Do you consider being a Pagan or wiccan a religion?
Belief in a higher power? Accepted tax deduction? Then yes.
Wait a minute, idea forming, maybe athiests should accept the xtion premise of being a religion and get tax exempt status - all home based thus no taxes on property as long as we have an occasional meeting to talk.
If you're worshiping something then yeah that makes it a religion.
pa·gan
/ˈpāɡən/
noun
Wicca (English: /ˈwɪkə/), also termed Pagan Witchcraft, is a contemporary Pagan new religious movement. ... Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices.
To me Pagan just means not catholic, and doesn't conform to their beliefs. Just as wiccans don't believe in satan. I think it is just more about rebellion against the xtians. That's just my opinion tho.
Religion is hard to pin down.
Origin:
before 900; (noun) Middle English worshipe, worthssipe, Old English worthscipe, variant of weorthscipe; see worth1, -ship; (v.) Middle English, derivative of the noun
Worship (worthship) has its roots in simply recognizing the worth of something and valuing it accordingly.
So either...
A. Worshipping something doesn't necessarily qualify as religious behavior.
or
B. Every time we value something highly it could be considered an act of religious devotion.
It is a quite ancient belief system, based on reverence for nature & its' bounty. And no proselytizing!
The appeal to the atheopaganism extent is the love of nature and the practices (former Wiccan) without the use of deities or gods/goddesses. My only problem with Wicca was the praise of a 'higher power'. Otherwise, the rituals are fascinating - to an extent.
You don't know some of the pagans I know. They can be just as bad as Christians.
Atheopaganism is a thing. I had looked into it a long time ago. There's no Wikipedia page for it, but the basics are practicing the rituals without referring to any specific deity.