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How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

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Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#31

Post by JasonFruit »

magduf wrote: post #28
microcolonel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. I find this stuff fairly attractive as someone with Scandinavian heritage, but it seems like I've been overtaken in the space by racists and fascists. I don't get it, you let the people you detest tell you what (not) to do? Prominent Nazi party leadership was very fond of dogs, gardens, ice cream, roads, and a…

>Prominent Nazi party leadership was very fond of dogs, gardens, ice cream, roads, and a lot of the other nice things about being alive after the industrial revolution; you're just going to let them have all that stuff? Actually, I'd be happy to let them have the dogs. Dogs smell bad and are just a big pain in the ass if you live in an urban environment. They just aren't good indoor pets, and I have no idea why every…

That was Mussolini with the trains.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#32

Post by inflatableDodo »

geofft wrote: post #4
inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

> The Ásatrú faith also celebrates Old Norse mythology and its pantheon of morally ambiguous deities – gods such as Odin, Thor and Loki – that came to Iceland during the Viking Age, when the island was settled by Norwegian famers looking for new pastures. These deities were worshipped across this ‘land of fire and ice’ until the year 1000, when, under pressure from the influential Norwegian crown, the country abandon…

But those gods are morally ambiguous: they're not everything-I-do-is-right like the God of Abraham (in any of the religions that worship him). It's an accurate part of the news and implying that Loki is a paragon of virtue would be misleading people about the subject. And "Heathenry" is a term used by practitioners of this faith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathenry_(new_religious_movem... If it's got a negative c…

>everything-I-do-is-right like the God of Abraham

Are we talking about the same god? The god that orders his most observant follower to sacrifice his own child then changes his mind when he attempts to obey, the god that apologises with rainbows after committing genocide, the god that has to incarnate as a member of his own creation and then be sacrificed by others before he truly gets what it is like to be mortal? That god?

If you read the bible as a story about this deity called Jehova or whatever, it does not read as everything-I-do-is-right, but more about a flawed character that slowly goes through a process of personal discovery, who hasn't really benefitted very much by having a load of hangers-on worshipping him. Was one of the things that convinced me as a child that the bible probably wasn't all that reliable as a guide to cosmology. God as portrayed in that book, is actually far too human to have created the universe, at least that was my rough opinion at the age of 11 and it hasn't really changed that much since.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#33

Post by seabj0rn »

bluntfang wrote: post #3

Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. I find this stuff fairly attractive as someone with Scandinavian heritage, but it seems like I've been overtaken in the space by racists and fascists.

But isn't this the case with any religion? You could say the same thing about the Westboro Baptist Church to Christianity and Radical Islamist Extremism to Islam. Every religion I can think of has instances of groups co-opting the religion for evil means. All major world religions have multiple instances of this happening throughout history. One could say that you don't have a legitimate religion if there isn't a group of crazies trying to use the religion for evil means.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#34

Post by ARandomerDude »

magduf wrote: post #30
Andrex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The religion itself presents God as doing good; pagan religions don't have such framing, thus the classification "morally ambiguous."

>The religion itself presents God as doing good Does it? I seem to remember a part in the Old Testament where the Abrahamic god orders his followers to commit genocide against some other tribe. How is that "doing good"?

According to what standard?

Presumably you believe you are an accidental combination of chemicals, here because other chemical mixtures were the "fittest" -- often, the most ruthless.

On what basis does a fittest chemical blob say "you ought to..."? You need an objective moral standard for that and you won't find it in your chemistry set.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#35

Post by sampo »

Accacin wrote: post #8
inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

> The Ásatrú faith also celebrates Old Norse mythology and its pantheon of morally ambiguous deities – gods such as Odin, Thor and Loki – that came to Iceland during the Viking Age, when the island was settled by Norwegian famers looking for new pastures. These deities were worshipped across this ‘land of fire and ice’ until the year 1000, when, under pressure from the influential Norwegian crown, the country abandon…

I understand what you're saying but one of the things I found attractive about the Norse gods was that they're not perfect. They are uncivilised at times! For me at least, I found I could relate to them better because of their faults.

