what is paganism?

Pagan originally meant someone who lived in the country. It comes from the Latin "paganus" meaning rustic or country dweller. When Christianity was first starting it was the folk beliefs and nature festivals that were their main spirituality and they were called Pagans. Then the Christians forcibly converted everyone. Since then the church called pretty much anyone who wasn't Christian, Pagan and now it seems to refer to anyone who isn't part of the big 5 religions or believes in nature as spirituality and folk magic. It can also refer to anyone who believes in multiple gods or goddesses aka. polytheism (or at least multiple facets of the divine). It was often associated with "heathen" which was really offensive as it is a legitimate spiritual practice.

Paganism has a very broad definition. Technically, anyone who doesn't follow one of the most common monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, or Judaism) is considered Pagan. Though most pagans are either duotheistic or polytheistic, there are those who are either monotheistic or atheistic, in regards to belief in a god or gods of any kind. Most Pagans follow an earth based religious practice, though not all necessarily. Examples of Pagan religions would be: The ancient Egyptians, The ancient Norse, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Celts, Native American belief systems, ancient China, modern day Wicca, and modern day neopaganism. This list is, ofcourse, incomplete. There are many religons, both old and new, which are considered pagan. And, there are many more that could technically be classified as pagan depending on who's doing the classifying, though they would call themselves something different.

pagan means country deweller i am a goddess worshiper myself and to be pagan just means i worship the land nothing bad in the word pagan

Depending on how far you go back pagan basically means anyone non-Christian. In more exacting definitions it is those who follow religions older then Christianity. More modernly it is generally used to describe those who either worship the earth or practice some form of wicca. Technically by the older description atheists would fit the pagan description, but since modern usage dictates the wiccan/earth worship then atheism is not paganistic.