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From: an194413@anon.penet.fi
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Organization: Anonymous contact service
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Date: Fri,  3 Mar 1995 22:25:58 UTC
Subject: AFA Asatru FAQ -now complete
Lines: 306


THE ASATRU FOLK ASSEMBLY:  ASATRU FAQ
Copyright (C) 1995 by Stephen A. McNallen

Long before Christianity came to  northern Europe, the  people there -
our ancestors - had their own religions.  One of these was Asatru.  It
was  practiced in  the  lands that  are today   Scandinavia,  England,
Germany, France, the  Netherlands, and neighboring  areas.  Asatru  is
the original or  native religious belief  for the peoples who lived in
these regions.

WHAT DOES THE WORD "ASATRU" MEAN?
It means, roughly, "belief in the Gods" in Old Norse, the  language of
ancient   Scandinavia  in which  so much  of   our source material was
written.    Asatru is  the name  by   which the Norsemen called  their
religion.

WHEN DID ASATRU START?
Asatru is thousands  of  years  old.   Its  beginnings are    lost  in
prehistory,  but  it is older  than  Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or
most other  religions.    The spiritual  impulses  it expresses are as
ancient as the European peoples themselves -  at  least forty thousand
years, and perhaps much older.

WHY DO WE NEED ASATRU?  AREN'T MOST PEOPLE WHO WANT RELIGION SATISFIED
WITH CHRISTIANITY OR ONE OF THE OTHER "ESTABLISHED" RELIGIONS?
People  are attracted to  the better-known religions because they have
genuine spiritual needs which must be filled.   People are looking for
community  and for  answers to  the "big questions":  What life is all
about, and how   we  should  live it.   For  many  people   today, the
so-called major  faiths do  not   have answers that  work.  Asatru has
answers, but it has not been  an alternative  for most seekers because
they haven't known about it.  Once they realize  that there is another
way - a better, more natural, more honorable  way  -  they will not be
satisfied with anything  less than a return  to  the religion of their
ancestors.

WHY IS THE RELIGION OF OUR ANCESTORS THE BEST ONE FOR US?
Because we are more like our ancestors than  we are like  anyone else.
We inherited not  only   their general physical appearance,   but also
their predominant mental, emotional, and  spiritual traits.  We  think
and feel more like  they did;  our  basic needs  are most like theirs.
The religion which best expressed their innermost nature - Asatru - is
better suited to us than are the Middle  Eastern religions which arose
among people who are  essentially different  from   us.  Christianity,
Islam, and Judaism are alien religions which do not truly speak to our
souls.

WHY DID ASATRU DIE OUT IF IT WAS THE RIGHT RELIGION FOR EUROPEANS?
Asatru was subjected to a violent campaign  of repression for hundreds
of years.  Countless thousands of  people  were murdered, maimed,  and
exiled in the process.   The common  people,  your ancestors,  did not
give  up their cherished beliefs  easily.   Eventually, the monolithic
organization of the Christian church, bolstered by threats of economic
isolation and assisted by  an energetic propaganda campaign, triumphed
over the valiant but disunited tribes.

Or  so  it  seemed!  Despite this   persecution,  elements  of  Asatru
continued down to  our own times  - often in the  guise of folklore  -
proving that our own native religion  appeals to  our innermost beings
in  a fundamental   way.  Now,  a   thousand years after  its supposed
demise, it is alive and growing.  Indeed, so long as there are men and
women of  European descent, it  cannot  really die because it  springs
from the soul of our people.  Asatru isn't just what we believe, it is
what we are.

WASN'T THE ACCEPTANCE OF CHRISTIANITY A SIGN  OF CIVILIZATION - A STEP
UP FROM BARBARISM?
No!  The   atrocities  committed  by Christians,   Muslims,   and Jews
throughout history are hardly a  step up from anything. The  so-called
"barbarians"  who followed  Asatru (the Vikings,  the various Germanic
tribes,  and  so  forth)  were  the source   of our  finest  civilized
traditions - trial  by jury, parliaments, Anglo  Saxon common law, and
the rights of women, to  name a few.   Our  very word "law" comes from
the Norse language, not from the tongues  of the  Christian lands.  We
simply did not and do not need Christianity to be civilized.

YOU  SAY ASATRU WAS THE  RELIGION OF THE  VIKINGS,  AMONG  OTHER EARLY
EUROPEAN CULTURES.  WEREN'T THEY A PRETTY BLOODTHIRSTY LOT?
Modern historians agree that the Vikings were no more violent than the
other peoples of  their  times.  Remember, the descriptions  of Viking
raids and invasions were all written by their enemies, who were hardly
unbiased.  Both the Islamic  and Christian  cultures used means  every
bit as bloody, if not more so, than the Norsemen.  It was a very rough
period in history for all concerned!

WE KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE VIKINGS.  DOES THIS MEAN THAT ASATRU IS ONLY
FOR PEOPLE OF SCANDINAVIAN ANCESTRY?
No.  Asatru, as practiced by the Norse peoples,  had so much in common
with the religion of the other Germanic tribes, and with their cousins
the Celts,  that  it may be thought  of as one   version of  a general
European religion.  Asatru is for all European peoples, whether or not
their heritage is specifically Scandinavian.

