Church burnings and stuff

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norw … d_attempts

I think I remember hearing Varg Vikernes, one of the perpetrators, say why he did it - he said that he is an odinist and that Christians came into lands which were not theirs, conquered them, desecrated sacred pagan grounds and built churches on top of them, so that he considers himself justified in burning the churches as retribution and taking back what is rightfully theirs, or something like that.

Now to me, this is a clear case of 2 groups with different ideals and cultures resolving their conflicts in the most honest way possible - using warfare and fighting it out for dominance over land and resources. In reality, as in, reality outside of human constructs, no organism has any “right” to anything, “rights” and “rules” and “laws” only apply to those WITHIN human systems, and only to the extent that particular system can physically enforce them with mercenaries (police and military). It is no more immoral that Christians conquered odinists and took their lands, than it would be if odinists took their lands back.

But many people on both sides of the issue think that for some reason I cannot describe as anything else but “magical”, they are in the “right” while the other group is in the “wrong”.

It is just funny listening to both sides. Christians come into odinist lands, use violence to conquer them, use threat of violence to establish themselves as status quo, desecrate sacred pagan grounds by building churches upon them, and then when some odinists try to subvert the system from within and avenge their ancestors, they are being attacked on the grounds that they are violent and that they desecrate sacred Christian buildings… lol?

Odinists, on the other hand, despite being vikings, and pagans, and whatever else, will often buy into the nonsense that they had the “right”, not the right granted to them by the system which was defeated, but some “divine” or whatever right, to these lands, and that Christians took what rightfully belonged to them, as if Christians, who came as CONQUERORS, had some moral obligations to behave in accordance with the laws of those they come to conquer. This is a consequence of confusing the ingroup with the outgroup and projecting human social constructs outside of human societies. People begin to think that rights are not humanly constructed, but that human constructs are based on some “natural rights” (I rofl each time I hear this retarded oxymoron ), which leads them to mistakenly believe that humans from other groups have some magical obligations to abide by the same laws and respect the same rights, when they don’t.

This is why heterogenous systems and multicultural systems are doomed to failure unless they become homogenous. You will have different types of ordering (odinists and Christians in this case) fighting for dominance. The more diversity there is and the less dominant any particular group is, the less stable (more chaotic) the system will be. A system which is 90% Christian 10% odinist may survive as odinists would likely be too few to fight back, so they would just be put in prison whenever they dared to act in contradiction with the predominant, Christian, ordering. If it was 70% Christian 30% odinist it would become much less stable and Christians would have more difficulties enforcing their order. 50% and 50% is complete unpredictable chaos.

Another concrete example of why order = increase in one possibility into a probability, aka one possibility (Christianity f.e.) becoming more probable than all others, while chaos means equalization, the reduction of all probabilities into being equally possible, resulting in unpredictability, or lower predictability.

All other factors equal, if there are 2 systems fighting one anther, and system 1 is 100% homogenous, aka all of its people abide by some same basic beliefs, similar to NS Germany, while another, system 2 has 20% of X, 20% of Y, 20% of Z, etc. Then system 1 would have the advantage because system 2 would suffer of infighting. In fact, it might be beneficial for system 1 not to invade or conquer system 2, but to just promote the chaos in system 2 and prevent any one of X, Y, or Z becoming dominant, waiting and letting time take its toll while letting them kill each other off until they are so weak that system 1 can walk in and conquer 2 with practically no resistance whatsoever.

Warfare and fighting seems completely unworkable as a system of settling disputes. It’s a waste of lives and material resources.

Looking at the case of Varg Vikernes … his actions resulted in the destruction of property and (separately) the death of one person. If he is not incarcerated, then he will probably destroy more property and kill more people. If the law does not go after him, then private individuals will have to endanger themselves and spend time, energy and money in order to kill him and/or destroy his property. If they can’t get at him, then they will attack his family and friends and their property.

Then he retaliates. And they retaliate.

A ridiculous way to resolve conflicts.

Do you always take the side of the law, the most powerful?

In French revolution I guess you would be on side of the monarchy as long as it was (or seemed) more powerful, and the dissidents would just be outlaws.

Then when the “outlaws” overthrow the king and establish their own laws and enforce them, then you would switch to their side cause they were most powerful, being the default defenders of the status quo?

What if it was not only Varg Vikernes? What if odinists, or satanists, or any group overthrew the government, established themselves as the status quo backed by military and police, and reclaimed their holy grounds by burning the buildings of the invaders (Christians) and threatening with physical violence anybody who dares to disobey them? Since they would be more powerful and their actions would be lawful, since they WOULD be the law, in that case you would just submit to them?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking any sides here, I’m just stating how things are.

From the perspective of Christians, it would be ideal to eliminate all who oppose them, so for them affirming their power by punishing odinists is good.
From the perspective of odinists it would be ideal if they could reclaim their land and overthrow the currently dominant, Christian power, so for odinists overthrowing Christians is good.

