Odin as defined by his mythology has been disproven.  The ideas of Odin controlling weather and living in Valhala and so forth are not physically possible. 

In addition, it is certainly possible to prove a negative.  A classic example would be the proof of the non-existence of the ether, the supposed medium through which light travels. 

You are the one being dishonest in continuing to state that there is no proof agains the gods in which you believe.

You cannot prove that something doesn't exist. You can't prove that unicorns or goatmonsters or the FSM doesn't exist. Because that would be proving a negative, you can however prove something does exist, by witnessing it or observing it etc.

Uh...this makes no sense to me. Could you clarify? Too many metaphors in one sentence.

Uh, it's the exact opposite of ignoring the fact that you have to kill to survive. Maybe you missed it when I said(I bolded it for you):

"Most people in this modern society are ignorant of just how awful factory farming is, either that or they don't care. I know better. So I prefer better(which is sometimes in the form of ritual sacrifice). I don't consider it stupid at all. It gives you an appreciation of the food you're eating and the reality that you must kill to eat. Buying a plastic wrapped steak doesn't do that. Today we can eat meat all day everyday and not think about it at all, because of factory farming. In the past, meat was a special commodity, not everyone could afford to eat it. It helps to not take things for granted sometimes."

I can name you plenty of things that don't die. Rocks, water, air, plastic, metal, etc. But of course they don't live either, hehe.

Remind me never to invite you to a luau, hehe.

Yes, not all gods get animals for a sacrifice. For example gods of the hearth, agriculture, love, beer/wine, etc tend to recieve offerings found within their domain. Grain for the goddess Ceres, for example. Ritual sex for Venus, another lovely example. In fact, most heathens that I know of only offer mead, honey, milk, grain, etc because they can't afford to raise an animal and kill it. Many heathens also offer poetry, songs, crafted items, etc in honor of the gods.

My experience with animal sacrifice is not common among heathens, or pagans in general as a matter of fact.

It's not a manner of progression. And btw, I wouldn't put much trust in your appeal to popularity, especially since "most people in modern society" have an easier time naming who won the major sports tournament than they would be at naming who won any of the nobel prizes this year(especially in america).
 

both.

rofl!

This probably doesn't make any sense, but Ciarin's religion feels like a...............like a hobby.

Edit: doublepost, I suck at using the internet.

I don't have to do anything at all in my religion. I happen to like animal sacrifice, it's a matter of preference.

I'm pretty sure I will be offering many other gifts(especially since I don't have the means to sacrifice animals myself). I do not see your point here.

I do not have a blood lust(unless you count my love of eating meat...especially black angus with jack daniels sauce...so good).

I get off on porn and sexy sexy men. Eating fresh roast pork is mighty tasty but it has yet to cause me an orgasm.

Holy crap what a piece of bullshit you got right there. You're trying to appeal to my human decency? How exactly are you doing that? Human decency motivates me to NOT support factory farming. It motivates me to get my meat from humane natural sources. It certainly doesn't cause me to dislike killing an animal for food. Eating animals is not a bad thing. At all. I'm sure vegetarians/vegans will disagree but I don't particularly care.

Your claim that most people would feel revolted to see the animal killed right in front of them, while I don't necessarily disagree with, is irrelevent. The reason they might feel revolted isn't because killing an animal is revolting, but because they are raised in a society that hides it from them. They're not used to seeing it. The corporations like ConAgra present the meat in nice neat little plastic wrapped packages and don't reveal that those animals have lived a tortured existence since birth and died a death that if you had done the same to a dog or cat would be considered illegal by our humanitarian laws. They don't reveal that one hamburger patty will contain the beef from thousands of cows. They don't reveal that this method of food production is the reason we have E.coli outbreaks.

I don't give a damn if someone is revolted by seeing an animal being killed in front of them, because while in the same day they'll go to Burger King and order a double whopper with cheese without a single thought of where their food came from. People SHOULD see their food being killed. Maybe they'll have a better appreciation for their food, or maybe they'll eat less meat which will cause the production to go down(which in turn causes less pollution, less clearing of forests for pasture land in south america, less food disease outbreaks, etc).

I dislike PETA, I think they're hypocritical. But I will wholeheartedly agree with their stance on factory farming, and I suggest all you sheltered self-absorbed ignorant "modern people" go see their videos on it. You don't like animal sacrifice because you get a nasty picture in your mind(probably influenced by a movie or something you read), therefore you think it's uncivilized. Unfortunately, this cultured sophisticated civilization uses the most inhumane, disgusting, and dangerous method to raise and kill animals for our voracious appetite for meat.

So again, I say if you're not a vegetarian, you're a hypocrite. If you eat meat and claim some self-righteous tone regarding your dislike for animal sacrifice as if it was barbaric, you need to school yourself immensely on the reality of our society.

