# The Asatru Alliance and others **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 18, 2018, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752 "2018-11-18T23:40:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2018, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/1 "2018-11-18T23:40:09Z")
Looked at this group and it didnt appear racist outright till I started picking up on the small stuff here [https://www.asatru.org](https://www.asatru.org) A little bit of wiki and Google and, yup, seems to be founded and ran by notable racists, despite the “we are not racist” bit on their page. That was a little bit disappointing since I was looking for information on the religion as practiced today by regular people. I know that neonazi and the third reich have appropriated symbolism associated with it but they can’t be the majority(I hope). I cruised on over to [https://www.thetroth.org](https://www.thetroth.org)(I can’t find the hyperlink button) and it seems like a decent place to dig into things. Norse religion is genuine interest of mine and on its face seems like a decent, if very small, religion. Of course I wanted to stop in here for the opinion and advise of the Sdmb on the best way or resource for persuing this interest without getting cought up with a bunch of extremists. Again, I’m looking for opinions and resources for obtaining information on asatru, vanatru, odinism etc. while avoiding the hate groups, not debate the racism or relgion itself. ETA: maybe this would be a better fit for Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/2 "2018-11-19T00:13:17Z")
I always enjoy reading translations of the Edda and Codex Regius. Recommended! ---
**Author:** ![Allysium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Allysium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Allysium)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/3 "2018-11-19T14:49:55Z")
I don’t know too much about Norse religions yet, but from my research so far, Asatru is one that generally heavily rejects any white supremacist notions. I think we should be careful about letting WS “have” these religions; it’s 100% cultural appropriation as the Norse people would not have had the context to be racist. They also had terrible relations with Christian Europe, but great relations with the Islamic world. Edit: it’s also important to note that in today’s climate, anyone not part of the regressive left is considered a “Nazi”. I got called a Nazi last week for saying everyone deserves a right to speak in our society without fear of violent threat - e v e r y o n e. If you support free speech or non violence, if you’re a centrist or conservative, you’re considered a Nazi by a large amount of people, without any appreciation for what that word actually represents. It’s best to use FBI critera when identifying hate groups, the average person has no idea what an actual hate group is or what hate speech is. ---
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/4 "2018-11-19T22:57:05Z")
Looked briefly for a source for the codex regius and got mostly commentary on it. I’ll see if Google books has anything on it. \_\_ The Asatru Alliance history and that of its founder, from what I’ve found on Google, is decidedly racist. The FBI difinitions and political leanings aside. * * * Finding practices and beliefs is today’s objective, I feel like I’m at a disadvantage not speaking Icelandic. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/5 "2018-11-19T23:21:37Z")
Have you read the Wikipedia-article on the Icelandic Ásatrú Fellowship? [Ásatrúarfélagið](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81satr%C3%BAarf%C3%A9lagi%C3%B0) The thing about Norse religion is that a. we don’t know very much about what the ancient religious practices were like b. what we do know is that practices were localized and comprised both sacrifices to the Gods of the Norse tales and to important ancestors c. a lot of modern day “revivals” have had racism as at least an element in the founder’s motivation The claim on the Asatru page you linked to that “Asatru is thousands of years old. It’s beginnings are lost in prehistory, but as an organized system, it is older by far than Christianity” is almost entirely bullshit. For one thing there was never an organized system of Asatru. And for another it being thousands of years old is only true if you used Asatru as a short hand for Germanic paganism in general. Truth is we don’t know how fast or slow paganism changed in prehistoric Northern Europe. But archaelogical evidence definitely doesn’t support thousands of years of stable belief. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/6 "2018-11-19T23:34:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Allysium** : > > Edit: it’s also important to note that in today’s climate, anyone not part of the regressive left is considered a “Nazi” So, everyone, period, given that there’s no such thing as the “regressive left”? I suppose that that’s probably literally true: There are enough crazies in the world that, for any given person, there’s probably some crazy who considers that person a Nazi. But is there any evidence that normal people are considered Nazis by any significant portion of the population? ---
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/7 "2018-11-20T04:47:25Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Have you read the Wikipedia-article on the Icelandic Ásatrú Fellowship? > > [Ásatrúarfélagið](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81satr%C3%BAarf%C3%A9lagi%C3%B0) > > The thing about Norse religion is that > a. we don’t know very much about what the ancient religious practices were like > b. what we do know is that practices were localized and comprised both sacrifices to the Gods of the Norse tales and to important ancestors > c. a lot of modern day “revivals” have had racism as at least an element in the founder’s motivation > > The claim on the Asatru page you linked to that “Asatru is thousands of years old. It’s beginnings are lost in prehistory, but as an organized system, it is older by far than Christianity” is almost entirely bullshit. For one thing there was never an organized system of Asatru. And for another it being thousands of years old is only true if you used Asatru as a short hand for Germanic paganism in general. Truth is we don’t know how fast or slow paganism changed in prehistoric Northern Europe. But archaelogical evidence definitely doesn’t support thousands of years of stable belief. I hadn’t seen the Icelandic page until now put I’ll check it out. I’ve read that there is a lack hard sources but that is kinda to be expected. I just now got back from the book store and brought home a copy of “Poetic Edda” by Larrington. It looks like there at a couple of examples of words spoken during offering and the like. There is another book I might check the play store for tomorrow but I forget now what it’s called. All religions borrow and evolve over time, which could be interpreted as the gods changing themselves over time, at least I suppose. I think we have barely enough information for revivals but the messages seem sound and generally it seems to promote a decent way of life. Maybe some is made up, but I suspect that to be true of all religion with the only questions being by who or what, and for what purpose. > [@Chronos](#): > > So, everyone, period, given that there’s no such thing as the “regressive left”? > > I suppose that that’s probably literally true: There are enough crazies in the world that, for any given person, there’s probably some crazy who considers that person a Nazi. But is there any evidence that normal people are considered Nazis by any significant portion of the population? I doubt there is any evidence of that. But this looks like a racism (de)bate which I specifically mentioned wanting to avoid. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/8 "2018-11-20T21:34:43Z")
Hey OP, maybe the books and songs of Freya Aswynn would be of interest to you. ---
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/9 "2018-11-21T02:09:13Z")
Added to list. Still making my way through the poetic Edda and looking for the next book, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-asatru-alliance-and-others/824752/10 "2018-11-21T05:58:56Z")
Regius is allright; but I think the\* Grottasöngr\* is even more important than most of the stuff there. \*We \*(in this case women, and , more important, the enthralled!) are asking for our human rights; when denied, we take to revenge!