[@Celaira] Because paganism = bad. Christians called the Norse people pagan, they called the Romuvan pagan, they called the Native Americans pagan.

Basically, paganism is a collection name for any religion that isn't Abrahamic - at least that's always been my understanding.

So you have 'the accepted faiths' from a Christian/Muslim/Jews perspective:

[list][*] Christians
[*] Jews 
[*] Muslims[/list]

They all dislike eachother to a degree but they all also agree that there's 1 god, and that he had disciples. The Jews killed Jesus, Quran mentions Jesus, and the Bible makes some mentions of Islamic figures. 

They're like 3 versions of the same story.

Then you have the heretics;

[list][*] Reformed
[*] Protestant
[*] Shi'a (if you're Sunni)
[*] Sunni (if you're Shi'a)
[*] There's infinites of these. Any cult theoretically is a heretic cult.[/list]

Basically these fall within the 3 main Abrahamic religions but do not follow the 'standard' teachings. So they are part of the right faith but with the wrong interpretation.

Then you have pagans. 

[list][*] Shinto (Japan)
[*] Taoism (China)
[*] Native American beliefs (USA)
[*] Norse-paganism (Scandinavia, Finland, Northern-Germany, Netherlands)
[*] Eastern Paganism (Slavic regions) 
[*] Pff.. any religion that's not part of the main 3.[/list]

Therefore paganism is basically saying 'this isn't a good faith' because the word pagan originated from Christian viewpoints. It has the connotation that they're bad (though, honestly, you'll find that 99.99% of the pagans don't give a shit and own the label nowadays). 

A more proper term would be Heathen, because 'Norse' pagans lived in the heath/meadows which is where that name came from. The Christians never went far north enough to see that a lot of pagans actually lived in snowy pine forests. 

I have honestly never heard anyone call them 'the old gods' and that sounds more like a 'look at me, I'm interesting' thing because 'the old gods' can literally mean anything from Russian old gods (Yarilo, etc) to Norse old Gods (Odin, etc) to Slavic old gods (God, I don't know) to some ancient Native American spirits.

Nowadays people that follow Odin also call themselves Odinists but I've always found that name a bit stupid. I'm just Norse. :lol I don't care what others call it - it's clear to me what they mean most of the time.