(Updated) Oh, yeah! Blood select culture, culture select blood. Much as a man and a woman would shape each other.
After some thought, I disagreed about the idea of Holy War being new with Christendom. All wars is holy war for the Pagans as they are the ancestral cult. With their numbers so small, their health and tomb are always endangered. Failure to overcome danger or to have children run the risk of leaving their ancestors spiritually hungry and without a chance for reincarnation within their bloodlines. This is why there are the gods and goddesses of war, even Zeus and Jupiter are warriors.
What do you think of the belief that the Catholic Church was deliberately shaped by Constantine et al into something resemblant of the Roman state religion? Is Germanic influence stronger than Latin influence?
There's some truth to that. Constantine generally allowed the Church to deal with its own affairs as it needed, but as Nicea showed, he wanted it to present a cohesive, structured, unified, and imperial religion. Much of the Church themselves wanted that already (even if simply to enforce orthodoxy), but Constantine offered an imperial model for Christianity to integrate itself within, and it worked.
I do however think the Germanic influence is far greater. The Latin influence is largely liturgical and bureaucratic, while the Germanic influence fundamentally altered the religiocultural attitudes of Christianity. If any non-Judaic cultural influence would exceed that, it could only be Greek, as this was what largely inspired Christianity in the first place.
The fact that Nicene Christianity's core doctrines are able to remain so consistent even across various cultures who adopt it and make it their own speaks to its merits as both a universal religion, I think—to be effectively universal, a religion must be both simple and flexible enough to be able to operate effectively and naturally as a folk religion for any tribe or nation who adopt it without a doctrinal compromise.
My two cents: it delivered what I expected and gave me some food for thought concerning not only christianization, but how to further move forward on the revitalization of the Germanic Folk Way.
(Updated) Oh, yeah! Blood select culture, culture select blood. Much as a man and a woman would shape each other.
After some thought, I disagreed about the idea of Holy War being new with Christendom. All wars is holy war for the Pagans as they are the ancestral cult. With their numbers so small, their health and tomb are always endangered. Failure to overcome danger or to have children run the risk of leaving their ancestors spiritually hungry and without a chance for reincarnation within their bloodlines. This is why there are the gods and goddesses of war, even Zeus and Jupiter are warriors.
As for the Hellenic inculturation, the best book about this is Plato and the Hebrew Bible with a very through review here: https://vridar.org/series-index/russell-gmirkin-plato-and-the-hebrew-bible/
What do you think of the belief that the Catholic Church was deliberately shaped by Constantine et al into something resemblant of the Roman state religion? Is Germanic influence stronger than Latin influence?
There's some truth to that. Constantine generally allowed the Church to deal with its own affairs as it needed, but as Nicea showed, he wanted it to present a cohesive, structured, unified, and imperial religion. Much of the Church themselves wanted that already (even if simply to enforce orthodoxy), but Constantine offered an imperial model for Christianity to integrate itself within, and it worked.
I do however think the Germanic influence is far greater. The Latin influence is largely liturgical and bureaucratic, while the Germanic influence fundamentally altered the religiocultural attitudes of Christianity. If any non-Judaic cultural influence would exceed that, it could only be Greek, as this was what largely inspired Christianity in the first place.
The fact that Nicene Christianity's core doctrines are able to remain so consistent even across various cultures who adopt it and make it their own speaks to its merits as both a universal religion, I think—to be effectively universal, a religion must be both simple and flexible enough to be able to operate effectively and naturally as a folk religion for any tribe or nation who adopt it without a doctrinal compromise.
My two cents: it delivered what I expected and gave me some food for thought concerning not only christianization, but how to further move forward on the revitalization of the Germanic Folk Way.