Christians and Muslims: Why don't you believe in Odin?

[MaximiIian]

You can't call Christianity Ethnocentric because it is an universal religion practiced by people of all race under the sun

It can still be ethnocentric. It has an identity and culture unto itself, based off of its ideology. Which is fine; but once you become centred entirely on that, and use it as a reason (or excuse) to demonise others, that becomes a problem. I don't use my paganism and polytheism as a reason to preclude all other ideas from possibility; and I don't use it as an excuse to be a closed-minded bigot.

[basics]

I would like to ask the local followers of religions like Islam and Christianity why you don't believe in Odin. What is it to you that make Yahweh's or Allah's existence seem plausible but not Odin's existence? Or at least making your god's existence more plausible than Odin's existence. What are your reasons for not believing in Odin?


See, he is real!

Calypze,

The first answer must be that if I did believe in Odin I wouldn't be a Christian since he is what is called another god. The reason I believe in Jesus Christ is because He died for me that my sins, my separation from God, might be taken away making at death my entry to heaven a certainty. In other words, His blood being pure, untainted, could and did pay the price of my sin, Him being my substitute on that cross some two thousand years ago.

So, now I can safely say that I was reborn, born again, at the ripe old age of forty yet I was actually saved at the cross when Jesus Christ my Lord died for me. That applies to all that are born again whether pre-cross or after, aye, even all them yet to be born. So, Odin doesn't come into the picture at all simply because he isn't God and never will be.

[Menelik_I]

It can still be ethnocentric. It has an identity and culture unto itself, based off of its ideology. Which is fine; but once you become centred entirely on that, and use it as a reason (or excuse) to demonise others, that becomes a problem. I don't use my paganism and polytheism as a reason to preclude all other ideas from possibility; and I don't use it as an excuse to be a closed-minded bigot.

Are telling me this in your Sparks Fly Bronie voice

[Denny Crane!]

Calypze,

The first answer must be that if I did believe in Odin I wouldn't be a Christian since he is what is called another god. The reason I believe in Jesus Christ is because He died for me that my sins, my separation from God, might be taken away making at death my entry to heaven a certainty. In other words, His blood being pure, untainted, could and did pay the price of my sin, Him being my substitute on that cross some two thousand years ago.

So, now I can safely say that I was reborn, born again, at the ripe old age of forty yet I was actually saved at the cross when Jesus Christ my Lord died for me. That applies to all that are born again whether pre-cross or after, aye, even all them yet to be born. So, Odin doesn't come into the picture at all simply because he isn't God and never will be.

So many non sequiters don't know where to find the goldfish.

[Col. Tartleton]

Calypze,

The first answer must be that if I did believe in Odin I wouldn't be a Christian since he is what is called another god. The reason I believe in Jesus Christ is because He died for me that my sins, my separation from God, might be taken away making at death my entry to heaven a certainty. In other words, His blood being pure, untainted, could and did pay the price of my sin, Him being my substitute on that cross some two thousand years ago.

So, now I can safely say that I was reborn, born again, at the ripe old age of forty yet I was actually saved at the cross when Jesus Christ my Lord died for me. That applies to all that are born again whether pre-cross or after, aye, even all them yet to be born. So, Odin doesn't come into the picture at all simply because he isn't God and never will be.

So a confirmed human being called Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities as part of some vast celestial conspiracy so that a Jew could serve as the scapegoat for the sins you might otherwise deserve to burn in hell for, but Odin, father of your father's fathers isn't dying for you in the twilight of the gods?

Both of Odin's parents were Gods. His blood is purer than Jesus'. I bet his tears would be enough to wash away your sin. Too bad he'll never cry.

Isn't this arbitrary nonsense on your part?

Gandalf or Jesus?

See, it's nonsense. It doesn't even make sense, but you think it does.

Like I said, Christianity by the book is a quick way to jail or death. But if your own made up personal Jesus makes you a better person and keeps you going I think that's a better alternative to you as an atheist. Whereas my heart is full of love of others and fear of myself with or without god.

