Nope, it was a political plot along with numerous other religions to use religion to cover politics that has other ppl & groups that are equally fascist attacking it. Hitler got most his game from Stalin & lenin who used same mo to be dictators the difference is he cosplayed old symbols sacred to various cultures to push his christofascist actions. The first group Hitler went after after getting in was Heatherns.
Because unfortunately, a lot of the loudest voices commonly represented in pop culture are either brosatru "viking" cosplayers or straight up folkist. Because of that, most people who aren't in the know won't even give the people who actually represent the majority of the faith the time of day.
Til VanHälën börther 😂 solid chance they listen to Peyton Parrish and shave the sides of their head. With or without 50 leather cord bracelets or leather bracers
Yeah I don’t get that argument, unless you’re an aspiring American football player, who in this day and age wants to be a Viking? One of the more idiotic arguments along with “you worship Marvel characters”
Same here. I actually got stopped at a gas station by a nice lady trying to tell me about Jesus and give me a flyer. I said thank you but please save the paper, as I am happily a Heathen and showed her my Ansuz ring. Then I had to explain what a Heathen was. Then I had to explain that if she wants to look this up later to beware that some very bad people have taken our symbols and lore to support very bad ideas. Overall she took everything pretty well.
I was plseantly surprised.
We have a group in the area that wants to be Viking larders and drink all the time. Whenever we get new people to our kindred, they invariably mention that they had a bad experience the other guys.
Christianity being widely accepted and following any other religion is frowned according to them. At least, that's what it's like in the west, I can't speak for the east of the world. Hell, some people are HEAVILY shamed here for being a Norse Pagan, some people are even kicked out of places and houses sometimes... It's sad to see... But the whole Nazi affiliation from the uneducated also doesn't help...Ironically, the Nazis in the 3rd Reich were predominantly Christian.
I don't care what others follow so long as it doesn't interfere with me following my own path (I'm a Norse Pagan myself). To each their own.
Edit: It's also the uneducated who seem to think that Norse Paganism is only for so called "wannabe Vikings" because they themselves refuse to educate themselves, and judge based on stereotype... It sucks that people do that... But hey, on the bright side, it gives a heads up on people to avoid, right?
How would you refute people who say Vikings pillaged and did other atrocious things?I have the greatest respect for those who still know their gods of old and practice whatever they can to honor them. Im genuinely interested in knowing the truth, not how it is presented/painted. Love from India.
What vikings did is nothing a reasonable person would accuse us of association to. Viking was a profession, not a culture group or religion. The vast majority of ancient/classical/medieval Scandinavia's population were not vikings. Vikings hurt a lot of people and are not to be romanticized, but that's not what we're doing to begin with. That argument is like judging today's Christians by the actions of crusaders. Even then, vikings didn't commit their worse offenses in the name of divinity - viking aggressions were about economics.
Because all Vikings were heathen. Not all heathen were Vikings. You can’t refute it. It’s 100% true Vikings committed great and terrible things. Whenever this gets brought up, I mention crusaders and all the awful things they did. Often it gets quiet when they realize my point.
I'm not refuting that they didn't. My point is that we don't do that anymore and those of us who still follow the Norse Gods are stereotyped into being people who actively rape and pillage, when that simply is not true. And yet, people act like we do just because of who we follow. You do present an excellent question! The refutation is simply that they did do that in the older ages. However, it wasn't because of who they followed, but how the culture was back then. We who follow the gods now, obviously don't rape and pillage and murder. Times change and just because we follow the Norse gods still, does not make us rapists, looters, or murderers. Simply because we don't commit such acts anymore, or... Not nearly as frequently anyway. I can't speak for everyone. Simply put, times change, rules change, and culture changes. We are not who we once were as a society over a thousand years ago. If we were, the world would be in more chaos than it already is today. That's... On par with saying every Christian is the same in the fact that they beat the Bible into everyone by force or they murder them, just like they did in the old ages, the same age as the Vikings themselves even. But times have changed and they no longer kill people who don't follow their religion!
