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How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

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Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#41

Post by tsimionescu »

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"?

The point is that those events, in the context of Christian thought, are seen as good - their god is telling his people to clear some unbelievers. Christian dogma maintains that their god and his commandments are fundamentally moral, that they are the very base for objective morality. In Christian thought, by definition, anything that their god wanted to happen is good.

Norse religions, on the other hand, make no such claims about their gods. Within the context of Norse beliefs and religious moraloty, Odin has done evil things, Loki has done evil things, etc. That is why, within their own system of beliefs, the gods are morally ambiguous.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#42

Post by throw0101a »

brodo wrote: post #14
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…

The god of the old testament is morally ambiguous too. The christians defined the evil aspects away and made humanity responsible for all evil in the world.

You are making the same mistake as Bible literalists:

* https://brandonvogt.com/did-god-command-genocide/ * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtXAQzqVv5s

This idea that the OT God was evil dates back millennia, to the point that some early Christians thought that the OT deity was a completely different one than the NT deity:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#43

Post by throw0101a »

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"?

You are making the same mistake as Bible literalists:

* https://brandonvogt.com/did-god-command-genocide/ * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtXAQzqVv5s

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#44

Post by Amezarak »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #32
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…

>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? T…

You misunderstand the point. 'Rightness' in Abrahamic theology is what God does and what he commands you to do, period. Everything he does is by definition right. This is very convenient as far as moral philosophy goes, since it provides an absolute and objective foundation.

That's the sense in which he's the everything-I-do-is-right God of Abraham. The same is not true for the Nordic gods or the Greco-Roman gods. The Book of Job probably makes this point the most powerfully and clearly.

As an aside, it doesn't really make sense to judge historical moral norms by modern 21st century ones. Morality is an anthropological/sociological phenomenon, not some kind of measuring stick we can sensibly apply to other cultures and times.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#45

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

microcolonel wrote: post #25
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.

> 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…

While that's true, there's elements that always stick more - try to claim you're just taking little mustaches or the swastika back.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#46

Post by the_af »

seabj0rn wrote: post #33
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 gro…

Any religion can be used as an excuse for right-wing extremism and hate, but I think Norse-related religions are particularly attractive to neonazis because of the specific attention the Nazis and the SS paid to their symbology, and to their (bullshit) notion of superior Aryan and Norse "races". The Nazis were obsessed with this. That their mythology was also mostly bullshit is less relevant; it doesn't matter whether it was "authentic" Norse religion, what matters is that the Nazis and later day neonazis thought it was.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#47

Post by DennisP »

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.

I have a hard time picturing white supremacists feeling at home in the group described in the article.

> “It’s about being honest, upright and tolerant,” Hilmarsson said. “Respect for nature is also important. You have to make sure you live in harmony with nature.”

> The association rarely wades into politics, but it has made exceptions, most notably by campaigning for same-sex marriage

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#48

Post by Fjolsvith »

wyldfire wrote: post #38
Fjolsvith wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

IMHO, Christianity is a schizophrenic religion with its split deity (vengeful/jealous/unforgiving/domineering vs. loving/peaceful/tolerant/submissive). I see these split personality traits daily in the behaviors of people who follow that religion.

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#49

Post by Fjolsvith »

empath75 wrote: post #39
Fjolsvith wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Runa-Edreds-Shorter-1988-1994/dp...

Re: How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion

#50

Post by throw0101a »

notacoward wrote: post #24
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.

> Unfortunately a lot of the pagan and related spiritual movements are being coopted by white supremecists. So have other religions. Millions of people use Christianity (especially the evangelical sort) as an excuse for their white-supremacist behavior. The intersection of religious and ethnic-supremacist beliefs even exists among some Muslim and Hindu adherents. I'm sure I could find other examples, despite the fact…

The same can be said of (pseudo-)scientific thinking of materialists in the eugenic movements. The Nazis (Godwin's Law!) didn't go after Jews for religious reasons, but for genetic reasons.

The (nominally) Christian Germans were also planning to exterminate Poles because they were of inferior Slavic lineage (not caring that they were Christian/Catholic):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

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