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samiam1611
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What does praeputiae mean?
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Lokabrenna
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I wouldn’t say I created my own religion, but I think it makes perfect sense for someone who is dissatisfied with the religion they were raised in to go looking for something that does mesh with their beliefs. Some people find Buddhism or Islam, as with many others, Wicca was the first Pagan tradition I encountered, but it it just wasn’t the right “fit” for me.
I guess I just wasn’t ready to give up on religion, then!
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Lokabrenna
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Actually, the rhinegold is purely a product of Wagner’s imagination based on elements of Germanic mythology. The Rhine is a real river, though.
As for the flood, many cultures had flood myths. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that somewhere in our history there was a flood that might have seemed “universal” to our ancestors at one time, but the specifics of Noah’s flood? As literal history? Makes no sense to me.
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Lokabrenna
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Loki is an odd one, that’s for sure. There’s even a debate as to whether he is actually a god or just a giant who hangs around with the gods. Some say he is, some say he isn’t, some won’t even mention his name during ritual. He also generally isn’t worshiped apart from certain fringe groups.
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Warrenton
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This is odd to me still. As I said, I can see not believing that fornication is sinful because it is entertaining, or that killing one’s enemies makes better sense than loving them. That’s all quite reasonable.
Not believing in the ark, but believing in a horse with more than four legS, not believing in Goliath, but believing in frost giants, not believing in the witch of Endor, but believing in witches generally, not believing in the Tree of the Knowledge but believing in Yydrasil? This is confusing.
One would at least hope that being a pagan would confer pagan common sense, which pagans always had.
Perhaps we are just not finding the correct metaphor. Your explanation of paganism seems -how can I put it? - Christian, or at least post Christian, but with more Wagner. How is being pagan different than liking pagan things?
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Publisher
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Perhaps you are confusing “mythic truth” with “mythic history”.
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Warrenton
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It is the plural for the latin word for a portion of the thing that modern day pagans don’t want to be.
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Warrenton
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Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Pagans have fantastic stories. Christians have fantastic stories. I struggle with the idea that someone does not believe in the virgin birth would abandon Christianity in order to believe in Ledo and the swan.Perhaps you are confusing “mythic truth” with “mythic history”.
As to mythic truth, you’ll need to help me with that. What truth is conveyed by the the story about the Valkyries, other than that the brave should die gloriously? That fate trumps? That there is enmity between man and man?
These are all truths, but they are not religious truths. We know them by virtue of being mortals. Religion is what the god whispered in the night. It can be as recondite as placing a penny on a dead woman’s eye, or as revolutionary as “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
I cannot hear what the god said in these posts.
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Lokabrenna
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Ian Corrigan actually said it best in another thread on CAF (I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting him):
The difference is that I don’t believe that my fantastical stories are historically true. I’m sure someone would have noticed a gigantic ash (or yew, the type of tree is a subject of debate) tree smack dab in the centre of the world if that were the case.
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Ahimsa
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Oh, but there is a tree in the center of the world. The same tree is spoken of in Genesis, and in the Bhagavad Gita.
This tree is very real, but it’s not made of wood and leaves.
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Ahimsa
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Speaking of Iceland and “mythology”:
According to a recent study on superstition in Iceland supervised by Terry Gunnell, associate folklore professor at the University of Iceland, a significant portion of participants would not rule out the existence of elves and ghosts.
The results of the study were similar to those of a study conducted in 1974 by Professor Erlendur Haraldsson, Fréttabladid reports.
“Icelanders seem much more open to phenomena like dreaming the future, forebodings, ghosts and elves than other nations,” Gunnell said.
Only 13 percent of participants in the study said it is impossible that elves exist, 19 percent found it unlikely, 37 percent said elves possibly exist, 17 percent found their existence likely and eight percent definite. Five percent did not have an opinion on the existence of elves.
According to a recent study on superstition in Iceland supervised by Terry Gunnell, associate folklore professor at the University of Iceland, a significant portion of participants would not rule out the existence of elves and ghosts.
The results of the study were similar to those of a study conducted in 1974 by Professor Erlendur Haraldsson, Fréttabladid reports.
“Icelanders seem much more open to phenomena like dreaming the future, forebodings, ghosts and elves than other nations,” Gunnell said.
Only 13 percent of participants in the study said it is impossible that elves exist, 19 percent found it unlikely, 37 percent said elves possibly exist, 17 percent found their existence likely and eight percent definite. Five percent did not have an opinion on the existence of elves.
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Lokabrenna
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I’ve heard of something like this in Ireland as well, where a road will be built around a mound that is believed to be the home of fairies (and you do not want to make fairies angry). It took longer for Christianity to “stick” in some of these places, so I think the old customs and beliefs were able to survive in a more “intact” way.
