Skeletal Remains Of An Entire Army Found In An Ancient Mass Grave In Denmark

[merithyn]

Tradition lends respect to the other religions. Even if the hippie pagans said "we're starting a new religion, wanna join?" they're be ok, but they're trying to tie themselves to old religions and practices and pawning it off as authentic. That's just worthy of derision.

Yeah, I kind of think that's a bit ridiculous, but then, there are a lot of Christians who believe a lot of ridiculous things, too. Not all, of course - kind of like not all Pagans believe that stuff.

[dps]

A few years back I happened to be doing some reading about Norse mythology, and I was surprised about how little we actually know about their beliefs.    Certainly I had been somewhat aware that less was known about their pantheon and practices, than say, Greco-Roman mythology, but I hadn't realized just how much less.  Plus, while a great deal of what we know of Greco-Roman mythology is from more-or-less contemporaneous sources, much of what little we know of Norse mythology is from sources that come after the Norse themselves had abandoned their traditional beliefs and converted to Christianity.

It's shocking how little we know about Greco-Roman mythology.  It tends to come from only a few sources.  And some sources like Ovid didn't even believe them.  We know even less how their religions actually worked or how religious authorities viewed the mythology.

Still almost an order of magnitude more than what we know about Norse myths.

[Admiral Yi]

If utility exists why is sincerity required?

Alternately, how does invention imply insincerity?

Sincerity is not required.  Their pose brings them ostensible utility, and very little if any disutility to anyone else.  But if we're trying to answer the question whether these goobers really believe what they say they believe we're asking the question of their sincerity.

I personally don't see any connection between invention and insincerity.  For example the practitioners of some of the hallucenegic based religions seem very sincere that getting wacked out of your skull raises your consciousness.

[Razgovory]

Any story.  If you make up a story about where you were last night, or how Druids disguise themselves as Catholic monks and kept their religion secret, or that space aliens threw people into a volcano a billion years ago, or how the spirits of Vikings told you to reform their religion you wouldn't believe your own story would you?  After all, you just made it up.

That is true. Now back to the discussion we were having: How does inventing a religion imply insincerity about it?

Cause religious texts are basically a series of stories?  If you invent a group of gods, you know more then anyone that it's real.  Am I leaving out something here?

[Maximus]

Depending on how you define "religious texts" not all religions have them, and I don't think it would be accurate to call them all storybooks.

[Razgovory]

They do tell stories for the most part don't they?

[Maximus]

Some do. The christian bible has stories. I don't know enough about the authorative texts of other religions to say. And of course authorative texts are rare among the newer religions.

[Razgovory]

Ah, okay.  You don't know enough.  That's good enough for me.

[Martim Silva]

164 stanzas written 300 years after the death of a religion is not equivallent to a religious text liek the dead sea scrolls. Raz's comparisson was off. it's more like catching a 30 minute clip of the passion of the christ... if passion was written by someone who only had passing knowledge of the subject matter he was writing about

In all honesty, Christianity itself is largely based on the version that was decided on the Council of Nicaea, which took place about 300 years after the death of Christ... it pretty much took gospels out, kept others and re-wrote the Bible. So the basis of the religion isn't really deeply linked to what was followed by the early Christians of the 1st century AD (not to forget later changes, that led for example to the differences found between the Byzantine Bible and the Catholic Bible in the XVth century)

Or worse, how many Catholics know the Archangels Anael, Simiel, Oriphiel and Zachariel, for example? Highly respected 1,000 years ago, discarded by the modern Papacy...

I guess modern Christians aren't really Christians.

[PDH]

Are they myths, or are they stories?  There is a difference.

Yi was right, judging is not on the tale, but the belief.  A myth is fundamentally true to the believers, a story might just be hokum.  One good way to give a bit of judgement is to observe the rituals undertaken and see if they have the emotional attachment that seems basic to all effective rituals.