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Asatru? Asanotru? Inono...
May. 1st, 2015 09:04 amI see from what is becomig my regular twice-daily dip into Facebook that in Iceland some people are trying to revive the worship of the Norse gods.
I think they're doing it wrong.
Not that I know anything about how they're doing it, except of course the usual modern line about how one does not of course do anything so utterly crass and jejune as believing in the gods, oh dear me no, nonono, one sees them rather as poetic metaphors and aspects of the universal creative principle and dedah dedah dedah, phthppbbbbt. (I don't know why that kind of talk makes me want to go phthppbbbbt. It just does.)
But the thing is that we have very little idea how people believed in gods before God, as it were. The Abrahamic, monotheistic religions have irrevocably altered our conception of belief and deity, and neither the Norse gods, nor the Greek, nor the Roman, nor the Egyptian, nor any other set of polytheistic gods, fit comfortably with how we think of belief now. The Abrahamic God, however he may vary from creed to creed, is a singular being in every sense of the word, and has nothing to do with any notion of how gods were perceived before; he'd been debated, meditated and con-templated into almost an abstraction before he ever even got as far as northern Europe. He was never a great big loud stupid guy with a beard and a hammer who could be fooled into trying to drink the ocean. So of course you can't worship a god like that in the same way.
But the airy-fairy poetic metaphor line isn't right either. That's a post-worship attitude, an uneasy, shifty compromise with rationalism, Vichy religion, if that's the phrase I'm after. (Probably not.) Maybe that's why it makes me go phthppbbbbt. Maybe I think you should either believe or not believe. Believe, or not believe, and still get on with people who believe or don't believe differently. If we can guess one thing about the people who told stories about Thor, it's that they didn't waffle on about poetic metaphors. They weren't stupid, but nor had they spent centuries over-thinking things the way we have. Maybe they did believe in the big dumb guy with the hammer or the one-eyed man on the eight-legged horse; or maybe, rather than believing in him, they just thought he was real. The world, after all, was full of mysteries and unexplained things back then, almost as full of them as it is now. Why shouldn't gods be real? You could shout "Thor, strike me dead!" and nothing would happen; just meant Thor was busy somewhere else. It's these Christians (they might say) who talk up their god as being everywhere and seeing all and knowing all and then look uncomfortable when you ask why he doesn't do something about all this mess. There's a lot to be said for human-sized gods, who make human mistakes.
I'm not saying these people shouldn't worship whatever they want to in their own way. I hope you all know me better than that. There's room for all kinds of religion in this world, from the three-thousand-year-old monotheistic abstraction kind to the pick'n'mix invention of a civil servant and naturist that has yet to reach its first century. But, as with the latter, I do hope they don't cherish any fond illusion that they are somehow reaching back through the ages to connect with their ancestors in the way they honoured their gods...because I'm fairly sure their ancestors would think they were crazy.
I think they're doing it wrong.
Not that I know anything about how they're doing it, except of course the usual modern line about how one does not of course do anything so utterly crass and jejune as believing in the gods, oh dear me no, nonono, one sees them rather as poetic metaphors and aspects of the universal creative principle and dedah dedah dedah, phthppbbbbt. (I don't know why that kind of talk makes me want to go phthppbbbbt. It just does.)
But the thing is that we have very little idea how people believed in gods before God, as it were. The Abrahamic, monotheistic religions have irrevocably altered our conception of belief and deity, and neither the Norse gods, nor the Greek, nor the Roman, nor the Egyptian, nor any other set of polytheistic gods, fit comfortably with how we think of belief now. The Abrahamic God, however he may vary from creed to creed, is a singular being in every sense of the word, and has nothing to do with any notion of how gods were perceived before; he'd been debated, meditated and con-templated into almost an abstraction before he ever even got as far as northern Europe. He was never a great big loud stupid guy with a beard and a hammer who could be fooled into trying to drink the ocean. So of course you can't worship a god like that in the same way.
But the airy-fairy poetic metaphor line isn't right either. That's a post-worship attitude, an uneasy, shifty compromise with rationalism, Vichy religion, if that's the phrase I'm after. (Probably not.) Maybe that's why it makes me go phthppbbbbt. Maybe I think you should either believe or not believe. Believe, or not believe, and still get on with people who believe or don't believe differently. If we can guess one thing about the people who told stories about Thor, it's that they didn't waffle on about poetic metaphors. They weren't stupid, but nor had they spent centuries over-thinking things the way we have. Maybe they did believe in the big dumb guy with the hammer or the one-eyed man on the eight-legged horse; or maybe, rather than believing in him, they just thought he was real. The world, after all, was full of mysteries and unexplained things back then, almost as full of them as it is now. Why shouldn't gods be real? You could shout "Thor, strike me dead!" and nothing would happen; just meant Thor was busy somewhere else. It's these Christians (they might say) who talk up their god as being everywhere and seeing all and knowing all and then look uncomfortable when you ask why he doesn't do something about all this mess. There's a lot to be said for human-sized gods, who make human mistakes.
I'm not saying these people shouldn't worship whatever they want to in their own way. I hope you all know me better than that. There's room for all kinds of religion in this world, from the three-thousand-year-old monotheistic abstraction kind to the pick'n'mix invention of a civil servant and naturist that has yet to reach its first century. But, as with the latter, I do hope they don't cherish any fond illusion that they are somehow reaching back through the ages to connect with their ancestors in the way they honoured their gods...because I'm fairly sure their ancestors would think they were crazy.