Mike H.

Think about it. Does your faith truly empower you as an individual? Does it celebrate human dignity? Does it view individual freedom as among the highest of spiritual values? Or does it threaten to punish the actual exercise of a person's intelligence and conscience (i.e. free will)?

Purely a "what if" exercise... assume you have only two years left and death (or at lest TEOTWAWKI) will arrive sometime in 2012. What would you do differently in the next two years? What changes would you make? What risks would you take? :)

A Theodsman I know pays particular attention to his dreams during the 12 Days of Yule. He claims there is lore -- I forget the exact source he cited, the conversation was shortly after the last holiday season -- suggesting that the dreams we have during this time may carry deeper meaning and perhaps even portents for the future. Don't recall any past Yuletide-y dreams, myself... but am planning to pay closer attention this season as I do tend to sleep longer at the onset of winter, which may impact dream quality.

Curious whether any other Asatru/heathens have observed this effect or hold this practice of heeding dreams more closely during Yuletide as well.

Wassail!

Wassail!

Health unto you.

May your days be merry!

Wassail!

Wassail!

Health unto you.

All the years of your life!

Sure looks like it to me! :)

"Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists" (Nov 16, 2009 - Wired Magazine)

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/speciati...

For example, I am rather partial to the maxims that "We are our deeds" and "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees." If you have a similar favorite expression or motto, please share! :)

"The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine."

I love this celebration of connection to the land and to our kin. Here are the words of blessing I'll be offering at the family table later today...

"Praise the bounty of the harvest

laid in feast before us here.

Gifts of earth and gifts of labor,

hunger's bite we shall not fear.

Wassail! Wassail!

Health unto you.

May your days be merry.

Wassail! Wassail!

Health unto you.

All the years of your life."

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Mike H.

The Happy Heathen

Off slaying giants in Jotunheim or busy drinking ale in Asgard, I suppose. :)

http://www.thelocal.se/8790/20071015/

I love it. They tell it like it is. Classrooms are for facts, not faith. It isn't the place of public institutions to teach personal beliefs.

Not really a question. Just thought it was an interesting news item.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20481129/

Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

- Richard Dawkins

Oxford professor and author of 'The God Delusion'

http://richarddawkins.net/godDelusion

"Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander."

--- Holocaust Museum (Washington, DC)

* * *

What are your thoughts on this quote?

People babble on about prayer as a stress-reliever... but I've usually found that taking a good nap is just about as effective. How about you?

Then kindly explain to me Numbers 16:16-49

The escaped Israelites complained to Moses about the lack of food and water in the desert. Moses commands that 250 of them must come to the tent and present incense at the altar. They do so.

God says, "Stand back from these people, and I will destroy them immediately."

Moses then asks an important moral question:

"O, God, you are the source of all life. When one man sins, do you get angry with the whole community?"

God's response?

"The ground under Dathan and Abiram split open and swallowed them and their families, together with all of Korah's followers and their possessions. The earth closed over them, and they vanished."

Then he sends fire to kill the 250 men that had presented the incense. Nice.

The rest of the community gathers the next day to complain about the 250 killed. God then slays another 14,700 of them.

"And their families" means children, too. How can anyone possibly justify this child-slaying deity as "good?"

Thinking about the story of how Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Issac... if old Abe was a real man and not a complete wuss, then I suspect he was testing God (not the other way around as is commonly supposed).

Any deity who would demand the slaughter of children is not worth honoring. I'd rather die trying to protect my child than live in service of such a being.

Have you ever thought about how strange it is that your faith practice essentially honors a Middle Eastern tribal deity (Jehovah, Yahweh)? In other words, that you're worshipping a foreign god?

Have you ever considered that obsession with sin, viewing the body with shame, and fear of death and dying are values completely alien to your pre-Christian ancestors? They valued courage and self-reliance, laughter and loyalty, strength and standing up for yourself... not humility, weeping, and turning the other cheek.

Just something you may wish to consider...

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvo...

"The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights."

--Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819.