Any Fellow Pagans in Here?

Me, proper pagan.

We used to sacrifice goat, and actually worship deity called shiva, though his origins are based on Indo-European mythologies, but now being shown as hindu god.

You pagan?

A pagan is an adherent to the Pre-Christian religions of Europe, i.e. Norse Paganism, Gaulic Paganism, Slavic Paganism, and Hellenic Paganism. I believe the word can be applied to Hinduism but I'm not certain.

The word "pagan" used to designate anything that challenged the status quo, especially if it was pre-Christian. The word "heretic" came up later and mostly substituted it. Nowadays, a pagan is anyone who caresses a spiritually dying or moribund religion and it's rites (i.e. sacraments), it's language (i.e. runes), it's rituals (i.e. climbing to the top of minarets), etc., not understanding the full significance of these rites.

A pagan is being a believer of any religion not considered a large mainstream one, especially shamanistic and nature-related spirits.

Personally I agree with a lot of the shamanistic beliefs, as well as that throughout history humans have worshipped various deities of various forms, *really* I don't think it matters in the slightest what the form is or the name, to me there is no difference between worshipping say, Shiva, and a "fictional" god such as Azathoth (in terms of how meaningful that is, in terms of the core beliefs; how you might worship them rituals etc those can be DRASTICALLY different.) We make our own gods, if you liked the concept of a god made specifically in a fictional book admitted as fiction by all - but decided to take it to heart and worship that deity, it's just as powerful as it would be worshipping the christian God. Perhaps a mildly odd concept from a religious point of view but philosophically speaking it makes perfect sense if you agreed with a god being completely incomprehensible to any other lifeform, there's a power an energy whatever you want to call it - that I agree strongly on - but which god it is? Not important, that's like personal preference.

I'll be honest I do have a particular interest in Azathoth currently, fictional god from lovecraftian tales, a very nihilistic concept, "the blind idiot god" created all of existence with no intelligent design in mind and completely by accident, so for me worshipping this deity involves a fine balance between nihilism and hedonism, it gives every pointless task a point ironically. I'm not entirely sure why but that idea just makes me inexplicably happy, it simultaneously acknowledges and agrees completely with nihilistic thinking - yet turns it into more than just the philosophy and mixes it with hedonism to create this odd way of enjoying the pointlessness simply because it's utterly blind luck and chaos, might as well have a good time going through it.

*waits for flak to strike*

Traditional Hinduism and all its orientations are attributed to paganism!