A question about the Norse Gods

[syo]

Do believers consider the Norse Gods to be mortals? Do believers believe the Norse Gods will die some day?

 

[Nietzsche]

Can't speak for all of us, but I believe they're...sort of mortal? If your definition of mortal is "can die", then yes, they're mortal. They're gonna die, just like we are. When the universe winds down and entropy's unstoppable march towards total victory through oblivion finishes, they're going with it.

 

[syo]

Thank you for the reply. What makes the Gods mortal in a way? Why aren't they considered immortal?

 

[Nietzsche]

Thank you for the reply. What makes the Gods mortal in a way? Why aren't they considered immortal?

Because they can & will die. Granted, not from age or illness, but they can be killed.

 

[Riverwolf]

Not only "can and will", but some actually have. Balder was killed, for example.

 

[VioletVortex]

The gods are mortal, but they exist on a cyclical plane, so after the death of a god, their return is imminent. Baldr was killed- so it's obvious that the gods are mortal.

 

[Whiterain]

Myth and even contemporary religion makes it clear the Gods manifest or are born as flesh and blood mortals. There are at least two planes or dimensions, let's say "spirit" and physical... The spirit realm may have an aesthetic but not as much as the our realm...

However, there is immortality of the flesh and being born, re-incarnation... But these are things I can't articulate... I have an idea... Like perpetual re-production of even binary organisms...

Perpetual reproduction, an organism first replicates itself, then it replicates itself ten times over, an dit becomes incestuous...

incestuous reproduction is just a simple fact of nature..... So there was binary replication and incestuous reproduction and later branching out into other species.

Binary reproduction may be re-incarnation... So if I reproduce, I may again be born some time in the future, in the millions of polliwogs I perpetuate. Unfortunately entire bloodlines are systematically killed off.

Mortifying, eh?

Cheers.

Edit

Sorry, there's so much to say and I try to articulate messages as plainly as possible.

Like the human soul... I guess there's binary reproduction passed through our pollywog and the nuclaei of our eggs, these may be copies of our ancestors and ourselves now, single cellular, amphibious and poultry or reptilian parts of us... The hexidecimal is to much to go into.... I don't think we are part insect... most of us.


Like the soul... The tetragrammaton seems to imply we would all not have one in time... But you can make or earn one... The Asians went into terrific practices with the"Chi"... Our central nervous system and brain in a complex system that produces a tremendous and temporal amount of jouls... Have a psychotic break or practice amplifying that energy..

Dragon Ball Z is a bit impractical though... That's like a human being having a turbine engine or nuclear amount of energy... It's just silly. silly, silly, silly...

Remember the Tao.... I belong in the mountains talking about how the worlds gone mad.

The Ape, our simian cousine was a beast of shame and humility, the Reptile Dragon, a beast of pride and dignance, get to know them well.

 

[Whiterain]

Double post meta

About Bi-Racial Breeding... It's as well a fact of nature...

It's not all about "Inferiority" and more about something new... We all do not accept new things at first... We like what we expect... routine... pattern recognition, pheromones, pheromones, pheromones.

It all get elementary at times... But we must remember once something is finitely gone, it may be impossible to retrieve, such as genetics.

For humans, genetics should not be natural selection, to a degree, contemporary hatred as well. In our means, nothing should be of natural selection. We have the power, right, and purpose to protect, guard and perpetuate at our choosing.

What is the Elder race? Well, there's so much argument and malicious argument in place there... What is the Elder Species? What are the Vanir? The Aesir, the Olympians, the Gods? It's not superficial, but arguments I'm not going into right now.

Do not just accept new elements, do not just forbid them... Give them time to prove themselves or otherwise abide or govern their destiny, but do not hate them.

Otherwise the facts of nature will continue to pillage on in dominance. But you have conglomerate conscience, not quite hive mind, and can choose destiny before otherwise transcendental intervention.


Species have come and gone, the facts of nature... Like evolution.


:3

Edit

Hoh got daym... Psychotic cackling laughter... Why did God do this in the first place?

Slave labor... Why are we here? War games... Sympathy... Why do we persist? Respect.


