As I understand it, Valhalla is said to be the afterlife for those who fell in battle. There’s a lot of media depicting those who die “honorably” finding their resting place in the halls of the Norse gods.Is this accurate? If not, what’s missing from this description of Norse mythology? If it is roughly true, what then is the resting place for those who lived a “virtuous” life but did not die in combat (those who die of old age, disease, etc.)? Did Norse cultures have an equivalent to Hell?
>>17984480Start here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMTEFza9U5sThe point of valhalla is to be a gathering place for warriors to help Odin fight during the ragnarok, the whole "only warriors or women who died in childbirth" thing is new age nonsense, everyone else goes to hel
>>17984480Valhalla is for half the battle-dead, chosen by Odin for Ragnarök. The other half go to Freya fields, Fólkvangr. Most people just go to Hel, which isn't even a torture pit, it's just meh. The whole *honorable death* thing was massively oversimplified by pop culture.
>>17984480There was also Sinfjotli who died from poison but was taken to Valhalla by Odin personally because he was an incest baby of twins descended from him. White people really are disgusting
>>17985600Interesting to see compassion. I assumed that Odin would have speared him on the spot, guess I was wrong.
>>17985600who did noah repopulate the world with again, achmed
Valhalla means 'hall of the slain' or 'hall of the chosen'. the idea of a special heaven reserved for slain warriors can be found in hellenic religion as well, in the form of the elysian fields, although we know much less about elysia and it seems to have played a lesser role in greek cosmology than valhalla did in the germanic. the etymology of val is a bit tricky and can mean slain or chosen or the fallen. there are some cases of norse kings having themselves ritually killed by a knife-wielding priest to get to valhalla, but this was a fairly late development and im not sure how if it really counted. i imagine it would be an awkward conversation anyways.>so how did you get into valhall, mighty warrior?>u-uh i stabbed myself>oh>what then is the resting place for those who lived a virtuous life but did not die in combat?they existed in the norse cosmology but we know less of them. Thor's hall, the fields of power, is said to be the resting place for good servants who die in servitude. theres also the halls of Aegir and Ran, the destiny for those who die at sea; a kind of pagan precursor to davey jones locker. most norse afterlives had more to do with how you died than how you lived or carried yourself morally; both good and evil warriors are taken to valhalla, odin only cares to gather the strongest to his host. reddit pagans like to say 'no racists in valhalla' but I always pictured modern valhalla as being filled with soldiers of WW2 from all sides, allied and axis. the saga of hakon the good shows that even christians could be accepted into valhalla if they died in battle in heathen land so i doubt being virtuosity or the lack of it would dissuade odins invitations
>equivalent to Hellyes. its called Hel. but to be serious, Hel was more like Hades than Hell, or limbo or something from christian ideology. basically a dreary and cold realm of shadow and forgetfulness, but not necessarily torture and punishment. Hel, the goddess of Hel, is said to be welcoming to guests, even if frigid and unpleasant overall. there are other realms closer to the christian idea of Hell however; like darkhel and niflheim. traitors, oathbreakers and cowards are said to be thrown into these realms upon death, where they wade through poisoned rivers and are gnawed on by dragons and serpents until the end of time. whether these ideas were authentic to the older pagan traditions or is the result of christian influence is unclear; there are hellish realms in other nonchristian religions such as buddhism, so the idea that it was a prechristian idea isnt unthinkable. in old high german, 'mospel' is sometimes used as an alternative word for 'hell', likely an equivalent to muspelheim, the realm of the fire giants. but we know very little about these realms beyond that they are tortuous and full of fire. there is some information about muspulheim in the song of the sun, but that is a heavily christianized poem and doesnt lend much to the theory that it was a prechristian idea. it does contain some interesting bits though, like the souls of thieves and swindlers having their crimes branded on their skins in runes by fire demons. certainly a very christian idea, but the usage of rune-branding by the fire giants might be prechristian
>>17985608To be fair, he did do that to his father Sigmund. >>17985612I don't know I'm not some Goah. Might want to ask your ancestors who caved to Jewish supremacy
>>17984480They probably believed in reincarnation. Most cultures did. All that stuff about Hel and Valhalla is later Christian interpretation
>>17985600>whypeepo be inbredmost marriages in africa and the middle east are incestuous and also usually involve children. 70-80 percent of marriages in nigeria are with child brides. 50-60 percent of marriages in pakistan are with 1st cousins or closer. meanwhile in the heimskringla odin specifically bans incest during his rule on earth in prehistory
>>17985647you know its possible to believe in both afterlives and reincarnation right? buddhism has multiples hells in the case that you fuck up so badly that you have to be reincarnated in a hell realm to cleanse your soul, and nibannana in the case that you become enlightened and break the chain of existence. reincarnation is a punishment in most of the religions that believe in it; a state of existence brought upon by desire. while the afterlives are the end goal. besides we know the greeks had comparable ideas to hel and valhalla, like hades and the elysian fields. were those also christian inventions?