Me? I'm going to keep looking for the Sublime... I miss Bradley. Rome is good, but I miss Bradley.

[basics]

So a confirmed human being called Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities as part of some vast celestial conspiracy so that a Jew could serve as the scapegoat for the sins you might otherwise deserve to burn in hell for, but Odin, father of your father's fathers isn't dying for you in the twilight of the gods? Both of Odin's parents were Gods. His blood is purer than Jesus'. I bet his tears would be enough to wash away your sin. Too bad he'll never cry. Isn't this arbitrary nonsense on your part? Gandalf or Jesus? See, it's nonsense. It doesn't even make sense, but you think it does. Like I said, Christianity by the book is a quick way to jail or death. But if your own made up personal Jesus makes you a better person and keeps you going I think that's a better alternative to you as an atheist. Whereas my heart is full of love of others and fear of myself with or without god. Me? I'm going to keep looking for the Sublime... I miss Bradley. Rome is good, but I miss Bradley.

Col. Tartleton,

Whatever is written of Odin, you and I both know that he doesn't exist, never did and never will as far as being a god is concerned. Like Ninus or Nimrod as we know him, the deity they claim comes by man and only since Ninus from whom the story follows on. So what's the difference between my Jesus Christ and your Odin? The difference is that Scripture declares that Jesus Christ is God our Creator and is backed up by centuries of prophetical truths unfolded. Why even the evolutionist will tell you that He is the only opposition to that false theory, Odin being nowhere in sight.

Also your claim is a bit of a twist because if he was indeed a god and his tears alone could pay for sin, why did he die? I mean why did he have to die being a god? In the case of Jesus Christ, He didn't have to die at all, but He did because the price of sin is death and dying a sinner keeps one locked in sin, heaven remaining unobtainable, Him making it possible by being our substitute on a cross that even you don't deny. So blood was the important factor here not tears.

This is now where you get lost completely because you haven't experienced being born again and so anything that you can conjure up from that is pure speculation. So, here is a question. What has Odin done for you to take away your sin? The answer is short and to the point, he hasn't, never could, and so death and certain hell is the only place left for you unless God intervenes on your behalf. But of course that is all twaddle. Was it twaddle for Peter, Paul and the others who also raised the dead as well as healing the sick? Was it twaddle for me to witness little Fiona's eyes perfectly straight when the night before they were as twisted that doctors could do nothing?

You see, unlike Odin, Jesus Christ actually lives, is God's right hand and even as I write is building His church by the same blood He shed at Calvary. Odin, well he is in your imagination and there he remains, useless, powerless, unable to build anything. No imagination where Jesus is concerned because deep in the heart of every born again man, woman or child, He lives through the great Comforter who dwells in each one. Unlike Odin that is no idle boast because there are thousands who can claim that has been their experience.

[Lazarus]

Odin is just as likely to exist as your God basics. I appreciate that you're quite devout in your belief, but that doesn't make your God any more real or special than anyone elses God.

[Col. Tartleton]

Col. Tartleton,

Whatever is written of Odin, you and I both know that he doesn't exist, never did and never will as far as being a god is concerned. Like Ninus or Nimrod as we know him, the deity they claim comes by man and only since Ninus from whom the story follows on. So what's the difference between my Jesus Christ and your Odin? The difference is that Scripture declares that Jesus Christ is God our Creator and is backed up by centuries of prophetical truths unfolded. Why even the evolutionist will tell you that He is the only opposition to that false theory, Odin being nowhere in sight.

Actually I know that I don't know if he exists. Neither do you.

Also your claim is a bit of a twist because if he was indeed a god and his tears alone could pay for sin, why did he die? I mean why did he have to die being a god? In the case of Jesus Christ, He didn't have to die at all, but He did because the price of sin is death and dying a sinner keeps one locked in sin, heaven remaining unobtainable, Him making it possible by being our substitute on a cross that even you don't deny. So blood was the important factor here not tears.

