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prodigalson2011
Guest
Can you offer a brief philosophical argument for polytheism? (I’ve never heard one).
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Skadi
Guest
Ah, so you argue that because your god claims to be the god of everything i should follow him. Well, ive already established my lack of faith in the bible as a source reliable enough to put religious faith on. But the older portions of that book are even shadier, with several of the books being compiled hundreds of years after.Skadi-
I’m going to tread lightly here because I don’t want to offend, is that okay?
It strikes me that these are very small gods. I’m not trying to belittle them or you, but the God I worship created all those things!
You can see what I mean from one song in praise of the Creator God. In line 8, snow itself is exhorted to praise my God, not Ullr while in line 9, the groves of cedars are told to praise their creator and not Skadi:
I applaud your desire to seek out the things of god and your obvious zeal for them. :clapping:
Do you think it might be better to worship the one who is above all?
Im afraid i dont agree with the Psalms, he may be the god of the Jews, but he is not the one god.
One should base their opinions on what they believe is true, not what they would like to be true.
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Skadi
Guest
The afterlife: Yes, I honestly do. One of the most honorable things a good follower of the gods can do is live without fear of death. And i do my best to every day. Your fate is fixed, hiding in a hole wont save you a moment longer, and all you control is how you meet death in that moment.
Personally I think the whole christian afterlife system undermines the concept of god who is pure love, but thats another discussion.
Gods: I do believe there are other gods and goddesses in existence, but i do not concern myself with them. And it is very much possible in my opinion that there are numerous afterlife destinations. however this is entirely my opinion, and Gullveig may well have a different on as she is a hard monotheist.
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Skadi
Guest
Well, honestly for that I think there exists nothing better than Emperor Julian the Apostates “Against the Galileans”. I don’t necessarily agree with all his assertions as to how polytheism works, but his arguments against monotheism (particularly the judo-christian concept of god) have never successfully been refuted, despite over 30 volumes attempting to do so by Cyril of Alexandria.
I can make one in the morning if you want, haha
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Gullveig
Guest
Yeah, I wish they’d get over that. Actually, I wish heathens as a whole would move past that. It’s not like we can fix it now and the people alive today are not the responsible parties. If people are going to be angry, they should be angry about the abuses that are still ongoing, not the ones that happened 1000 years ago.
In regards to the afterlife, I do believe in the realms of the gods and that I will go there when I die, etc. I have absolutely no doubt. Personally, I don’t think I would enjoy the Christian heaven very much, but that may be because I don’t understand it as well. But, I believe that Christians will be judged by their god and go wherever their god puts them, and that’s okay. Ditto Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and other pagans. I don’t know about atheists and agnostics. I tend to think that someone takes them in despite their lack of belief. Or maybe they get reincarnated to try again. Or maybe the cease to exist. Who knows?
On that note, here’s a short cartoon that sort of illustrates how some Asatru think about the Christian heaven, particularly. The theology is definitely skewed on both sides, but it’s still kind of funny.
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Gullveig
Guest
- As Skadi said, there is Valhalla for the warriors and those who gave their lives valiantly in a good cause. A lot of people coming in from the outside think it stops there, but in the lore, only half the honorably slain go to Valhalla. Freya actually has first choice for her hall Folkvangr, and half go to her and half go to Valhalla and Odinn. The goddess Rann gets the sea-dead by default. There is some indication that other gods will choose from among the rest. Those that have no one to claim them go to Hel, which is not a place of torment like the Christian Hell. It’s a place of rest and repose for the ancestral spirits, and most modern heathens believe they will be reunited with their ancestors and watch over their descendants from there. The Norse had a different conception of the soul than Christians do. A part of the soul is considered to live on in one’s family line. A part of the soul may go into the land, if one is particularly attached to a specific place.
- We have written lore, but I wouldn’t call it a “bible”. The heathen conception of the lore and the Christian conception of the bible are very different. For instance, we know that certain portions of our written lore have been heavily tampered with by Christian influences. The sagas are somewhat more historical in nature, while the Eddas are more allegorical, meant to teach humans wisdom. The Havamal is the closest we have to a set of moral guidelines similar to the Christian commandments.
- Some heathens do and some don’t. We don’t consider them to be necessary and most prefer to worship the gods in nature, which is arguably their greatest temple. Even ancient places of worship tended to be open air affairs.