>>17985645whats a goah, kurpreet?
>>17984480Probably not. That claim comes from Christian sources written after Norse paganism was no longer practiced. The Christian narrative about Christianized pagan cultures was that said culture was a fierce, violence obsessed society, until they got civilized by Christianity. The idea that the Norse believed you have to die in battle to get into heaven fit this narrative, but it was likely false.Also the afterlife was usually not a big part of most pagan religions. That's more of a Christian/Hellenistic thing. Valhalla sounds like a Christian making up another religion's beliefs using Christian concepts. Usually pagans had a vague form of afterlife, no divine justice, and some kind of ancestor worship where relatives would perform sacrifices to their ancestors to keep them happy.
>>17984480Virtue wasn't a major part of Norse afterlife theology beyond the virtue of courage in dying in combat.Hel was the home of all who didn't in combat, whether you were good or evil. Even great saga heroes that for whatever reason died outside of battle go to Hel instead of Valhalla. What life was like in Hel is not totally clear and it seems to be just a kinda bland and shitty second version of our world. We don't get much about it, but it couldn't have been that appealing.
>>17985653Yet allows it for himself. Hypocrisy much, Timmy?
>>17985658Jewish people who strayed from their holy path to worship a martyr. An incarnation of Vishnu, but still a man. And Whites took to it like flies to honey
>>17985669>Usually pagans had a vague form of afterlife, no divine justice, and some kind of ancestor worship where relatives would perform sacrifices to their ancestors to keep them happy.source? also you know the hellenics were pagans right? if Hel and Valhalla were reinterpretations of the christians, what were they before in pagan times? they clearly came from somewhere, the words didnt just pop up out of nowhere. why is Odin called Valfather or Father of the Slain? where did the valkyries, the choosers of the slain, come from? the specifics about valhalla have more in common with other pagan mythemes than the christian heaven
>>17985657The Norse were a warrior culture and an oral tradition that didn't value human life. It wouldn't make any sense for them to believe in an eternal afterlife. It's different in the case of the Greeks who had a written down mythology and moral philosophy.I'm not sure if the Norse took their religion as literally as the Greeks did either. Their gods feel more like entities of folklore that once existed rather than ones supposed to exist contemporarily. I've heard it speculated Ragnarok was meant to be a great cataclysm of the past rather than the future, but this got changed to mirror the Book of Revelation.Also we just have obvious examples of Christians inserting their mythology into the Norse tradition, like does anyone actually believe 'Hel' doesn't come from 'Hell,' or 'Ask and Embla' doesn't come from 'Adam and Eve?'
>>17985698but their afterlife wasnt eternal, valhalla is destroyed during ragnarok and asgard becomes a field of grasses again, to be ruled by baldr in the coming age>ragnarok was a cataclysm of the pastthis doesnt really make much sense though, why was odin spoken of as a present entity in the sagas then? we have multiple sagas where odin literally shows up out of thin air to either show his pleasure/displeasure at whatever sacrifice>does anyone actually believe 'Hel' doesnt come from 'Hell'?where does the word 'Hell' come from anon? if you say the bible I am not replying to you further
>>17985712>where does the word 'Hell' come fromIt comes from 'Gehenna'
>>17985717which does not resemble or contain the word 'hell'. why did european christians, specifically northwestern ones like the english (who use lots of norse loanwords) decide to start calling what was previously known as gehenna or hades 'hell'?
>>17985678unironically what did rajesh mean by this
>>17985724Same reason they changed Christos to Christ and Isous to Jesus. Sometimes words change when new translations are written down
>>17985734yes, and oftentimes they use words from the regional language to make it more understandable. japanese bibles do not use words like hell or satan, they use avici and akuma, words that are already familiar to the japanese mind since they are buddhist terms. the same happened in europe where regional terms were used instead of hebrew ones. for example in isaiah 13 of the king james bible, it says babylon shall become a habitation for 'satyrs and owls'. but the original hebrew says 'okim' and 'lilit' will inhabit babylon, both of which have been translated in various ways, but usually as a type of local semitic demon, which would have been unfamiliar to the european compilers of the KJ bible. so they used satyrs and owls, which are more familiar to the western mind as symbols of wildness and doom. hades and hell were both used to translate gehenna because they already existed as concepts in those respective cultures and were comparable to the biblical idea of gehenna. hel didnt just magically come out of gehenna because they dropped a few letters and added some more, thats not how linguistics works.
>>17985698>oral tradition that didn't value human lifeYou're a fucking idiot.
