So Veeky Forums, I know he is not a reliable source, but lately I was watching and reading things that Varg wrote, and I found out he doesn't really believe in his pagan gibberish, and claim that pre-christian europe never believed in any supernatural being. Source: >[1] burzum.org/eng/library/a_bards_tale08.shtml >[2] youtube.com/watch?v=CAetDRkTcxo
This claim is very similar to the conclusion of Veyne in his book "Did Greeks believe in their myths?"
How much truth can it be? Since Myth is not the same as religion, and since Greece is far from being that similar to Scandinavia (although their mythologies has the same source), where pagans in general pretending there are gods?
If so, what was the role of the sorcerer and the icons they made?
someone's piety is wholly their own business and anything short of mind-reading and psychiatric tests (if you worship demons/greek gods...) would not be sufficient to know.
Blake Rivera
They believed that the gods were supernatural forces, that ALSO took anthropomorphic forms.
Easton Davis
but where they praying for their gods, or these gods were only symbols to the forces of nature/aspects of humanity?
are there any other sources supporting Varg into this? Is an intervening God a jewish creation?
Ryan Young
They certainly did and Varg is just trying to cope with the lunacy of being pagan in modern times
Jordan Garcia
>or these gods were only symbols to the forces of nature/aspects of humanity? thats a enlightenment era concept that never had any real proof of. Even egyptian gods who most closely resemble 'embodiement' theory did not actually perform any actions that would be evidence of them performing an anthromorphized mascot role in their society.
Jacob Powell
What did I just say? The gods were both the supernatural force and actual beings with feelings and character flaws.
>are there any other sources supporting Varg into this?
It's a fairly idiotic assertion, so I doubt it.
>Is an intervening God a jewish creation? >Has not read the Iliad or the Odyssey
John Garcia
How'd I fucking know it was Varg before I clicked the links? Guy is not a reputable source, and is just some murderous church burning spaz?
Anyways, read ancient sources. I'm reading The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and he's constantly talking about Logos, and The Gods. He is deeply religious. If he lived a few hundred years later, he'd be Christian, and very little of his text would need to be changed.
The educated elite were likely the least religious and most philisophical, but even they believed in God and Gods. The regular people were likely less sophisticated and took the religions more at face value.
Why is Hellenic or Roman religion any more absurd than Hindu-ism or any other polytheistic religion?
Kevin Turner
It's clear in classial greek primary source material that there were people who did not have literal belief in myths of anthropomorphic deities. Famous people like Plato clearly took issue with the tales told by earlier poets and envisioned the divine as something much different.
Ryan Harris
I understand your point. They wouldn't spend years building pyramids if they didn't believed in the metaphysical power of it.
>>Has not read the Iliad or the Odyssey the Odyssey was no religious book, and I mentioned Veyne already.
That's well reminded actually, I've read the Meditations. However, Marcus Aurelius never gives grace to a specific god, so I don't know if his piety was a role model.
>Why is Hellenic or Roman religion any more absurd than Hindu-ism or any other polytheistic religion? Have you ever read the Baghavad Gita? There is that scene when Krishna reveals its "true form". Apparently Hindus are Pantheistic rather than Polytheistic.
Thomas Ramirez
>Guy is not a reputable source, and is just some murderous church burning spaz? >This is what some autists here on Veeky Forums believe You Catholic cocksuckers are all the same.
Michael Johnson
>However, Marcus Aurelius never gives grace to a specific god, so I don't know if his piety was a role model.
His religion is Stoicism, which has syncretic elements of the Roman religion. The various Gods are real, but they're manifestations of the logos. Thus he can be a stoic and at the same time not be contradiction with the Roman Religion.
As Pontifex Maximus, he would lead ceremonies and sacrifices to the Gods. He didn't disagree with any of this, and at most, would say that there's a deeper meaning behind all of it.
Cameron Reed
Greeks and Romans gleaned religious teachings from the Iliad, and to lesser extent, the Odyssey.