- Most heathens consider their deeds and a well-lived life to be sufficient worship and prayer to the gods, as we do so in their honor. There are instances where people have prayed to the gods in a more Christian-like fashion. For instance, there is Sigdrifa’s prayer from the lore:
- Prayer is a relatively private thing for most heathens. For group rituals, we sometimes have an elder or someone well respected in the community to act as gothi or glytha (basically, a leader, but it’s really more like being a custodian) Everyone takes part in equal measure in a ritual in most heathen sects and no one can speak for another person’s heart. In regards to the more general pagan culture, many groups like to elect a high priest or priestess to serve on a semi-permanent or rotating basis. It’s been my experience that most heathens prefer a more egalitarian structure.
- I’m not sure what you’re asking with this question. Every heathen has a role in prayer. I’ve acted as a glytha before for a group ritual, but as previously stated that’s not quite the same thing as leading a prayer in the Christian sense.
- No, because it makes absolutely no difference as far as we’re concerned whether someone is heathen/pagan or not. The idea of proselytism is frankly sort of repulsive to most heathens. The gods are more than capable of calling to people on their own. If people decide to heed the call, we believe they will find us.
- Judeo-Christian “demons” would not be an accurate description of how most most heathens think of malevolent spiritual beings. Most of us don’t define the world in terms of good and evil, but more in terms of what promotes order in the world and what creates chaos, and every being has the capacity for both. Without giving you guys a crash course in seidhr, yes, seidhr-workers believe that it is possible for a variety of things to harm a person spiritually and that it is also possible to drive them away and repair the damage. My particular interests in seidhr tend in a different direction, but I have done that kind of work before. I should note that I would strongly caution anyone against that kind of thing unless they have a very strong sense of self and have been well-prepared by another practitioner.
- Personally, I consider the Norse creation story to be metaphorical. The gods emerged from the unknowable primeval void before there was time. No one created them, they simply are, and they created and ordered the world.
- I am. I’ve been Asatru since the day I was born, and I intend to die still faithful. I think about the stories of people who were forced to relinquish their gods during the conversion period and it always makes me sad. It would absolutely break my heart to think of turning my back on Tyr and all of the gods and the traditions of my ancestors.
- If you choose to think of them that way, that’s fine with me. But I know they are not. I don’t expect anyone who has no personal experience of them to understand.
- I honor them as my eldest ancestors and the gods of my ancestors and those who protect the world from chaos. And, I would personally go as far as to say that I do love them. The relationship between Asatru and their gods is complex, but to me I have known no other gods and I take pride in living a life that I feel would please them.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
So, you’re going with “Jesus was a pretty nice guy who might have been crazy”?
Final answer?
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Randy_Carson
Guest
But that’s just your opinion, right?
My opinion is that there is one God who created all things. Your opinion is that there are lots of gods in charge of smaller portions of creation. Therefore, in my limited way, I choose to worship the God who created all things including snowboarding and archery and sacred groves.
I’m not relying on His claim; I’m merely reasoning that such a god must exist. Everything came from somewhere. So, we don’t really need the Bible at this point, do we? Can we just ask simple questions like, “Where did all this stuff come from?” and “Who made the world?”
Walk this back for me: earlier you mentioned that Ullr is the son of Thor’s wife, Sif. Okay, who were Sif’s parents? And her grandparents? And her great grandparents? Keep going…
How far back in time can you take this? Was there an original set of parents from whom all the gods descended? Or who was the first god and where did he come from?
And if there is not a first god, then who is the greatest in your pantheon?
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ffg
Guest
WOW! I don’t know how you pulled that out of your hat. Similarly to not being able to debate conversion of which I agree, one can’t control how another reads, or if they see the full context.FFG, I don’t think you’re gonna debate him into converting.
He seems to know the basics of the faith. What he does with them is between him and his conscience, and we should probably respect his free will regardless of which decision he makes or doesn’t make.
I like to have fun with logic.
If someone expands their thinking about a subject, that is not a bad thing.
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ffg
Guest
Certainly, it would be up to me to believe you, if you told me you ate dinner.
If your sister / brother told me you ate dinner that would be MORE evidence of the fact being true. Why? Because they experienced (saw) you eating dinner in** their **life.