Of course, since you are a Christian you will take the side of the Christians (or you simply haven’t understood the point of the thread), and that is precisely my point.

You’re the one arguing that the “most honest” way to resolve disputes is by fighting. The more physically powerful side will typically win the fight and it will suppress the weak loser.
You’re saying that there is no right and wrong beyond force.

So why are you suggesting in this section that there is right and wrong separate from force?

It seems that you are trying to reconcile two incompatible ideas - that force ought to triumph and that force ought to be successfully challenged by “something better”.

Even on a superficial reading, that’s not the basis of Christianity. But whatever.

The objective observer would ask : which society is better? That is where “the good” resides.

Who says I would take the Christian side or that I am taking it??

I didn’t say anything about Christianity in first reply, so it was not a factor.

Those church burnings seem to be a useless and gratuitous destruction of property. If you want to change society and the worship of Odin is the way to create that society, then set up a temple for Odin and convince people that Odin and your vision of society is better than what now exists.

Eye in the Sky sees all.

I can appreciate the lust for life as well as the lust for combat.

This particular thread, takes a Zoomed Out approach, that of a General analyzing the statistics of society.

Typical ILP posts tend to take a Zoomed In approach, focusing on the feeling and value of human life itself.

The Odinists have a “rite” because the Christians have an odious hypocrisy of teaching cuckery and pacifism, and then violating their own bullshit. Thus it becomes enraging.

If there was anarchism, it would invetibly become weak small tribes, exploited by a cunning group of the most powerful.

Right and wrong, becomes a matter of how you perceive the quality of life. If the tyrants in charge make you eat shit every day, they suddenly become a problem that needs removing.

That is why, as emperor of earth, the only rule I would have is that there be no ridiculous rules.

If the Abrahamic religions never existed the world would be a much better place.

The Abrahamic religions were made by the Jews.

I’m saying that there’s no such thing as universal right and wrong when it comes to morality.

I wasn’t.

I don’t care about readings, I care about what Christians actually do. Don’t give a shit if they say “turn the other cheek” in some book when we know what they actually do, and they do what everybody else does - they persecute and punish those who threaten them.

It wasn’t a factor? So, let me get this straight…

• Christians invade foreign lands, completely disrespecting the rights and laws of the native system - you don’t have a problem with this part
• Christians kill pagan natives in their lands - all fine there
• Christians destroy European pagan temples and desecrate their lands - okey dokey
• Christians establish their own system with rights and laws which conveniently makes the protection of their own buildings the ‘innocent, peaceful’ status quo, whilst making any pagan attempt at reclaiming their lands illegal, and they enforce this with threats of violence, doing violence upon anybody who disagrees - nothing wrong here
• Pagans decide to fight back and destroy some Christian temples (churches) - DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY AND DEATH OF ONE PERSON, INCARCERATE THE DANGEROUS MONSTER THIS INSTANT

So, my point is… why didn’t you complain about any of the first four steps if you are truly impartial?

Say you and I are stranded on an island alone, and you find a delicious fruit. I then proceed to punch you and take your fruit and then claim that it was mine to begin with and that you would be immoral to punch me and try to reclaim the fruit. Would you buy that? If some third party observed all of that occur and decided not to do anything while I punched you and took your fruit, but the second you tried to reclaim it they intervened on my behalf, would you consider them impartial? Would you not suspect them to be biased in my favor like I suspect you to be biased in favor of Christians?

Does nothing exist except the present? Why do Christians deserve to have THEIR buildings in that particular portion of physical space any more than pagans do? Why would I deserve to have the fruit you find anymore than you? Why would we forget or ignore how Christians violently conquered lands from others and how I violently punched you for the fruit, but the moment the people try to reclaim their lands or you try to reclaim your fruit, violence is all of a sudden immoral? Why was it not immoral before?

Okay, there is no universal right and wrong … then what?

Okay, Christians will slit your throat as soon as look at you. But you’re okay with that because force is all that matters. So what’s the problem?

Even if Christians are hypocritical bastards … so what?

Christians murdered all the pagans. So what?

I didnt say anything about Christianity.

The pagans lost. The pagans are weak. That’s your own philosophy.
What the fuck do you want, moron?

Unless you want the pagans to triumph because of your ideas of right and wrong … slavish christian ideas of right and wrong.

Do you not understand your own hypocrisy?

But can you prove that?

phyllo, you still do not get my point. I don’t give a shit, myself. I’m an atheist, skydaddy Yahweh or skydaddy Odin, same fairytale wishful thinking nonsense to me.

What I point out is the hypocrisy of both of these groups - how they will claim that violence is what they have a problem with, when they really don’t have a problem with violence itself since they too have to use violence to enforce their own order, but when violence is used to undermine things they value is when they actually have a problem with it, like everybody else.

So, as I said, Christians destroying pagan temples is no more right or wrong than pagans destroying Christian temples (churches).