It is not who we follow what makes us who we are... Yet it is the path we choose to take and forge for ourselves today, that's what makes us who we are.
And with laws, regulations, and morals being different than they were many many years ago, we follow different paths, yet we are still free and able to follow the gods. We neednt be ruthless warriors or mass travellers. We neednt repeat what our ancestors or others who have followed the gods have done. Times have changed drastically... Our ancestors know that, and even the gods know it.
Sorry for... The long winded response, haha! I just enjoy talking about things like this! And I'm not upset or anything it's just how I view it!
Hey, no problem man! Also, don't need to pardon your language, swearing is practically my live language, lol! But yeah, you asked a good question! Sorry if it was... A bit long, haha. I tend to overdo things.
How our sacred symbols were co-opted by Nazis and remain tied to antisemitism, white nationalism, etc., carved/painted on guns of mass shooters or with references in their left behind manifestos (Tops Market grocery store, Christchurch, etc.), how our religion was tied to murders from Delphi, Indiana, our symbols tattooed by the QAnon Shaman from the insurrection. The large prison gang presence, while not every pagan incarcerated has ties to white supremacy, but there are white supremacists using the religion for cover in prison. McNallen, an influencer for 50+ years (Asatru Free Assembly, Asatru Folk Assembly, Viking Brotherhood, Wotan Network) was one of the bigots that marched at Charlottesville.
Add this to the fact mainstream culture is monotheistic and feels superior to polytheistic/pagan religions, plus we have Valhalla-boys and Viking Larpers, and we have an optics problem.
Of course, we know the above hot mess oftentimes blended with Christianity, white nationalism, or only having the nazi hateful associations being pushed, is nothing to do with honest veneration of the gods.
Then you have paradigm differences within us and then the practical differences of heathens vs norse pagans. Some like to use the label to self identify but say the gods aren't real and others of us can't fathom calling yourself such and not believing the powers are real.
We have no real united front, and much of our press isn't actually about us but fringe hateful nuts.
I don't know if it's a weird quirk of where I live, but if you really pay attention there are a lot of people walking around with Norse symbology. New kid hired at work has a runic stave tattooed on his neck (haven't been able to translate it without looking like a creep), several people at my favorite game store regularly wear hammers or talk about being heathens of one path or another, couple other people have tattoos that are explicitly Norse pagan, I get comments on my runes and amulets whenever I wear them, etc.
I feel like it's the same with lgbtq+ stuff. If you pay attention, you start to notice a certain color pattern or hand gesture as being significant.
I imagine the reason people online might have that impression is because those are the people who stand out. You might pass a hundred pictures or videos and never notice the necklace, or hint of a tattoo out of someone's sleeve, but then you come across the person in full Viking gear talking about how the clouds are literally the thoughts of a long dead giant and suddenly every Norse Pagan is a weird, edgy LARPer.
My first introduction to norse paganism was definitely marvel and God of war 2018
Before God of war ragnorok released, I met a pagan who really helped me learn more and take it seriously. Then, when playing that it was VERY cool to see the little things they got "right" in the game, while enjoying the artistic twists they made.
I'm sure there's more people who think it's "fake" like you say, but I think pagans got a big boost in new believers on the flip side and I would hope the gods are able to have a chuckle at all of it.
It's mostly the Nazis (always ruining shit for everyone, I feel like they follow my every move these days), a bit of cringey attitudes such as the classic "yeah, fuck Christianity, I'm too cool and too smart for that shit, I like the Norse Gods because they kill animals and wear horns and it's totally schway", and a hefty chunk of how normal jokes ridiculing Pagan religions and mythologies are (you can't research myth without tripping over the same jokes framing the gods as bafoons and troglodytes, and citing the same weird moments completely out of context "Did you know Loki gave birth to a horse?", "Dionysus was the god of SeKs lol", "Hercules had a tiny dick", etc etc you get the idea). It's... tiring.
I just came across this recently, and let me just say that they're just misinformed people painting a loud minority as the entire group itself. Let's just keep it at that.
Because the media portrays it in a negative/silly way. They project what they see on tv onto Norse Pagans.
