encompasses many different belief systems. Wicca is only one of these. A good analogy would be that if Paganism were a puzzle Wicca is one piece of the puzzle. Therefore one can be pagan and not Wicca. Sort of like one can be Christian but not Catholic. I hope I have not simplified it so much as to offend with the analogy but maybe that can help you visualize the difference.
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If you want to learn about pagan religions, including Wicca, do not rely on any books published by Llewellyn Press.
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wicca is a religion in paganism.+2
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Generally speaking, the term Pagan is used to decribe polytheistic religions, normally meaning anyone not Christian, Jew, or Muslim. It was/is a term used for anyone who does not believe in "the one true god". Wicca is a Pagan religion.
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I'll try to describe this as simply as possible. Paganism, in it's most accepted definition, is any religion that is not Christian. Wicca was founded fairly recently (it's not as old as you might think) and took bits of other religions and made one of it's own. I don't remember the man's name who invented it. In a way, Wicca is a bit like Christianity - borrowing or outright stealing from other religions and there's this veil over it that somehow it was all theirs, all along. Interesting, thanks for making me think!
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"So, in a nutshell, here's what's going on. All Wiccans are witches, but not all witches are Wiccans. All Wiccans are Pagans, but not all Pagans are Wiccans. Finally, some witches are Pagans, but some are not." http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/faq/f/DifferencePPW.htm
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Pagan comes from the latin word for (I believe) "country dweller" and was used by Christians in the early part of Christian history when the urban areas were the Christian strongholds and the people not in the urban areas still worshipped in their own ways. Nowadays it is typically used to refer to any non-Abrahamic religions (aka not Christianity, Judaism, or Islam).
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