Non-scandinavians and asatro?

[Baron Samedi]

I think you get me wrong, i don't approve of Celts or balts or other people to turn themselves to Ásatrú. They have fascinating own religions to which they should turn. Like Rodnovery(Slavs), Druidism (Celts), Roman paganism (Italics),...etc. That should be the whole principle of the old religions. Each and one should turn to their native religion.

That is quite hard for some of us (mostly Americans) who are of of mixed-IndoEuropean heritage, though.

[Aemma]

Basically it comes to this, we need Pagan Philosophers. Actually they already exist. You should read Alain de Benoist's works. He has some views on heathenry and the modern world. He wrote books specifically about heathenry. But we need more of this kind of philosophers. We really need to connect our identity to the gods.

Quite a few of us here who are heathen have read him. Please feel free to start any threads you would like regarding his works or thoughts. He's a fascinating thinker.

You should also look into this new publication.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Wodans-Krijger
Basically it comes to this, we need Pagan Philosophers. Actually they already exist.

They always have existed it’s a case of seeing indigenous European thought in all mediums (even Christianity, especially Catholicism, which is a variant of polytheism when we get right down to it).

My personal prejudices lean more to Nietzsche, there are others (I fully intend to study Heraclitus and Hiedegger as and when), but this a relatively new field for me.

You should read Alain de Benoist's works. He has some views on heathenry and the modern world. He wrote books specifically about heathenry. But we need more of this kind of philosophers. We really need to connect our identity to the gods.

I’m acquainted with De Benoist, I haven’t studied him in depth, at the present most of my time revolves around studying Nietzsche, Spengler, Tolkien’s work in mythology and Anglo-Saxon and the academic study of Old English Heathenism. I should add several of Joseph Campbell’s books and articles and Jung (but I’m being harsh otherwise I will never get anything done, they will have to wait).

Add to that physics (in principle chaos theory at the moment), evolution (the spontaneous order proposed by Stuart Kaufmann I find particularly fascinating) and a developing interest in the impact of Celtic on the English language.

My idea/belief is that there is one motherforce that created all gods. The motherforce has always been. This motherforce makes the blueprint of the world and the basics. The other gods Odin, Donar,... are the gods of our Germanic landscape (our lands), they created how we look as persons and individuals. Then you also have the other gods Vishnu, Brahma of the indians for example that created how India and the indian people look today. That explains 1) human variation (DNA, how we look) 2) landscapevariation, our gods created us according to the soil we live on 3) they steer evolution 4) they gave us our languages (pronunciation, runes, grammar) ,... etc. Who we are, what we look like today is because of the Motherforce and our Germanic gods.

I’m not sure whether my thought will come down upon a transcendental-metaphysic or a naturalistic-metaphysic side, I’m characteristically more inclined to naturalism so I have sympathy for the theory of memes and an idea I read in Howard’s Bloom’s Lucifer Principle of memetic/genetic deity formed within the minds of specific tribes, what I perceive to be a certainty is that humans need a sense of sacredness in themselves and their landscape, I believe that autochthonous growths are the best medium for that, it is creating, what Campbell would have called, the sense of play i.e. myth-time as a nobler form of human experience. I guess I will be more certain once I have decided how I see the question of mind.

[Psychonaut]

Basically it comes to this, we need Pagan Philosophers.

You should also look into this new publication.

Indeed. Some of us are working extremely hard towards actualizing Heathen Philosophy.

[Cato]

Why would i accept the god of the jews? They were a people that were oppressed very much and had to deal with a lot of occupation. So their only medium to feel a bit powerful, was to have a God that would always protect them, and that would be more powerful than other gods and people. It's a normal reaction. You see it too when we got christianized, the germanic gods became more violent. Most of them became gods of war. Wodan was the god of Poetry and wisdom, and during the christinization he suddenly became a god of war. The reason the jews thus made their god so powerful, is because they needed such a figure in their lives to feel protected and looked after. But the truth is very different. Jews have been persecuted, slaughtered, killed, humiliated,... etc in the whole of history. Gods are eventually how you describe them. No one knows the real truth, the true gods. Religion are in the first place identity and cultural. That's why i will never accept the christian teachings as they don't represent the true Germanic culture. Our gods represent our thoughts, our lands, our way of thinking,... As does the christian god represent the thinking of the new jews vs the conservative jews.