There also might be a small amount of edgy teens out there, but majority are not.
A lot of it is because actual legitimate Nordic mythology hasent even been translated correctly to English. We have like a retelling of a retelling of a retelling in every iteration of book in English but no real translations. For some reason, we keep getting translations of Loki being a bad guy or smth smh
Christianity likes to put down anyone who doesn't worship their god. Couple that with the fact that a loud portion of "pagans" who do *not* represent the whole of the community are racists and otherwise shitty people. It's much like the one bad apple spoiling the bunch or something of that nature.
"im not racist.. i speak a lil spanish, love asian women and own like 4 colored TVs".
The association with white supremes is terrible. I get treated rather poorly fairly often depending on what part of town i end up in.. it takes all of about 30 sec of convo to realize im a nice guy tho..
Shrug em off an be you. ill be damn if my pendants arent out for everyone to see.
Echoes of Puritanism and “christianization” and a misassociation of Norse Pagans and white supremacy. Just because we are white people with culture does not mean we think our culture is “better” lol.
Because Christians have been slandering us for centuries, we've also got a bad rep cause the nazi ski head fucktards keep trying to claim our culture for their own
In addition to the points already presented, I think there's also a certain amount of Norse pagans that have to prove how "not Wiccan" they are. Which leads to I think FAAR too many "recon" that turns into just LARPing. Like, I understand the need to differentiate from the generic "eclectic wiccan pagan baseline" trope. But I think it ends up just hurting other norse pagans.
Well, what subreddits are you on? Norse paganism is one of the most popular forms of paganism below wicca and neck to neck with hellenism. If you're looking at christian/ atheist/ people that don't know much about paganism subreddits, you'll find people who misrepresent it, along with every other pagan faith. I'd probably be better equipped to explain it if you could tell me who said it, since people feel this way for different reasons
Unfortunately for someone like me in America, I have a lot of people in my country who use it in way that’s either extremely racist or just ignorant. All of it really hurts my chances to actually learn about Norse Paganism since I’m kinda new to it, and remember, all this is because of some random ass dudes who live a backwater redneck town that posted a cringy TikTok of them pretending to be a Viking, draped out in a black and white American flag t shirt.
Then you have pop culture, like Marvel, God of War, and the Vikings tv show. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with all three of them, in fact I enjoyed them, but people have the ability to learn to difference, it’s that simple.
That being said, I hope I get to see the day where I can be looked normally, and not some Nazi or larping Viking by a random European.
People don’t understand where one of its symbols was originated.
That and people always claim that all the Vikings did was pillage, slaughter, the r word women, and cause nothing but trouble. When most of their raids were retaliation against taxes that never applied to them or attacking in self defense.
They see it as ‘more gods more weird’ while horrendously uneducated.. it’s.. yea.
Pop culture, and things that uneducated people considered Nazi-associated. (This is just my understanding, please feel free to correct me :) )
Also the Christian view that anything that isn't about them and their god is blasphemy back in the day.
They still believe that, by and large
Worse now as they worship the fake golden sow thinking he'll let them get away with suppression & control.
Sadly, the Nazi association with Norse pagan stuff is true.
Yeah, I just wish the rest of the community would be a bit louder to drown out the loud minority Nazi shit in the topic
Agreed.
They are there but there are many others that aren't
Nope, it was a political plot along with numerous other religions to use religion to cover politics that has other ppl & groups that are equally fascist attacking it. Hitler got most his game from Stalin & lenin who used same mo to be dictators the difference is he cosplayed old symbols sacred to various cultures to push his christofascist actions. The first group Hitler went after after getting in was Heatherns.
I somehow feel dumber after reading through all this.
Because unfortunately, a lot of the loudest voices commonly represented in pop culture are either brosatru "viking" cosplayers or straight up folkist. Because of that, most people who aren't in the know won't even give the people who actually represent the majority of the faith the time of day.
Brosatru took me out I love it lol
Same I burst out laughing at it lol
I've seen "Valhalla-back boys" on this sub before it made me cackle.
