Talk:Persecution of Germanic Pagans

article name

Shouldn't article this be titled Persecution of Germanic pagans? That would adhere to the style of the other articles on Template:Religious persecution. To the point, one cannot persecute paganism, only pagans. — coelacan talk — 04:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point. // Liftarn

Scope of entry

I think it is quite a stretch to equate the original Germanic Heathens with the modern groups who are reconstructing it or loosely basing their belief systems off of it. I think that the premise of this entry is flawed as a result and think that it should be re-factored or deleted or at the very least renamed Persecution of Germanic Neopagans. I didn't realize that some modern Heathens drank the sacred draught of perpetual victimhood that Wiccans do. - WeniWidiWiki 18:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

indeed. come on, we don't need a "persecution" article for everything. The content of this can easily accommodated in two very small sections in Germanic paganism and Germanic neopaganism, respectively. dab (𒁳) 18:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Those two articles are already quite long. If this article's content was moved there, then it would immediately have to be removed and remerged here, per WP:SUMMARY. This is currently the correct format for the content of this article. Whilst I share WeniWidiWiki's distaste, there is no encyclopedic reason for deleting or merging this article into the parent articles. However, I agree that the persecution of actual germanic pagans is almost completely unrelated to the persecution of modern neopagans, and modern neopaganisms are all pretty much the same, regardless of whether they choose a germanic facade or a greek facade or whatever. So it would be legitimate to keep this article here and limit it to the persecution of actual historical pagans, and create a new article for the Persecution of Neopagans, and merge all such content there, from this article as well as from Persecution of ancient Greek religion, leaving behind only the pre-nineteenth century content in both articles. — coelacan talk — 18:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The persecution of Germanic Pagans (regardless of time and place) is obviously related. Trying to lump different unrelated religions together ("modern neopaganisms are all pretty much the same") is a recepie for disaster. This attitude is a low key type of persecution. I almost never hear that Judaism, Christianity and Islam (who actually are related) "are all pretty much the same, regardless of whether they choose a Jewish facade or a Muslim facade or whatever.". // Liftarn

Please clarify how this is "persecution", especially considering my edit history. It is illogical to have articles documenting the alleged persecution of a group spanning all across wikipedia, especially since much of the information is undocumented and POV. I'm not arguing against documenting these things somewhere but to do it correctly, we need to dispense with the redundancy and also face facts that the ancient pre-Christian pagans and the modern adherents of Germanic Heathenry are not the same people and cannot identify themselves as such. For example, this obsession with being persecuted, and self-identifying as martyrs and victims would have been totally foreign to the honour and beliefs of the ancient Heathens. - WeniWidiWiki 15:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't bother to check your edit history and I don't see how it's relevent anyway. I just reacted to what I saw as "Your religion is not a real religion.". Ancient Asatruers and modern Asatruers are not the same persons, but they follow the same religion. I don't obsess about being persecuted, but I don't see why it should be hidden either. // Liftarn

Well we are going to have to disagree on whether modern Ásatrúar practice the same religion as the pre-christians. There already has been much debate and consensus reached on wikipedia about this. (If I thought Ásatrú wasn't a "real" religion I wouldn't have put so much time into editing the article and documenting so many of it's leaders and orgs.) Despite that, I'm not advocating a total purging of the material. I think that the relevant sections should be merged into more appropriate articles. For example the recent court cases over dog tag identification and cemetery markers for the US military, as well as the banning of runes and Ásatrú gatherings in Texas prisons should be merged into Germanic neopaganism. However, stating these people (who are being inconvenienced at best) are being "persecuted" on par with those who were tortured to death in unspeakable fashion under the reign of "St."Olaf or Charlemagne is inaccurate and insulting to their memories. I do not advocate revisionism of history, and regardless of what happens with the deletion /merge this material will be documented and hopefully disambiguated in a more intelligible and cohesive fashion. - WeniWidiWiki 16:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, you have a point that the level of persecution is not the same now as it was then, but there is a denial of the same level of religious freedom that is given to other religions. I feel that the material is best presented as a whole instead of chopped up and shipped away in different articles. // Liftarn

Split

Oppose for obvious reasons. The article also isn't long enough for a split. // Liftarn

Support - Germanic paganism and Germanic neopaganism are very different subjects, while directly related. In time, both articles could be filled to the brim with information and history. It is better to prepare for that and keep the two subjects seperate in seperate articles - Persecution of Germanic Paganism and Persecution of Germanic Neopaganism. :bloodofox: 23:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather rewrite the article towards an overview of the Christianization of Scandinavia; I suspect that the neopagan claims about its violence are mostly incorrect. Zara1709 21:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think that? // Liftarn

Uhm, the neopagans would have to explain why their alleged ancestor religion came to be replaced by Christianity anyway. They are not likely to admit that it happened because the people of their country preferred Christianity over their old religion. However, I took a closer look at the history of Norway (see my user page), and it seems that the Christianization was rather violent. I still think, though, that it was probably no more violent than the usual clashes between rival groups of earls. Zara1709 22:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Like it says in the article "Christianization of the various Germanic peoples was achieved by various means". Looking at history it seems that monotheism always replace polytheism. // Liftarn

You will see that I also added some Information on Varg Vikernes. I hope, you get my point. But the article still needs a lot more work. -Zara1709 20:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a bit of original research and quite some undue weight to a few Norwegians. // Liftarn

Move article?

