Odinism Archives - The Rational Heathen

We Need to Get Rid of Racism NOW

April 9, 2016 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

I’m tired of racism. I really am. I’m tired of the white supremacists claiming our beliefs. As I’ve said: there is no such thing as race. Whether your skin color is white, black, brown, yellow, purple, or green — if you’re human, you’re human. Science has a theory that is pretty much proves that we came out of Africa. And for those of you theory deniers, here’s my quote (so you understand what a theory is):in a previous post, I’ll state it again:

The word “theory” in science used to describe an explanation of why and how things happen. For gravity, we use Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to explain why things fall. “Theory” is not synonymous with “unproven.” “Theory” means that the statement is consistent with everything we know, including facts. However, if a new fact were to arrive that changes our understanding of the world, it may change the Theory. For example, depending on how you use gravity varies the terminology. If you’re using it in mathematics, it’s a Law. But if you’re talking about gravity and how it interacts with things, it’s a Theory.

My Dad Kicked Nazi Butts

I hope my Christian dad is in Folkvangr because, by the gods, he did the right thing. He arrived in Germany just after the war and told me he had been stationed at one of Hitler’s concentration camps that still held Jews. You see, with that many people displaced, the Americans had no choice but to keep these poor people in the same nightmare they had been in. Only they took care of these people. Don’t you dare try to tell me the Holocaust was fake. It most certainly was not. My dad was there. He saw. He knew.

My dad did a lot of searching for Nazi sympathizers and throwing them in prison. He never told me all he did, but I do know he was in Germany during the Berlin Airlift, too. Yeah, my dad was one of those who lived history.

He and I used to sit and watch WWII movies and documentaries all the time. He had nothing good to say about any of the Nazis. He felt that the Holocaust was terrible. And it was. Anyone who thinks the Holocaust or other “final solutions” needs to have their head examined. There is no excuse for it.

And I’m pretty sure that those who had a hand in the Holocaust have gone Náströnd for this. It is our equivalent of the Christian hell for those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking. 6 million people murdered. Hitler is dragon fodder. And good riddance.

There is No Place for White Supremacists in Heathenism

I grew up hating bigots who oppressed people because of their religion, ethnicity, or skin color. I hate skinheads, and if you use my religion to further your white supremacist beliefs, you need to go back to whatever religion you came from. I don’t want you here, nor do many people who believe in our gods, whether they be Asatru, Heathen, or Pagan. It’s bad enough that our runes like Othala, Sowelu, and even Teiwas had been stolen by your kind.

Our gods are not racist. They can’t be. The reason is obvious: our religion came from one source at one time. Eventually it branched out into the religions we know today. Why? Because humans more than once nearly went extinct. (I cover this in the links above). We’re all related, with some minor variation of Neanderthals and Denisovian genes thrown in. We’re all one race. You and I have the same mitochondria from one woman who lived long ago. And guess what? So does every human on this planet including people of African descent, Jewish people, and your particular tribe.

To Those Who Tolerate White Supremacists

Being silent is consent. If you’re not against these evil people, then you are for them. Plain and simple. Even if you don’t care/don’t think it’s wrong/don’t have a stand/think I’m exaggerating and being emotional, let’s look at the whole racism thing without the emotion attached. If you are Asatruar or Heathen who still puts up with racism and bigotry, even though you may say you’re against it, ask yourself do you really want this to be a religion where the first things people think of is racism? Because guess what? That’s what makes headlines. And what makes headlines is exactly what will attract more of the same white supremacists. Do you really want Asatru to be the religion of hate?

You might argue the No True Scotman defense, which is patently bullshit. Asatru and Heathenism by its northern roots often attracts those who are looking for something folkish. These miscreants twist the meaning of our religion and culture for their own use. And the press, knowing no different, paints us all with a broad brush.

I get exceedingly frustrated because most of them are Odinists. And I don’t have a problem with Odin being someone’s main god as long as they understand Odin doesn’t condone bigotry, even if he can be wonky at times. Most white supremacists are Christian, and yet no one points to Christianity as a religion of hate. The difference is that Christianity is pervasive. Asatruar and Heathenism is not. Is the press making the same misguided mistakes people do when they paint us all with a broad brush? Yes. It doesn’t matter what you think. You have already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion if you don’t speak up.

Why are We Still Dealing with Racism and Bigotry?

Call me a Jew lover. You betcha. I’ll wear that proudly and Tyr will back me up one hundred percent. While I don’t agree with the Abrahamic religions, I don’t believe in persecuting anyone on account of being a Jew or Christian or Muslim. My roommate in college was Muslim and was the nicest kid I ever knew. I have had friends of different religions and no religions.

