How universal is Germanic/Norse paganism as a modern faith?

[Xenomorph]

Now I'm not a Heathen, so bear with me. Germanic paganism has traditionally been closely associated with its original ethnic roots, as it never really spread out to different peoples like the Abrahamaic religions (that really was never its nature). Reconstructed paganism is very similar, in helping people become more in touch with their ethnic roots.

If we were to sever Germanic paganism from its human followers and simply look at it from a theological point of view, can it serve as a universal religion, or can it really only be experienced with people of Germanic ancestry? Is Odin truly All Father, or is he just a god who reacts to the needs of a particular ethnic group? Would it make any sense for a person from a country like, say, Cambodia, to join the Asatru faith? I'm just curious as to what peole have to say on this.

[arcticwolf]

Oh. OK. Where do I begin. Why another made up religion? Why anything based on faulty and unreliable mental faculty such as faith? What's the point? Another "vision" of some "prophet"? Another revelation by some secret God/Gods? Why not a spiritual quest to get to know reality, the truth? Why believe when one can know? Spiritual quest is highly individualistic, no need for organized religion at all. Are you assuming that humans in general are still bat shit dumb and need supernatural to make sense of it all? Here is the realty, no one can tell no one what reality is really like, but one has the ability to experience it for oneself. No one can save you, but your own effort. As to your question, it did not become universal because it is not universal, it's group specific.

[Sarmatian]

Abrahamaic religions are based on faith. The followers are told by some influental figure like parent or priest what God is and how the world is rolling and they have to believe.

In Norse tradition there is no belief, no faith. There are individual experiences of people more or less related by blood that can be expalined as connection to divine entities. Those entities considered to be a distant common ancestors of this specific group of people in spiritual form. If you are not related to them you can not experience that connection.

To some degree divine entities of Norse tradition are common for all ethnic groups of Indo-European origin. Thus it can be practiced not only by Germanic people but also by Slavs, Balts etc and maybe even by Indo-Iranians. But no African, Asian, Semite, Amerindian etc can practice it as its absolutely alien to them.

[RagnarLodbrok666]

Abrahamaic religions are based on faith. The followers are told by some influental figure like parent or priest what God is and how the world is rolling and they have to believe.

In Norse tradition there is no belief, no faith. There are individual experiences of people more or less related by blood that can be expalined as connection to divine entities. Those entities considered to be a distant common ancestors of this specific group of people in spiritual form. If you are not related to them you can not experience that connection.

To some degree divine entities of Norse tradition are common for all ethnic groups of Indo-European origin. Thus it can be practiced not only by Germanic people but also by Slavs, Balts etc and maybe even by Indo-Iranians. But no African, Asian, Semite, Amerindian etc can practice it as its absolutely alien to them.

There is a universalist version of asatru represented by the troth. This version and organization was started by Stephen Flowers famous for invented a left hand path magic tradition based on Odin-Wotan called Odianism, he was also previously involved in the Temple of Set.

[Mistic]

IMHO Germanic heathenism from ancient times has deeper roots going very far back in time and further back still. In it's earlier stage it was never written down until much later during the medieval period. It's too old. We only have ancient artifacts and stones to go by. For instance, the Greek myths were written down and reserved much of the stories and names of gods, ect at that particular time, in pre-classical era. No one did the same for reserving Germanic religions in an ancient period like that until the Middle Ages. So what we have is a style of Germanic mythology written down by medieval monks.

Time itself distorts mythology. I think there were unwritten sagas and unwritten gods/goddesses (I believe there are "missing" divities in Germanic myths, such as the Moon Goddess. The goddesses who emerge after Ragnarok, ect. They were not scrolled about for some reason, perhaps because they were considered unimportant?)

As for people from other races subcribing to heathenism, um why should they? Why would they want to, unless either they're closely affiliated with someone who is, or they're studying it academically and feel something from it or because they've got mixed ancestry.

I suppose there are elements from heathenism that could be universal, such as the study of runes. People who are of the Celtic and druid or Wiccan paths are interested in Futharks and so on. I think certain parts of it may be used as reference.

[Albion]

Why would we want non-Germanics as Germanic Heathens? Really, Cambodians who've never seen snow would find Germanic Heathenism's myths quite alien as we find the Biblical tales to be.