I am thinking of requesting to move this article, away from Persecution of Germanic Pagans to Christianization of Northern Europe. The reason is simple:

1) One cannot really speak of religious persecution here. The process of Christianization was sometimes rather violent, but that seems to be related to the 'usual wars' that were going on during that time. And even if one could speak of religious persecution in some instances here, in many other instances one could not. Christianization is the more encompassing term here, since it covers the propagation of Christianity whether violent or not.

2) There is yet no article on that topic, but there should be one. The process of Christianization is a historical fact, and a lot of information on this should already be included in the biographical articles of the persons involved. An article 'Christianization of Northern Europe' would make the topic much easier accessible.

3) Furthermore, although the events have happened about thousand years ago, they still seem to have an impact. There seem to be some 'fundamentalist' neopagans who are now attempting to persecute Christians in turn.

Please tell me what you think, before I make the effort to propose the move. I would than probably move the part on 'Neopaganism In Nazi Germany' to Holocaust victims. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zara1709 (talk • contribs) 21:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC). -Zara1709 22:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

1.Agree. 2.Agree 3. Somewhat disagree. There is an established community precedent and consensus which separates historical paganism from modern neopaganism at wikipedia. *They are not the same groups* and editing this article to that effect when consensus has been determined to distinctly separate them is counter-productive. There have been protracted discussions about this. - WeniWidiWiki 15:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

1. Partially disagree. 2. Start working in the Christianization article. 3. No particular view. // Liftarn

I added Christianization of the Germanic peoples to the split notice. This article should just be a disambiguation page. Yes, the Christianization has long been in dire need of cleanup, people should work on that instead of doing another round of the stale "persecution" debate. Such neopagan claims to the effect of historical persecution can easily discussed at neopaganism articles, while academic evaluation of violence connected with Christianization belongs in the Christianization of the Germanic peoples article. dab (𒁳) 15:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry then, I hadn't noticed that there already had been a large debate on this (though I probably should have guessed). I stumbled across this article when I needed to falsify the stuff that I mentioned than under Persecution of Germanic Pagans?. If this article had not been so prominently linked at the Christianization page, I would not have had that problem. -Zara1709 16:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite annoyed about myself for missing the article on the Christianization of Scandinavia. Of course I would have edited that one then - so I started moving some parts over there. I really hope that this is ok, since I would not want to move those parts back. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zara1709 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC). -Zara1709 16:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

it's alright, none of your work is lost, it should just be moved to the respective articles. No problem. I really hope we can reduce this to a disambig page soon... dab (𒁳) 17:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer to see something more than a disambig. Something that can give a fuller picture. // Liftarn

I would vote for a disambig page - though it will probably no be your standard one. -Zara1709 22:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Now here are yet 2 more articles that are somehow related:

• Anti-Christian prejudice
• Criticism of Christianity

and there also really need to be reworked, at least in some parts. -Zara1709 14:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

In what way are they related? // Liftarn

Charlemagne

I removed the section

although some modern historians think it likely that Charlemagne exiled (delocabat) the apostates rather than beheading (decollabat) them.

that has been without source for some time now. // Liftarn

Disambiguation

I don't think that it is possible to link this topic adequately in a disambiguation page while adhering to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). You can try, though. -Zara1709 21:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

it's still too wordy to conform with the MoS, but your edits are an improvement, thanks. dab (𒁳) 22:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it. 1) it's way too short (it needs expanding, not shortening) 2) it doesn't even mention present day // Liftarn

Thank you Liftarn for stating the reasons for you revert now. I would really have appreciated if you could have done that earlier. The reply to 1) is simple. Persecution of Germanic Pagans is not a useful concept at all.

I will revert to my previous version then. Before you (or anyone else) thing of expanding this article again, please do one of the following:

1. Find a notable historian that speaks of Persecution of Germanic Pagans. Have fun, some of those books have 1000+ pages. (Taht is the reason why I could not make the effort.)If you find one, mention him in Historical persecution by Christians first.

1. Clarify how many Germanic esoterics have been suppressed in Nazi Germany, what happened to them and who of them would actually have referred to himself as a Germanic Neopagan.

1. Find out what is actually the problem between the US prison authorities and some Germanic Neopagan Groups in the USA. Has any official US agency ever stated that Freedom of Religion does not apply to Germanic Neopaganism? Have their been lawsuits on this? What was their result?