Fri, 13 Jun 2003

The Tenth Noble Virtue

Heatheny (Asatru in particular) is a pretty wild and wooly place - there can be arguments and flame wars galore over the most trivial points of lore or theology.

This is mostly due to the very nature of the beast: we're trying to reconstruct a faith that has been all but dead for nearly a thousand years! There are some things that are basic to the concept of Asatru, of course, and over the years we've codified them into what we call The Nine Noble Virtues.

I've been watching with some amusement another flame war in the making begin to erupt on a Heathen list the other day - this one over use of the term "lore hound" or "lore whore" to describe a Heathen with, shall we say, a scholarly bent and predeliction for quoting Eddas and Sagas. Some were insulted (!) by these terms, some were not.

A good friend of mine, a young lady named Carolyn, posted the following comment (this is edited to only the relevent part):

I just need a thick enough skin to face the possibility that others might not agree with my idea, or I should keep it to myself.

This set off all kinds of bells, and inspired me to write the following in reply:

Wow! If nine weren't such an important number to our path, and we wished to ape a certain other religion in the stone tablet business, that would be a *GREAT* 'Tenth Noble Virtue' ....

The Tenth Noble Virtue: Thick-Skinnedness
We recognize that we are part of a community which, like Yggdrasil

itself, is united at the root but wildly diverse in the branch. We know that varying understandings of lore and theology are bound to arise in our midst, and resolve not to take as personal insult opinions offered by others which may differ substantially from our own. We can debate without the need for revenge, we can discuss without resort to argument.

Such a "commandment" would certainly go a long way towards eliminating much of the bullshit that plagues any group such as ours...

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