WHAT ARE THE BASIC BELIEFS OF ASATRU?
We believe in  an underlying, all-pervading divine  energy or  essence
which is generally hidden  from us, and which is  beyond our immediate
understanding.   We  further  believe that  this spiritual  reality is
interdependent with us - that we affect it, and it affects us.

We believe that this underlying divinity expresses itself to us in the
forms of the Gods and Goddesses.  Stories about these deities are like
a sort of  code, the mysterious "language" through  which  the  divine
reality speaks to us.

We believe in  standards of  behavior which  are consistent with these
spiritual truths and harmonious with our deepest being.

HOW DOES ASATRU DIFFER FROM OTHER RELIGIONS?
Asatru is unlike the  better-known  religions in many  ways.   Some of
these are:

We are polytheistic.  That is,  we  believe  in  a number of  deities,
including Goddesses as well  as  Gods. We  do  not accept the idea  of
"original   sin", the  notion that   we are  tainted from  birth   and
intrinsically  bad, as does   Christianity.   Thus,  we do    not need
"saving".

The Middle Eastern religions teach either a  hatred of other religions
or a duty to convert others, often by force. They have often practiced
these beliefs with cruel brutality.

We do not  claim to be a  universal religion  or  a faith  for  all of
humankind.  In   fact, we don't  think  such  a thing is  possible  or
desirable.  The different branches of humanity have  different ways of
looking at the  world, each of which  is valid for  them.   It is only
right that they have different religions, which of course they do.

DO YOU CONSIDER THE NORSE MYTHS  TO BE TRUE?
The myths are  stories about  the Gods and  Goddesses of Asatru.  They
are  ways of  stating  religious truths.   That  is, we would say they
contain truths about the nature  of divinity, our  own nature, and the
relationship between  the two.  We  do not contend that the  myths are
literally true, as history.

WHAT ABOUT THESE GODS AND GODDESSES?  ARE THEY REAL?
Yes, they are  real.  However,  just as most  Christians  do not think
their God is really an old bearded figure sitting on a golden chair in
heaven, we do  not believe Thor  (for example) is actually a muscular,
man-shaped entity carrying a big hammer.  There is a real Thor, but we
approach an understanding  of  him   through  this   particular mental
picture.

DO FOLLOWERS OF ASATRU PRAY TO THEIR GODS AND GODDESSES?
Yes, but  not quite the  way most people  mean by the  word.  We never
surrender our will to theirs or  humble ourselves before them, because
we see ourselves as their kin, not as inferior, submissive pawns.  Nor
do  we beg  and  plead.   We commune  with  them and  honor them while
seeking their blessing  through formal rites and informal  meditation.
Living a full and virtuous live is  a form of  prayer in itself.   Our
religion affects all parts of our lives, not just those fragments that
we choose to call "religious".

DON'T YOU WORSHIP STONES AND TREES AND IDOLS?
No.  These  objects are not  Gods,  so we don't  worship them.   We do
sometimes use  these items as reminders of  a God  or Goddess,  and we
believe they can become "charged" with a certain aspect  of the divine
energy, but we would never confuse them with the actual deity!

WHAT ARE THE STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR TAUGHT IN ASATRU?
Some of the qualities  we hold in high  regard are  strength, courage,
joy, honor, freedom, loyalty to kin, realism,  vigor, and the revering
of our ancestors.  To express  these things in our lives  is virtuous,
and  we  strive to do  this.  Their  opposites  - weakness, cowardice,
adherence to dogma rather than to the realities of  the world, and the
like - constitute vices  and are  to be  avoided.  Proper  behavior in
Asatru  consists  of  maximizing  one's  virtues and  minimizing one's
vices.  This code  of  conduct  reflects the  highest and  most heroic
ideals of our people.

DON'T ALL RELIGIONS BELIEVE IN THESE THINGS YOU'VE JUST NAMED?
No. People may honestly believe that this is the case, but examination
does not bear this out.  They believe in freedom, yet their scriptures
say they are slaves to their God.  They accept  that joy is  good, but
their teachings  laden  them  with guilt    because of some  imaginary
"original sin".  Their instinct is  to understand Nature's  world from
verifiable evidence, yet they are  trained to believe black  is white,
round is flat, and  natural  instincts are evil without question  when
the teachings   of their church  conflict with  reason or with   known
facts.

Many of us instinctively believe in  the values of Asatru because they
have been passed down  to us from our  ancestors.   We want to believe
that other religions espouse those values, so we  see what  we want to
see.  Most people just  haven't yet realized  that the major religions
are saying things that conflict with the  values we know in our hearts
are right.   To find northern European  virtues, one should look where
those virtues have their natural home - Asatru.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL?
Good and evil are not constants.  What is good in one case will not be
good in another, and evil in one circumstance will not be evil under a
different set of conditions.  In any one instance, the right course of
action will  have been shaped  by the   influence of the past  and the
present.  The result may or may not be "good"  or "evil",  but it will
still be the right action.

