Suriyanakhon wrote:Washington Resistance Army wrote:Tbqh there's a very good argument to be made that "folkish" paganism is just atheism. Putting race above personal experiences of theophany or hierophany and the general will of the Gods is the height of atheistic hubris. I might do a full takedown of this Nazi shit later because it's really easy to poke holes in from a polytheistic standpoint, to the point that it's just kind of pathetic anyone actually believes it.
This is probably why the völkisch paganism usually falls into Jungian archetypes or some other weird New Age religious belief, it turns into subjectivism to try and justify weird exclusionary beliefs that don't make any sense (if the gods exist, there's no logical reason for them to care about some lines on a map).
Even the things that crowd tries to hold up as historical paganism (the Nine Noble Virtues, for example) are entirely made up junk. It's absurdity all the way through.
Evergar wrote:Odin is not everyone's god. Zeus is not everyone's god. Neither is Vulcan or Kuraokami. True, historical, traditional Paganism was never all-inclusive..
Take this for example, it has no basis in reality. The Germanic Tyr was worshipped in Roman territories as Mars Thingsus and the German tribes themselves practiced Interpretatio Germanica to equate and mix their own religion with that of the Mediterranean world. The Batavi, Saxons, Goths, Cherusci and a bunch of others joined the Roman Army and by all accounts merged their own cultures and religions with those of the empire. There was substantial overlap between the Celts and Germans, Caesar recounts in his Commentaries that Suebic chiefs sometimes had Gallic names and some were multilingual and could speak both Germanic and Celtic tongues. The Franks famously adopted large parts of Roman culture even when they were still pagans. There were temples to Egyptian Gods built in England. Zeus was worshipped as far east as modern Afghanistan. The Anatolian God Teshub was worshipped as far west as Germany in the form of Jupiter Dolichenus. Indo-European polytheism is extremely diverse and by its very nature inclusive, it always was and always will be.
One of the most famous pagans in history, Julian the Apostate, even touches on this very topic in some of his writings, saying:
Though my family is Thracian, I am a Greek in my habits.
Because culture and religion in these societies was not something dictated by skin color, it was dictated by actions. This is how Africans and Middle Easterners came to rule the empire and with it much of Europe at various points. They certainly weren't Italians or Greeks by blood, but because they partook in the culture they could rise to even the highest offices in the land, both secular and theological.
Plutarch also has some excellent musings on the topic;
Nor do we think of the Gods as different Gods among different peoples, nor as barbarian Gods and Greek Gods, nor as southern and northern Gods; but, just as the sun and the moon and the heavens and the earth and the sea are common to all, but are called by different names by different peoples, so there have arisen among different peoples, in accordance with their customs, different honours and appellations.”
This is why people of non Greco-Roman descent can be Hellenists, because we know how ritual is done and as long as you carry it out piously then you are one of us. It is the height of human arrogance to claim to know the will of the divine to such an extent that you attempt to block off an entire religious path for someone who might truly believe they had a religious experience and were drawn to it.
Thankfully the folkish sorts aren't growing nearly as fast as the rest of us are and will hopefully continue to be pushed more and more to the sidelines.
