Honestly, I’ve never liked neopagans because they’re larpers, they have no understanding of the religions they claim to practice. They are nothing more than new age cultists whose beliefs and practices stem from some 19th century conman trying to reconstruct ancient religions based on secondhand and thirdhand accounts. They have no real traditions and it’s clear that deep down they don’t genuinely believe in the gods they claim to worship.

The truth is that anyone who claims to be pagan is a larper because real paganism died centuries ago. A tradition is only a tradition if it's kept alive. The pagan traditions have ceased. Neopagans do not come from some “unbroken line of secret practitioners” (which never existed to begin with). They are just larping as followers of a dead religion.

>>17885960 (OP)
Norse neopagans are the worst offenders. They get most of their knowledge of Norse paganism from modern pop culture like Marvel and as a result, their understanding of it is very warped and distorted. I doubt any of them have read or are even aware of the old Norse epics like the Prose Edda or Poetic Edda. It’s also ironic that most of them are anti-war hippies when the historical Norse pagans were a warlike people. In fact, according to Norse mythology, you can only enter Valhalla if you die in combat and once there, all you do is train for Ragnarok.

If these people actually followed the beliefs of Norse paganism, they would likely get branded as terrorists no different from groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. So ironically, these Nazi neopagan groups that Norse neopagans try to distance themselves from are closer to historical Norse pagans than they are, the only major difference being their obsession with race (which historical Norse pagans didn’t care about).

>>17885962
Then there’s Celtic neopagans who might as well be making shit up. We barely know anything about the beliefs of the ancient Celtic peoples because none of it was written down. It was based on oral tradition passed down via their priestly class known as the Druids, and the Druids were all killed by the Romans during various revolts. What little we know comes from biased Roman authors. You can’t just slap a Triskelion on it, call yourselves “Druids” (especially when you aren’t even a priest), and then claim it’s the exact same beliefs as the ancient Celtic peoples.

>>17885965
Then there’s Slavic neopaganism. Most of its followers are completely batshit insane. They’re usually far-right Russian ultranationalist groups who defend both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union at the same time solely because both were Russian and were great powers. Many historical Slavic neopagans were also batshit insane and held odd and contradictory views such as Mikhail Tukhachevsky. He was in a prison cell with Charles de Gaulle in WW1 and there, he went on a rant about how capital had cucked Russia. When asked by de Gaulle if we was a socialist, he said no and went on another rant about how socialism was a “Jewish conspiracy”. Despite his anti-socialism, he also supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks because he thought Russia needed to be “thrown into barbarism” and thought Lenin would do that job the easiest. Tukhachevsky himself later regretted these views and attributed it to being immature in his youth.

>>17885966
Then there’s Egyptian neopaganism, Phoenician (Canaanite) neopaganism, Mesopotamian neopaganism, and Arabian neopaganism. The followers of these aren’t even from the Middle East. They are mostly westerners with no ties to any of these countries that historically practiced these religions. They don’t understand that these religions were deeply integrated into their societies, their languages, their political structures, and their environment, all of which no longer exist. Actual people from the Middle East would view these revivals with confusion or offense, especially since most of the modern Middle East is majority Muslim or Christian and remember these ancient religions only as history, not something to be worshipped again.

>>17885968
And finally, there’s Greco-Roman neopaganism. Technically, Greco-Roman neopaganism should be the most logical form of neopaganism since:
>We actually know about most of the historical Greco-Roman religion.
>Many ancient philosophers like Plato, Socrates, and Cicero tried rationalizing the more “absurd” parts of it.
>It’s not tied to any specific institution or race (many groups conquered by the Greeks and Romans ended up worshipping the Greco-Roman gods).
However, most Greco-Roman neopagans conveniently ignore the fact that Greco-Roman society was very conservative, patriarchal, and hierarchical. Even in the myths themselves, the wives of many Greek deities didn’t exact consent since consent as a concept didn’t exist in Ancient Greece and Rome. Their sense of morality and what was right or wrong was completely different from ours.

If you don't like paganism why don't you get rid of the biggest and most important oral pagan tradition that your ancestors passed down to you - your native language?

Just speak hebrew bro

What about the christcuck neopagans who worship a Jew and pretend crackers are flesh and grape juice is blood but that doesn't make them cannibals because it's forbidden although the law is abolished but it's not but it still is whatever's convenient to them?