/rant

When you sacrifce your animals do your follow the roman religious views faithfully? Or do you change them to fit your own view? (as is common with most religious folks these days to ignore the bad parts of the old religions) because if I recall correctly (which i never saw you respond to it) when you sacrifice the animal do you actually do the sacrificing yourself or do you just offer the food you have infront of you to the gods? Do you burn off your waste (fat and other undersirable parts) to the gods as per roman animal sacrifice tradition? If the food was not good or the animal was unhealthy do you sacrifice a pig and burn the whole pig to please the gods for the unworthy sacrifice? again as per roman animals sacrifice ritural requirement? Or do you simply ignore that entire part of the animal sacrifice and do as you want?

I really don't understand how animal sacrifice is "immoral." In fact, I don't see how it's any worse than simply praying before a meal.

Okay, sure, why? Why is it indecent?

So what? There's nothing here except argumentum ad populum, which you just claimed in the previous sentence that you weren't using.

Again, why? Why why why why why?

So why do you do anything for your religion?

Every animal(and a few plants) kills something else to survive. What is your point here?

As far as I can tell no one in this thread has brought up super heroes. We were discussing animal sacrifice, did you forget?

I don't think I've given any indication that killing is magical. When I buy meat I also don't treat it as a ritual, nor entertaiment.

LOL, what? I'm pretty sure I understand evolution. Where did this come from?

Morality is subjective. My tradition isn't debunked it's merely criticized.

Geez Brian your posts are full of fail-sauce. Try again.

You don't really believe in the gods you just want to be different yet still believe in the some form supreme deity(s) some form of afterlife without the messy part of the actually requirements of actually following the rules and riturals those religions, I mean after all the roman gods and other gods are usually pretty specific about offerings to them and the requirement if the food was unhealthy (food poisoning for example does occur in your supermarket food occassionally). Now of course you used the term animal sacrifice, which isn't true, oh and romans did not just sacrifice bulls and cows, there were goats, pigs, sheep and basically any animal they could/would eat.

Now the bad parts of the religious views, well remember when the gods demanded it was not considered to be morally or socially unacceptable, of course we have moved on beyond those demands of gods and view those certain demands as bad. Of course that doesn't change the fact that it's required for those gods as those demands are part of the religious views. Then again as we have moved on beyond those demands morally and socially, we change the relgion to fit our current view, which makes it seem to me like you just want to believe to be different than others (christians, muslims, jews, buddhists....basically the majority of religious views) to be different, that could be one possible explaination as to why ou believe in these gods. Because mainstream society does not. Makes you feel unique like a snowflake, when in reality your the same rotting organism as the rest of us.

Well here are a few things, one I have always been an atheist, I was more or less brought up one, as my father is an atheist and my mom believe in a higher power but more of a deist view than anything and even then it has been more in her later years. I haven't changed my outlook to fit into society or to be different, my father instilled in me a desire to understand things and the world and not to fill them in with unnecessary explanations like god or gods unless there is sufficient evidence for them. You however have changed your views and even deities to either fit in or to try to be different.

As for the grammar comment, no problem professor I shall try to improve, since I think in Spanish and/or Italian and type in English I tend to fuck it up every once in a while hence the LATIN part of LATINcanuck, which stand for latino oh great professor ciarin.

No one says your stupid enough to offer up bad food, since when you actually SACRIFICE an animal you may not know until you open up the animal, however it's irrational to sacrifice an entire pig and have fire consume it to please an imaginary deity. Of course you have to be sacrificing an animal, and if your not killing it yourself are you really sacrificing or are you praying to a specific god? maybe I am not understanding by what you mean by sacrifice. Because it's starting to sound more like you pray and give thanks, instead of actually killing and doing the whole ritual yourself. If it's the praying it's no more different than Christan's giving thanks. If it's actual sacrifice, then if your not killing the animal yourself then you are participating but not actually sacrificing, again big difference here.

Now I never said sacrificing animals for consumption is bad, please indicate where I said that. I said you tend to ignore the parts that you feel are bad of your religion which is typical of believers because they don't actually believe in it, they want to feel like they belong to a group and they feel good about it, but come on, either you truly believe it and follow all of it or you don't believe it and just are in it to be part of something. Now sacrificing a pig to a god and having the entire pig burnt in order to please a god(s) because that is what is demanded to please them, is irrational and well a waste of food.

Even better you sacrifice animals according to certain gods but not to others? Follow some traditions but not others? Believe in to different set of gods altogether (Norse and roman) and yet truly never belong to one doesn't indicate I want to be part of something but not part of mainstream then I don't know what is.

Oh and no everyone is not different everyone is looking for the same thing, we are all humans and we are not unique snowflakes, we are all the same we want to belong. Get use to it.