The animal part of us, I embrace it most.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Because I'm not much for intro threads, this will be my first post here. (Hello!)

No, the Gods are not mortal - that is, they are not tied to this mortal plane. They create and sustain it, but do not rely on it. They transcend it. However, the Gods can and do die. Yet it is not a mortal death. Like the Earth itself will die and renew on a cycle, so to do the Gods die and renew when their time comes.

Baldr was mentioned as a God who died. While little is known of Baldr outside that one story, I saw it posed that he is a God of Summer, whereas Hodr is a God of Winter. Not the only ones, but of nonetheless. Thus when winter comes, Baldr is slain by Hodr, and vice versa when summer comes. At that point Hodr would die, and Baldr would return.

Some might site the Ragnarok, as evidence that the Gods will die. Heathenry is divided on this, it seems, in that some don't believe the Ragnarok accounts will come to pass, and were Christian addition to older myths. I myself believe it to somewhat be of the Christianization of the North. However, Einar Selvik of Wardruna, during a public workshop and concert, told of how the Ragnarok was a lesson of the cyclical nature of the world, and that all things - even the Gods - follow this cycle of death and renewal.

 

[Toten]

Gods die all the time, in my view. Seasons change, the years move on, and the seasons return again. It's a constant cycle. Death and rebirth.
I believe gods as I see them, only truly die when they are forgotten by their people.

 

[Nietzsche]

Baldr was mentioned as a God who died. While little is known of Baldr outside that one story, I saw it posed that he is a God of Summer, whereas Hodr is a God of Winter. Not the only ones, but of nonetheless. Thus when winter comes, Baldr is slain by Hodr, and vice versa when summer comes. At that point Hodr would die, and Baldr would return.

I feel like that cheapens Baldr's death. While I won't hold that view against you, I find it to be more meaningful for the death of Baldr to be the turning point in the relationship between Odin & Loki. He had forgiven(and probably been quite amused by) Loki's tricks and pranks up until then. But killing his son, dead to the point that not even Odin could raise him from death and return him to Asgard, pushes him to break his oath with Loki(the whole "I will not sit at a table you are not welcome to" thing and all), setting up for the final confrontation.

This, I feel, is much more in keeping with the culture of the Norse. It also allows us to ignore the Christianized view of Baldr as some sort of useless 'Christ' figure.

Some might site the Ragnarok, as evidence that the Gods will die. Heathenry is divided on this, it seems, in that some don't believe the Ragnarok accounts will come to pass, and were Christian addition to older myths. I myself believe it to somewhat be of the Christianization of the North. However, Einar Selvik of Wardruna, during a public workshop and concert, told of how the Ragnarok was a lesson of the cyclical nature of the world, and that all things - even the Gods - follow this cycle of death and renewal.

I think the notion of Baldr returning after Ragnarok and bringing about a paradise is the furthest extent of the Christianization, while the notion of Ragnarok itself being an idea that fits perfectly with Norse views of life & death. Entropy wins in the end, death comes to all, but life returns from its ashes.

I personally subscribe to the view that Ragnarok is to Yggdrasil what forest-fires are to many regular trees. Without wild-fires/forest fires the largest trees become choked with growths that will surely kill them. Many of them in fact won't even produce seeds until after they've experienced one. Ragnarok is the fire that scorches Yggdrasil of the dead-growth and prepares the way for the new. Not the better, mind. Just a new repetition of the cycle.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I feel like that cheapens Baldr's death. While I won't hold that view against you, I find it to be more meaningful for the death of Baldr to be the turning point in the relationship between Odin & Loki. He had forgiven(and probably been quite amused by) Loki's tricks and pranks up until then. But killing his son, dead to the point that not even Odin could raise him from death and return him to Asgard, pushes him to break his oath with Loki(the whole "I will not sit at a table you are not welcome to" thing and all), setting up for the final confrontation.

As I see it - and much the same, I don't begrudge you your views - Baldr's death only serving to set brother against brother isn't much better. I've been meaning to re-write that myth (as, I believe, that's really all the myths were - stories with a point or representation, using the Gods as characters) in where all of Asgard is enamoured with Baldr, and nothing changes. Summer reigns eternal, crops fail unattended, Midgard suffers as all attention is paid to Baldr.