>>17885960 (OP)
>They are nothing more than new age cultists whose beliefs and practices stem from some 19th century
hence neo
>no real traditions
not an argument unless you believe that christianity was less valid in the first decades after christ
>The truth is that anyone who claims to be pagan is a larper because real paganism died centuries ago
hence neo
>They are just larping as followers of a dead religion
hence neo
>They get most of their knowledge of Norse paganism from modern pop culture like Marvel and as a result, their understanding of it is very warped and distorted
hence neo
>according to Norse mythology, you can only enter Valhalla if you die in combat and once there, all you do is train for Ragnarok
hence neo

>>17885965
>Then there’s Celtic neopagans who might as well be making shit up
hence neo
>claim it’s the exact same beliefs as the ancient Celtic peoples
they don't, hence neo
>However, most Greco-Roman neopagans conveniently ignore the fact that Greco-Roman society was very conservative, patriarchal, and hierarchical
hence neo

>>17885960 (OP)
Songs in honor of the god in the Old Testament correspond to songs in honor of Baal Hadadd from Ugarit (there are, in principle, many coincidences)

And thunder qualities were also possessed by Enlil, Nergal and Ninurta, also dragon-slayers (Abrahamism also has intersections with Sumerian mythology)

The Apocalypse of John literally retells the battle of the god of thunder and the serpent (Yam, Mot, Vritra, Leviathan, Typhon, Seth (for some reason identified with Typhon), Illuyanka, etc.)

Baalbek
Temple of Jupiter, Venus and Bachus
or Hadad, Atargatis and Melqart (Hiram was from Phoenicia who built the Temple of Solomon following the example of the Temple of Melqart. There were also two special columns, possibly the prototype of Boaz and Jachin)
etc etc etc many analgoues

https://www.logos.com/ugaritic

https://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm

https://smokingaziggurat.com/he-will-swallow-up-death-for-ever-struggles-with-death-in-the-baal-epic-and-the-bible/

https://archive.org/details/baal-theory-of-christianity-jesus

>>17885960 (OP)
>I’ve never liked neopagans because they’re larpers

Says the christtard who has yet to give away a single piece of his possessions to the poor

>>17885960 (OP)
Bro there is no such thing as Paganism, because there is no religion that isn't "Pagan" in its origins.
Allah/YHWH is actually Pagan Egyptian God Amon, which was deity of the first monotheistic religion that Egyptian invented.
I always found that hate boner that monotheists/abrahamic have for other religions is somewhat similar to why unattractive people tend to have nasty personalities: if you worship an ugly god, your soul will be ugly too...

>>17885960 (OP)

"I'd expect the people of Greece to be following their fucking roots and not a sand cult."

"Hurr durr, let me just leave with my imaginary kids who are only present when I'm off my schizo meds since I don't want to hear someone being brutally honest."

FTFY.

>>17885960 (OP)
Only paganism that still exists in on africa, india and asia

>>17886262
What does this even mean

>>17885960 (OP)
I used to think similarly, but seeing how buttfuck ignorant Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. are of their own traditions, I'm actually more appreciative of neopagans. Their beliefs are no more ridiculous than any other religion and they're no less ignorant or superstitious than the average Christian. Seriously, ask a Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox grandma about the finer point of their faith and they won't know jack shit, they'll be obsessed with magical talismans (icons) or divination (reading random Bible verses), and don't know the first thing about theology.

And a lot of Pagan philosophy did survive, Christians had no choice but to piggy back on Greek philosophers who were obviously superior to them, and hermeticism survived intact through the middle ages and into the modern era, there is quite literally a direct line from antiquity.

I may also classify many Christians as "neo-Christians" pretending to preserve a 1st century faith which is 100% dead and subsumed into something very different.

>>17885960 (OP)
How are do they not understand what they practice? So far you’re not saying how that is and are just presenting a strawman.

>>17885960 (OP)
Jesus was making shit up at the time thoughbeit

>>17885960 (OP)
Have you ever heard of those Aztec/Inca neopagans in Mexico and Peru? What do you think of them?

>>17885960 (OP)
>Honestly, I’ve never liked neopagans because they’re larpers, they have no understanding of the religions they claim to practice.
The same is true of tradcath and tradorthodox people. People who look to religion for culture war bullshit don't believe the relogions in question

>>17886113
>that comic
i kekked, whats its origin?