Germanic Heathenism is just another branch of the Indo-European religions, today the most universalist of them and largest survivor is Hinduism. If any Indo-European religion is to be spread throughout Asia it should be that, Germanic Heathenism is for Germanics.

[Xenomorph]

Why would we want non-Germanics as Germanic Heathens? Really, Cambodians who've never seen snow would find Germanic Heathenism's myths quite alien as we find the Biblical tales to be.

Germanic Heathenism is just another branch of the Indo-European religions, today the most universalist of them and largest survivor is Hinduism. If any Indo-European religion is to be spread throughout Asia it should be that, Germanic Heathenism is for Germanics.

What about Buddhism? It was originally an Indo-European religion and I think is more universal in nature than Hinduism.

[Albion]

What about Buddhism? It was originally an Indo-European religion and I think is more universal in nature than Hinduism.

It wasn't Indo-European and can barely just be called a religion. That it came out of India doesn't make it Indo-European, it has always been rather cosmopolitan.
Indo-European religions were full of different deities, in Hinduism most of them were gradually downgraded to demi-gods. Buddhism is rather lacking in deities, it cannot have sprung from the IE religions but instead is more of an independent development by its founder.

[arcticwolf]

What about Buddhism? It was originally an Indo-European religion and I think is more universal in nature than Hinduism.

Right on. Buddhism is ultimately universal. It is ultimately realistic. It puts responsibility for ones destiny where it squarely belongs with the individual. It tells one that ones circumstances and fate are tied to ones actions. It does not give false hope and it does not promise falsehoods. It tells us that our own actions and effort is what makes the difference between ignorance and enlightenment. It's entirely based on reality, one seeks to understand reality. There is no God, there is no soul. There is no blind faith. There is investigation of phenomena and understanding how reality works in the ultimate sense. Buddhism is the ultimate religion. The only catch is that the mind has to be developed enough to comprehend it.

[Albion]

Right on. Buddhism is ultimately universal. It is ultimately realistic. It puts responsibility for ones destiny where it squarely belongs with the individual. It tells one that ones circumstances and fate are tied to ones actions. It does not give false hope and it does not promise falsehoods. It tells us that our own actions and effort is what makes the difference between ignorance and enlightenment. It's entirely based on reality, one seeks to understand reality. There is no God, there is no soul. There is no blind faith. There is investigation of phenomena and understanding how reality works in the ultimate sense. Buddhism is the ultimate religion. The only catch is that the mind has to be developed enough to comprehend it.

Yes, but a bit too East Asian for my liking. If it were to spread it would have to lose some East Asian cultural baggage, perhaps a denomination for Europe would do but Western Buddhism is a bit of a disappointment at the moment.

It seems the East Asians got the religion thing right whilst the rest of the world is still backwards in this sense. They lost deities and created religions that offer moral guidance without the belief in a supreme being or unbelievable creation myth.

The problem with modern Pagan movements is that nobody really believes in those gods and so most neo-pagans corrupt these old religions with environmentalism and turn them into some form of nature worship more akin to beliefs of the Russian Far East.
To be honest, if the Pagan deities did exist they'd probably cringe at the sight of all these hippies dancing around Stonehenge each summer or praying to the trees in the woods. (These idiots who congregate at Stonehenge call themselves "Druids" from the Celtic religion when Stonehenge far pre-dates the Celts - Celts are Iron Age, Stonehenge is Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age transition period).

The Neo-pagan religions that don't believe in deities but instead are about earth worship and moral values aren't bad in theory, I just don't like how they're so fake and hippyish.

Myself I find the Germanic myths to be fascinating, but a lot of what is written sounds more like tales of long forgotten real people in real situations. I believe many of the Germanic myths about their deities to be based on real events that were exaggerated and altered by latter storytellers so that the people came to be seen as gods. Germanic myths about their gods are nothing like the Abrahamic religions, in Germanic mythology the gods regularly visit humans in secret and walk among them.
But I do not believe in Odin or any of the others as gods despite all this, I think he was a chief of a long forgotten Indo-European tribe which made their way into Northern Europe to found the Germanic peoples.
Something resembling Germanic Paganism but without the gods or modern hippy types would be good, like Buddhism but with a Northern European twist.