9 ms·

>Christianity is quite focused on the idea of good and evil. Norse mythology was never like that. Norse mythology was never like that. There was no evil devil.

• seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Not many Norwegians are believers in Norse myth, I think parent was referring to the fact that today's Norway is just less religious in general. Yesterday's Norway is less relevant.
• humanrebar 9y ago
  It's also bad understanding of Christian theology. > Christianity is quite focused on the idea of good and evil. No, it's mostly focused on the contrast between being a follower of Christ or not. To that end, the character of God and Jesus are elaborated on at length. So subjects like "good" and "evil" come up as a part of that. Yes, Christ is described as being intrinsically good, but the end goal isn't to: * do good things * be a good person * avoid evil things * punish bad people ...that's not to say all those things are irrelevant, but they're certainly based on trusting Christ and His teachings. To be fair, the usual cast of Flanders clones (televangelists, Westboro Baptist) get this all really wrong, but just because they're wrong doesn't mean we should get it wrong, too.
  • jaggi1 9y ago
    One has to differentiate between Christian influence and general thinking. "Do good things" is common sense but Christian theology has opinion on what is good and bad and it matters at a subtle level. For example as a Hindu when my kid went to a missionary school they would try to portray polytheism as bad and temporary tattoos as evil.
  • keithnz 9y ago
    It really doesn't matter what the "theology" is, or what academically people may understand it to be, it's how it manifests.
    • humanrebar 9y ago
      The argument was that the manifestation follows from the theology. I'm arguing that if the premises are true (culture follows from theology; culture and laws reflect that), then the originating philosophy (centered around good vs. evil) is something other than Christian theology.
    • Nomentatus 9y ago
      True enough, while St. Augustine abandoned Manichaeism for Christianity, we've been busy reinventing it ever since.
  • thephyber 9y ago
    > To be fair, the usual cast of Flanders clones (televangelists, Westboro Baptist) get this all really wrong, but just because they're wrong doesn't mean we should get it wrong, too. If I had written your comment, this would have been the first line, not the last. Obviously the GP was boiling down a more complex moral model into something simple enough for a social media comment. Whether (s)he knew enough about Christianity to know the difference between these two dichotomies is still unknown.
  • abritinthebay 9y ago
    It's not trying to be a description of the theology, but of the practice. In that respect it's quite accurate.
  • mcv 9y ago
    Being a good person and doing god things is absolutely important in Christianity. Jesus talked a lot about the need to do good: to give to the poor, feed the hungry, welcome the outcast and the stranger, etc. During the course of history, numerous people have changed this into punishing bad people (for to varying degrees and widely varying definitions of "bad"), and that is I think one of the big ways where some branches of Christianity have gone astray. We are supposed to forgive, not to punish as harshly as possible and then some.
• onion2k 9y ago
  The Norse myths were from a millennium ago, no one has believed in them for almost a thousand years. I can't quite see why Norse mythology wouldn't have had a direct impact on Norwegian culture that continues today. I don't know much about Norway but here in the UK we have laws that were passed 500 years ago that are still in use and that were strongly influenced by the church when they were enacted. You don't have to believe in something directly for it to influence your culture.
  • BjoernKW 9y ago
    That's the common law system at work there. The Norwegian system by contrast is a civil law system.