Sorry, I'm having difficultly explaining my position.

Do you believe in physically punishing children? I don’t, but wouldn’t claim that people who make this choice are immoral. However, I think it is immoral to physically punish children because of a religious doctrine or part of a ceremony.

It’s the same with animal sacrifice. I’m a vegetarian so I don’t believe in eating meat. I don’t think people who choose to eat meat are immoral. However, I think it is immoral to kill animals for the purpose of religious doctrine or part of a ceremony.

I could make a similar argument about capital punishment.

So basically I’m opposed to acts that are ‘ethically questionable’ in the name of religion.

Never heard of a vet?

I never said I actually sacrificed animals myself. I said I believe in animal sacrifice.

Yes it would be a waste. The good thing is I'll probably never have to do it. Here are the reasons: I don't own a farm with animals; I don't know how to kill animals humanely; I'm not a priest of a roman cultus nor do I plan on being one.

My participation with animal sacrifice is based on opportunity. I don't know of anyone sacrificing animals to the roman gods, otherwise I would participate. I know of one guy that does it with the germanic gods, and was invited to his events when I lived in New England, so I went. It's not a matter of deciding who I will and who I won't sacrifice animals to, be it roman or germanic. It's like when I lived in hawaii. When I was in hawaii I went to a luau. When I moved out of hawaii I haven't been to a luau because no one that I knew of was doing any. Do you get what I'm saying here?

Wrong, everyone is different. We're not clones, man. If we were all the same we'd have no separate thoughts, desires, styles, actions. We'd be drones. There would be no war, no competition, no creativity. If we were all be the same, the world would be boring.

 I like that we're all different and unique. We have similarities on some levels, especially when raised in the same culture, but this does not negate our differences. The only thing we truly have in common is that we are the same species. Get used to it.

yup and yet still some times mad cow disease gets out, and I highly doubt everyone gets the vet to check out the animal before a sacrifice, plus could be diseased as in cancer or some other disease.

You do realize you are just arguing against hunting and eating a captured animal versus buying one at the grocery store? None of your argument addresses the sacrificial aspect.

LOL, if you're lucky.

Yes, a minority of a minority, so to speak.

Nothing definitive since many people choose not to make public their beliefs for fear of retribution. I do know that the heathen orgs are growing in membership. Plus there's the next gen heathens being raised at the moment(but this isn't a guarantee they'll be heathen when they are adults).

Yes, I would say so. Big burly man, with a beard who loves beer and listens to scandinavian metal, and they tend to have a huge hammer pendant.

For the most part, since it has an ancestral component.

A healthy mix of both.

A good proportion are vets or active military, probably due to the warrior aspect of the religion.

I know of a few who are SCA, many pagans in general are SCA as well. I was thinking of joining but I'm a bit lazy. Many heathens, myself included, like to dress in the old garb at some events(kinda like how some people like to dress up in liederhosen at oktoberfest). Some dress up at rituals only.

I'm not sure what you mean by societal patterns though.

I like you.

 ( ...actually I'm not sure what I meant by it either , clumsy choice of words on my part. )

   A few final questions and then I'll stop pestering you:

 1.)  Have the heathen religions that you participate in grown large enough to have developed seperate "schisms"  yet ? 

  In other words, it seems that most world religions follow a pattern be they abrahamic ( Judiasm, Christianity, Islam ) or even the less dogmatic Eastern spirtual belief systems ( Hinduism, Buddhism, etc ).  Historically speaking they all seem to eventually break apart into factions and actually come into conflict with their former brethren.  In short, do heathens have doctrinal differences ?

  2.)  Do heathens have apologists ?  Are there persons who intellectually immerse themselves within heathen theology so that they can defend their beliefs to others ?  I know that you said that many of you prefer to remain in stealth mode to avoid being hassled but are there any individuals who put up web-sites, publish literature, etc for the purpose of defending your belief system ?

     I'm done. Thanks.

Ok, sorry to necropost, but I've got to say, most entertaining thread in the forum, so far.

My best friend is a pagan priest, with a small church, and once I asked him this, "Sometimes when I see a Crow, I get a strange feeling, how can you tell if something is a Portent, or just something that happens?"

His reply, "Personal feeling. If it feels significant, it is significant."

So, Ciarin, I just wanted to say, your lightning story really resonates with me.

Are you willing to share other personal experience stories? I can't speak for other atheists of course, but I have no intentions of mocking, debating, or refuting. I find them interesting and entertaining. And sometimes enlightening.

I would bet I'm not the only one here who would find them fascinating, even if they aren't willing to admit it.

When aren't you thinking of your faith?...

So you filmed it for YouTube and National Geographic, and called in the scientists to examine the video and the carving that remained unburned?

That's quite the meta-analysis...