Let’s not LARP in a post-modern way with the religious customs of people, treating their worldviews as a consumerist identity. Find something you truly believe in and dedicate yourself to it, take leaps of faith, find a congregation (god). Don’t just drape yourself in the trappings and aesthetics of others disingenuously
Hellenism and other mythologies are basically dead as you say, but they all have neo-pagan modern day variations that are essentially LARP and have no connection to the original belief systems. The comments above seem to be suggesting we indulge in this purposefully.
These neo-pagans are trying to fill an empty void where community and faith is supposed to go, but is lacking in our modern world. It’s not really their fault but it’s extremely hollow and false, a very “shopping for ideology” identity-confused modern phenomena.
I can make a serious earnest response in a joke thread, you don’t need to act all up in arms about it. Just chill
You are reading the aggression into it and reacting with hostility and debatebro language where there was no need to
The cool thing about pre-Christian Norse religion is that they wrote almost nothing down. So it's a completely choose your own adventure religion with source books written by Christians hundreds of years after anyone practiced it.
it’s a completely choose your own adventure religion
The 'chose your own adventure part' is funny, since I think a lot of the little we know of their lore (likely deformed over centuries) ended up being integrated through Tolkien's work as a big part of the basis of most RPGs - the heroic fantasy ones.
Mormon Kruschev is David O. McKay. The first prophet with no beard, who presided over the standardization of the church & the purging of the last remnants of polygamy and old school Mormon firebrands. He turned the weird ass cult into a more mainstream Protestant corporation and basically threw out most of what the old prophets said about race, Catholics, polygamy, free masonry, native Americans, etc
Christian Lenin is obviously Luther
No, After Joseph Smith got got, Brigham Young took them out west to Utah (1847-1877.)
IIRC Mckay comes much later in like the 1940's or 1950's.
There was a schism though; there's been a bunch of schisms in Mormonism because for a big chunk of its history anyone could hypothetically have been a prophet, and especially since a few times changes were made to the theology specifically to get the US government off their back.
My hometown's denominations all split in half after the federal government ordered them to desegregate lol. The more racist whites formed churches where they let snakes bite them on the face.
encounters an entirely different religion with a different pantheon, practices, and mythology
squints so yeah basically your god is the local franchise of Athena
sometimes scholars throw around the term 'civil/c religion' when talking about this because the differences could be so substantial and ingrained in communities as small as the specific city-states. its almost incorrect to claim there's such a thing as 'hellenic religion' more than a collective attitude between certain groups of people in the mediterrean
the big example is Rome, which (often rather ignored by mainstream discourse) was a deeply religious city-and-state whose very administration & political traditions were wrapped in their religious activity. civic-religion in that it was specific to Rome the City, but to be pedantic its later civil-religion when it starts to concern much more territory than the city itself.
speaking of abrahamic religion there are a few parallels in the transition of civil-religious tradition to monotheism, particularly in Rome---but the theological nature of the abrahamic traditions differs quite substantially because they're not based on oral traditions but a written set of texts & the discourse around/interpretation thereof.
and also just because hellenistic 'polytheism' could act inclusively doesn't preclude its religions and followers from being very intolerant. For every Zeus-Ammon & Mithras you get an Elagabal, a Maccabees, a Carthage (i.e. times hellenistic folk did religious intolerance)
Ain't it a pisser?
Vs.
GOOD IS ACTUALLY BAD AND BAD IS GOOD WHICH IS BAD! REPENT!
This is why I will always prefer the comic Valhalls portrayal of the Norse gods over any other(this and nostalgia), all the gods look like fancy dressed rich people that do supernatural shit(that most often isn't an inherent ability of theirs but instead they use magical tools or perform magical spells as anyone would conceivably use magical spells).
Makes for a very interesting world where the gods and the realm of the gods are supposed to be very much close to us and they cross over frequently, yet they are still gods. Emphasizes the more unique parts of the mythology compared to forcing them into a classic pantheon box.
Yeah, theres a specific goddess called Idun who grows the apples and seems to be the only one that knows how to grow the apples or cause their old age reversing effect.
That would be Freja/Freya, apparently there are some theories that they are one and the same but Freja is already a goddess involved with a ton of shit, outside of just beauty, love and magic shes supposed to be on kind of an equal level to Odin, she has her own hall and field of battle where one half of all the dead warriors go, while the other half go to Valhalla and Odin.
I prefer my gods gay/pansexual and eating grapes and possibly cursing me with a lackluster harvest because i forgot to leave Demeter an offer of honey cakes and fruit on the altar (my bad)
Especially if you were all knowing and all powerful and could see the future and move the car without effort
If a parent acted like God CPS would take their kids and they'd be thrown in prison
Judaism and Islam: There is but one God and we worship this one God
Christianity: THE GODHEAD EXISTS IN THREE DISTINCT COEQUAL COETERNAL CONSUBSTANTIAL DIVINE PERSONS SHARING ONE HOMOOUSION THEREFORE THE FATHER THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT ARE NEITHER ASPECTS OF THE SAME ENTITY NOR ARE THEY COMPLETELY SEPARATE ENTITIES
If heaven is so perfect and great, why didn’t we just all start there and exist there forever?
If it’s because we were not worthy yet, why didn’t the all powerful god simply create us worthy?
A lot of questions like these can be plausibly answered by "because he thinks it's funny" :joker-troll:
Gnostics: actually it's all the fault of this bozo here 🦁~~~~
Look at him the little shit
Christian creation story: God created everything and it was perfect until humans fucked it up with their wickedness :inshallah:
Greek creation story: Chaos was, and it jizzed out Night and Darkness, they fucked to make Light and Day, they fucked to create Heaven and Earth, and then they fucked to create Time and Time's Wife Who is an Unimportant Femoid. :quark:
Time overthrew Heaven, but was afraid one of his sons would overthrow him so he ate all his babies, until his sister-wife secretly swapped one for a rock and he didn't notice. The new kid slipped him some ipecac and Time threw up all his brothers and sisters, and they waged a big war to overthrow Time and throw him into Hell. Or the Night Cave. Or Zeus cut his balls off. Whatever.
Anyways after that Zeus got bored and went full :epsteingelion: and that's why your mail arrives on time and you can get fucked up on rotten grape juice
