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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26199 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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Always found it interesting that Odin is also a figure who sacrifices himself on a tree to benefit the world

No, Odin sacrificed to learn secret of the runes for himself.

Anyway, you just disproved your previous assertion that Christianity was necessary to evolve "prosocial genes" in population. If old Germanic religion was as good, the Northern Europeans could stick to Odin and Thor and would be just fine.

It’s only disproven if you discount all the complexity of the question. Southern Europe had an influx of conquering Muslim genes and Jewish genes, whereas Northern Europe did not. And while we don’t know a ton about Norse Paganism, the figure of Odin shows interesting overlap in emphasizing the idea of self-sacrifice for social benefit, which is actually not common to all religions (as an example it’s absent in the figure of Muhammad). Rather than seeing Christianity as wholly distinct from every other religion, we should just consider the underlying social technologies of the religion and how they influence sexual selection — couldn’t Odinism have some but not all of the benefit of Christianity? I also wouldn’t deny that there are independent variables from geography (cold winter theory).

he figure of Odin shows interesting overlap in emphasizing the idea of self-sacrifice for social benefit,

Except, in the myth, the benefit was learning secret of runes, the myth says nothing about how it was useful to anyone else than Odin.

which is actually not common to all religions (as an example it’s absent in the figure of Muhammad)

??? Mo was happily married and living well, and sacrificed it all to preach his message to unfriendly audience, faced hatred, persecution, and finally had to flee his hometown to save his life.

Mo was happily married and living well, and sacrificed it all to preach his message to unfriendly audience, faced hatred, persecution, and finally had to flee his hometown to save his life.

This sacrifice was, of course, quite ephemeral, as he then became an ultra-powerful warlord with multiple wives and an army of devotees. Yeah wow, poor guy, his life sure must have been hard.

This sacrifice was, of course, quite ephemeral

Ten years are not ephemeral.

as he then became an ultra-powerful warlord with multiple wives and an army of devotees.

Yes, Mo made it big, unlike 99,9999% self proclaimed prophets in history. Their stories usually end with "murdered" "executed" "died in prison" "died in poverty". Mo knew it, but never gave up, because he meant it, he was certain that his message true revelation from God.

Yeah wow, poor guy, his life sure must have been hard.

Would you openly stand for your beliefs for ten years, while your town hates and despises you, would you persevere while your neighbors regularly spit at you and smear your house with camel dung?

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