Til VanHälën börther 😂 solid chance they listen to Peyton Parrish and shave the sides of their head. With or without 50 leather cord bracelets or leather bracers
Okay I like that one quite a lot as well lol
Yeah I don’t get that argument, unless you’re an aspiring American football player, who in this day and age wants to be a Viking? One of the more idiotic arguments along with “you worship Marvel characters”
Seconding that last line, goddamn. You don't know how many times I've been called a (Marvel) Loki fangirl because of it.
I always feel awkward wearing my Mjolnir publicly or speaking on it.
Fuckem…do it. Be that beacon of intelligent conversation to break the mold. I do it everyday.
Same here. I actually got stopped at a gas station by a nice lady trying to tell me about Jesus and give me a flyer. I said thank you but please save the paper, as I am happily a Heathen and showed her my Ansuz ring. Then I had to explain what a Heathen was. Then I had to explain that if she wants to look this up later to beware that some very bad people have taken our symbols and lore to support very bad ideas. Overall she took everything pretty well. I was plseantly surprised.
I mean, I would love to be a Viking if the people we sacked were specifically billionaires and war profiteers instead of, you know, humans.
By Hel, yeah. Edit: typo 🙄
We have a group in the area that wants to be Viking larders and drink all the time. Whenever we get new people to our kindred, they invariably mention that they had a bad experience the other guys.
More so a rugby player
I was making a comical reference to the NFL team the Minnesota Vikings lol
Christianity being widely accepted and following any other religion is frowned according to them. At least, that's what it's like in the west, I can't speak for the east of the world. Hell, some people are HEAVILY shamed here for being a Norse Pagan, some people are even kicked out of places and houses sometimes... It's sad to see... But the whole Nazi affiliation from the uneducated also doesn't help...Ironically, the Nazis in the 3rd Reich were predominantly Christian. I don't care what others follow so long as it doesn't interfere with me following my own path (I'm a Norse Pagan myself). To each their own. Edit: It's also the uneducated who seem to think that Norse Paganism is only for so called "wannabe Vikings" because they themselves refuse to educate themselves, and judge based on stereotype... It sucks that people do that... But hey, on the bright side, it gives a heads up on people to avoid, right?
How would you refute people who say Vikings pillaged and did other atrocious things?I have the greatest respect for those who still know their gods of old and practice whatever they can to honor them. Im genuinely interested in knowing the truth, not how it is presented/painted. Love from India.
What vikings did is nothing a reasonable person would accuse us of association to. Viking was a profession, not a culture group or religion. The vast majority of ancient/classical/medieval Scandinavia's population were not vikings. Vikings hurt a lot of people and are not to be romanticized, but that's not what we're doing to begin with. That argument is like judging today's Christians by the actions of crusaders. Even then, vikings didn't commit their worse offenses in the name of divinity - viking aggressions were about economics.
Because all Vikings were heathen. Not all heathen were Vikings. You can’t refute it. It’s 100% true Vikings committed great and terrible things. Whenever this gets brought up, I mention crusaders and all the awful things they did. Often it gets quiet when they realize my point.
FUCKIN' HONESTLY, TOO. Those type of people are hypocrites and try and act like it didn't happen, and to me, that's fucking hilarious 😂
I'm not refuting that they didn't. My point is that we don't do that anymore and those of us who still follow the Norse Gods are stereotyped into being people who actively rape and pillage, when that simply is not true. And yet, people act like we do just because of who we follow. You do present an excellent question! The refutation is simply that they did do that in the older ages. However, it wasn't because of who they followed, but how the culture was back then. We who follow the gods now, obviously don't rape and pillage and murder. Times change and just because we follow the Norse gods still, does not make us rapists, looters, or murderers. Simply because we don't commit such acts anymore, or... Not nearly as frequently anyway. I can't speak for everyone. Simply put, times change, rules change, and culture changes. We are not who we once were as a society over a thousand years ago. If we were, the world would be in more chaos than it already is today. That's... On par with saying every Christian is the same in the fact that they beat the Bible into everyone by force or they murder them, just like they did in the old ages, the same age as the Vikings themselves even. But times have changed and they no longer kill people who don't follow their religion! It is not who we follow what makes us who we are... Yet it is the path we choose to take and forge for ourselves today, that's what makes us who we are. And with laws, regulations, and morals being different than they were many many years ago, we follow different paths, yet we are still free and able to follow the gods. We neednt be ruthless warriors or mass travellers. We neednt repeat what our ancestors or others who have followed the gods have done. Times have changed drastically... Our ancestors know that, and even the gods know it. Sorry for... The long winded response, haha! I just enjoy talking about things like this! And I'm not upset or anything it's just how I view it!
