[ SECRET POST #3346 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3346 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
(Donald Trump / Milo Yiannopoulos)



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02.
[Pathologic]


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03.
[Legends of Tomorrow]


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04.
[Tom Hiddleston in Crimson Peak]


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05.


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06.


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07.
(How to be a Serial Killer)


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08.


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09.


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10.
[Pretty Little Liars]


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11.
[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]


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12.












Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #478.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Mythology Threads

[(Anonymous)]

I've studied a fair bit about northern European paganism. It's so fascinating!

One of my favorite tidbits is the viking Buddhas. There's just so little known about pre-Christian religious practicies there. And most of what's known is very tinted by a Christian mindset. I come from a polytheist background myself so this is very apparent to me. Few scholars seem to consider that a polytheist would have very little trouble accepting the existence of other gods, or even paying them occasional tribute, without that signifying a total conversion.

Christianity says you can have no other gods, and lays down lots of absolute laws on it's followers (though how much this was enforced during conversion periods varies) but other faiths don't have these sorts of all-or-nothing rulings.

There's also the fact that the pagan gods we are familiar with today are not necessarily the same that were well-known back then, and also that existing recordings such as Snorri's work may totally distort the "original" stories to make them more palatable to the Church. Things like Lokatattur definitely suggest later reworking of the myths.

Re: Mythology Threads

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, exactly! You know, the Romans often accused Christians of being atheists, in fact, because they denied the existence of most of the gods. Not to generalize the pagan mindset - atheism isn't new, neither is viewing the gods more as spiritual symbols than literal beings that drag the sun across the sky, that was very much present in society back then. But the "pagan mindset" if you will, was not exclusive and for the most part it wasn't organized, especially in illiterate areas. There wasn't a centralized pagan church, beyond -maybe- a king participating in religious rituals or being considered a demi-god or something. Exclusivity to the point of denying other gods was a fairly radical idea, and it really confused the Romans. Sure, the Jews did it too, but they at least mostly kept to themselves, unlike the Christians. It's a really fascinating comparison, and it's pretty cool to read polemics of the time. Reading stuff by, say, Porphyry, Julian the Apostate, Celsus, and all these philosophers who were brought into the debate is really interesting.

And yes, you are absolutely right. We tend to think we know more about Norse mythology just because there's some pretty rich Icelandic material, but what people don't always realize is that Snorri Sturluson wrote long after the Viking Age, and he himself identified, at least ostensibly, as a Christian. His creation myth includes a volcano - which exists in Iceland. But there are no volcanoes in Scandinavia. I do believe Snorri probably was writing down a lot of folklore, but I also am fairly confident he made a lot of it up, or things were adapted in the hundreds of years after Scandinavia officially converted to Christianity. Now, myths being adapted is entirely within the spirit of paganism. But the point is, what people actually believed still is pretty mysterious, and our understanding of mythology today doesn't necessarily reflect what pre-Christian peoples believed.