What you guys believe.

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What you guys believe. Asatruar 08/18/15 (Tue) 20:55:08 No.7452

Hey guys, I'm a Christian, not a pagan, but I am interested and have a question. Do you guys believe, 100%, that the gods are real and all of the other pagan stuff is real? Like, as a Christian, I really do believe the Bible is true and God is real. I am wondering if you guys 100% believe in the gods, or if you guys participate in the rituals as a political statement. Also, if you do 100% believe the gods are real, what evidence is there for their existence? Btw, I mean no disrespect, and if some of the stuff I said was wrong it is because I am not educated on paganism.

Pic unrelated

Asatruar 08/18/15 (Tue) 21:05:47 No.7456

They are 100% real. But they are beyond our comprehension so they appear to us as archetypes of virtues and creative forces.

What they are in themselves is a mystery but they appear anthropomorphic to us so we might begin to understand them and use their example to better our lives.

Does that help?

Asatruar 08/18/15 (Tue) 21:07:42 No.7457

>>7452

Paganism does not contain "thought crime" behavior shaming like Kiketianity. Atheistic philosophizing of archetypes to total belief are all acceptable. There are no heresies there is only treason to the blood which is unacceptable.

Asatruar 08/18/15 (Tue) 21:09:33 No.7458

Their existence can be inferred logically and from experience.

Everything has causes (no phenomena has just a single cause) therefore the Universe has causes. Those causes are the Gods.

Our tradition understands them in a certain way, etc.

Asatruar 08/18/15 (Tue) 23:04:13 No.7470

It's in the fucking stickied FAQ.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 00:44:22 No.7476

>>7457

What is treason to the blood?

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 00:54:10 No.7477

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>>7458

Aquinas also used logic in the next passage to explain why that same proof shows there is only one God. I'm not starting a debate, but you can't hijack Aquinas' argument and claim it works for paganism too. Essentially the reasoning is that if there were two gods aka "uncaused causes" there would have to be some sort of feature which distinguishes the two from each other. For the two of them to be different in any way would mean that one of them would be either imperfect (since there is only one state of perfection) or one would have the potential to become like the other, thus meaning one is not truly God because it would need something to act upon it. Just remembered I have an infographic. Look at it.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 01:19:19 No.7478

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>>7477

Perfection might imply distinction. Like the word infinity it is beyond our grasp. Its not the job of fallible beings to define and limit Perfection using our subjective criteria.

All we know is that its never the case that phenomena have one and only one cause. Its always multiple. If we want to apply extrapolate "causality" and apply it to the universe we have to be consistent and ask what are the causes (multiple) not cause (singular) behind it.

Those causes will be as Gods to us, perfect or imperfect. It might not be as hard to create a universe as we think it is anyway. I'm not very impressed by this one, tbh.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 01:56:17 No.7480

>>7458

>Those causes are the Gods.

>Our tradition understands them in a certain way, etc.

I am not sure what tradition you are coming from, but the Germanic creation does not begin with the gods, who came later. It begins with the fires of Muspellheim flowing out into the Yawning Gap, where they meet the ice of Niflheim and form the giant Ymir.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 02:53:20 No.7483

>>7478

The kind of "God" Aquinas tried to prove was a perfect one who is the unmoved mover of our universe. It is logically impossible that there be multiple of those however if the pagan gods are not considered to be unmoved movers, and rather imperfect beings which are affected causally by other being(s) then Aquinas' argument is not relevant and I don't think I can logically disprove their existence.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 12:43:15 No.7500

What evidence is there that Yahweh the Jewish god exists (the Jewish ethno-god you worship)?

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 14:34:27 No.7504

Christianity took things too literally from the start, OP. Look into the pagan origins of Christian imagery and you'll find the answer to your question. For starters, look into the Eleusinian Mysteries to understand what "being saved" means, and read into the Dyonisian one to see that a "sacrificial savior" is not supposed to be a figure that has a singular place in time as portrayed by Jesus.

All forms of religious expression try to give form to the numinous, and it _was_ understood that these expressions where imperfect, plastic and conditioned to each people's genetic dispositions. Then came along a bunch of chucklefucks who proclaimed their version not just true for everyone, but also insisted that the uninitiated masses take part in the imagery and understand it as actually true in an almost material sense. Everything wrong with Christianity comes from these mistakes. What you experience as belief is a warped version of pagan spirituality. There is a truth that is total and immutable, but it cannot be pinned down like Christianity tried to do.

As for what pagans (ought to, if they're serious) believe: pagan religion is basically Plato with bells and whistles. We mix the serious with the fun and the spooky, and part of the spiritual sorting process is to see who can distinguish one from the other.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 14:39:40 No.7505

>>7477

>I'm not starting a debate, but you can't hijack Aquinas' argument and claim it works for paganism too.

The thing is, Aristotelian logic was pagan. The Church fathers' arguments were lifted from Hellenic platonism and Hermeticism, which means that they took arguments for the existence of Plato's God and used them as justification for Yahweh being Plato's God. Do you see the superfluousness of that extra step? Then you're already pagan.

Asatruar 08/19/15 (Wed) 14:43:37 No.7506

>>7505

I'll just add to this that the Aristotelian God is by definition unconcerned with the world. It has no potentiality left to spawn a Son or a Holy Ghost.

Asatruar 08/20/15 (Thu) 09:03:56 No.7541

>>7477

So, Ginnungagap?

Asatruar 08/24/15 (Mon) 18:27:12 No.7596

>>7452

A lot of us don't think they're necessarily real. I don't know, and I don't care. To me, it doesn't matter.

It's about the outlook on life. I live each day thinking, "Would the things I'm doing today make fucking Odin proud of me?" and that makes me a better person.

Our gods aren't like yours, they don't need you to kiss ass to them to be happy with you. If I die and it turns out they are all there to choose my fate, I won't be afraid. They judge you based on your actions, not your internal beliefs. If they're not, I will have no regrets. I lived a good life anyway, their morals and outlook are good ones and I'm proud to live that way.

Any just deity must judge based on a person's actions. Any god that would reject you because you didn't believe in them exclusively, I don't want anything to fucking do with anyway.