Religion without faith

[Lysander]

Just letting you know that I have my hands full at the moment and wont be able to respond just yet.
They have found two chests of gold under a medieval church in my childhood village and I was visiting there so I didn't have time to answer your posts.

So I'm not being rude and not reading your posts. I read some of them and will read all of them and also give answers soon enough.
Maybe later today maybe not. In any case Lysander will be back .

Ciao till then.

[Lysander]

From my heathen perspective (other heathens may not agree), we actually do have an afterlife which consists of the consequences of our actions, and that can form a stronger basis for ethics than Christianity. The future is not some inevitable divine fate which we must accept but rather is something we must actively shape and take responsibility for.

You shape your afterlife in Christianity too. Not in the same way as you do with paganism but lets just say that you lead it one way or the other.

Christian ethics can lead to the conclusion of Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, that we need not worry about destroying the environment because Jesus will come back any day now. In contrast with this extreme irresponsibility, Heathen and atheist ethics secure our future.

I would call that an idiots reasoning to be honest.

Christian ethics can lead to horrific abuses against those whose sexual relationships are natural and consensual but do not fit their mold. I am thinking of all those gay teens whose Christian parents beat them and threw them out into the street to fend for themselves.

The beating is a little bit extreme but I wouldn't accept it if any of my children would turn out that way either. It's not the natural state of things and it is repulsing.

Christian ethics are a matter of adhering to a few rituals without regard to the immediate human consequences and so forms a front of respectability that provides cover for corruption and betrayal. I have in mind America's Senator Ensign and Governor Sanford.

You lost me now. No clue what you're getting at here .


@Lyfing:
The question is where he was getting at with the whole "God is dead" statement. The secularization of European society seems most likely.

I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a God, that's a bit over the top really. Be you Christian, heathen or even atheist.

As for the strong northern Europeans not accepting Christianity, he was way off there. Northern Europe was the very stronghold of Protestantism until the 1950ies.
What kept together the Swedish empire for an example? Their protestant faith. Again and again the kings and priests of the Swedish army told them that they were the guardians of protestantism. There were never any nationalistic tendencies but rather fundamental Christian ones.

I don't do anything I don't want to either, where are you getting with this?

@Óttar:
It is true, you should always take any census with a full fist of salt as they can never really cover everything. But a census that does cover everything would be simply too large and complex. In any case they are useful because still provide a perspective on things.

Well since it's not even blood you're drinking....
In any case, how can you really call yourself a pagan if you don't believe in it? Then it is neo-paganism as the "old ones" did really believe in their tales.

A barn could serve as a church, yes. The grandiose cathedrals don't really serve any purpose.
I disagree, I think the tradition and spirituality is what attracts people to Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

What traditionalism focuses on is anybody's opinion really, there are no set rules for it. And further the esotericism is often, if not always, tied to the spirituality.

This problem is also present in most forms of Christianity, which claims that faith and taking Jesus as your 'personal savior' provides eternal salvation no matter what you have done in life, no matter what was done in life prior to this. Some of the worst people in society, people who have committed hideous crimes, people on death row now claim to be 'Christian' and think they will have salvation.

Hence the purgatory exists .

Well, there's this:



Also the schools, summer camps for kids, place for socializing, and it provides direction in life to some troubled people. In many countries significant legal and tax benefits for 'religions', in some even a chance to collect a 'church tax' to fund their activities.

Yes but then why not admit that? Why actually say that you religion is whatever it is why not just say you're interested in it? I'm interested in paganism but I'm not a pagan.

Perhaps a better question is, what good is faith? Someone with faith in an afterlife may be content with skating through this life with a minimum of effort. At the other extreme, you have people engaging in suicide terrorist attacks because of their strong faith. Without positive clear minded direction to guide the followers, they might all follow eachother off a cliff or who knows what.

Faith is the rock upon which I stand. It gives me strength and has helped me countless times.
I can't be accountable for what Islamic faith brings around. Some may see it as bravery just as when Germanic warriors stood their ground to be slaughtered to the last man by Roman legions or as suicide and idiocy. The truth is in the eye of the beholder.

[Lyfing]

Hey Lysander,

When Nietzsche says “the task is to breed an animal able to keep promises” he is talking about the ability of nobility to create by way of their oaths kept a cohesive community..of gods ( in the beginning is their Word ).

Christianity has this notion of a personal god where the emphasis is on the individual and their relationship which ultimately leads to rewards (or punishments) or whatnot. Since I have already opened the Nietzsche can..this can be called a slave morality. Ever heard of thrall morality..??

The early Germanic need for spiritual evolution or a reward system may have actually, at least partially been driven by the clash between the older Germanic socio-economic class system and the introduction of Christianity which had a spiritual evolution/spiritual reward system built into its class-system. By following Christianity, large numbers from the peasant class were guaranteed a an equal place in heaven which they most certainly would not attain in this reality; the rewards for the thrall and peasant classes would not only be freedom from pain and suffering after death but also from unfair or unjust land owners. Secondly, from the beginning of the conversion it was made clear to the early Germanics that their anomnipotent gods were transient and limited in power and scope while the Christian God was omnipotent, undying, and was omnipresent, not in need, therefore, of sacrifice through the community--The Father-Son-Holy Ghost was a personal God which could be approached by anyone equally from the lowest slave to the highest king. Prayer and Piety were the great equalizers.