In no case are good and evil dictated to us by the edicts of an alien,
authoritarian deity, as in the  Middle East.  We are  expected  to use
our freedom,  responsibility,  and  awareness  of  duty  to serve  the
highest and best ends.

WHAT DOES ASATRU  TEACH ABOUT AN  AFTERLIFE?
We believe that there  is an afterlife, and that  those who have lived
virtuous lives will go on to experience greater fulfillment, pleasure,
and  challenge.  Those who have  led  lives characterized more by vice
than by virtue will be  separated from  kin and doomed to an existence
of dullness and gloom.  The precise nature of the  afterlife - what it
will look  like  and feel  like - is  beyond our  understanding and is
dealt with symbolically in the myths.

There is also a tradition in Asatru of rebirth within the family line.
Perhaps the individual is able to choose whether  or not  he or she is
re-manifested in this world, or there may be natural laws which govern
this.  In a sense, of course, we all live on  in our descendents quite
apart from an afterlife as such.

We of Asatru do not overly concern  ourselves with the  next life.  We
live here and now, in this  life.  If we do this  and do  it well, the
next life will take care of itself.

DOES ASATRU INVOLVE ANCESTOR WORSHIP?
Asatru says we should honor our ancestors.  It also says we are bonded
to those ancestors in  a special  way.   However,  we do  not actually
worship them.

We believe our forebears have passed to us certain spiritual qualities
just as surely  as they have given us  various  physical traits.  They
live on in us.  The family or clan is above  and beyond the  limits of
time and place.  Thus we have a reverence for our ancestry even though
we do not involve ourselves in ancestor worship as such.

DOES ASATRU HAVE A HOLY BOOK, LIKE THE BIBLE?
No.  There  are written sources which   are useful to us  because they
contain much of our sacred lore in the  form of  myths and examples of
right conduct, but  we do not  accept  them as infallible  or inspired
documents.  Any  religion  which  does this is  deceiving  its members
about the purity  and precision   of the  written word.   The  various
competing  factions of Middle Eastern   religions are  proof  of this.
Their conflicting interpretations can not all be correct!

There are two real sources of holy truth, and neither expresses itself
to  us  in  words.  One  is   the universe  around  us,  which  is   a
manifestation of  the underlying   divine essence.   The other  is the
universe  within us, passed   down  from our  ancestors  as  instinct,
emotion, innate predispositions, and perhaps even racial  memory.   By
combining  these  sources of internal and   external  wisdom  with the
literature left  us by our ancestors, we   arrive at religious truths.
This  living  spiritual guidance   is better than  any dusty, dogmatic
"holy book", whose writings are often so  ambiguous that even clerical
scholars disagree and  whose interpretations  change with the politics
of the times. 

ASATRU HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS A "NATURE RELIGION". WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
We treasure the spiritual awe, the  feeling  of  "connecting" with the
Gods and Goddesses, which can come from  experiencing and appreciating
the beauty and  majesty  of Nature.  Our  deities  act  in and through
natural  law.  By  working in  harmony   with Nature we  can    become
co-workers with the   Gods.   This attitude   removes   the opposition
between "natural" and "supernatural" and between religion and science.

For us, following a "Nature  religion"  means  recognizing that we are
part of Nature,  subject to all its  laws, even when  that offends our
Christian-influenced  misconceptions.  We  may be  Gods-in-the-making,
but we are  also members of the  animal kingdom -  a noble heritage in
its own right.  Our ancestors and their predecessors prevailed through
billions of years of unimaginable  challenges, a feat  which  must awe
even the Gods themselves.

WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM, ACCORDING TO ASATRU?
Our myths describe the beginning of the universe as the unfolding of a
natural process, rather than  one requiring supernatural intervention.
Followers  of Asatru need  not abandon modern  science to retain their
religion.   The old  lore of  our people  describes the interaction of
fire and  ice  and the development of  life from these  - but this  is
symbolic, and we will  leave it to  our scientists to discover how the
universe was born.

WHAT ARE THE RUNES, AND WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH ASATRU?
Runes are ancient Germanic  symbols  representing various concepts  or
forces in  the universe.  Taken  together, they express our ancestors'
world  view.    Their meanings   are intimately   connected with   the
teachings of Asatru.  Our myths tell how Odin, father of the Gods, won
them  through   painful ordeal so  that  Gods  and  humans alike might
benefit from their wisdom.

HOW IS ASATRU ORGANIZED?
Asatru is non-authoritarian  and decentralized, expressing our love of
freedom.  While  we do  have  definite tenets,  we have little  dogma.
There is no all-powerful spiritual leader whose word is law, no "pope"
of Asatru to dictate truth. No guru or priest  has an exclusive direct
line to the Gods.  The Gods live in you!
======================================================================
To Find out more about Asatru and the *new* AFA
please write to:

Steve McNallen			Posted by:  	Bekkhild Ellsworth
Asatru Folk Assembly				AFA Computer Guild
P.O. Box 445
Nevada City, CA 95959

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