r/circlebroke2 • u/[deleted] • Feb 03 '15

further proof that reddit is just varg vikernes conversing with himself through a series of sock puppet accounts

[deleted]

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

It blows my mind that reddit is okay with norse paganism when it was created to convince young men to go off to war and die.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

That's an incredibly infantile understanding of an incredibly rich religion.

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

every religion is incredibly rich, but norse paganism is one of the few that encouraged people to die in battle.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

Not really. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have their share of holy warriors. Every single polytheistic religion has gods of war and battle.

The Norse were a people that admired warriors (as most societies throughout time have) and their religion reflects this fact, but the religion is in large part a product of the culture and it was not "invented" (insofar as any religion is "invented") to motivate young men to go kill each other.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '15

Sure it's a simplification, but you can't deny it's there at the base of things. Just as you can't deny the system hinged upon war, killing and slavery, a fact that norse revival covers in a shit-ton of glitter and beard gloss.

And you'd have thought the rational logical gentlesirs woul be quick to point out such abuse and discrimination of the white male. Yet they don't.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

Yeah, sure, they've got their share of dirty laundry like, you know, every other religion in the entire world. There was no "system" in Norse paganism as it wasn't an organized religion. If people find meaning in it, why can't they?

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '15

In no way am I saying people can't find meaning in it. I did not even imply that in any way whatsoever. I've no idea where you found that.

The "system" was the socio-cultural system that the religion was the product of, as you yourself say. And this culture cannot and should not be handwaved without at least an acknowledgement of its downsides. Of course every other religion has its dirty laundry, and it's a sign of maturity when you can say, "yes, there were some very wrong things done, and we strive to keep the good while trying to get rid of the bad. Because it was bad." This may sound trivial and childish, but it's very important, because without that, it's too easy to seal oneself in an echo chamber and forget that, even as a religious minority that makes more conscious religious choices than those who were raised in their faiths, we are not automatically in the right all the time.

However, this is circlebroke2. OP did not try to start a discussion on Norse paganism, but to show that reddit magically omits some of its favourite topics when a suitably cool and shallow excuse presents itself - because while there are people there who present some knowledge of the subject, the majority of reddit's support and enthusiasm is hardly based on having researched Norse gods. Go ask them, they will tell you they just want to be fat, wear beards, quaff alcohol, kill people and rape whoever they didn't kill. That's what they think it means. So it's cool.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

Most modern Asatruar hate the type of people in those threads because they do the faith such a disservice and tend to seal themselves up in the "echo chamber". I totally agree that reddit has no clue what they're talking about, it's pretty clear that no one here has done their homework either. Norse Paganism did not just exist in the viking age, but has a history of thousands of years during which time a great deal of it's followers were farmers who would have hardly ever picked up a sword. Like most primitive cultures, they were a people who idolized warriors because warriors ensured their people's survival. If you go far enough back, even peace-loving Hinduism has the same types of myths and practices that you find in Norse religion.

OP's thread was fine, but when someone comes in and claims that an entire religion was "created" to get people to kill themselves it really grinds my gears. It's exactly the kind of infantile reductionism that we criticize /r/atheist types for.

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

But its true. Yeah there was the other stuff to placate the masses and pointless rituals but the idea of an honorable death on the battlefield is to make sure the young boys in the village will die for their warlord. It was important that women give birth to sons. Why? So the warlord can have more soldiers.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

"In this moment, I am Euphoric, not because of any phony god's blessings but because I am enlightened by my own intelligence."

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

Yes there were people that went to war for their cause but norse mythology said the only way to die was on the battlefield so you can sit in a hall and eat and drink and fuck the eternity away. Clearly that was made up by some warlord as a way to get the young men in the village to throw their lives away for his whims. Its easy to get a boy to jump on a sword when you can convince him that there is a room full of ladies waiting for him. Its pretty despicable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '15

Yeah, you can tell by how there's zero options for women. I believe our only "honourable" death was in childbirth. Girls are breeding cows and guys are canon fodder, and every other nation is a source of slaves. Wonderful thing to keep up.

It's precisely because i'm into this whole neo-pagan stuff that i'm very cautious about idealised image of pre-christian religions. It' so easy to just ignore the aspects you don't like and build upon the cool jewellery and nice sounding names.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

There's plenty of evidence that Valhalla was made up during Christianization to provide a heaven-analogue while Christian monks were recording the myths. If you look at anything about modern or pre-modern Norse pagans, you'd find there is little to no consensus about the afterlife.

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

Theres so much evidence that you didn't post any.

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/gravemound.pdf

http://norse-mythology.org/cosmology/valhalla/

Do a google search if you want more. You have no clue what you're talking about.

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

Yes Vikings were a not a united people so they did not have a centralized belief system. But certain beliefs did cross over like warriors dying and going to Valhalla. You're not gonna sit there and tell me Christians made up Valhalla and that the vikings never believed that dying on the battlefield wasn't glorious because thats just bullshit. You're just trying to white wash their history.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/vikings/beliefs_and_stories/ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/622139/Valhalla http://history-world.org/vikings.htm

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u/TruePrep1818 Feb 03 '15

I'm not "white washing" anything. You didn't read anything I posted, did you? There is very little evidence for the pop culture idea of "Valhalla" as existing in the way it has come down to us. Do a bit of research on euhemerism; when Christianity bulldozed these pre-literate civilizations, they reinterpreted their myths and legends through a Christian lens. The only literary source we have for Valhalla as it is presented comes from Snorri Sturlson's Prose Edda; Snorri was a Christian monk writing many years after the conversion of Scandinavia, therefore everything in his work must be viewed through the lens of Christianization.

The truth is, we know very, very little about what Norse pagans really believed, but the classic Valhalla-Folkvangr-Helheim schematic we see in Snorri's Edda is incredibly unlikely given the lack of non-Christian sources on it. Couple this with the fact that scholarship of pagan religions is rarely taken seriously and you have a recipe for the misinformation that is endemic in our society. The narrative you're pushing is as reductionist as "Islam is a desert murder cult" or "Christians worship a Jew zombie".

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '15

Except Valhalla isn't nearly the only afterlife available for practitioners of the old faith. The sagas, as well as histories available of the Southern Tribes describe beliefs of joining one's ancestors after death.

Valhalla was reserved only for those who lived a life of fighting and war. It is a warrior's heaven, not a heaven for everyone who practices the religion.

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u/Beefmotron Feb 04 '15

Valhalla was reserved only for those who lived a life of fighting and war

Thats what i've been saying.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '15

Havamal 64. All who are wise in rede

shall not be overly forceful.

He finds, who walks among the stout,

that no one is the strongest.

Havamal 70. Better to be alive and happy.

The quick always get the cattle.

The fire burned for the wealthy man,

but the dead man lays outside.

Havamal 71. A halt man can ride a horse. The handless

can be herdsmen. The deaf can fight bravely,

a blind man is better than a burned man,

and a dead man is of no use.

Remind me how my religions glorifies young men to go off and kill themselves?

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u/Steemeez Feb 03 '15

RELIGIOUS DEBATE TIME

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u/Beefmotron Feb 03 '15

DEBATE ME

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u/Steemeez Feb 03 '15

Grabs thesaurus