Germanic Spirituality, by Bil Linzie, page 24

Now, onto this notion of a noble community..

The heathen gods appear in the sagaic literature to be concerned with the function and development and maintenance of community whereas the Christian Jesus was concerned about the individual soul.

…

It is almost inconceivable for the modern man to think that there are no just rewards after death, that the class system continues after death, and that the “the greatest good” may actually be simply “doing one's best.”

Reflecting back on the Havamal, then, the poem does not appear to be a system guiding one's personal interactions with the mysteries of the universe but rather, and much more simply, a set of common-sense guidelines for maintaining social stability within a community and between communities. The sense of self was apparently much broader and dependent upon relationships than the more modern concept which is really dependent upon the relationship between an individual and his god(s).

Germanic Spirituality, by Bil Linzie, pages 24 & 25

So, that is pretty much what I was getting at.

Later,
-Lyfing

[Jamt]

Lyfing.

Why do you seek understanding about the early Germanic spiritual evolution in Nietzsche? Modern research must be far more reviling as it has a bigger foundation. Do Heathens or you get some sort of spiritual influence from the man?

[Lyfing]

Hey Jamt,

In many ways indeed I do.

My mythological slant on life has been heavily influenced by the writings of Joseph Campbell. It was in them that my interest in Nietzsche was at first fueled. Campbell saw four functions of mythology. About the third of which he writes..

The social function of a mythology and of the rites by which it is rendered is to establish in every member of the group concerned a “system of sentiments’ that can be depended upon to link him spontaneously to its ends. The “system of sentiments” proper to a hunting tribe would be improper to an agricultural one; that proper to a matriarchy is improper to a patriarchy; and that of any tribal group is improper to this day of developed individuals crossing paths from east to west and from north to south.

…

In sum: the individual is now on his own. “It is all untrue! Anything goes!” (Nietzsche). The dragon “Thou Shalt!” has been slain-for us all.

Joseph Campbell..

To go a little further, in his talking with Moyers about the moral of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight he says..

A third position, closer than Gawain's to that of the Buddha, yet loyal still to the values of life on this earth, is that of Nietzsche, in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In a kind of parable, Nietzsche describes what he calls the three transformations of the spirit. The first is that of the camel, of childhood and youth. The camel gets down on his knees and says, "Put a load on me." This is the season for obedience, receiving instruction and the information your society requires of you in order to live a responsible life.

But when the camel is well loaded, it struggles to its feet and runs out into the desert, where it is transformed into a lion -- the heavier the load that had been carried, the stronger the lion will be. Now, the task of the lion is to kill a dragon, and the name of the dragon is "Thou shalt." On every scale of this scaly beast, a "thou shalt" is imprinted: some from four thousand years ago; others from this morning's headlines. Whereas the camel, the child, had to submit to the "thou shalts," the lion, the youth, is to throw them off and come to his own realization.

And so, when the dragon is thoroughly dead, with all its "thou shalts" overcome, the lion is transformed into a child moving out of its own nature, like a wheel impelled from its own hub. No more rules to obey. No more rules derived from the historical needs and tasks of the local society, but the pure impulse to living of a life in flower.

Joseph Campbell..

So, in Nietzsche, Campbell saw a means by which to do away with those “sets of sentiments”, those “thou shalts” that hold a society together, and also keep one bound by it's limitations. All in the name of believing and trusting in man..

Today we know, for the most part, that our laws are not from God or from the universe, but from ourselves; are conventional, not absolute; and that in breaking them we offend not God but man....The old god is dead, with his little world and his little, closed society. The new focal center of belief and trust is mankind.

Joseph Campbell..

All of this is very important in one's reconstruction of Heathenry. Only when one kills the dragon called “thou shalt” of the modern multi-cultural Christian crock of crap, or in other words does away with the set of sentiments that hold said society together, does one have the ability to move out of their own nature. And, with that, and only then, comes the potential to re-create the world-view of one's ancestors.

Later,
-Lyfing

[Lysander]

@Lyfing:
First of all, that's a very interesting post .

While the belief in a better afterlife may have paralysed the thralls into accepting their "lot in life" on this earth I think one should be careful about drawing slave mentality conclusions from it.
Fact of the matter is that it was more often then not among the Germanic tribes the chieftains who converted first, sometimes after losing a battle to save their skin or their lands from invasions and sometimes for unknown reasons such as with Harold Bluetooth of Denmark.

And sure, heathenry is not really specific about anything. It has been formed since Indo-European times into a socio-economical structure that worked for that specific tribe or race. The similarity betwixt them is that they all only offer guidelines for a society and moral stories and are not as controlling as Christianity one might say.

[Óttar]

@Lyfing:
heathenry is [...] a socio-economical structure that worked for that specific tribe or race.

People here seem to think of ancient religion as being "folkish." How does one account then for mystery cults (Isis, Dea Syria, Cybele, Dionysus, Mithras etc.) which did not confine themselves to polis, tribe, or population group?