He didn't die. He will die in the last moments of creation, and be reborn in the world to come in the blood of his sons and daughters. Norse cosmology is cyclical. The universe is created and destroyed cyclically and the divine passes from one life to the next. The hour is not yet at hand. The Norse sagas are timeless, the gods know the past and the future, and the faithful have learned of the coming doom. Of the baying wolves and the coming of frost and flame and all that jazz.

This is now where you get lost completely because you haven't experienced being born again and so anything that you can conjure up from that is pure speculation. So, here is a question. What has Odin done for you to take away your sin? The answer is short and to the point, he hasn't, never could, and so death and certain hell is the only place left for you unless God intervenes on your behalf. But of course that is all twaddle. Was it twaddle for Peter, Paul and the others who also raised the dead as well as healing the sick? Was it twaddle for me to witness little Fiona's eyes perfectly straight when the night before they were as twisted that doctors could do nothing?

Why would I need to be born again? I was born the first time. Odin hasn't taken away my sin, because it belongs to me and I'll keep it. My good deeds, my bad deeds. I get to keep both, because they're mine, and more than that they belong to the world that is. Is not my wrong doing as much a part of me as my name? How can a god take away my deeds? Should he take away my honor too? My pride? My sanity? That is not for me to say. He gave no such promise.

If all that awaits me is torment and hell fire, is not your god the blackened man? Who comes with bright burning blade to smite the world asunder in the end of days? He shall not prosper. The fire will burn itself out and from the ash new life will be born. Man will remain in the world to come and the gods will live again.

I had thought Jesus a sacrificial king like Odin, and Surtr the one Christians call Satan, although no such Satan exists in the original scripture. Are not Satan and Lucifer signs of Christianity's false re-imagining of the celestial order?

You see, unlike Odin, Jesus Christ actually lives, is God's right hand and even as I write is building His church by the same blood He shed at Calvary. Odin, well he is in your imagination and there he remains, useless, powerless, unable to build anything. No imagination where Jesus is concerned because deep in the heart of every born again man, woman or child, He lives through the great Comforter who dwells in each one. Unlike Odin that is no idle boast because there are thousands who can claim that has been their experience.

Perhaps because the followers of the burning man of the south slew the faithful of the true gods, by whom all were first born, the great ancestors.

If mass and myriad delusion be enough to make lies into truths, then surely it be the work of the son of Farbauti?

[pacifism]

Odin is just as likely to exist as your God basics. I appreciate that you're quite devout in your belief, but that doesn't make your God any more real or special than anyone elses God.

We know Odin doesn't exist. It's blantatly obvious. You are using the analogy of Odin's existence to compare with God's. Perhaps you could give some evidence for the statement. I know of half a dozen people on this website who'll attack this and everyone calls each other narrow minded, we go nowhere, and we waste three pages on arguing. Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

[Col. Tartleton]

We know Odin doesn't exist. It's blantatly obvious. You are using the analogy of Odin's existence to compare with God's. Perhaps you could give some evidence for the statement. I know of half a dozen people on this website who'll attack this and everyone calls each other narrow minded, we go nowhere, and we waste three pages on arguing. Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

No, I don't know that Odin doesn't exist. Why is it obvious?

Millions of people were born, raised in the natural religion, and died believers in Odin (at least by other names) for many thousands of years stretching back into pre history.

The evidence of God's non existence? You mean evidence that Odin is the All Father?

[Slaytaninc]

Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

Every single "miracle" or "sign" has a scientific explanation, anywhere from hallucinations to brain chemistry changes, to simple geological and astronomical processes, etc.

If there is a "God", anything at all like how he is portrayed in the Bible, he would explicitly not conduct a "miracle" due to free will. This means the faithful have to come to faith willingly, and not because of some "miracle" or "sign"

Simply though, if there is a God, the Deists are closest to identifying his/her/it's nature.

[MaximiIian]

We know Odin doesn't exist.

