Odin Not Jesus, An AH speculation

Discussion in 'History & Past Politicians' started by Aleksander Ulyanov, Feb 10, 2017.

  1. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    What if instead of Christianity becoming the major religion of the West it had been the Norse religion of the Vikings? While it seems apparent that the Vikings were not that religious what if they had been, and had decided to spread their religion with their raids and invasions of various European nations in the latter part of the early Middle ages?
     
  2. longlost

    longlost Member

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    I suppose there would be quite a few hammers hanging around folk's necks instead of crucifixes...
     
  3. WeekDayCross

    WeekDayCross Member

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    We would probably have had a greener world and less climate change about. Pagan religions worship nature more than Christian ones do. Also Native Americans might still be walking around in paradise rather than fighting terrorism and pollution since 1492.
     
  4. yiostheoy

    yiostheoy Well-Known Member

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    Catholic missionaries conquered the Vikings.

    Ergo the Viking gods were impotent.

    The God of the Universe has conquered the Earth, and all other gods are false.
     
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  5. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Au contraire
    They were very religious and believed a spirit world was present on the same turf as themselves. They were fatalist. The time and manner of your death is already decided, just as Ragnarok for their gods.

    In History Channel's Vikings series, the Christian monk Athelstan was having episodes where he saw the Thor story and Jesus story for their similarities.

    Why did Christianity prevail? It was profitable and the Vikings were about profits, not just war.

    Moi :oldman:

    r > g

    canada-invade-cover.jpg
    Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
    regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
     
  6. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Watching the series Barbarians on History Channel, the episode about the Vikings.
    It claims the conversion to Christianity was promoted by those who would unite otherwise village groups into a nation with themselves as king because Christianity said to be
    good and obey your King on Earth and Jesus in Heaven. It was politics.
    Previously I suggested it was profits. Whose to say. Certainly nothing to do with a deity.
    More to do with success and efficiency.
     
  7. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Christianity was just a superior theology and cultural base over mindless pagan brutalism and psychosis.
     
  8. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    You guys are really going to be surprised when you get to heaven and find out God approves of all religions and is gay to boot, and you'll have no choice but to believe it because she'll tell you so
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2017
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  9. Latherty

    Latherty Well-Known Member

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    Christianity provided a centralised "rule of law" from the papacy and use of Latin as a lingua franca that facilitated inter-kingdom trade.

    The Vikings would have had to do a lot more conquering to get the same geographic influence, and such slaughter would have stifled progress.
     
  10. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    These seem reasonable but there are objections. The "Rule of Law" was a LOT more fictional than real but I do recognize that the Church is the actual source of most European nation's sovereignty to this day.

    I have to wonder how much Latin was a Lingua Franca of trade when practically no merchants spoke or wrote it, no Kings or noblemen for that matter, mainly monks.
     
  11. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    I'm not a christian, for one, and by gay you mean homosexual sex fetishist, and no God is going to have such a neurotic compulsion, so I'm safe on all counts.
     
  12. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    God doesn't have neuroses. We're all just figments of God's imagination
     
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  13. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh how we disagree.
    The portrayal of the Christian monk kidnapped and learning Viking ways was expressed as having flashes of similarities between Odin and Jesus - History Channel, "Vikings".
    As a fan of Joseph Campbell, I do believe in cultural overlap of common myths.
    The hero's journey for example.

    Conversion to Christianity was profitable! That simple.

    Superior theology?
    More like a heretical branch of Judaism.

    Moi :oldman:
     
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  14. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    We'll have to disagree, which is fine. The historical fact is pagans were highly impressed with Christianity when they encountered it, for the most part, and appreciated its clear superiority over worshipping trees and bugs; being savages isn't always to be conflated with mindlessly stupid, as the Visigoths who sacked Rome demonstrate. They had nothing to profit from by converting, as they had taken the city and its wealth already, along with most of the lands. There was most certainly no profit for the early Christians, just death and exile, and a few hundred years of persecution on all sides, from Jews to Persia to the Greek pagans to Romans to Celts, followed by Islmao-Vermin invasions. Most honest intellectuals have no problem acknowledging the spread of Christianity was a vast improvement over the alternatives, and key to why the West is by far better off than most of the rest of the world because of it. It's the fastest growing theology in East Asia at the moment, certainly not a profitable enterprise in most of those countries, in fact it a dangerous subversive activity in most, and Asians aren't particularly stupid as a rule.
     
  15. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If I lived in those times, Muslim, Andalusia would suit me just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusia

    An intellectual center of medicine, arts, translations of Aristotle otherwise lost to Christians, destroyed by Christianity.

    Moi :oldman:

    r > g



    Canada.jpg
    Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
    regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.


     
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  16. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Far less than meets the eye there in Andalusia, as well as the brief 'golden age' claims re Persia, not to mention everywhere else in between the two was a vast wasteland devoid of anything resembling a 'golden age', or even literacy. Most of the 'knowledge' was merely Greek, mostly translated by Christians and Jews, and wouldn't have been 'lost' in the first place if it weren't for the Islmao-Vermin infestations. And besides, much of it came through Constantinople anyway, not Muslim Spain or Persia. There were very few scholars involved, so it wasn't like some big revival or anything; the 'Golden Age Of Islam' is a myth, kind of like the myths about 'native Americans' being 'noble' or big 'environmentalists in tune with Nature n stuff', and all spiritual and wise that hippies invented about them in the 1960's. They were nasty, smelly, and would happily hire themselves out to murder children for a bottle of cheap booze.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2017
  17. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I would not spread the above on my garden.

    All I witness is hate.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2017
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