Life is a struggle for survival, a will to power. And yes, hypocrisy can be very useful when it comes to maintaining your power. Perhaps then you should continue lying about this because it is beneficial to you? Perhaps since accepting certain harsh truths can sometimes hinder survival, we should just lie to ourselves and be hypocritical because it makes us more powerful? But then, what is the point of doing philosophy, if philosophy is, among other things, about truth? Or is lying and pretending one does philosophy just a part of this clever ruse to maintain one’s power?

You’re awfully concerned about rights for somebody who doesn’t believe in them. You’re accepting the argument of the person who does believe in rights; namely, that rights are the reason we don’t have anarchy and brutality. Accepting that, and denying rights, leads you to accept the consequence, but it’s still the argument of the right’s proponent. Whether rights are real or not, it remains the case that people want to live in the best society possible, and that is generally not a society in which we fucking murder each other over every little thing.

If there’s no rights or rules or laws, what’s so great about doing things the ‘honest’ way, anyway? OK, rights are bullshit. It remains the case that a society in which we pretend there are rights works out better than one in which we acknowledge that there aren’t, so aslong as there’s no rules, I’m not breaking a rule by faking rights, right?

This part is obviously true, but it’s not because the people acting violently are somehow more ‘honest’ than those that aren’t. It’s just more of a strain to help people or support people who aren’t like you, that’s all.

A guy I used to be friends with burned a church. He went to jail. I had already stopped being friends with him before that because he was a moron. So when he burned the church, I was just like well…figures. He also drove a car into the front of some kind of nursing home.

Not necessarily because that would depend upon what existed in their place instead

And since that cannot ever be known then it could have been either better or worse

Your ideas about “fighting to resolve disputes” applies to more than religious disputes.
I think that’s the most interesting part of the OP. How did you talk yourself into such an unworkable “solution”?

But you don’t quote representatives of either group, so all we have is your opinions as to their motivations and attitudes. Are they really hypocritical?
I’m pretty sure that in 1990s Norway, a Christian would be condemned by other Christians, and sent to jail, if he burned down a synagogue or mosque.
People have done all sorts of nasty things in the past but what’s important is our moral position in the here and now.

Then there is the question : does VV represent “Odinists” or is he just a punk?
Can a pyromaniac legitimize his arson simply by saying that he is part of some group which is fighting for “a just cause”?
There are many possible motivations behind violence and destruction.

One truth seems to be that there are legitimate and illegitimate uses of force. Philosophy permits us to understand the issues and to decide how much force is appropriate on a case by case basis.

Look at how India, China, Japan, etc developed without Abrahamic religion.

Is that better or worse than Judaeo-Christian Europe?

Relevant video, the man himself (Varg Vikernes) on why he did it, this is where I heard it from originally I think:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW0XiJmr2v4[/youtube]

phyllo

What solution? I don’t recall proposing a solution to anything.

I was interested in what people think about the issue so I browsed random discussions people had on the subject. I had nobody specific in mind.

What I discovered is that Christians typically appeal to the current legal system to justify their disapproval of the burning (illegal) as well as modern morality (intolerance, blah blah)
Pagans mostly appeal to the PREVIOUS system which was overthrown by Christians, and say they are merely reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.

It isn’t exactly too relevant to the discussion, but yeah, VV was and still is definitely an odinist.
What does it mean to “legitimize”? Make legal? Justify to somebody? What is a “just cause”?
As much as it would be flattering to me to think that my principles are the “just” ones, whereas all others are not, I simply don’t think that’s the case. Yeah, some principles can be based on lies more than others, but that doesn’t necessarily reduce their effectiveness - it can even improve it. Justice is a human moral/social construct typically used to justify a particular set of principles by implying their superiority. It isn’t something that exists outside of human intersubjectivity no more than “rights” do, and it can be anything depending on which system needs to be justified. It doesn’t exist outside of society. Or, alternatively (and I think you’d disagree with this understanding of justice) - you could call natural selection justice and thus everything that happens is just.

Everything you write makes me think you’re under the delusion that morality is not something constructed by subjective entities (humans) to facilitate survival, but that it is something that exists outside of human subjective minds and in nature/reality, where the correct moral solution awaits to be discovered, correct independently of any subjective entity - which is bullshit, it is bullshit because morality evolved precisely TO facilitate the survival of subjective entities, thus it cannot exist outside of them or precede them.

Thus objective morality/universal right and wrong and similar concepts are just nonsense.

Uccisore, I don’t have a problem with rights/the law in and of themselves, I only have a problem with the kinds of laws/rights being imposed upon me which result in the promotion of things I dislike.

Just because I would accept some kind of a state (law and order, rights) governing me doesn’t mean I would have to accept ANY state governing me, such as a liberal/cuckservative state which I vehemently reject and refuse to support.

And not only that, I would be betraying my own principles if I did support a liberal/cuckservative state, because the laws/rights of such a state are in contradiction with those of my ideal state.