[Psychonaut]

People here seem to think of ancient religion as being "folkish." How does one account then for mystery cults (Isis, Dea Syria, Cybele, Dionysus, Mithras etc.) which did not confine themselves to polis, tribe, or population group?

These were all late developments that occurred after cosmopolitanism had already set into the region. I don't know any thing about Dea Syria or Cybele, but the cults of Isis, Dionysus and Mitra were not originally universalist mystery cults, just as "Hinduism" was not originally monistic.

[Lyfing]

Hey Lysander,

Thanks man.

You are right in saying that it was the nobles who converted first. I think it is safe to say that they did this for trade, and other not so “spiritual”, reasons. Or, maybe their wife was one. They were full of those character traits esteemed from patriarchal ages old..they were cunning, ruthless, and all the rest..hardly the meek Christians who turned the other cheek.

The conversion seems to have been more subtle though. With little things that changed the world-view. It really did take a long time that way. This can be seen in the Eddas and Sagas. They are half-heathen/half-christian. It can all be a good study.

However, parallels can be drawn here with those having a slave morality finding salvation in the Lord thy God. Fear the Lord thy God you know. Do as he wants and you can live forever with him. This is really to me a psychological thing Campbell described as “Atonement with the Father”..

Atonement with the Father

In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power.

Campbell: Atonement consists in no more that the abandonment of that self-generated double monster - the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god's tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve. It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father's ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one's faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis - only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same. The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to pen his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands - and the two are atoned." [10]

Biblical applications: In the gospels, Jesus wrestles with his impending death in the Garden of Gethsemane, before submitting to his Father's will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

I do think the thralls had a slave morality. I don't see how they couldn't have.

What about the karls..??

Then gan he grow and gain in strength,
tamed the oxen and tempered ploughshares,
timbered houses, and barns for the hay,
fashioned carts, and followed the plough.

The Lay of Rig 22, Hollander trans.

It was with the farmers that the old customs persisted. For a very long time. Even until the TVs came around by way of folktales. One saying used to be “Apples don't fall far from trees” ( a favorite of mine since I was a boy )..now.. “You can be anything you want if you set your mind to it” has replaced it. Obama's talks are live on BET..!!

And, things like this have taken all emphasis of the inborn talents within us that we get from our family and replaced them with the poor lonely soul seeking salvation, not within the community here on earth ( there is the luck we have in being born in our family and following in their footsteps ) but in Heaven by way of a single soul whose father is there..not here..amen.

What else is there to say..??

I didn't mean for this to be a thing about class or caste or Rig. But, so it has become.

Up grew Earl within the hall,
gan bucklers wield and the bowstring fasten,
gan the elmwood bend and arrows shaft;
gan hurl the spear and speed the lance,
gan hunt with hounds, and horses ride,
gan brandish swords and swim the sea.

Out of woodlands cam Rig walking,
came Rig walking, and taught him runes;
his own name gave him as heir and son,
bade him make his own the udal lands,
the udal lands and olden manors.

The Lay of Rig 36 & 37, Hollander trans.

[YOUTUBE]I4s0nzsU1Wg[/YOUTUBE]

Hey Ottar,

The mystery cults are interesting. They came with the mingling of folks. Very useful are they in seeing how symbology works when the “folkish factor” has been removed. Joseph Campbell was a big proponent of that stuff..

On the back of The Masks of God books it says..

The Masks of God is one of his masterworks. Upon completing it he wrote. “Its main result for me has been its confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.”

There is a post in my Joseph Campbell thread that goes with this..

We note in Figure 23 that where the knife runs into the bull the blood comes forth as grain—conforming to the old myth already recalled, as well as to the Zoroastrian theme of grain from the marrow of the Ox. A serpent glides beneath, representing, as the serpent always does, the principle of life bound to the cycle of renewal, sloughing death. The dog, who is in Iranian myth the friend and counterpart of man and in the episode of the first couple ate the first bite of meat, here eats the grain ( the blood ), as the archetype of life nourished by the sacrifice, while the scorpion gripping the bull's testicles typifies the victory of death as well—since death as well as life is an aspect of the one process of existence.

Occidental Mythology, page 259

Good stuff..it helps me reconstruct folkish Heathenry.. up

Later,
-Lyfing

[Óttar]

...Or, maybe their wife was one. They were full of those character traits esteemed from patriarchal ages old..they were cunning, ruthless, and all the rest..hardly the meek Christians who turned the other cheek.

I always wondered if the kings and everybody (warriors, cardinals, popes, merchants etc.) were truly Christian, why did they not lead lives based upon Christian "virtues" like humility, obedience, meekness, poverty etc.

King James in his framing of divine right of kings, used examples from the Old Testament only. One must ask would Yahushua ben Miryam approve of all the killing, slaughter, treachery, and debauchery commited by people who truly believed themselves to be Christian? So is this Christianity really about Yahushua ben Miryam, the one who is no doubt central to the Christian movement or is it mostly about tradition, and people picking and choosing what they want to maintain the status quo?