Landon Lee
Probably because he's right and that people (Pagans) weren't as autistic about religion as the rest of the Abrahamic spergs.
That religious fervour was coming from the desert, it's not about "survival" as much as it is about the demands of the religion itself from its followers. So if your religion absolutely demands that you're a cunt who kills in the name of god and slay non-believers, you might see yourself forced to do so. You come off as really ignorant on this subject and lacking any abstract thought. Are you sure you're neurotypical?
Joseph Wright
One thing I absolutely cannot stand is revisionism towards historic religion. Like the people who say, "the bible is just metaphors, no one believes these things happened!" Or the worst one: "ancients just made up gods to explain natural phenomena!"
There are people who literally believe the greeks needed to explain how volcanoes work, so they sat in a circle and thought up some god who has a forge down there, and maybe his dad is the other powerful god they explained lightning with, and maybe he is crippled because it would make a good story.
of COURSE ancient polytheists believed their gods were real, any sort of rationalizing that they were abstract concepts is how larpagans like Varg rationalize their atheism and desire to be stronk viking
Aurelius definitely believed in some kind of oneness or ultimate form of the divine based on his writings, whether that was Jove or something more abstract I don't know
Angel Walker
You're a moron. No offense, but you are.
Much of religion (non-Abrahamic scriptures mostly, and speaking right now strictly of Indo-European mythologies) was born out of explanations for natural phenomenons that grew to become a wide set of oral tales passed down the generations. Thunder had to be explained as Thor hitting the anvil with his hammer, for example. These are probably answers to "What is and why is" questions that kids asked that grew into something bigger.
Hate on Varg all you want because he represents everything you could never do, it won't change the fact that many Norsemen wore both a Mjolnir pendant and a cross signifying they weren't that strong on their beliefs as something set in stone and that Romans collected gods like they collected weapons. They didn't put weight on religion until much, much, much later, when met with invading religions from the East and after those said religions took over.
Why are you so stupid? Is there a reason behind it (like a fierce head banging accident) or is it just genetics?
Owen Young
Paganism, both ancient and modern, is mostly just almost pantheistic nature worship, hard superstition and anthropomorphizing natural phenomena. It's very different from Abrahamic religions where a God is omniscient and omnipotent - in Indo-European paganism there's tales of people cheating or even defeating gods, something that would be impossible in Judaism. That's why Judaism, Islam or Christianity are so slave-like in their nature, you have to completely submit yourself to God.
Bentley Wilson
He's quoted as saying the gods do exist. That quote of him saying that if there are no gods, don't worry, is wrong, because he ends it by saying there are gods and they interfere in human affairs.
Christopher Reyes
History phd fag focused on late antique greco romanpaganism.
The pagan gods were quite real for the ancients, it was not `heritage` or `symbolic worship` gods,and more importantly consequences from pissing over gods were quite real.
Read Trombley's hellenistic religion and Ramsay Macmullens works about roman paganism
Easton Rodriguez
>How'd I fucking know it was Varg before I clicked the links? >burzum.org Yeah, how? It's a mystery.
Joshua Morales
To be fair though, not all ancients believed the gods were literally real and meddled in human affairs. You can see pretty much the same spectrum of belief in antiquity that we see today. There were atheists, there were fanatic believers, and there was everything in between.
Kevin Diaz
>There were atheists show me one ancient atheist who said "there is no god(s)"
Henry Gutierrez
Interesting post.
> it won't change the fact that many Norsemen wore both a Mjolnir pendant and a cross signifying they weren't that strong on their beliefs as something set in stone
Do you have sources on this? I'm not challenging you, I just want to know more about it.
>and that Romans collected gods like they collected weapons. Also true. However, didn't they had a justification for it? Saying that gods were the same and only the names changed?
Fallacy of authority, being phd doesn't make a right. But thanks for the books, I will definately check, seems like worthy to read.
Yeah, but I would like to know what was the "official" position by the. What the pontifex believed, for example.
