2 renigirl
Well, pagainsim is in the eye of the beholder certainly. It has mostly been used as a term of abuse, funnily enough by christians, for those that don't support their value system. In truth there is no such thing as paganism per se. What there is at the moment varies wildly from place to place, but can be seperated sociologically into two groups*: Anamists, shamans, totemists and other nature worshippers (i.e. original, indiginous religions) and modern, post-Enlightenment recreations of such beliefs in the West - Wiccans, Satanists, New Agers etc. I'm not discrediting the beliefs of either group, only pointing out that paganism as a religion is pretty much a recent invention. Some people link paganism to pantheonic (i.e many godded) religions such as egyptian, roman and greek, and certainly the language of Christianity has developed with those religions especially in mind, as all were popular during christ's life. The later meanings of paganism derive from the habits of these religions - dionysian drunkeness, sexually charged stories in Homer, and the portraits of Osiris' wanger were so hated by early xians that they defaced them from almost all of the temples (except a few obscure ones!).
I've known quite a few self-confessed pagan's, myself included, and would generalise it as anything non-Christian, non-Monotheistic, with a focus on ritual observance and the natural world. Don't be put off by people claiming it's history for them selves, it goes alot further back.
Oh and it comes from the Latin for country-dweller, or should it be bumpkin
*sociologists can be seperated into 2 groups also: those that believe you can seperate people into 2 groups and those that don't