>>17886753
Aztec neopagans? Uhhhhhhhhhhh

Uhhhhh

Source?

>>17886800
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicayotl

Pretty small and invisible, but some of those people who do those aztec dances believe in this shit

>>17885980
?

>>17885960 (OP)
LARPagan threads are mostly all made by Jews and Pajeets.

>>17885968
they're we wuzzers who think ancient Egyptians were white Europeans

>>17885960 (OP)
Why does it bother you?

>if you're pagan you're neopagan
Because Shinto is a new age religion, retard.
>Muh weeb
Not because of fandom
>Then?
I think it's true.
I've seen nogitsune magics at work.
I've seen vengeful spirits.
I've summoned Jorogumo with offerings and chaos magick following guides on yokai.
Why would it be untrue?
Also I've even seen physical foxfire.

>>17887326

In Shintoism, gods, spirits, etc. are metaphors for natural forces. No Shinto worth their salt actually believes that they exist and are distinct entities.

>>17887352
No.
Animism.
I don't expect people who arent practicing to know, tho.
Infact it's believed your old back scratcher that you used for 15 years will feel betrayed, having developed a Spirit, if you buy a new one without reason and will haunt you.

>>17886554
it's ai it doesn't mean anything

>>17885960 (OP)
modern Christians are just as new age as any neopagan. you have nothing in common with a Christian from the era when Christ walked the Earth. Any traditions you've developed over the 2000 years since have been absconded in the last two centuries. Divorce is permitted among all mainstream Christian denominations now, in fact you could say divorce is the most popular Christian tradition in the modern age. If you're orthodox, your church is under the thumb of its respective government. If you're Catholic, your modern popes are all heretics. If you're high church protestant, your traditions and morals literally change between generations, if you're low church or evangelical, you're just making things up. If you're any of these, you're new age.

>>17887369
i'm an agnostic so i don't have any particular stance here but at the same time you can argue Christianity as a continually evolving tradition over two millenia which is rather unlike religions made by pre-literate people only vague recreations exist of

>>17887352
Gods damn I hope this is b8 reading your posts just shows how brutally uneducated you are about modern Pagan and Neopagan practices, trying to write critiques of something while coming across like a lobotomized chimp slamming their little pin dick on the keyboard is just embarrassing.

>>17887382
True that the old pagan religions did not reform themselves into the modern neopagan religions. However, I would say that while a religion like Christianity can reform and splinter itself into factions and maintain a relatively unbroken evolution of traditions, this does not necessarily stop it from being susceptible to "new age" attitudes.

>>17887400

I wrote that. Why? Because it's a fact. That's what YOU believe. Varg said it best before me. That's also what the people of antiquity and ancient history/prehistory believed. Christ is King.

>

>>17887382
>i'm an agnostic so i don't have any particular stance here
so, you're a cowardly atheist?

truth is Varg is actually pretty dumb and historically illiterate because the Christian religion is obviously rooted in European beliefs especially Greco-Roman philosophy whereas Islam is rooted in MENA beliefs in fact it was a nativist reaction against European colonization of the Middle East since the Hellenistic era.

>>17887492
>truth is Varg is actually pretty dumb and historically illiterate because the Christian religion is obviously rooted in European beliefs especially Greco-Roman philosophy whereas
well no really he isn't because he thinks Meds corrupted his snow barbarian paradise with civilization

>>17885962
kino

>>17885960 (OP)
the fact that christians compulsively try to debunk pagan theology despite not knowing anything about it (no christian I've talked to has ever been able to critique heathen apologetics without me first having to educate them on what heathens even fucking believed in the first place) proves that basically every one of these threads is a kneejerk attempt at well-poisoning that's motivated by anxiety about dominating cultural norms, rather than being good faith commentary without an agenda.

>>17887521

Heathen apologetics and theology? Doesn't exist. I can't name a single "heathen theologian" who lived after 1000 AD, not including the founder of Wicca.

>>17887369
its a little more of an exaggeration the history itself isn't lost and there are groups like the westerobolobomobo Baptist church or whatever

you just wont hear about them on the news, theyre hardcore tradionalists

imo I like Jesus and the Bible because it asks you to make your own decisions based on what you've read and been told, parts of the Bible (little that I've read) seem like tests

somewhere in the Bible I forget where it says to not look for the word of god in the Bible you wont find it or some shit

also the if you ask me fucking LIE of Paul you can view the Bible metaphorically

>>17887538
way to just admit to half of the substance of my allegation, dumbass

>>17887553

What substance?

