Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Opinions changing over time.

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Opinions changing over time.

    I suck at titles for posts.

    How has your relationship/understanding of your particular heathen faith changed over time?

    I ask this over the years I have become more and more annoyed with the actions of Odin in the texts we have.
    Aside from co-creating humanity everything he does, is in my understanding done to try and avoid his destiny and fate a pointless venture that drags in so many others into a spiral of chaos and death.
    I now see Loki as a tool of the fates ( if he is aware of this fact is another matter), his purpose is to ensure that Odin cannot escape his fate.

    All of Odins actions serve to empower his destruction and the destruction of those around him.

    #2
    Re: Opinions changing over time.

    Its kind of interesting that you mention that. In the Anglo-Saxon Savior (which is about the Germanic conversion poem Heliand) Fate and God were discussed; Fate is its own 'being' outside of God but God is God precisely because he doesn't need to follow its rules. Yet he does, and so it was Jesus' fate to die on the cross. It was Satan that was the agent trying to change Jesus and God's fate and that's precisely what made him the Devil. (If Jesus didn't die as fated then God's plan to resurrect him outside of fate would have been foiled.)

    I thought that was an interesting parallel to your own opinion. Pagan gods also can't change fate (which is, Germanically, a bit more complicated) because it's a law of nature and gods uphold the laws of nature-- its a world-accepting religion. However, the Germanic mindset is that an individual is always in the process of being/striving to be. Fate is also fluid and it changes form with what's becoming. Like a well that ripples with the toss of a stone. So I think Odin is simply tossing rocks into the well; he knows he can't change the walls of the well (fate) but he can change the way fate will move and ripple within its own law. So maybe Thor is meant to die at Ragnarok and his sons to survive, but now they'll survive with Mjollnir. Maybe Baldr was meant to die at Ragnarok but now he's died before, which speeds up fate but also ensures he'll return. (What did Odin whisper to him?)

    Sorry, musing out loud. To answer your question, my opinions have changed and evolved but more along the lines of personal things (I'm not as hard recon as I was) and the pagan community. I haven't done any 180s concerning thenlore though.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Opinions changing over time.

      Heh, I'm right there with you on the sucky titles! XD

      When it comes to have I changed my beliefs pertaining to my faith over time, I must answer with a resounding "yes!" Like Wednesday said, a lot of what changed was personal stuff, such as how my relationship with the gods is, or my views on other pagan groups or sub-groups of my own group, etc (in fact some views of mine are already changing just being on this site ).

      Now, when it comes to more faith specific non-personal things, I have also changed in that department as well. I'll admit to starting my interest in Druidic traditions believing that they were super saintly and above base "evils" and the like. I didn't really dig deeper into the nitty gritty, so I had this almost utopic view of back then. I also thought that most of the faith I had was carried over directly from ancient peoples. Over time however, I realized that both of these views were faulty and started to change. I realized that the Irish Celts were people just like us, they were living a hard life, and often did what was necessary to survive. It wasn't "evil" or wrong, it was just a reality they lived. I then also came to the conclusion that my faith is only a sliver of what it once was, and that we are trying to breath life into something that has been barely surviving for centuries, and somewhere in that we need to find balance between keeping the old the same, and making new beliefs along the way.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Opinions changing over time.

        Originally posted by Optimistic discord View Post
        I suck at titles for posts.

        How has your relationship/understanding of your particular heathen faith changed over time?

        I ask this over the years I have become more and more annoyed with the actions of Odin in the texts we have.
        Aside from co-creating humanity everything he does, is in my understanding done to try and avoid his destiny and fate a pointless venture that drags in so many others into a spiral of chaos and death.
        I now see Loki as a tool of the fates ( if he is aware of this fact is another matter), his purpose is to ensure that Odin cannot escape his fate.

        All of Odins actions serve to empower his destruction and the destruction of those around him.
        You know, you're the first person aside from myself who I've seen speculate that Loki is an agent of the Nornir (perhaps unwittingly) who does some of the things He does in order to foil Odhinn's attempts to escape His orlog.

        As to the original question... I don't know that I've had any large changes in my Northern Tradition faith. I was never Heathen to begin with, specifically because I never agreed totally with the common thoughts and opinions, and I didn't resonate with nor particularly like the Aesir. For a long time I went in other directions and studied things that are still a part of my practice, and then swung back when Northern Tradition folk started to come out of the woodwork and I realised I wasn't alone in my beliefs.

        Of course, my opinions have evolved as I gain deeper understanding of my faith, and my skills and practices have grown, and I've added practices and opinions as I've learned new things. But I can't recall any tangible 'changes' aside from the neo-Wiccan thing when I was a teenager.

        Perhaps this is just a definition thing, though. I don't really count evolution and growth as 'change' in the context of this question, because I've never had anything like the example given.

        Comment

        Working...
        X