So the difference here not being noticed…‘second hand’ is not the case.
What makes the life experience of the person ‘second hand’ when that person did the experiencing? There are first hand experiences here.
In the case of Apostles and Jesus, the writers of the NT, lived with Him, knew Him better than any other human. Many of their writings are of their lives, first hand, included are some quotes from their friend, just like your sister telling me about your conversation with her at dinner.
Now of course there are things written that the Apostles were not around for because Jesus’ public life was not until he was 30. So perhaps there were some parent interviews.
Then to strengthen the historical accuracy we look at other factors as you mentioned, like intent. Was it easy to write 2000 years ago? Who wants to write hundreds of pages by hand for a lie without our friend Bic?
That’s some serious dedication.
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Skadi
Guest
The first god was Odins Grandfather, Buri, who is dead. Oh i may have forgotten to mention that the gods are mortal, Odins Grandfather, Father, and one of his sons are dead. Now this dosnt mean they cease to exist but they can be killed and go to Hel just as we can. They are not singular, static entities but a race of beings, one that moves at a vastly slower pace than us.
Where the came from I dont pretend to know, the legend says Buri simply formed on his own in the ice of Nifelheim but of course thats allegory. So, i would say Buri came into existence in some manner, but that he simply came to exists, and was not necessarily created by anything.
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Randy_Carson
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Thank you for sharing this. I never heard any of it before.
I’d like to talk about Buri, for a moment, and I want to pose what seems to be a sticky question. It’s not original with me, and I’m not even going to bother typing it out…I’m going to cut and past from Wikipedia to save a little time. My question begins with an agument stated this way:
*]Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
*]A causal loop cannot exist.
*]A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
*]Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.
According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.
In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was created by Al-Ghazali and then strongly supported by William Lane Craig):
*]Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
*]The Universe began to exist.
*]Therefore, the Universe had a cause.
Skadi, I might stylize the argument even more precisely as follows;
*]Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
*]Buri began to exist.
*]Therefore, Buri had a cause.
My question is this: in light of this argument, what or who caused Buri to come into existence?
A follow up would be: If something caused the first god, Buri, to come into existence, then wouldn’t that necessarily mean that cause was greater than Buri because Buri owed his existence to that Cause?
Again, this is not from the Bible or from any of the legends and history of the Norse or Germanic pagans…we’re just two guys using our reasoning to think along some lines that we may not have considered before.
So, what about it?
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SteveVH
Guest
Have you ever considered that if they are real at all that they may be demonic? I’m also interested in the fact that you believe in hell. Do you believe in heaven as well?
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Skadi
Guest
Ah but here we have four Stories, recorded decades after the events we describe, by men who DIDNT see them temselves.
Mark has traditionally been considered a dictation by Peter but this actualy seems unlikely as the book sometimes appears to be drawing from multiple sources. Also, it appears whoever wrote it had little to no knowledge of the geography of Palestine, with Jesus sometimes taking ridiculous routes to get places.
Mathew is well accepted to no be an eye witness account and appears heavily based on Mark.
Luke is quite possibly the oldest gospel although it that has traditionally been ascribed to Mark. Luke was also written by the same man who wrote Acts. However even if St. Luke did write the book he was not present at any of Jesus’s miracles.
John again was likely not written by John himself, contradicts the other gospels in several places, and just generally has a different feel to it than the other gospels.
So here we have 4 books, all by different, non-eyewitness authors, which at time contradict each other or add events not found in the others, and were likely written atleast in part with the goal of gaining converts. Now throw in the Gospels that got left out of the bible (there’s well over a dozen) and how the heck are we supposed to know which one, if any, is true?
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Skadi
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Ive heard this one before, and no, I dont believe they are demonic.
and my Hel is very different from your Hell. Hell with two L’s is an english word for derived from the old English Hel with one L, which dates back to the Anglo-Saxon pagan period and refers to the a goddess and location in Germanic mythology. Hell with two L’s is used to refer to the Christian afterlife for sinners, Gehenna in Greek.
So when i say Hel with one L, im talking about something totally different than you are, using a word which goes all the way back to Proto-Germanic and was used well before Christ was even born.
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SteveVH
Guest
And what about heaven? What happens to a Pagan when he dies?
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Skadi
Guest
Thank you for sharing this. I never heard any of it before.
