Because nothingness is an impossibility there can be no beginning and no end, though there are beginnings and endings as the cycle runs its course. Our universe has always been and always will be, and stretches into infinity.

If one believes in the idea that time is linear, there arises serious questions as to the nature of time and how it can be understood. The inevitable conclusion one must make is fallacious at its outset, and that is that there must be some ‘Creator’ who set everything into motion, for there can be no effect without a cause. This is a major motivation behind intellectual monotheism.

The idea that we could be created from nothing by a deity or an explosion defies the laws of physics and reality, and therefore we must believe that our cosmos is infinite and eternal, which some scientists call ‘Eternal Recurrence Theory.’

Everything in existence goes through this cycle of life/death/rebirth, which we can see throughout the natural world. From forests that continually replenish themselves to the continuation of species to the cycles of deep space and the turning of the stars. Nothing in our universe follows a line: everything travels in a circle.

Our Gods and Goddesses go through such cycles in our lore, which is really what our entire epic is all about. There is the innocence of the primordial era and the Golden Age, then corruptive forces are introduced which grow stronger, initiating the challenge to the Powers of order to maintain balance and harmony.

This ends in the coming of Ragnarok and the subsequent renewal, where a new primal age begins and brings about the next cycle. From the ashes of the previous Ragnarok does the new order arise, as it shall always be.

There we have it: a comprehensible guide to a philosophical foundation for our faith, which will allow Odinists/Asatruar to delineate our beliefs in a clear and concise way that will defeat any monotheist argument. One can take any of these points and develop an entire line of study and investigation that will only further validate the ideals that we hold true to. The modern world is only now catching up to ideas that our ancestors postulated and believed in millennia ago. By adhering to these principles, we show the world that we stand on the higher ground when it comes to intellectual reasoning. We show them that we step away from the spiritual void of atheism and the fear-driven zealotry of the mono religions to present religious ideals that are reasonable and logical as well as theist and spiritual.

These Nine Points reflect a religious point of view that begins with our highest God seeking wisdom throughout the worlds, and thus only bolster our odr. Each of them are plausible, and each of them have growing amounts of evidence to back them up. We are to seek wisdom as our All-Father, Odin, teaches us; so at no time will we reject understanding and enlightenment for the sake of superstition and ignorance.

Thoughts change, faith progresses, ideas come and go, but we remember the past and adhere to our traditions as a way of paying tribute to those who have come before us. This is an obligation that we have to not only remember them, but to pass on these customs to the next generation.

In accepting this obligation we embrace the faith of our blood, which covers all the bases in regards to the relationships we must hold for the sake of convergence: our ancestors, our folk, our Gods and Goddesses, and our descendants. They are what matters, for they can all be summed up with one word: family. This is our family, our kindred, through and through, and it branches out further and further to show us our place in the universe, where we belong. No abstract ideas, no imaginative beliefs, no fictitious fantasies.

Family is the foremost concept within our religion, and everything else within it is meant to bolster it or celebrate it or honor it. This is the way of the ancients, who established the code of family organization in the most ancient times—they developed the very ideas of filial devotion, and this is why we listen to their wisdom and hear their call when it comes to choosing our religious path. Monotheism is a direct result of the tyranny of kings, and as such is a false religion. True faith must grow as an aspect of the folk-will, organically and naturally, which is how all polytheistic religions developed.

Our faith simply asks you to recognize who you are and where you come from, to follow the path of your people, which has existed for thousands of years as a part of their sacred legacy. This is the culture of the Teutonic peoples, from as far north as Iceland, as far south as Switzerand, as far west as Scotland and parts of Ireland, and as far east as Austria. It belongs to us, and we are proud of it, while at the same time we recognize the validity and importance of all pagan faiths around the world. We share the same vision, the same view of the Gods and Goddesses of the various pantheons; we merely express our traditions differently in accordance with our various cultures and ethnicities. Heathen religion is in your blood, no matter what your ancestry is, and it is up to you to recognize this link with your forefathers and the divinities they honored. Globalism, Universalism, Unification, Multiculturalism, Monotheism, all of these systems have failed us, but people still hang on to them because it is all they know and all they have been told can be right and good. We are here to challenge this and show people that the new way is very much the old way, the way our society should have been developing all along.

Pagan philosophy is the original philosophy, for the original philosophers were all heathens, and later on many of them developed a great disdain for Christianity (cp. Porphyry's Against the Christians). People of our way were the first ones to begin asking questions on the origins of life, death, and the nature of the universe. It is only correct that we once again present an intellectual response to the absurd claims of Unifiers all over the globe. Our view is more consistent with the natural world, which is why the schools of thought that promoted pagan philosophy were forcefully shut down by the Christians who opposed them. They did not have the better arguments, but with the conversion of the Roman Empire to their violent, oppressive religion they did have the military might.

Not any more…now that their power and influence are waning all over the world, their churches are hemorrhaging money, and they can no longer meet the spiritual demands of a more knowledgeable society. Our beliefs are now bouncing back in a major way. As their numbers dwindle and ours continue to grow, so does our influence. Universities are once again teaching native spirituality classes in Europe, documentaries are beginning to show less biased accounts of our ancestors and how they lived, and the internet spreads our faith far and wide. In spite of thousands of years of persecution from monotheist oppressors we are still here, and we are not going anywhere any time soon.

Join our revolution, help us to reclaim our birthright, so that never again will they be able to suppress or destroy our sacred traditions.

Odisbook: The Book of Odr