This is why it has shocked me it has become fashionable lately to be bigoted toward Jews again. I see more and more outright aggression toward a group of people who have suffered so much. These are humans. They are people who have different beliefs that were forced into certain cultural roles due to intolerance and persecution. I’ve seen this bigotry among college graduates and people who claim to be liberal, but are clearly motivated by their own forms of hatred. My dad, who was conservative, was less bigoted than they are.

As for race, remember: there is no such thing as race, although there is ethnicity. (Again you can read the posts I cited above to understand the difference.) If you want to be proud of your ethnicity, fine. But don’t think that another group is inferior. We’re all the same people with minor genetic differences.

Ask Yourself Why You Hate a Particular Ethnicity

I’m asking you now why you hate a particular group of people? Is it because you remember someone of that ethnicity was mean to you? I remember being treated badly by a black kid when I was growing up — I didn’t think that kid was bad because she was black. I thought that kid is mean because she was mean. She was just one mean kid in a group of bullies, who, incidentally, were mostly white. I didn’t think in terms of color. Color was just another thing.

If you’ve been treated badly by someone not of your ethnicity, maybe it’s time to look at the person and not the color of their skin. There are bad people of all ethnicity. Hel, there are bad people of different tribes that are looking to harm us, but those are their ideologies and not their actual genetic makeup. If you’re looking for bogeymen or scapegoats to blame because of your circumstance and think hating and blaming others is okay, think again. It’s easy to demonize the other, especially when you put yourself into one tribe versus another mode.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Condescension or Surety? It Isn’t Bragging if You’re Right

January 20, 2016 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

Shit storm.

Get a little fervent about a subject in this day and age, and suddenly they label you condescending when they figure out you’re a woman. Maybe I should read the Bible where woman are told to shut the Hel up? You know, the one with this little passage:

“Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (I Timothy 2:11-14)

A friend of mine posted one of my posts on a Facebook Odinism group, and true to form, the first thing called out was that it was condescending. Really? Might it be because it came from a woman? Even the Havamal has this nasty piece when talking about women:

83: The speech of a maiden should no man trust
nor the words which a woman says;
for their hearts were shaped on a whirling wheel
and falsehood fixed in their breasts.

Thanks, Odin. Thanks a lot. This is why Tyr is my god. But even if this were inspired by Odin, humans still had a hand in writing this down, and we can just imagine what kind of axe to grind when it was put to paper in the Codex Regius. This is actually a compilation of works that were written down around 1270 CE, more than 200 years after the age of the Vikings. We have no idea if the monks who wrote it down followed the true verse or whether it was highly influenced by Christianity. Or whether this is really what Odin thinks. I suspect not, even though he is a fickle god.

Critical Thinking and Confidence

I get a little emphatic when I discuss something that I know I’m in the right about and when I have documented evidence to back my assertions up. I sound confident when I provide that evidence so it is “as clear as is the summer sun…”, and when I read idiotic posts by others who seem to think they have the world figured out, but basically have never been taught critical thinking and can’t use it to save their lives. In these cases, yes, I get a bit fervent. Guess what? Our ancestors did too.

At one time it was actually accepted to hear someone be confident when they spoke. Our Northern ancestors actually relished hearing the deeds and opinions of others. Somebody got out of line? Well, there were plenty of people willing to take the person down a notch or two.

Calling Out Confidence

Our society is full of stupid, irrational behaviors brought about by none other than Christianity. If someone gets in your face about being wrong, she is called out for being condescending, even when the points are valid. Would it have the same effect if I didn’t sound so angry because people act stupid (yes, stupid) and refuse to believe scientific facts? Yes, I suspect so. Hel, someone was kind enough to go down the same road to mansplain me what a Theory is. Seriously?

When a woman actually calls out men for being idiots, she’s being told she’s being rude, she’s a Marxist (oh, that’s rich!), being condescending, and saying, implicitly, that she should have said it nicer. Really? When a man says it, we might say he’s being confident, or maybe arrogant. But again, the person doesn’t worry about the tone so much, but rather the message. Nobody says, “geez, you could be a little less condescending.”

Bullies–in the Internet Sense

How does Christianity play into this? Just look at all the freakin passages that tell you to listen to your elders, obey, and otherwise behave ourselves. Let me tell you a little secret: I grew up Catholic. You were never supposed to get angry, challenge authority, or do anything that might cause strife. I grew up in a fucking wolf pack of a school where I was singled out for being quiet, smart, and not the norm. Because of this, I had to deal with bullying. Yep, bullying. And I did so poorly because I was told to “turn the other cheek.”