>>17985740I'm not saying there isn't any Germanic linguistic influence at all on the word Hell. But the concept and the basis of the word comes from Gehenna in Christianity. I don't believe it predates Christianity, certainly it doesn't predate Judaism>>17985745You believe the ancient Norse valued human life?That wasn't intended as an insult. Pretty much no cultures viewed human life as sacred. Athens had a more advanced philosophical tradition than the rest of the entire world, but that didn't prevent them from murdering and wiping out villages when they had to
>>17985765>You believe the ancient Norse valued human life?Yes, they said they did, and they did in fact write on vellum. Deer skins.>Athens had a more advanced philosophical tradition than the rest of the entire worldAs a Doric appreciator obviously I have to disagree on the grounds that you simply don't know enough about the rest of Greece, nor the rest of the world, to know any better. Athenians have been hammered as the best representative of western civilization as a result of liberalization. Obviously the pro-monarch Dorics aren't going to be lionized on a political basis alone.
>>17985765>basis of the word comes from gehennawhy do you keep repeating this stupid meme? do you have any evidence to support this? whats your explanation for the shift from gehenna to hades to hell?
>>17985770Old English was developed after Christianization. We have no records of Proto-Germanic so it's just a reconstruction made up by linguists. Linguists aren't necessarily good historians
>>17985777none of that explains where the word hell came from or why it has cognates across the germanic world, not just the norse and anglo-saxon world. >linguists dont make good historiansand you do? you still havent explained why the hellenic pagans had hades and elysia, which are clearly parallels to hel and valhalla
>>17985785I did explain it. It was part of the Hellenic philosophical traditionPrimitive societies tend not to believe in an eternal afterlife, because why would they? Life is fleeting and painful, but what makes it fun is the belief in rebirth and infinite chances. Do you believe cavemen believed in Heaven or Hell? Why should Vikings be different?More developed societies create a concept of morality, and with it a belief in an afterlife in which individuals are rewarded or punished for their actions in life. In the case of the Greeks usually this was a punishment rather than a reward because they had a cynical view of the world.The genius of Christianity was in conning everyone that if they followed the True God (tm) they would infinite blessings after death. Hence why it was the first monotheist religion to spread like wildfire
>>17985795>primitive society the germanics were primitive in comparison to the hellenics; they werent caveman banging stones together or something. they had a very old shipping and naval culture as evidenced by bronze age stone carvings of warships, they were skilled in jewelcutting and artistry and navigation. they were from an older time but they werent like the native americans or africans or something; and even those cultures often have concepts of afterlives. frankly i dont even know where you get this idea that primitive cultures dont believe in afterlives; its a pretty universal element of religion, primitive or otherwise. can you even cite which of these primitive belief systems believe in the 'fun of rebirth and infinite chances'? this sounds like shit you made up >Do you believe cavemen believed in Heaven or Hell?desu probably, yeah>Why should Vikings be different?because the vikings were an iron age civilization that sailed across the atlantic sea, established trade routes and mercenary contracts in the east and built longships that used innovative designs that would influence later european shipping designs. if you were talking early germanic tribes from the BC period or something you might have a point but comparing vikings to caveman is just retarded nigga(er)
>>17985809I'm not saying the Norse were not intelligent. You can be primitive and still be intelligent. Being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean you'll believe that you'll spend eternity in a magic kingdom after death though
>>17984480It’s a highly incomplete, surface-level depiction of the Norse afterlife.The prose closing of the Norse poem Helgakvitha Hundingsbana tells us that the pagans believed in reincarnation. All the poems about the hero Helgi also show us indirectly that your feats in life influence how you are reincarnated. A very accomplished individual will be reborn into more accomplished clans. Eventually, one an individual accumulates sufficient merit, sufficient virtue, sufficient power, etc, they are taken to the heavens and become a lesser man-god, which are sometimes called Elves.It’s sort of like the cycle of reincarnation in Hinduism (which shouldn’t be a surprise because these religions are very distantly linked) except the point is not to nihilism yourself out of existence, but to fully live up to your potential and become a master of the universe. By doing this, you become capable of accepting divinity into yourself, and become a god and dwell in the heavens. Valhol is one place you could go but realistically you could go to any hall of any god.> If it is roughly true, what then is the resting place for those who lived a “virtuous” life but did not die in combat (those who die of old age, disease, etc.)?They go to Hel (a peaceful farming afterlife) while they wait to reincarnate.> Did Norse cultures have an equivalent to Hell?Yes, Nastrond. The utterly wicked do not crave perfection but rather the opposite: annihilation. So they get what they crave most in the hall of the snake.
>>17986090Correction, it’s the prose closing of Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II that discusses the concept of reincarnation
>>17985777>Linguists aren't necessarily good historiansPhilologists are necessarily good.
