{"id":1482,"date":"2013-05-11T02:33:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1482"},"modified":"2013-05-11T02:33:48","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:33:48","slug":"religion-vs-philosophy-asatru-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1482","title":{"rendered":"Religion vs. Philosophy: Asatru worship ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan asks:<\/strong>
\nHello, I am a 15 year old and I am a strong believer in a faith called Asatru. Asatru is the pre-christian religion of the Germans and Norse, so yes, Thor, Odin, Njord, Freyr, Freya. I believe their names and anthropomorphism is only used in place to understand the forces they control, like Thor = Thunder etc. As an atheist, would you say its wrong to believe in something irrational like this, but at the same time I don’t impose my beliefs on others nor do I really think my religion is universally applicable to everyone, because honestly, do we know whats out there? Btw, Asatru, is generally more ethically focussed (Google 9 Noble Virtues for more info) and the faith has a large population of atheists who use it as an ethical base.<\/p>\n

Jakes answer:<\/strong>
\nHi Ryan. I think what we need to do here is distinguish the difference between a religion and a personal philosophy. For example, I may be an atheist, but I am also philosophically a buddhist. I try to practice the 4 noble truths and to be mindful. Since buddhism doesn’t concern itself with gods or the afterlife it’s not in conflict with my atheism. The same can be said for those who follow the 9 noble virtues. Religion is generally defined as a system of worship ( the politics of mythology if you will ). Asatru in my understanding is more of a personal philosophy which anthropomorphises the elements and attributes of man as a way of understanding the world around us. ( please correct me if I am wrong ) In my eyes this is completely different from those who believe in a personal god, and believe that said god dictates to them how they should live their lives. Asatru, like buddhism asks you to discover for yourself by looking inwards and understanding your impact on the world. The abrahamic religions demand worship and obedience and tell you that your impact on the world isn’t as important as personal salvation in the afterlife. These are two different mindsets and are incompatible. From what I understand Asatru is even against proselytizing. <\/p>\n

So I understand why atheists turn to Asatru. I have several friends who practice it. I get it. I don’t see a problem with it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan asks: Hello, I am a 15 year old and I am a strong believer in a faith called Asatru. Asatru is the pre-christian religion of the Germans and Norse, so yes, Thor, Odin, Njord, Freyr, Freya. I believe their names and anthropomorphism is only used in place to understand the forces they control, like … Continue reading “Religion vs. Philosophy: Asatru worship ?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-nU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}