BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Pagan The Hammer Project for Pagan Veterans

Greetings everyone,

I'm going to mention this in an upcoming article on Pagans in the military, but I thought I would go ahead and mention it here too.

As you know, after a long battle, the pentacle was finally approved in 2007 as a symbol of the Wiccan religion that US military veterans could choose to have inscribed on their government-issued headstones.

Now another effort is underway for heathens to be allowed to have Thor's Hammer as an approved emblem of belief for their headstones. Here is a link to learn more:
The Hammer Project

Please consider showing your support for this project.

Blessings,

I fully support anyone being able to have their religion accurately represented, especially if they've volunteered their lives for this country. I do have a question, though, and it's just and issue of semantics, maybe. When I looked up the word pagan in the dictionary, it was simply defined as "pan or polytheistic." Pretty straight and to the point, I thought. And as I had understood it, the term "heathen" had historically been used to describe any brand of country dweller who still practiced his old ways because the word about the Roman Emperor converting to Christianity simply hadn't reached that far yet. Again, I thought it was pretty straightforward. Now, maybe I need to ask the more Nordic-focused folks out there, but this is now the second time I've seen the term "heathen" used in conjunction with out more Scandanavian-rooted brothers and sisters of spirit. When did that term become the official (or is it?) title for those that practiced that form of spirituality? Did I not get the memo? :-) Thoughts? Ideas? Factual correction? Thanks!

Well, I don't know if heathen is official, but a lot of northern tradition folks use it. I believe it has Old Norse origins. It's my understanding that while it did mean a country dweller type, Christians later used it to mean someone who isn't of an Abrahamic faith or is an outsider, and it eventually got a very negative connotation. Now, like witch and pagan, it has been reclaimed by some to say "Why no, we aren't of the same faith as others, your point being?"

The word heathen has very old Indo-European roots. The meaning was meant to describe a person or group as one who does not acknowledge the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

I agree with Apple Blossom that anyone has the right to have their religion represented.

Well, that makes more sense now, thank you, both. I posted in one of the other lists, too, but I had a tiny problem getting my dog tags to be printed correctly when I was in the Army and it was easily corrected. Still, though, it just seems that if anything is out of the ordinary, the government just has a hard time wrapping their minds around it. The wheels are slow to grind, but enough grease usually does the trick!

Since the dawn of time the ones in power simply cannot accept any belief system that is not their own. Why is that? Pondering...

That's an age-old question isn't it Phyllis. I wish I knew the answer, but I think at the root of it is fear. Fear of "the other," and fear of losing power maybe.