You talk about "abiding sticks" is wrong, well, what is wrong with that? If some folk does it on an island with a vulcano on it, what's wrong with that? It's their culture, it's their habit, who are we to tell them it's bad? Why do christians and muslims always feel the need to convert and tell other people they are "wrong"?

Your viewing Yhvh as merely "the God of the Jews" has no basis in [theological] fact. If the Greeks could equate Yhvh with Zdeus and the Romans equate him with Jove (Emperor Julian equates him to Jupiter Iao, the supreme sky/sun deity of the pagan cosmology in his Contra Galileos, the God that every other deity is but a portion of) the God of Gods, he's no localized deity, but a deity of cosmic proportions. Remember, also, that the Greeks and Romans saw the Jews as backwards fanatics yet admired their religion for its antiquity and the sagacity of the lawgiver, Moses, who was compared to such ancient religious reformers as Orpheus and Zoroaster. The founder of my own philosophical school (Stoicism) was a Semite (according to the modern definition): Zeno of Kition, a Hellenized Phoenician, so I'm not so quick to dismiss the opinions of the Semites, especially the pre-Islamic Semites, if they were even Semites to begin with- witness the influence of ancient Indo-Aryan races like the Mitanni, Kassites, and Hittites, possibly the folk of Aram (the tribe whence came Abram/Abraham, the father of the Hebrews), in the ancient Middle East, and you might be more favorably inclined to the "Jewish fables."

Yhvh is commonly called "God of the Jews" but, if you read deeply into the Bible, Yhvh was God of all people before there were any Jews in existence- people merely forgot about him, perhaps remembering him as a distant, stern father-figure in a national mythology (El in Canaan, Assur in Assyria, etc.). Idolatry entered the world when mankind began to worship the sun, moon, constellations, planets, etc. because they thought that, by honoring these grand examples of the creator, they'd be honoring the creator himself.

Again, read into the Bible, and you'll find that Yhvh tells to mankind himself is worthier of worship than these so-called Gods themselves. Man, being made in the image of the creator, is little less than the divine beings (angels/elohim) in terms of stature, yet is superior to them by possessing the imago dei, divine likeness. Man can chose whereas the divine beings, being mere extensions of the Almighty's will, cannot.

[Psychonaut]

Your viewing Yhvh as merely "the God of the Jews" has no basis in [theological] fact.

Err...you mean it has no basis in post-captivity theology. It is not really up for debate amongst historians of Judaism that their religion, like all others, began as polytheistic (which is only vaguely referenced in the referenced by the etymologies of divine names), transitioned into henotheism (which is directly referenced in the OT several times when Yahweh talks shit about the Gods of other peoples) and finally into monotheism.

[Cato]

Err...you mean it has no basis in post-captivity theology. It is not really up for debate amongst historians of Judaism that their religion, like all others, began as polytheistic (which is only vaguely referenced in the referenced by the etymologies of divine names), transitioned into henotheism (which is directly referenced in the OT several times when Yahweh talks shit about the Gods of other peoples) and finally into monotheism.

I've seen several good arguments against source and textual criticism of the Bible. Who then is correct, those who support initial monotheistic tendencies or those against it?

[Psychonaut]

I've seen several good arguments against source and textual criticism of the Bible.

I have no idea what you mean. "Good" arguments against examining the Bible's text in light of archeology and linguistics? "Good" arguments against examining is in the greater context of global religiosity and not as a priori absolute truth?

[Óttar]

The Jews worshipped other gods and the gods of neighboring peoples until 630BCE with the coming of King Josiah. This whole 'mankind was originally monotheistic' is merely victors' propaganda.