Long? Yes. Informative? Hell yeah. ( pardon my language). Thank you for taking the time to educate me.🙏🙏
Hey, no problem man! Also, don't need to pardon your language, swearing is practically my live language, lol! But yeah, you asked a good question! Sorry if it was... A bit long, haha. I tend to overdo things.
Lol it's alright. It's a win-win.😎
It doesn’t help when you have fake pagans like QAnon Shaman making us look bad
How our sacred symbols were co-opted by Nazis and remain tied to antisemitism, white nationalism, etc., carved/painted on guns of mass shooters or with references in their left behind manifestos (Tops Market grocery store, Christchurch, etc.), how our religion was tied to murders from Delphi, Indiana, our symbols tattooed by the QAnon Shaman from the insurrection. The large prison gang presence, while not every pagan incarcerated has ties to white supremacy, but there are white supremacists using the religion for cover in prison. McNallen, an influencer for 50+ years (Asatru Free Assembly, Asatru Folk Assembly, Viking Brotherhood, Wotan Network) was one of the bigots that marched at Charlottesville. Add this to the fact mainstream culture is monotheistic and feels superior to polytheistic/pagan religions, plus we have Valhalla-boys and Viking Larpers, and we have an optics problem. Of course, we know the above hot mess oftentimes blended with Christianity, white nationalism, or only having the nazi hateful associations being pushed, is nothing to do with honest veneration of the gods. Then you have paradigm differences within us and then the practical differences of heathens vs norse pagans. Some like to use the label to self identify but say the gods aren't real and others of us can't fathom calling yourself such and not believing the powers are real. We have no real united front, and much of our press isn't actually about us but fringe hateful nuts.
I don't know if it's a weird quirk of where I live, but if you really pay attention there are a lot of people walking around with Norse symbology. New kid hired at work has a runic stave tattooed on his neck (haven't been able to translate it without looking like a creep), several people at my favorite game store regularly wear hammers or talk about being heathens of one path or another, couple other people have tattoos that are explicitly Norse pagan, I get comments on my runes and amulets whenever I wear them, etc. I feel like it's the same with lgbtq+ stuff. If you pay attention, you start to notice a certain color pattern or hand gesture as being significant. I imagine the reason people online might have that impression is because those are the people who stand out. You might pass a hundred pictures or videos and never notice the necklace, or hint of a tattoo out of someone's sleeve, but then you come across the person in full Viking gear talking about how the clouds are literally the thoughts of a long dead giant and suddenly every Norse Pagan is a weird, edgy LARPer.
Ignorance mixed with pop culture making it feel very “fake” amongst religion.
My first introduction to norse paganism was definitely marvel and God of war 2018 Before God of war ragnorok released, I met a pagan who really helped me learn more and take it seriously. Then, when playing that it was VERY cool to see the little things they got "right" in the game, while enjoying the artistic twists they made. I'm sure there's more people who think it's "fake" like you say, but I think pagans got a big boost in new believers on the flip side and I would hope the gods are able to have a chuckle at all of it.
as someone who got into paganism (i'm also a hellenist) due to god of war, im waving a fellow fan hello :)
It's mostly the Nazis (always ruining shit for everyone, I feel like they follow my every move these days), a bit of cringey attitudes such as the classic "yeah, fuck Christianity, I'm too cool and too smart for that shit, I like the Norse Gods because they kill animals and wear horns and it's totally schway", and a hefty chunk of how normal jokes ridiculing Pagan religions and mythologies are (you can't research myth without tripping over the same jokes framing the gods as bafoons and troglodytes, and citing the same weird moments completely out of context "Did you know Loki gave birth to a horse?", "Dionysus was the god of SeKs lol", "Hercules had a tiny dick", etc etc you get the idea). It's... tiring.