When I post something on a blog, I expect a reaction. Good, bad, indifferent. I sure as shit am not going to let some whiny people change my behavior because my words make them feel uncomfortable. Don’t like it? That’s okay. But don’t think your words will make me change any of mine.

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.” ― Benjamin Franklin

Blaming the Messenger–Just Because You Don’t Want to Hear It

Yes, there were people who complained about the message, but didn’t bother to point out WHERE my sources were incorrect. (They weren’t, BTW.) I was very careful to use sources that were legitimate. Note using some piece on the Internet that my neighbor would call fact isn’t a valid source. He believes in the Illuminati and Chemtrails, which pretty much throws out any part of rational thought.

22. The miserable man and evil minded
makes of all things mockery,
and knows not that which he best should know,
that he is not free from faults.

Yep, that’s the Havamal again. I do agree with this passage when it comes to ignorant people mansplaining things to me. Look, I don’t know everything. I don’t claim to know everything. That’s why I read and look shit up. That’s why I can talk with some certainty. If you aren’t willing to have a rational discussion (with the Rational Heathen–get it? Get it?), then we really have nothing to talk about and you need to go to your little corner of the vast Internet and lick your wounds. Go play with the other uneducated idiots out there. The sandbox is plenty big for us both.

So, where do we go from here? Obviously, I don’t back down when it comes to a fight. That’s my nature. If you’re going to have a battle of wits with me, bring your A-Game. Otherwise, you just might have more than you bargained for.

My Gods are Colorblind

January 9, 2016 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

I’m probably going to be stepping into something rather unpleasant, but here goes.

One of the headaches Heathenism has is the racism that is often disguised as Odinism and Folkishness. In an attempt to find a religion that is northern based, some people believe — wrongly, I might add — that heathens are racist. Therefore, these people jump heartily into Heathenism thinking that all people who belong to Heathenism are racist.

That just isn’t so. There are many good people who follow the gods. Some aren’t white. The gods, I believe, are colorblind. The reason is obvious. No matter what people and the government state in terms of race, there aren’t any separate races when it comes to humans. We’re the same under the skin.

There is NO SUCH THING as Race

Race is a construct. You can’t take a look at someone’s DNA and say, “wow, that person is white” [or black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever.] There is ethnicity, but not race. Ethnicity is where a certain social group of humans have a historical and cultural tradition that is often aligned with geography. It includes being nationalistic. So, if your ancestors came from Sweden, my guess is that you might have some influences from Sweden, even if you live in America and your family has lived in America for several generations. Maybe you’re a fan of pickled herring and Swedish pancakes because that’s what you grew up with. (Or maybe you just like beer and pizza.) Anyway, whatever you like and dislike may have been due to the ethnic influences you grew up with. Obviously, if you didn’t grow up eating pickled herring, maybe you might find it weird or nasty. And you might look at your ancestors as being odd for eating it.

When People Change Ethnicity

I have seen where ethnicity changes a person even though they were adopted into that ethnic group. One friend of mine was adopted from Asia and his parents were British, but they lived in America. (Got that?) My friend has Asian features but is highly influenced by British, and ultimately American, cultures. This guy has virtually no cultural association with his former country (to be honest, I don’t remember what it was.) If you were to drop him into that country, he couldn’t speak the language and would find it as foreign as I probably would. Another friend of mine had come from a Welsh family but was adopted by a Swedish woman. His ethnicity was clearly Swedish even though at one time he was considered Welsh.

Guess Who Is Pure Homo Sapiens?

We are all Homo Sapiens. Some of us have Neanderthal and Denisovian genes running around in our DNA, but we make up the same species. If you want to talk about pure Homo Sapiens, the people who come from Africa, who haven’t mingled with people with Europe or Asian ancestry, are probably the most pure. Something to think about if you’re a bigoted, narrow-minded white supremacist.

So, if we’re a mix of various hominids, we’re all mutts, and talking skin color, differing features, and whatnot, is patently absurd. The fact that every single one of us has mitochondria from one woman and the fact that human beings nearly went extinct not once, but at least twice proves that we’re all a bunch of inbred gorilla cousins, and that when you look at someone “not of your race,” you’re actually looking at yourself with some ridiculously minor genetic variations. Science doesn’t lie.

The problem is that when racist people start following our gods, it taints the rest of us because the media is quick to paint everyone with a broad brush. It’s not fair, but that is how life is. And, as I’ve pointed out in the past, life isn’t fair. So get over it.

If you’re one of those people who use Asatru, Heathenism, Odinism, or Folkishness to justify your racism, stop. The gods really don’t care what the color of your skin is, whether you’re from the northern latitudes, or whether you’re some bullshit made up “master race.” If anything, they’re probably annoyed at your behavior.