I was raised christian but I lost that faith because I really couldn't convince myself that it was true when I started taking it seriously and started reading the Bible for myself. I still value Christianity as a big part of our western culture and civilization. However, I also see a lot of pagan patterns in western thought, though these thinkers would not themselves admit it. I'm also attracted to neo-paganism because I think it is a truly European religion and way of thinking and I value that.
However, for mostly the same reasons that I could not be a christian, I could not be a neo-pagan. Just like I have a hard time believing the old testament is true and Jesus really existed and did what the gospel says he did, I have a hard time believing the poetic edda and the actual existence of Odin. And I think that's not weird, because it seems to me that the poetic edda, or the stories of paganism in general, are not to be taken literally.
I do however read that neo-pagans really believe in gods like Odin and such. How do you people bring yourself to believe that? How much of a neo-pagan 'movement' is there outside of the larping that neo-pagans seem so fond of?
I'm trying to find something in paganism that is worthwhile, but I can't seem to find it. I'd love to hear from people who think they have found something there. Especially how literal and serious they take it, how much is it just about ritual for you? Is there anything about it that is truly appealing on an intellectual level?
It does bother me that pagans denounce Christianity because of their belief in an "invisible bearded sky god" but also claim to believe in Odin, a similarly "invisible bearded sky god."
Varg in particular.
I see how they want to adopt the traditions of their supposed ancestors, including their faith, but religion was created out of a need to explain the natural world.
Mason Evans
>pretending to worship marvel superheroes
Sebastian Young
Then be a fucking fedora if you dontbwant to worship the European Gods which are representation of reality.
Jeremiah Ward
I've heard, though I wouldn't know how much of it is true, that literalism is quite a recent thing. The ancient Greeks probably didn't believe that if they climbed mount Olympus they would actually find Zeus sitting there.
I wonder if religions, and paganism in particular, can't exist just as a extension of culture in the form of mythology, sayings, and in some sense the phenotype of our way of thinking and collective unconscious.
Julian Morales
> the European Gods which are representation of reality In what way do they represent reality though? Just as symbols it seems to me. How does it make sense to speak of Freyja actually doing anything other than as purely metaphorical. Saying that Odin sees all makes about as much sense as saying that one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Ryan Jenkins
So you believe these gods are real? Can you tell me why? I'm honestly curious, because what about people in Mongolia, Persia, India, or Japan, or Pre-Columbus America that believed in their own pantheon of gods based in *their* reality?
Supposedly the Vikings did see Irminsul, before it was destroyed, as Yggdrasil.
Blake Howard
I don't know a lot about that, I thought an Irminsul was a kind of shrine of which there would've probably been many? In any case, I doubt anyone actually thought that they could for example use (an) Irminsul to actually travel to another world, even though Yggdrasil is said to connect them all. Just like the Greeks believed that a number of gods were on mount Olympus but wouldn't expect to find them were they to actually climb it.
Colton Collins
Oh. My mistake. I thought it was the remains of a tree Charlemagne destroyed in what is now Germany. It was in Deutsche, though, so I guess I misread it.
Ryder Thompson
Don't take my word for it, I heard that story as well, I don't really know if it was a shrine or a kind of shrine, and looking at Wikipedia I think nobody really knows.