The Greek and the Roman gods were like that, too. And maybe had more influence on the European culture, than Nordic gods.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#36

Post by lagg »

bluntfang wrote: post #3

Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. I find this stuff fairly attractive as someone with Scandinavian heritage, but it seems like I've been overtaken in the space by racists and fascists.

This kind of thinking is why I have to dread the day someone calls me a white supremacist because of my Cirth tattoos.

It's not even relevant to your viking nonsense. It's just LOTR. But people are being so submissive toward the peckerheads that they're just handing over entire spiritualities without a fight apparently and making it worse for people like me who aren't even in the fight.

It's honestly pathetic. Heh.

Edit: More on the point of being pathetic. Wouldn't the ancient pagans or vikings hate how pathetically submissive people are being here? Historical vikings weren't isolationist or racist from what evidence we have. By their nature they really couldn't be to grow their tribe.

What next? Are you going to settle and accept that occultism and satanism is for white supremicists too? Further play into the hands of the Christian church?

Manowar uses pagan symbology and runes in many of their songs, it's a very common thing in heavy metal. Are you going to play into the hands of the Christian church and let that be considered white supremacist too? Where does this cowardice end?

Furthermore, even though at first I found paganism and viking lore highly interested. I'm beginning to sour of it. But purely because its adherents allowed it to be labeled in this way and therefore make me feel like I did something wrong for getting something from a fictional book. This is spiritual cowardice on a level so profound it affected fiction. Pathetic. Ugly and pathetic.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#38

Post by wyldfire »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #10
geofft wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those gods are morally ambiguous: they're not everything-I-do-is-right like the God of Abraham (in any of the religions that worship him). It's an accurate part of the news and implying that Loki is a paragon of virtue would be misleading people about the subject. And "Heathenry" is a term used by practitioners of this faith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathenry_(new_religious_movem... If it's got a negative c…

Heathenry is a term that comes from the "heath" or what we would call the hearth - the central part of the ancient home that provided heat and cooked food and light. It was the gathering place of family and guests, where songs would be sung and stories told and games played and hospitality offered and accepted. The family shrine would typically be nearby. The Norse gods are about family. They do whatever is needed to…

> And, implying the three Christian gods are paragons of virtue is laughable. There are examples of genocide and infanticide scattered throughout the Bible - it is a veritable bloodfest of violence. To say otherwise would be misleading people about the subject...

The canon of christianity includes the torah, and it is certainly filled with tales of a terrible god. But the gospel is much more generally virtuous. I'd say the inclusion of the torah provides a great context for the contemporary religion around the time of Christ's life but not a very good model for religion at all.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#39

Post by empath75 »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #5
bluntfang wrote: post #3

Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. I find this stuff fairly attractive as someone with Scandinavian heritage, but it seems like I've been overtaken in the space by racists and fascists.

Fortunately, you do not have to be a white supremacist to be a heathen. Asatru is not a proselytizing religion and doesn't require that you "fellowship" with other worshipers. It it attractive because it is a sleeper religion with many facets and traditions of modern life tracing their roots back to that Scandinavian heritage.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/as...

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#40

Post by gnarbarian »

lagg wrote: post #36
bluntfang wrote: post #3

Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. I find this stuff fairly attractive as someone with Scandinavian heritage, but it seems like I've been overtaken in the space by racists and fascists.

This kind of thinking is why I have to dread the day someone calls me a white supremacist because of my Cirth tattoos. It's not even relevant to your viking nonsense. It's just LOTR. But people are being so submissive toward the peckerheads that they're just handing over entire spiritualities without a fight apparently and making it worse for people like me who aren't even in the fight. It's honestly pathetic. Heh. E…

In a world where the media will gladly take the bait to claim the "OK sign" is a white supremacy symbol there's literally nothing you can do to avoid the absurd redefinition of symbols and words years down the road.

just laugh at the hysteria and attempt to deprogram the people co-opted by this moral panic in your every day life.

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