Jackson Allen
Xenophanes, Euripides, and Heraclitus were all atheists.
Further, in some ancient societies like Athens, atheism was punishable by death. Since they had a law against it, it must have happened at least a little.
Noah Murphy
>Fallacy of authority, being phd doesn't make a right. They were not my opinion per se, but the authors. Fallacy of authority indeed but not mine, but the authors who wrote the books.
And its not fallacy, I would say, to hold opinions people with academic books about paganism over a singer. No offense to Varg but he needs serious evidence to prove his claim.
also another book to check is Battling gods Atheism in Ancient World
gods for most of the ancients were quite real, sometimes I really think modern paganism does not understood anything about their ancestors, but then again paganism also changed through time. The athenians under pericles saw zeus quite differently than a greek under emperor agustus, or a neo platonist in 4-5th century ad.
Of course, but when talking about ancient I mean the majority, not some weird borderline atheist-deist (who were a a minority even in the upper classes they belonged i would say)
Brayden Rodriguez
>but when talking about ancient I mean the majority Oh for sure. On average, people were much more religious in antiquity than they are today in the West. Even American baptists don't come close.
Connor Rodriguez
>Do you have sources on this? I'm not challenging you, I just want to know more about it. I'm sure Google can be more helpful in this right now than I can, seeing as I'm phoneposting and I'm talking about digs we inspected in the first year of college. Around the latter quarter of the 9th century, buried corpses of Norsemen started appearing with both a cross and a hammer, meaning they were accepting of the Christ god. Also, women were a major source for the Abrahamic to enter Scandinavia, seeing as it promised them an afterlife aswell (not only to men in Valhalla), so them being the mothers of culture surviving in the Pagan world (as they educated the kids whilst the men worked, farmed, raided and fought) slowly they instilled these ideas into their children who grew up more familiarised with Christianity.
Plus, the cross and hammer thing was also a convenience when dealing with Franks, Englishmen and so forth (later on also with Slavs who converted to Christianity), for they would be distrustful if trade with men who were declared Pagans or Infidels. All this to say they didn't put that much weight in belief like we think they did, to them it was an adaptable, growing, mutable and cultural thing more than a strictly religious thing with a very defined set of rules.
>Saying that gods were the same and only the names changed? Part of the justification was that, but yes. They were correct too, all Indo-European gods are more or less the same with different names suggesting a great level of communication amongst the different peoples of Europe in the past. They (Romans) applied the same principle not only to religion but also weaponry (the Gladius is Spaniard), armour, Philosophy (the Classics greatly influenced Roman Philosophy), food (recipes, ingredients from all over), etc. They saw the useful in other cultures and implemented it within Rome's domain. It was a smart form fo multiculturalism without actually having to import millions of shitskins.
Nathan Ward
Why are you putting words in my mouth? The only point I actually said which you contest is the origin of the gods. Thor didnt just appear out of nowhere. He evolved along a lineage of sky warrior gods, and the eddas even place his origin as being around thrace. Odin is speculated to have been a germanic king who became mythicized. All this is happening as people are evolving from animistic beliefs to larger gods and pantheons.
I said nothing about organized religion at all, so tell me, why are you so stupid? Is there a reason behind it (like a fierce head banging accident) or is it just genetics?
Jackson Jones
> it won't change the fact that many Norsemen wore both a Mjolnir pendant and a cross signifying they weren't that strong on their beliefs as something set in stone Have you never heard of syncretism?
>They didn't put weight on religion until much, much, much later, when met with invading religions from the East and after those said religions took over.
Pic fucking related.
Tyler Gomez
>in Indo-European paganism there's tales of people cheating or even defeating gods, something that would be impossible in Judaism. Have you even read the old testament?