>>17885980
Even the Israelites were originally polytheists.

>>17887315
Some of the only Kemetic neopagans I've known were black or half black.

>>17887492
He made a video where he said hates Prots even more than Catholics because Catholics are pagans and Prots are even more Jewish than the Catholics but Varg’s all over the place and has probably contracted himself on his Twitter.

>>17887413
>Varg
Ah yes, good effort, but he killed only one man and burnt only one church.

I'm not religious or anything and feel that Christianity served a purpose at one time but is obsolete now. At the same time I don't think going back to primitive ooga booga cults the world moved on from a thousand or more years ago where you sacrifice a goat to the sky god is the answer or progress at all.

>>17888598
historical progress is a stupid Marxist idea

>>17888602
Would you rather go back to a time before sanitation and antibiotics?

no pagans
just larp

>>17888951
What about the ones who actually believe their gods exist?

>>17888951
People who strongly identify as Christians but have never seen/met Jesus in some way are also "larpers", as kids love saying nowadays

>>17888954
Who would that be?

"exist"
In the most postmodern ridiculous sense - I don't care
No one believes in a literal Thor riding his literal goat chariot causing thunder.

>>17888976
Yes, I also believe there are a lot of Christian larpers.
However, I also believe there are a LOT of Christians who have successfully gaslit themselves into think it's true that a man walked on water 2000 years ago, and also caused this universe.
No such thing with pagans

>>17888982
They claim to have literally felt them as spiritual presences, anyway.

>>17888986
Yeah, I want some actual pagans. Not this new age postmodern bullshittery
Who believes the claims of their religion is actually true, not in a spiritual/metaphorical/bullshit way

>>17888989
Isn't spiritual claims precisely the nature of the claims that a religion makes?

>>17888602
what i mean is your ancestors were pagans for tens of thousands of years since humans became humans Christianity is a mere blip in human history

>>17888982
Even ancient authors debated about how literally the myths were to be taken.

I think you're right. Neopaganism can kind of be seen as pseudohistory, and it's not even a unified religion. A lot of modern Pagans today are non-denominational, which again just shows how fake their religion really is.

>>17889597
All religion is fake.

>>17889609

Except for Roman Catholicism.

>>17885960 (OP)
>I've never liked neopagans because they're larpers
Same. Funny enough, it's the same reason I hate TRVD LVRPers like yourself. Have fun burning.

>>17888982
There's certainly a lot of those who see the gods as just archetipes or alegories, but even if Ares is "just an archetype" but can still fuck you up if you don't behave, at what point do you "not believe"? If you believe a tiger will fuck you up, but can be kept at bay by offering it food or just putting distance between you and it, you still "believe" in the tiger. The idea that a God has to be this omnipresent boogeyman that will fuck you up over incredibly minor things that you can't even perceive is just simply not how historical pagans saw their Gods. It's not even how Christians historically saw their God. It's a weird strawman that Christians adopt in these debates, where they assume that if the non-Christian doesn't act Christian, then they're not "real". No shit non-Christians don't act Christian, they aren't Christian.

Aristotle's theology placed the Gods as the Prime Movers (plural, there's more than one) that move the planets in the sky. Does that mean that Aristotle doesn't "believe in Zeus" even though Zeus literally causes phenomena to occur, and can be interacted with? If so, then how is that any different from what Aquinas does? Are the angels, who he attributes to the Prime Movers, "not real"? Is God then "not real"?

This is to say nothing of the Stoics and Platonists, both of whom have a radically different idea of what constitutes the divine than "Chris Hemsworth running around doing stuff". And this doesn't even touch on the "Allegorists", such as Heraclitus (no relation to the Flux Master), who argued that yes, the Gods were essentially just Jungian archetypes

>>17889614
no, Christianity as a whole is just bullshit

>>17885960 (OP)
>pic
Holy misrepresentation and lying batman
>The truth is that anyone who claims to be pagan is a larper because real paganism died centuries ago
Jew slaves don't get to decide what is real religion and what is larping
I'm not reading the rest of your lies.

>>17889712
The fact that Varg is not an outlier but actually a good representation of the movement as a whole is indeed solid proof that it is all a LARP. Maybe a few people actually do contact demons and become their energy-depleted slaves, but generally "paganism" is just a generic anti-Christianity which appropriates the talking points of Hinduism and New Atheism.

