reply to post by Mimir
Haa, okay LOL, I'll just take that from a random member that does not know me very well just yet
I am not, at all, or in any way offended by any religious remarks in this thread. Fact is, I've been holding back my own lashes but other members say
what I have in mind anyway so I don't have to bother!
I base my way of life and ground principles out of the Old Norse ways and I have been doing so since my early teens and it has worked out just fine
for me. I have also had the great luck to find me a loyal woman who shares those beliefs.
Those things aside; this thread will only discuss the origins of the mythological/hypothetical Old Norse world?
I shall then bide my time well and come up with any philosophical thoughts on it.
As for now, I can only think of the fact that it starts off with a clear
dualism already from the beginning. This puts it apart from other,
later, religions who starts off with a divine
singularity. Also the scientific world says that prior to big bang there was some sort of
lifeless singularity that is "unnecessary" to discuss or even imagine (I think Stephen Hawking was in on that view, at least I think I heard it from
him).
In my opinion, a singularity can not be, at least not in terms of original divinity. There has to be at least a divine dualism of sorts. Maybe prior
to "everything" there was some sort of total void, like that in the depths of the Ginnungagap, or "the gaping mouth of Ginnunga" but I might be in
on Mr. Hawkings (if that was the case) idea that such a void is not really a hot topic, nor can it be.
In the Old Norse belief, the origin was simply the clash of two elements: fire and water. I guess you can also see it as a Yin-Yan kind of relation.
I think it is a pretty clever and sensible way to see it; the cold, black ice versus the hot, blazing fire: the two most apparent opposites the world
provides. I doubt however that such a thought would have struck a person who has never been prone to seasonal cold

(and for the same reason,
biblical stories doesn't stick well to a stubborn Norse mind since we know nothing of desert wanderings and palm leaves etc., just a thought).
In the clash between fire and ice in the earliest stages of genesis, we see also clearly the very same origins of life here on our very own planet
earth; once a smouldering sphere of molten rock when introduced to the element of water harboured life and in life's earliest stage came divinity;
the "life spark" or the essence of the soul- a fragment of a universal divinity that all living is a part of and that dwells in all that lives.
(That last part is very much my own thoughts).
reply to post by iterationzero
Enûma Eliš?
Is that some Baltic similarity to the Old Norse? Sounds crazy enough though