Bentley Price
Religious belief in the ancient world was much like it is today, in that it had general trends across rural vs urban, rich vs poor, and regional location. Just like today the poor and rural could be very literal and sincere in their belief while urban dwellers and the wealthy might often do what they do today, with non-committal beliefs and short-term adoptions of "Fad" religions. And just like today you had major exceptions to these trends in all populations. Furthermore there were those who gave no real credence to religious belief but kept it to themselves in order to not be socially ostracized or worse, just like many do in less tolerant countries today. Finally you see similarities between then and now with how religious belief operates in times of trouble. When times were/are bad people become more sincere, literal, and intolerant. When times are good and peaceful people are/were more relaxed, metaphorical, and accepting of other beliefs and rituals.
Brayden Ward
>Fallacy of authority, being phd doesn't make a right. That wasn't what he said or even implied, nice strawman. Besides, Argument from Authority is only a fallacy if the person in question is not an authority.
Nathaniel Price
There were plenty of ancient Greek atheists like Pyrho and Epicurus.
Plato and Aristotle the most influential philosophers of all time, were monotheists that thought of God as single principle out of which all else emenates rather than as an agent. There is also neo-platonism which is entirely philosophical and re-inteprets all religion according to spiritual principles.
The polytheist folk religion did exist but in a very different form. Hegels notion of "religion of art" is particularly usefull here because he shows where the focus was for the ancient greeks. Not on worship, but in art.
I would not listen to any pseud on youtube for historical information.
Owen Baker
Bath is just trying to justify his retarded atheist pagan LARPing.
They believed in gods in various degrees. Usually atheism occurs in more developed states, so his Viking ancestors more likely believed in literal gods
Isaac Cruz
>Plato and Aristotle >monotheists No they weren't. They weren't by a long fucking stretch. Both of them believed Zeus was going to fuck them up if they acted out (Or at least acted as if they did, that part is irrelevant) and both of them accepted a plurality of gods. The fact that they both posit some barely sentient other-thing that was above Zeus doesn't make them monotheists.
Xavier Phillips
It's the weight you give these myths, legends and oral tales in Pagan's peoples lives that which bothers me and makes me consider that you're a complete moron. It was more a cultural thing than a religious thing, Paganism in Europe, as compared to Abrahamic religions in Europe.
The similarities between all Indo-European gods who have a different name and (maybe) role in different pantheons shows a common origin, that which may be a simple attempt to explain natural phenomenons and such. It doesn't mean people were afflicted by die-hard devotion to these explanations like the Abrahamic religions did.
>Have you never heard of syncretism? So?
>Rest Nice """arguments""".
Jeremiah Miller
It does if Zeus is just an extension of the Good, and Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is just a Godhead
Andrew Wright
>So? Syncretism is the answer to why ancient germanics could simultaneously believe in their old pantheons and Jesus. It's also pretty crucial to properly understand the evolution and spreasing of religion.
>Nice """arguments""". I didn't make a single argument in my post mate.
Nicholas Cruz
Then you're playing semantics and we might as well just all become monists because everything is just an extension of "the universe". If it acts like a god in a polytheistic pantheon and talks like a god in a polytheistic pantheon then it is a god in a polytheistic pantheon.
>It doesn't mean people were afflicted by die-hard devotion to these explanations like the Abrahamic religions did. Your problem is you're unable to look beyond your own worldview. The ancient Greeks and Romans sacrificed cattle by the hundreds to the gods, and you seriously mean to tell me that they didn't believe they were real? That the whole thing was just some giant tip of the ol' laurel wreath? Seriously?
Ethan Powell
>and that people (Pagans) weren't as autistic about religion as the rest of the Abrahamic spergs. >That religious fervour was coming from the desert, it's not about "survival" Ayy lmao. Romans were really into the rituals and superstitions of their faith, in fact they supercharged the amount the amount they turned to sacrifice(including human ones) when shit really hit the fan, from the wars with Carthage, to the 3rd century collapse. That's half the reason they hated christians. Their anti-sacrificial autism was threatening the empire and the world itself.