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Warrenton
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I disagree with Ian, much more than I disagree with you, because he is not even a pagan. That kind of dessicated detachment is far closer to epicureanism than paganism, and I might add, more dated.
I have no reason to doubt that Adam and Even existed. That is common sense, because everything has a beginning. If I had been the first man, I am sure I would have told my children about the fact, just I never would have let my wife forget that she got us kicked out of Eden.
I have no reason to doubt that the magi of Egypt could turn wands to snakes. Their pyramids are still there to see. What greater wonder does one need?
Similarly, I have no doubt that the sacred groves were, or in some cases remain, sacred because some spirit told some person that they were or because some great miracle happened there. A man whose very existence depends on chasing down the stag through the forest primeval or a woman whose freedom and the survival of her children depend on not ever being spied alone, are hardly the sort that were apt to skip along the trail, stop and declare “Let’s build a shrine go dancing” for no good reason.
Their religion did come from a dream, it came from the wald, like everything else about their lives. Like the wald, it was mysterious and harsh. But durable. Dreams are none of that.
Our discussion gets stranger with each post. Here I am, a Catholic, trying to convince pagans that their gods have substance!
Mirabile dictu!
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Warrenton
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What have elves or fairies to do with being Christian?
Not all Christians are Christian Scientists.
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AnAtheist
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Well, as someone who has never really believed all the Christian stories and left Christianity for a variety of reason and very much “likes all the pagan stuff” I can tell you this:
In a pagan religion you are not obliged to believe in the way a monotheist must believe - you have to perform the rituals and to honour whatever or whoever your religion honours.
I have read an interpretation that the different Valkyries represent different ways of dying (in battle, but not necessarily).
You should not regard the Eddas as a Holy Book of Nordic/Germanic pagans, the Eddas are just a small (though the best known) part of a more or less contineous development. From the early beginning to the so called “Pfahlgötzen” (sorry, I don’t know the English term, and the dictionaries I know neither, nor do I have an English source to learn more) to what Tacitus described to what is written in the Eddas to what is done today.
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Lokabrenna
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This. I disagree with my fellow Vanatruar all the time.
They also serve drink to the warriors in Valhalla, which in itself is symbolic. It’s a common motif in the lore: serving mead to a group binds that group together, reminds them that they all have a common purpose. It’s also found in “Beowulf” when the queen offers a drink to every man in the hall.
We all know the Romans are incredibly reliable sources regarding religions that aren’t their own! /sarcasm
This is actually a problem with some groups in that they seem to have replaced one Holy Book with another, and I can’t even begin to go into what’s wrong with that line of thinking.
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Warrenton
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Contarini
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Actually some conservative Christians have been saying this for a long time. The fundamentalist writer Dave Hunt (deservedly unpopular around here for his anti-Catholic garbage, but that doesn’t mean he’s invariably wrong about everything
) criticized certain forms of Pentecostalism back in the 80s for speaking of prayer as if it were a way of directly exercising spiritual power over other people or things.Yes, and the problem with certain forms of Pentecostal prayer is that they speak as if they were channeling their intent into the universe, and as if God were just there to enable them to do so.
As a Christian, I don’t worry about this too much, because I’m confident that God doesn’t in fact enable this kind of prayer. And while I think maleficent magic may exist, I think that on the whole the attitude of the misnamed “Dark Ages” (that God is omnipotent and thus witchcraft should not be feared) was a lot healthier than that prevalent during the equally misnamed “Renaissance” and often mistakenly ascribed to the Middle Ages as a whole. So I worry more about the souls of the people who engage in this kind of “prayer” than I do about their potential victims.
Edwin
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AnAtheist
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The “Germania” was meant to criticise loose morals of his fellow Romans, so Tacitus told the common tale of the noble savage. Tacitus never went to Germania and some of his “observations” are plainly wrong, like that the Germans do not make images of their gods “shaped after the human form”. Archaeology tells otherwise.
Though it is a very good read. His rhetoric skills are phenomenal.
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Warrenton
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Was the “noble savage” a common theme then? Often, barbarians were critisised by Roman writers.
The book was written during a time when German tribes were at war with Imperial forces, and people wanted to know about these people. I agree that there is a moral aspect to Tacitus’ writing.
We must be careful in disregarding his accounts based on archeology. Much may have been lost. Tacitus never went to Germany, but he certainly knew people who had been there, and probably knew Germans as well. We cannot be sure how much of his book was based on other writings, discussions with informed Romans, or Gauls or Germans with first hand knowledge. He was writing at about the time the first Romans sailed to the area that is now the port of Bremen.
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