No, you don't. There's no hard proof in either direction. There's personal proof, which is subjective, on the individual level in the form of personal revelatory experiences. But that does not act as objective proof for the existence of any deity or spiritual being.
So, no. We don't know that Odin doesn't exist. We don't know that Yahweh doesn't exist. We don't that they do exist, either; not in an objective sense.

Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

You can't prove a negative. Logic does not work like that. You provide proof for a positive claim. Denial of the claim of a deity existing is not a positive claim.

[The Kybrothilian]

You can't prove a negative. Logic does not work like that. You provide proof for a positive claim. Denial of the claim of a deity existing is not a positive claim.

If I fail to prove the positive claim, will that automatically prove the negative claim?

[Lazarus]

We know Odin doesn't exist. It's blantatly obvious. You are using the analogy of Odin's existence to compare with God's. Perhaps you could give some evidence for the statement. I know of half a dozen people on this website who'll attack this and everyone calls each other narrow minded, we go nowhere, and we waste three pages on arguing. Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

See. This is the exact purpose of this thread.

We know Odin doesn't exist. It's blantatly obvious.

You say this and yet

Show us evidence of God's non-existence before we continue!

You demand this, and that makes no sense at all. Nobody ever disproved Odin definitively and as long as we're entertaining every God who has never been disproved, your God has to contend with Odin. If we're not going to entertain every God who has not been disproved, your God still loses out in that we can dismiss him as "blatantly obviously" being a collection of superstitions based around delusions, indoctrination and misunderstanding of the natural world - much like the way one would assume you dismiss Odin.

If I fail to prove the positive claim, will that automatically prove the negative claim?

Do you mean does that make the negative claim fact? Well no, obviously it doesn't. But that makes holding the positive claim irrational for the reason above: you would either have to apply it consistently, and make provisions for all sorts of things for which there are no proof (like the 2000 or so Gods that aren't the Abrahamic ones) and myths and fairy-tales. Or, you could apply inconsistently, and just operate on the assumption that the thing you want to exist does exist - which is just called wishful thinking and doesn't stand up well in the realms of discourse.

[MaximiIian]

If I fail to prove the positive claim, will that automatically prove the negative claim?

No, but the rejection of the positive claim is the rational conclusion. One must default to it in lieu of evidence for the extraordinary claim.
Note that this is not necessarily the same as making the negative claim. In rejecting the positive claim due to lack of evidence, you are taking a claim-neutral stance.

[hotrodlincoln]

I am not a Christian, but I have read the bible several times in my life. It is my understanding that the bible states that other gods exist, but to worship them is to spit in the face of the creator. God, in and of itself, is a fairly neutral term, understand. The God Of the Abrahamic faiths is called God because it was considered to be blasphemous by the Jews to call him by his name. Eventually, it became a commonly held belief that the name of God is God.

I can't say much about the Muslim view of other Gods, as my one and only reading of the Quran was fairly quick, and was done years ago. It is my understanding, however, that the muslims do, in fact, believe that there is no God but Allah.

[ivan_the_terrible]

Really? Pretty sure it works very much the opposite. I have absolutely no idea where this faux victimization mentality comes from.

The idea of monotheism being something that predates either Christianity or Islam, and in actuality being a philosophical idea rather than strictly a religious or superstitious one, you might try starting from Ancient Greece to see why it was considered exceedingly more rational by more and more thinkers over beliefs in gods inhabiting and/or representing mundane parts of the earth. I'll give you a hint -- one actually contains a rational and philosophical element, the other is relegated to superstition and/or attempts by a tribe to justify their supremacy over another tribe, by claiming "divine descent."

This is an important point. It is fashionable for atheists to compare Christianity (and Islam, for that matter) with the old polytheistic religions and say things akin to ' isn't it just as ridiculous to believe in one God as it was to believe in Odin'. But this reveals their ignorance of just how much complex and sophisticated monotheistic theology is compared to European polytheisms (if European polytheisms can even be said to have a theology at all).

In my opinion it's part of a broader tendency to try to mock religious people and paint them as unintellectual, or even anti-intellectual -- something that atheists who are secure in themselves do not need to do.