>>17889709
We know what you think, Shmuel.

>>17889741
>Varg is not an outlier
by what messured is varg a representation of neopaganism, it isn't even a unified movement

>>17889757
He's somewhat honest in that he thinks Greco-Roman civilization wasn't "white" and that Christianity was a Med plot to ruin his We wuz Vikangs paradise. Some LARPagans say that Christianity was a Jew plot to ruin their Vikangz paradise, he just takes it one step further and thinks Greco-Roman civilization and Jews were all a singular entity that ruined his imagined idea of white "culture."

>>17889757
Stupid, negrified, historically illiterate, atheistic and only concerned with material matters etc. "Paganism" for Varg is merely a political vehicle, not a religion. That is what it is for 99% of e-pagans as well.

>>17888992
The fuck does it mean that Thor rides his goat chariot "spiritually"?
Thor is not a ghost. You should be able to see him, rather than just feel him.

lol Varg defined white people so narrowly that only some Eastern European people can be white and even he himself isn't white

>>17889033
Romans also were like that
It's very interesting trying to imagine the mindset of a Roman, who don't believe there's an actual dude guy Jupiter living on the top of a mountain
But he's still religious and practice rituals big and small - "this is just what we do"

Listen do a very interesting lecture a few years ago about how viewing religion as a set of facts that you believe is true, is a very modern and Anglo way of thinking
that is hard to step out of when you're a modern person and come to view it like that
very unlike how people thought about things 2000 years ago

nobody ever told LARPagans that well before Christianity the Romans already replaced local cults and gods in areas they conquered with the Roman pantheon

Claiming that pagans are not larpers is such a retarded hill to die on

>>17889712
Having very very little to zero historicity seems to be great evidence of the whole things being made-up and people playing pretend

>>17889772
again how is that a representation of neopaganism given that a good chunk of pagans don't share vargs politics or ideology and often critique him for being an atheist ?

>you are a larper
>why
>because you don’t actually believe in it
>but I do
>well you don’t practice the way they did
>do you practice like Christians of the past?
>well you get everything from pop culture
>the Edda’s aren’t pop culture
>well they’re not real
>proof?
>….

>>17889903
That's good to hear, but from my interactions with them they never even bother to make arguments, they just put on a really unconvincing high school bully performance and try to shut down debate with the same handful of premade insults and talking points over and over again. They have absolutely no concern for any soteriology or philosophy at all other than to condemn it as proto-Christian or accuse Christians of stealing it. Again, just politics. I would have absolutely no problem giving them credit if it were due, it's honestly annoying to have such stupid enemies, but unfortunately that's what we've got. E-pagans are very aggressively setting up their movement as a retard containment zone, and Varg is in the vanguard of that effort.

>>17885968
>The followers of these aren’t even from the Middle East. They are mostly westerners with no ties to any of these countries that historically practiced these religions. They don’t understand that these religions were deeply integrated into their societies, their languages, their political structures, and their environment, all of which no longer exist.
This explains all neopagan movements not just the middle eastern ones. You really think any of the larpagans posting here are actually Greek or Italian?

>>17889774
There are emanations of Thor that manifest as a person, much in the same way christians believe angels disguise themselves as men and appear to humans.
But the actual capital T Thor is a substance that exists without the universe.
Thor of the Eddas is a literary construct inasmuch as he is a series of characters with a shared name who plays a role in a story made up by a skald. In that was, the character of Thor in the Eddas is also like an emanation which reflects substance but doesn't fully capture or define it.

>>17890410
Huh. Strange how none of the people who actually practiced real Norse Paganism ever figured this out. I guess everyone practicing Norse paganism for the entirety of history was wrong until you came along in the year 2025 to set everyone straight.

>>17890410

You stole that idea from Christianity.

>>17890413
everything I said is a simple inference based on the poetry in the book of kings
>If you have to make even small logical leaps based on a language in an ancient poem to reach a conclusion, then that conclusion is prima facie wrong. Poems are supposed to be literal
I know some permutation of this retort is coming so I want you to know that, before you waste the time trying to make it, I will just call you a retard when you post it.

