Ask a pagan

[Eran of Arcadia]

Hence the "much". But if you are going to use archaic or unusual definitions of words and then justify it on the grounds of common usage - and by common, you mean "I just used it" - well, two can parzle that schnafka.

Anyways, we are getting off track.

 

[gangleri2001]

Today I've just realized that this thread was reopened

I understand most of those pagan verses in the OP.

Do you want to feel special?

No, I don't. Lots of faroese people understand faroese.

How old were you when you started with this? How old are you now?

(That probably sounds a little more standoffish than I mean to. Just wonderin'.)

I was 15 (Yeah, I'm the typical teenager converse, but, as I've said before, it wasn't because I wanted to rebel against my parents). Now I'm 22.

You mentioned that there is no unity of belief; nonetheless, I would assume that there are some basics that most people have in common. What I am wondering is what is the view of a) your sect in general and b) you in particular regarding the afterlife, or whatever form it does or doesn't take?

The afterlife is something pretty unified in our religion since we got quite reliable ancient sources. We belive that there are two afterlifes: that for those who died fighting and that who just died.

Die fighting can be understood literally or in a more abstract and spiritual meaning (that's to say, die doing something beneficial). Those who die so may go to Ásagard under Odin's or Freya's "tutelage". They both share the Einherjar (that's the name that those dead people have) but we belive those who are married or in love fall under Freya's "tutelage".

Those who died without fighting go to Hell. Hell (or Hellheim if you want to use the old norse word) in our religion is not a place of punishment, but a place of reflection (except one "section" of hell, that reserved for murderers and oath breakers, which actually is a place of punishment). Hell is a cold, dark and sad world ruled by the godess Hel, the daughter of Loki.

Do you have long hair and wear leather clothes?

No, I don't.

And finally, here you got my answer, Cheezy.

Can you explain the basic tenets of your religion and religous practices to us?

The tenets of our religion are found in the poem of the Eddas called Hávamál. This poem is a speech of Odin and here he shows his wisdom and advises men what to do in their lifes.
There's also a 20th century creation called the 9 noble virtues. These are, essentialy, a summary of the whole poem. So the 9 noble virtues must be always considered as a mnemonic key of the Hávamál rather than an ásatrú version of the commandements. Anyways, here you got the 9 Noble Virtues:

COURAGE

TRUTH

HONOR

FIDELITY

HOSPITALITY

DISCIPLINE

INDUSTRIOUSNESS

SELF-RELIANCE

PERSEVERANCE

And here you got the whole Hávamál (in English).

Who are your gods?

Essentialy, the germanic gods. These are the Aesir and the Vanir lineages (sorry, but there're lots of them and that make hard to expose them here, so I think you'll got to look for them in the wikipedia).

Is there any sort of dogmatic organization?

Any.

How many follow your faith?

There's no ásatrú census, so we don't know how many ásatrúar are out there. The most optimistic approximations say that we are about an half million belivers world wide. But I think that we're about 100.000 or even less.

Do you have a unique religious calendar, or do you follow the normal Gergorian calendar?

Yes we do. It's the runic calendar (essentialy, a lunar calendar for the natural events of the year) and the Runic era. Remember the runic era year is very easy to do: you just got to add 250 years to the current year. So this year is 2258 R.e. and next year it will be 2259 R.e. Isn't it easy? Anyways, our current calendar, though still runic, follows the same time succession of the Gregorian one because of:

1. Pragmatism
2. The fact that christians themselves based their calendar on pagan traditions, so it can't be considered an "unpaganization" of our religion, but a paganization of christianity.

Is there any sort of missionary service with your religion, who goes out and tries to convert others?

Proselytism is not encouraged in our religion (though not forbidden). I've got to say that proselytism can bring you lots of trouble (like expulsion of some communities that don't tolerate proselytism). The reason to do so is simple: there must be a call of the gods. Without it, there's no reason to be an ásatrúar.

 

[gangleri2001]

No more questions?

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

Here's one. How do you define a God/Diety? I ask because a monotheistic religion usually couches divinity in terms of Omnipotence or Omniscience, whereas a polytheistic one usually has some other criteria, like bieng able to hear one's name no matter where it is spoken.

 

[holy king]

do you feel sad about the fact that you will never be able to dine with odin unless you kill some serious amount of people?

 

[gangleri2001]

Here's one. How do you define a God/Diety? I ask because a monotheistic religion usually couches divinity in terms of Omnipotence or Omniscience, whereas a polytheistic one usually has some other criteria, like bieng able to hear one's name no matter where it is spoken.

Great question, and hard to answer too. Divinities in polytheistic religions are usually seen as forces rather than beings, though we consider them beings too. I think that this question can only be only answered at a personal level, since there's a total lack of dogma in paganism, so I must say that I define gods as beings and archetypes who "rule" over a "force" of both, nature and life. And gods act by adopting the "shape" of that force they rule.

Not a great answer, I know, but I'm giving my best.

do you feel sad about the fact that you will never be able to dine with odin unless you kill some serious amount of people?

Not so sad because people who dies fighting might also fall under freya's tutelage, so neither those who fall under her tutelage nor me (if I don't die fighting) won't dine with odin

Anyways, don't took the myths of the afterlife so literaly.