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I am pagan, and I'll try my best to tell you why. I was born and raised Southern Baptist. I was going along fine, until the hypocrisy of it all struck me. I realized that it was a case of "believe, just in case there is a God, so you don't go to Hell if you're wrong." I realized that I didn't truly believe, that I was just lying to myself and others. I went for a few years where I was agnostic. Meaning, I knew that something existed, but I didn't know what it was. I started looking into Wicca and Paganism in general, about the same time I started looking into several other religions. In Wicca, I found a religion that I can believe in. The great thing about it is that it is so eclectic. You can believe one aspect without believing another aspect, and nobody is going to call you a heathen (except christians). Personally, I strongly believe in Karma. This is otherwise known as the golden rule, except with a little more force behind it. Where the Golden Rule says "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you", Karma says "I'm going to do unto you worse than you did unto others". This tends to keep you a little more in check, don't you think?
In my opinion, you have to discover your dieties for yourself, so that they really can be yours. Respect those that aren't yours, worship those that are. Eris is my Goddess. All Hail Discordia!
I'll try to sum up my beliefs about dieties, if I can. A long time ago, when people didn't understand their world, they witnessed all of the same types of forces that we see today. Mankind cannot live without understanding, though, we're too curious for that. So, we gave personalities to the forces in our world. These personalities became the early gods and goddesses. It became easier, when talking to others, to say "Artemis", than it was to say "the hunt, childbirth, and archery". Basically, the gods and goddesses manifested from early personifications.
Man made God in his image.
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