Balance

Lately I've been learning more about the ideals of Celtic/Nordic paganism... look past the worship of Wotan/Odin and trees, and you start to find some interesting things...

For instance, no concept of Good/Evil, which seems to be primarily a Judaic concept. Instead there is a balance of light/dark, which while similar, is not the same.

Instead of morales, there are ethics. When you do something "wrong", instead of feeling guilty and moping, you reflect on it, and change your code of ethics to make sure it's not a problem in the future, either by making an ethical decision not to do the same thing, or by simply refusing to judge it as ethically incorrect.

Most importantly, instead of attempting in the Judaic fashion to clariry something as one thing or the other, this system of beliefs tries to define a fulcrum between two poles. Something becomes less positive, more negative, but not entirely one or the other. When somethings is intensely complex, like a person for instance, it can be thought of as an intersection of balancing beams, each with two poles of varying influence/weight. There is one central fulcrum where all the beams meet, and there is the point of being...

Interesting stuff!

That's pretty interesting stuff; I've been thinking of some thigns along those lines too, I just didn't know how to put it all together.

Did you get the info from a textbook or website or...?

Originally posted by Cbass
Lately I've been learning more about the ideals of Celtic/Nordic paganism... look past the worship of Wotan/Odin and trees, and you start to find some interesting things...

For instance, no concept of Good/Evil, which seems to be primarily a Judaic concept. Instead there is a balance of light/dark, which while similar, is not the same.

Instead of morales, there are ethics. When you do something "wrong", instead of feeling guilty and moping, you reflect on it, and change your code of ethics to make sure it's not a problem in the future, either by making an ethical decision not to do the same thing, or by simply refusing to judge it as ethically incorrect.

Most importantly, instead of attempting in the Judaic fashion to clariry something as one thing or the other, this system of beliefs tries to define a fulcrum between two poles. Something becomes less positive, more negative, but not entirely one or the other. When somethings is intensely complex, like a person for instance, it can be thought of as an intersection of balancing beams, each with two poles of varying influence/weight. There is one central fulcrum where all the beams meet, and there is the point of being...

Interesting stuff!
Yes, indeed, this is something very well written, and interesting.
So this stuff is obviosly touching the outside world right? How we get punished etc. Or i misunderstood?

Well, I first learned about this sort of thing reading an english translation of The Celts by Gerhard Herm, who was a brilliant philologist. It mainly focuses on the Celts, but also covers the entire Indo-European people, and roots of paganism. Damned good read.

I personally don't care much for the religious aspect of it, but I find the ethics and outlook on life very intrigueing, and much more sensible than the Judeao-Christian equivalents...

http://www.flinders.edu.au/religiouscentre/chaplains/lorelei/what.doc

That's a good summary of Paganism in short.

Great threads. Some of those things are things I'm personally working through at the moment. Absolute truth, right and wrong, morals, ethics, values etc.

Morales are something that someone else tells you to believe in... Ethics are something you come up of your own volition, a code of conduct and logic to govern your actions... It's much easier to modify you ethics than your morales.

I don't have morals, I have ethics :D