[pacifism]

Are you guys entertaining the idea Odin could be real? If Odin was real, so are Asgard, Yggdrasil, Neiflheim, and Frost Giants. For those of you who can't get the point, it is shockingly naive of you to believe in the possibility of frost giants, an 8-legged horse, a tree connecting "the home of the gods" to earth, or exchanging an eye for drinking from a well of wisdom. Use your scientific minds and see that none of that can be real.

There is evidence for God. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that energy becomes less useful each time it changes form, so where did all the starting energy come from? How is the Bible today 99.95% similar to its earlier copies 2,000 years ago? How does all the Bible's miracles, unexplained by science (because, Slaytaninc, not EVERY miracle in the Bible could be done with science. I dare you to say I'm wrong.), happen? How did Christianity in the first century survive and outlast the Roman Empire? Where could life come from? Rocks, perhaps? Why do we have a sense of right and wrong? Because if we have no Supreme Being that knows right from wrong, there is no right and wrong. It would only be opinion. You can’t condemn Hitler for killing people; it would just be your opinion against his. Why is the difference between good and evil, which isn’t in our DNA, so clear to us (murder = wrong)? What makes man any better than animals? If macro-evolution was true, we are no better than our ameoba "ancestors".I can go on and on and on.

When I said "show your proof that God doesn't exist", I should have said "where is the evidence of macro-evolution". Sorry for being an idiot.

Sorry for being an idiot but I don't see how the universe can begin with Nothing. The first priciple of rational philosophy is from nothing comes nothing. Yet most of you say that first there was and nothing happened to Nothing. Soon, Nothing exploded into everything for no reason whatsoever. Out of nowhere, comes a cell of life, which came from nowhere but is exceedingly complex, having enough information to fill Encyclopedia Britannica SETS. That cell then turned into everything living, form trees to more of itself to a person. So, intending no offense, what is the evidence of macro-evolution and where (specifically) the Bible is wrong? Please use evidence for your posts, instead of wild, unsupported accusations. Thank you.

[MaximiIian]

Are you guys entertaining the idea Odin could be real? If Odin was real, so are Asgard, Yggdrasil, Neiflheim, and Frost Giants. For those of you who can't get the point, it is shockingly naive of you to believe in the possibility of frost giants, an 8-legged horse, a tree connecting "the home of the gods" to earth, or exchanging an eye for drinking from a well of wisdom. Use your scientific minds and see that none of that can be real.

By that logic, all of the equally absurd and silly things in Bible must be considered true if we believe that your mono-God is true. Which is patently absurd; most Christians do not take all of the Bible literally, especially the bulk of Genesis and Exodus.

For the most part, polytheists like myself do not take the ancient myths literally. We examine them critically, understand their historical context, and find lessons in them. But they are not usually considered literal tales about the Gods. They are allegories, embellished stories, historical fiction at best; ways to talk about the Gods and their natures in a human way of understanding.

I am not a Christian, but I have read the bible several times in my life. It is my understanding that the bible states that other gods exist, but to worship them is to spit in the face of the creator.

That is a valid interpretation in a purely textual reading of the Jewish Bible. But you have to look at the broader context, which doesn't support that interpretation. Judaism is overtly monotheistic, and has been for a while. Hellenistic Jewish texts such as those included in the Christian version of the Old Testament, as well as biblical Apocrypha, show a very monotheistic Judaism even as far back as the Persian Empire.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

where is the evidence of macro-evolution

i have not the time to read everything said in this thread but i shall clear this up, there is no distinction between micro and macro evolution. they are one and the same the fact that people keep making this division just shows their ignorance regarding science. Creationists scientist admit they cannot disprove "micro evolution"and say it is observable hence it is evident that evolution is proven beyond doubt. I would recommend you read up on evolution from actual science websites and not from creationist who lie [ironically] like they fear no deity . also i just want to add evolution does not need to conflict with anyone's religious belief. It is all a matter of interpretation.