>>17885981
idiot george carlin detected

>>17890415
no, he stole that from Plato's philosophy
the same body of works christianity stole from

>>17889813
They didn't, though. They just ran them through interpretatio Graeca, at the most. They acrued, not destroyed, Gods and cults. Their only full religious persecution against Pagans that I can remember is them exterminating the Druids. And even then that was a priestly office, not a religion.
A non-Christian Europe would be religiously more like East Asia or India than anything you know.

>>17890479
>A non-Christian Europe would be religiously more like East Asia or India than anything you know.
except it wouldn't because European religious ideas are radically dissimilar to East Asian ones

>>17891005
I mean in the dynamics, retard. Syncretism, some Mystery cults, many localized deities, a few larger beliefs.

>>17886113
>sources: some salty athiest midwitt's forgery from 20th century

>>17885960 (OP)
The reason paganism died out in Europe is not that Christianity is a superior religion, it's just more appealing to people

"Believe in this man and you'll have eternal life in paradise" sounds a lot better to people than "Worship the gods or they'll slaughter your entire family"

Religions live and die based on how many people follow them

Survival of the fittest doesn't just apply to how life on Earth formed, it's a universal concept, and if a religion can no longer appeal to people then it deserves to be replaced by one that can

This, by the way, applies to Christianity too: maybe in the future there'll be a new religion that's even more appealing to people, and Christianity will slowly go extinct, having served its purpose

>>17891012
>I mean in the dynamics, retard. Syncretism, some Mystery cults, many localized deities, a few larger beliefs.

that's more or less what happened to Europe OTL anyway, so...

>>17891079
p. sure it died out because paganism is ooga booga bone in nose shit where you sacrifice a goat to the rain god so it rains on your crops. now Varg thinks that was "real" white people culture before Christians ruined it, so he's entitled to believe whatever.

>>17891092
>p. sure it died out because paganism is ooga booga bone in nose shit where you sacrifice a goat to the rain god so it rains on your crops.
That too, definitely, but it made perfect sense to the people at the time

Their thought process was that natural events are clearly caused by a higher intelligence, because nothing moves on its own unless a living thing like a human or an animal moves it and they didn't understand the laws of physics

They might've sacrificed a goat to Thor or whoever one time and they got a better harvest that year, so they decided to do it every year from then on

It may seem primitive, but they were just as smart as anyone alive today, they had the same powers of pattern recognition and were just going by what they believed to be true

Christianity definitely improved their society, though, and Varg is a dumbass for thinking otherwise

I have never met an English speaking person who is Christian. All larpchristians.

>>17885960 (OP)
>>17885960 (OP)
>>17885962
I feel like the main aspect of The Norse religion was conquest and shedding blood. The whole religion is built around it.

The sanctification of the site for ritual involves having a tree where sacrifices are hanged in the local vicinity. Ideally war captives but animals will work (particularly horses for Odin sacrifices, though each god had their holy animals).

Without the conquest, raping, pillaging, and bloodshed; they've lost the entire plot of the religion.

I've seen pics/vids of modern Norse practitioners and it always looks like a few fat hippies and incels (very few women and they few they have are hamplanets).

If there was any true power in the Norse pantheon, Thor would have lightning struck every one of them for being unworthy.

Never seen a "modern Norse ritual", that wasn't an embarrassment.

>>17891167
Converting to Islam is a better bet if you want to do that shit in the modern age.

>>17890301
What specific pagan claims do you believe is true?
why do you believe they are true?

>>17885960 (OP)
I don't like them because all they do is throw shit at walls and go "muh christcucks"

>>17887326
>I've summoned Jorogumo with offerings and chaos magick following guides on yokai.
Which guides?
>>17887352
They believe everything has a spirit with varying degrees of power, hence why things like trees and rocks can be worshipped, because they're held to be where a spirit of some kind lives. I'm not even sure saying gods is accurate in a Shinto context, Kami is usually translated like that but I'm like 90% they're basically super powerful spirits. Like a person after they die can be worshipped as Kami, for instance.
>are metaphors for natural forces.
That's drawing a distinction that isn't really there. Afaik in the theology they have they essentially are worshipping the natural forces, or, well, as a manifestation of some kind of spirit.

