I feel talking about "beliefs", particularly discussion of correct orthodoxy, as a defining part of Indigenous Teutonic Heathenry is terribly misleading. I don't think that they had beliefs per se, more like theories. They were very practical, because of this I think that if there wasn't evidence for something, they didn't believe it. If they didn't receive an omen of some sorts, it wasn't really conceptualized then passed down with the ancestral knowledge. I could be wrong, just my theory.
Beliefs are for religions of scripture. If you believe in Jesus, you go to heaven without actually doing anything. If you believe in Allah, you go to heaven. Judaism seems to be an exception however.
Indigenous Traditions are about results from practice and ancestral knowledge. If internal thought doesn't reflect external reality, I wouldn't call that a set of (and I use this word very lightly) belief, I'd call it a fantasy.
Some newbies are getting so caught up in cosmology, mythology and orthodoxy, that they become a sensitive zombie satisfied with thinking happy thoughts, something our ancestors wouldn't have recognized. I think that our ancestors were more concerned with practices that had results (called today UPG) and mythology expressing how they saw the gods based on that UPG.
This probably was a pattern across European cultures, as Romans and Etruscans were described to believe that lightning wasn't caused as described by the mythology, but it was caused by clouds crashing together. With that said, Jupiter still controlled how clouds moved so that they caused lightning.
Sure, I think it's really cool to think and talk about the ideas they had or the mythology surrounding things like the afterlife, cosmology, nature of deities etc. and I enjoy taking part in those discussions academically, but they stay in the realm of academics. When beliefs are enforced and categorized as "Heathen" vs "Not Heathen", I not only find it stupid and rude, it's silly, arbitrary and completely contemporarily monotheistic.
What I find most disheartening is when people get so pissy whenever people of one indigenous culture will honor a foreign deity. Polytheism is open, flexible and ever-evolving. I've heard Polytheism and Paganism described as "an ever growing, moving, evolving" thing, and that it's not a "fly trapped in amber". Polytheism is very simple: poly- many, theism- deities; many deities.
I then look at the pagans disgust. How can anyone say "I'm going to turn aside a god, because it's not my culture"? That's like saying that someone won't assist another person because (s)he's of another ethno-linguistic group. It's arrogant, dishonorable, racist, completely arbitrary and a violation of the fundamental indigenous value for hospitality. Go and find me a culture which didn't have this fundamental ethic, I sure can't find any, within Europe at least.
So when I see a Heathen spewing nonsense about correct beliefs, dividing lines between cultures and honoring foreign gods, and that the only Heathens are those who are exclusive in their worship and have the correct beliefs, I say "the only of us who isn't a 'proper' Heathen is you."
Beliefs are for religions of scripture. If you believe in Jesus, you go to heaven without actually doing anything. If you believe in Allah, you go to heaven. Judaism seems to be an exception however.
Indigenous Traditions are about results from practice and ancestral knowledge. If internal thought doesn't reflect external reality, I wouldn't call that a set of (and I use this word very lightly) belief, I'd call it a fantasy.
Some newbies are getting so caught up in cosmology, mythology and orthodoxy, that they become a sensitive zombie satisfied with thinking happy thoughts, something our ancestors wouldn't have recognized. I think that our ancestors were more concerned with practices that had results (called today UPG) and mythology expressing how they saw the gods based on that UPG.
This probably was a pattern across European cultures, as Romans and Etruscans were described to believe that lightning wasn't caused as described by the mythology, but it was caused by clouds crashing together. With that said, Jupiter still controlled how clouds moved so that they caused lightning.
Sure, I think it's really cool to think and talk about the ideas they had or the mythology surrounding things like the afterlife, cosmology, nature of deities etc. and I enjoy taking part in those discussions academically, but they stay in the realm of academics. When beliefs are enforced and categorized as "Heathen" vs "Not Heathen", I not only find it stupid and rude, it's silly, arbitrary and completely contemporarily monotheistic.
What I find most disheartening is when people get so pissy whenever people of one indigenous culture will honor a foreign deity. Polytheism is open, flexible and ever-evolving. I've heard Polytheism and Paganism described as "an ever growing, moving, evolving" thing, and that it's not a "fly trapped in amber". Polytheism is very simple: poly- many, theism- deities; many deities.
I then look at the pagans disgust. How can anyone say "I'm going to turn aside a god, because it's not my culture"? That's like saying that someone won't assist another person because (s)he's of another ethno-linguistic group. It's arrogant, dishonorable, racist, completely arbitrary and a violation of the fundamental indigenous value for hospitality. Go and find me a culture which didn't have this fundamental ethic, I sure can't find any, within Europe at least.
So when I see a Heathen spewing nonsense about correct beliefs, dividing lines between cultures and honoring foreign gods, and that the only Heathens are those who are exclusive in their worship and have the correct beliefs, I say "the only of us who isn't a 'proper' Heathen is you."
