re: #684 MadJadBad

I always thought this type of argument was pretty lame. If he was talking about sports his argument would sound like this:
Your favorite team was a bunch of losers and cheaters back in the 50’s, so in 2010, even if they are top ranked, they still suck solely because of what they did in the 50’s

Yeah.. only it’s not a trivial matter. And it’s about atrocities being committed against “fellow man” under a guise of righteousness.

Maybe it’d sound more like “while it is right to judge you preferable at the moment, yours is a line of thinking steeped in blood also”. The moral high ground isn’t won on the merits of what’s expressed in the texts, or the intention of the writers, but in the actions of the adherents.

Look at it this way: claiming that Asatru is superior to other religions, because of the peacefulness of modern adherents is missing the point. It’s a religion drenched in blood, justifying slave ownership and murder for reasons considered appalling to modern society. It has good points too (specifying certain rights for slaves for instance). But the virtues of modern adherents lie less in the source material, and more in the way belief is made to conform to the ideals of a society we’ve made with, but not from, religion.