"Pagan" is the term Christians use to designate all those who existed before, or exist now but are outside of, the Biblical religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Jews after Christ, as well as all Muslims, are not pagans, but infidels, according to Christians. Jews before Christ are not really pagans, but they're not infidels either. But they were more like pagans than infidels. Infidels are destined to go to Hell. Good pagans such as Socrates, along with good Jews such as Moses, couldn't go to Heaven, but they didn't go to Hell, either. At some point in Christian mythology, a place called limbo was invented to place these good souls who had not received Christ. My sources tell me, though, that limbo has gone the way of St. Christopher and has been declared by the Church not to exist.
As a child in Catholic schools I donated a nickel here, a dime there, to a fund for the "pagan babies." These were the non-Christian infants which evangelical missionaries of the Church were in search of. No, they were not being sought for experimentation, mutilation, murder, organ transplants, dinner or sexual abuse. They were being sought to be baptized into the one, true, holy and apostolic Church.
The word `pagan' is derived from the Latin word for country dweller. The pagans were the bumpkins who still followed the cults of Mithras, Venus, Apollo, Demeter, etc. They were the polytheists who had not yet received the truth about monotheism. Today, it is rare to hear Christians speak of members of major religions, such as Buddhism, as pagans, but the term is still used for those who belong to no religion or who belong to one of the New Age nature religions or anti-Christian cults. At one time, though, the world was divided into three parts: Christians, pagans and infidels.
See related entries on wicca, and witches.
further reading
alt.pagan FAQ Meet the neo-pagans, a hodgpodge of pantheists, polytheists, monotheists, atheists, wiccans and non-wiccans, who "share a reverence for the Earth and all its creatures." One other thing they seem to share in common, besides liberated sexual attitudes and lack of homophobia, is persecution by pious Christians. See the next entry.
Why Pagans Need to Come Out of the Broom-Closet by Sophia X. Pharou