>>17891167
>I feel like the main aspect of The Norse religion was conquest and shedding blood.
>shedding blood
Shedding blood is a totally normal aspect of religious practice. Even mainstream religions like christianity subscribes to the ritual significance of blood. You can only obtain blood through inflicting grievous injuries or killing something, so it comes at a high cost, and when it comes time to forebear something to a higher power, it makes sense to give them something that is more precious to demonstrate especial devotion.
>The sanctification of the site for ritual involves having a tree where sacrifices are hanged in the local vicinity.
same idea as above
>conquest
this feels like an asspull meant to poison the well by framing pagans as deranged cavemen.
How does conquest factor into the cosmology of the norse universe? What, because the gods killed Ymir to make the world, so that's "conquest"?

>>17885989
>>>claim it’s the exact same beliefs as the ancient Celtic peoples
>they don't, hence neo
erm akshully they do. it's almost impossible to find genuine scholarly information about the pre-Christian belief systems of the Celtic peoples on the internet because it's so inundated with Neopagan bullshit.

Neopaganism typically falls into 3 categories:
>New Age hippy / Wicca & witchcraft LARP / astrology & tarot girlies
>Hitlerite Viking / Slav LARPers (with no real knowledge of Medieval Norse / Slavic society beyond pop culture and misinformation from Varg)
>People who try to blend the two or find a middle ground palatable to normies - modern Druids, Hellenists, people who claim the Gods are Jungian archetypes

The first two groups are very low IQ. The 3rd category are often just as insufferable and can't concretely tell you what they believe, but are at least have midwitted level of intelligence.

Honestly as far as I care all reality and nature could be considered Gods and spirits, and should be respected.
Personify aspects of it if you want, do rituals if you want, but that's really only going to be something that connects and grounds you to reality or alters you mental state, nothing more.
I don't necessarily think there's anything supernatural or immaterial, or that whatever caused this reality did so intentionally. Nor do I expect anything after death.
I've experienced some weird stuff on hallucinogens but I expect the entities I met there were either generated by my consciousness or exist materially, just in some dimension or form we can't normally reach.
Maybe this is just a dream of a sleeping Godhead who doesn't have any positive or negative intent. Idk.

>>17885968
Egyptian paganism is the universal religion.

Western esotericism and occultism > LARPaganism
At least occultism is a legitimate tradition going back to antiquity with various books and grimoires
Pouring beer over a rock, being a 4chan chud and listening to Amon Amarth is NOT a religion

>>17891496
Descriptive guides on diet, customs, how to treat, etc.
Night Parade of One Hundred Demons is a bit limited, but I keep adding.

>>17891618
Also if you're broke ask Deepseek

>>17891572
> akshully they do
can you point were they claim that they have the exact same beliefs as the ancient Celtic peoples ?

>>17885960 (OP)
>They are just larping as followers of a dead religion.
That's Christians.

>>17885968
The pharaohs were red headed whites

>>17891380

>>17891089
That's wrong though. Western christianity actively supplanted everything from Poland to Asturias and subordinated it to a centralized hierarchy with a coherent doctrine. Dissent was brutally supressed.

>>17891575
>Hitlerite Viking / Slav LARPers (with no real knowledge of Medieval Norse / Slavic society beyond pop culture and misinformation from Varg)
+they're all 15 and mad that their grandma made them go to church with her last Sunday

>>17885960 (OP)
Would you call hoodoo and Vodun neopagan?

>>17885960 (OP)
Neopaganism is largely reconstructionist. No unbroken lines, just modern reinterpretations. But calling it pure LARP ignores sincere spiritual seekers, even if their practices are romanticized. Real ancient pagans would probably laugh at crystal grids, but hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere. Dead religions don't stay dead if people revive them.

>>17885960 (OP)
Literally every tradition starts out as a bunch of people larping and making shit up. Give the neopagans a few hundred years, and they will have created a new tradition.

>>17885962
>only major difference being their obsession with race (which historical Norse pagans didn’t care about)
Maybe not on level of race, because in the norse world the brownest it gets is an arab and the yellowest a turk, but they did have some beliefs against miscegenation. I think in the saga of Hervor and Hathrek there's a piece where hun invasion is brought by a son of one of the characters with hunnic slave woman and given the general moralistic character of that part of the piece(there's also a woman who dies in battle just so they can introduce moralistic speech about people who don't come to war being worse than women) I doubt it was just randomly thrown in.

>>17892625
Funnily enough some of the main criticism the Romans made of early Christians was that they didn't have any real tradition and were just making shit up or blindly following a superstitious tale some sorcerer/scammer made up

>>17892668
that could also be a romanticized version of some historical individual instead of just a invention for moralism sake