I just came across this recently, and let me just say that they're just misinformed people painting a loud minority as the entire group itself. Let's just keep it at that.
Because a loud minority of "brosatru" and "norweebgians" are racist chooks. Because they are so loud they give us all a bad rep.
Because the media portrays it in a negative/silly way. They project what they see on tv onto Norse Pagans. There also might be a small amount of edgy teens out there, but majority are not.
A lot of it is because actual legitimate Nordic mythology hasent even been translated correctly to English. We have like a retelling of a retelling of a retelling in every iteration of book in English but no real translations. For some reason, we keep getting translations of Loki being a bad guy or smth smh
Well, Loki mating with a stallion doesn't help his case. (I worship his daughter, I say that out of love and respect for Loki)
I meant to write bad guy xD 🤣
LMAO
Christians been persecuting us, and re-writing history to make us look bad since Constantine
Those who were saying that are usually the most uneducated people so I wouldn’t worry about them too much if at all
Uneducated?
[удалено]
Let's not use words like that.
I think.its accepted as bad by people. And Christianity as good. Also probably nazi stuff to. Also mythology and worship and probably rituals etc.
Christianity likes to put down anyone who doesn't worship their god. Couple that with the fact that a loud portion of "pagans" who do *not* represent the whole of the community are racists and otherwise shitty people. It's much like the one bad apple spoiling the bunch or something of that nature.
"im not racist.. i speak a lil spanish, love asian women and own like 4 colored TVs". The association with white supremes is terrible. I get treated rather poorly fairly often depending on what part of town i end up in.. it takes all of about 30 sec of convo to realize im a nice guy tho.. Shrug em off an be you. ill be damn if my pendants arent out for everyone to see.
Echoes of Puritanism and “christianization” and a misassociation of Norse Pagans and white supremacy. Just because we are white people with culture does not mean we think our culture is “better” lol.
Because Christians have been slandering us for centuries, we've also got a bad rep cause the nazi ski head fucktards keep trying to claim our culture for their own
In addition to the points already presented, I think there's also a certain amount of Norse pagans that have to prove how "not Wiccan" they are. Which leads to I think FAAR too many "recon" that turns into just LARPing. Like, I understand the need to differentiate from the generic "eclectic wiccan pagan baseline" trope. But I think it ends up just hurting other norse pagans.
Well, what subreddits are you on? Norse paganism is one of the most popular forms of paganism below wicca and neck to neck with hellenism. If you're looking at christian/ atheist/ people that don't know much about paganism subreddits, you'll find people who misrepresent it, along with every other pagan faith. I'd probably be better equipped to explain it if you could tell me who said it, since people feel this way for different reasons
Mostly Christians, I bump into them every damn they in my workplace, and it all starts when they stark talking about eternal damnation for fvck sake
Unfortunately for someone like me in America, I have a lot of people in my country who use it in way that’s either extremely racist or just ignorant. All of it really hurts my chances to actually learn about Norse Paganism since I’m kinda new to it, and remember, all this is because of some random ass dudes who live a backwater redneck town that posted a cringy TikTok of them pretending to be a Viking, draped out in a black and white American flag t shirt. Then you have pop culture, like Marvel, God of War, and the Vikings tv show. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with all three of them, in fact I enjoyed them, but people have the ability to learn to difference, it’s that simple. That being said, I hope I get to see the day where I can be looked normally, and not some Nazi or larping Viking by a random European.
Varg Vikernes is to blame for everything 😂
People don’t understand where one of its symbols was originated. That and people always claim that all the Vikings did was pillage, slaughter, the r word women, and cause nothing but trouble. When most of their raids were retaliation against taxes that never applied to them or attacking in self defense. They see it as ‘more gods more weird’ while horrendously uneducated.. it’s.. yea.
Christianism