Loki, seeing this damaging stagnation, knew that the natural order - chaotic change - was necessary. Winter must come, men must harvest the crops to prepare for it, and they must know that summer will return again to tide them through the winter. And so he gives to Hodr mistletoe, the one means to slay Baldr, to turn the seasons, and to set the world right again.

It should also be noted that I believe the myths and eddas are not only representational stories (I don't believe they happened exactly as told,) I believe they are cyclical. Baldr did not die just the once, he dies every year as the year begins to fall. I also believe the Ragnarok to not be a story of how the world and all things will end, but (as Einar told as well,) a telling of cycle, that all things must end, and that an ending is also a beginning - as you mention on the Norse views of life and death. Thus I don't believe that the Gods will fight and die in such a fashion, but they illustrated that even they are not free from change, death, and rebirth.

I personally subscribe to the view that Ragnarok is to Yggdrasil what forest-fires are to many regular trees. Without wild-fires/forest fires the largest trees become choked with growths that will surely kill them. Many of them in fact won't even produce seeds until after they've experienced one. Ragnarok is the fire that scorches Yggdrasil of the dead-growth and prepares the way for the new. Not the better, mind. Just a new repetition of the cycle.

I can very much agree with that. For myself, however, I also don't believe that the Raganrok is yet to come. I believe it comes quite often. The last Raganrok, for instance, would have been the Christianization of the western world. As we enter this Age of Svarog (different than Norse, I know), of Revival and Rebirth of the Old Ways, I believe we are either on the brink or the course of a new Ragnarok.

 

[Nietzsche]

As I see it - and much the same, I don't begrudge you your views - Baldr's death only serving to set brother against brother isn't much better. I've been meaning to re-write that myth (as, I believe, that's really all the myths were - stories with a point or representation, using the Gods as characters) in where all of Asgard is enamoured with Baldr, and nothing changes. Summer reigns eternal, crops fail unattended, Midgard suffers as all attention is paid to Baldr.

Loki, seeing this damaging stagnation, knew that the natural order - chaotic change - was necessary. Winter must come, men must harvest the crops to prepare for it, and they must know that summer will return again to tide them through the winter. And so he gives to Hodr mistletoe, the one means to slay Baldr, to turn the seasons, and to set the world right again.

It should also be noted that I believe the myths and eddas are not only representational stories (I don't believe they happened exactly as told,) I believe they are cyclical. Baldr did not die just the once, he dies every year as the year begins to fall. I also believe the Ragnarok to not be a story of how the world and all things will end, but (as Einar told as well,) a telling of cycle, that all things must end, and that an ending is also a beginning - as you mention on the Norse views of life and death. Thus I don't believe that the Gods will fight and die in such a fashion, but they illustrated that even they are not free from change, death, and rebirth.



I can very much agree with that. For myself, however, I also don't believe that the Raganrok is yet to come. I believe it comes quite often. The last Raganrok, for instance, would have been the Christianization of the western world. As we enter this Age of Svarog (different than Norse, I know), of Revival and Rebirth of the Old Ways, I believe we are either on the brink or the course of a new Ragnarok.

It seems that the biggest difference between us here is that I view the myths as occurring on a much larger scale, with the cycle beginning, ending & beginning again at the birth & death of the universe as a whole. No problem with that, yours is just not a view I've encountered very often.

 

[Hildeburh]

Do believers consider the Norse Gods to be mortals? Do believers believe the Norse Gods will die some day?

I believe their mortal.

There is a myth that states the gods need Idunn's apples to prevent old age, when the apples were stolen the gods begin to age. I have no reason to doubt the basics of the myth, though given Idunn's name means ever young the apples may be an addition.

Plus of course the gods do die, Baldr is the most well known Norse god to die but there were others; Nanna dies after throwing herself in Baldr’s funeral pyre, Mimir is killed by the Vanir when he was handed over as a hostage and Hodr is killed by Vali.

At Ragnarök several of the well known gods are fated to die; Odin is killed by Fenrir, Thor by Jormungandr, Freyr by Surt, Tyr by Garm and Heimdallr by Loki.