>It's very different from Abrahamic religions where a God is omniscient and omnipotent - in Indo-European paganism there's tales of people cheating or even defeating gods, something that would be impossible in Judaism. That's why Judaism, Islam or Christianity are so slave-like in their nature Who let Nietzsche and his greek masturbation out? If there's one thing that's super clear from greek myths, it's that unless you are some super special snowflake that has Fate itself on his side, DONT.FUCK.WITH.THE.GODS, or you will subjected to some fate worse than death for trying to be a smartass towards them.
Chase Thompson
I'm convinced at this point you are a christian who thinks his religion is the only true one, and isn't actually interested in a historical discussion
Noah Gray
yeah, I was wondering about it as well. if they didn't believed their gods, why they practiced rituals like the hecatomb? To feed themselves? It seems suspicious.
Kevin Phillips
Hey what was your education and career path? I want to be you.
Joshua Cook
Instead of answers, I only got more doubts in the thread. Can't we reach a conclusion based on quoting texts?
Jordan Perez
It was a mixed bag like today. The educated were divided among people who really did believe, those who didn't really believe but still went along with the prevalent culture, those who believed but looked for new spiritual paradigms, and those who were skeptical and didn't really buy in.
The less educated were probably also divided up similarly, but they didn't tend to leave written accounts and also like the uneducated believers could be pretty violent towards atheists and other religions.
Jose Peterson
It's irrelevant to mention Syncretism when I gave an apt description of it whilst also (blatantly so) alluding to the fact that Pagans in Europe just didn't care that much about religion and didn't hold beliefs in a higher power like Abrahamic dorks did.
Why don't you suck my dick?
Early Romans (right after the Monarchy and up until the first Punic War) saw omens in bird shit. They had "home gods" they prayed to until very late on, but still. From all Yuro Pagans they might've been the worst of the bunch in terms of deeply caring about it (along, much later on, with the Saxons) but they still weren't ruled by religion.
What on Earth are you talking about? I despise Abrahamic religions. Christianity might be the one I despise the least from all three but make no mistake, I still despise it.
What kind of cognitive impairment do you suffer from to jump to such retarded conclusions?
Thomas Williams
very mature, user.
Sebastian Gonzalez
When dealing with Varg you really should specifically mention germanic/nordic religions because thats what he LARPs as.
Bentley White
>I found out he doesn't really believe in his pagan gibberish, and claim that pre-christian europe never believed in any supernatural being.
>watching and reading things that Varg wrote idiot
Lucas Lewis
there was no difference between what you're referring to and what you would imagine/consider to be a more literal belief in gods. In other words, its both. They believed the gods were both forces and literal beings. They were not human so they were more related to abstract forces then human beings.
Nathan Gonzalez
>All this to say they didn't put that much weight in belief like we think they did, to them it was an adaptable, growing, mutable and cultural thing more than a strictly religious thing with a very defined set of rules.
it only shows that their beliefs were different not that they didnt put as much weight in them. They could comfortably worship jesus and God along with their old gods. Similar to what native americans believe, or new age beliefs.
Michael Russell
>atheists being this buttflustered
Connor Brooks
I don't follow. The only thing that matters to someone's atheism is what is true or not, why would they have any stake in what people believed a thousand years ago?
Nathaniel Jackson
in short these atheists in particular feel the need to project their own worldview onto that of of their ancestors >muh heritage
Jayden Brown
I don't really think that's what's going on here. Why the fuck would anybody think it would strengthen their own position to have some dirty illiterate cousin-fucker from pre-Christian Europe agree with them?
Nolan Butler
I can't think of a more disgraceful thing one can do to their ancestors than downplay all of their religion and myths into some modernist naturalistic garbage.
To think these are the same people who say >revolt against the modern world xddd
Disgusting desu.
Joseph Cooper
Education: in a college ranked within top 50 career path: none, unless you land on ivy or equivalent (berkeley, mit etc) you have no job security at all and given the trends you will probably be an adjunct, making less than 25k with no health insurance while teaching 5-6 classes in 2-3 different schools.
Thankfully Im the sole inheritor of upper middle class parents, therefore unless a disaster strikes I can pretty much live off as a neet.