I’d like to talk about Buri, for a moment, and I want to pose what seems to be a sticky question. It’s not original with me, and I’m not even going to bother typing it out…I’m going to cut and past from Wikipedia to save a little time. My question begins with an agument stated this way:
*]Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
*]A causal loop cannot exist.
*]A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
*]Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.
According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.
In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was created by Al-Ghazali and then strongly supported by William Lane Craig):
*]Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
*]The Universe began to exist.
*]Therefore, the Universe had a cause.
Skadi, I might stylize the argument even more precisely as follows;
*]Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
*]Buri began to exist.
*]Therefore, Buri had a cause.
My question is this: in light of this argument, what or who caused Buri to come into existence?
A follow up would be: If something caused the first god, Buri, to come into existence, then wouldn’t that necessarily mean that cause was greater than Buri because Buri owed his existence to that Cause?
Again, this is not from the Bible or from any of the legends and history of the Norse or Germanic pagans…we’re just two guys using our reasoning to think along some lines that we may not have considered before.
So, what about it?
Heres where the mysticism gets involved and things get messy. In the physical universe in which we reside, yes, actions must have a cause. However, the Gods are not physical beings, but spiritual ones. I do not know if the laws of physics or logic extend beyond the physical universe.
Further, as a soft-Polytheist there is alwase the “Is All” present. It has alwase existed, and alwase will, a impersonal entity made up of all life and energy. So Buri, being alive, is part of the “Is All”, and the “Is All” may very well have created him, even if it is an impersonal entity. Now thats a soft-polythiest way of thinking about it, im not sure how a hard-polythiest would answer the question.
However, I think whats starting to show is that we have different concepts of what exactly a deity is supposed to be like and do. Buri is certainly different from Yhwh in that he does not create the whole universe, and he does eventually die of old age. He is not an omnipotent entity, nor are any of the other gods. The gods are a living part of existance, just like us. They are not above existence.
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Skadi
Guest
I guess that would depend on what kind of pagan you are. If i die in some sort of battle with something or someone I will hopefully be brought up to Valhalla to feast with the gods join them in preparations for Ragnarok. If I dont gain access to Valhalla another god may well take me to their own hall, such as Ullr to Ydalir. If not that, then to the misty realm of the dead, Hel, which is not a place of torment or punishment, just the next life.
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SteveVH
Guest
So then if your gods are not above existence, which includes nature, then they cannot properly be called supernatural. If they are natural beings why then can’t we see them? Sorry, I’m a little confused. I also apologize if you have already covered this ground in some of the prior threads. I realize I’m coming in a little late in the game.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
Well, we have to disagree here:
The consensus of the early Church was that Matthew, the Apostle, was the author of Matthew, and it was not until the 18th century that Matthean authorship was even questioned. That alone does not discount the novelty, of course, but the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Matthew. As for being based on Mark, this may be true in part, but only in part. If you take a quick glance here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
you will see that Mark was the earliest Gospel and a possible second source, Q, may have also influenced Matthew and Luke. This is only a theory, and there are pros and cons to its likelihood.
Mark was written by John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. He was an associate, therefore, of both the Apostle Paul as well as the Apostle Peter. Stylistic similarities between the Gospel and a sermon preached by Peter suggest heavily that Peter was the source for the material found in this Gospel.
Luke was a travelling companion of Paul, and there is no uncertainty whatsoever that he wrote this Gospel as well as the Book of Acts. Even more interesting perhaps, is the intimate level of detail found in the infancy narratives which suggest that Luke actually got much of his material for this portion of his Gospel directly from Mary.
The author of the Gospel of John discreetly refers to himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved”, and this disciples identity can be gleaned from other passages in the text. The combined weight of textual and traditional evidence suggests that this disciple is the Apostle John.
Yes, if you search the Internet, you will find skeptics and the odd duck scholar who are outside the boundaries of these opinions, but these are the opinions of the majority.
Now, consider that two of the authors (Matthew and John) were eyewitnesses chosen as disciples by Jesus personally, and one (Mark) was working from material provided by a third disciple, Peter. The fourth author (Luke) was probably known to Peter and John and may have even consulted with Jesus’ mother during the course of his research for the book.
Consequently, I think your conclusion above is way, way off. :sad_yes:
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