UPG is not simply Opinion

[scrwtape]

First off, I loath the term UPG. From the very words that encompass the letters, to how it has been used by the "reconstructionist" movement to dismiss real religious experience, understanding, and wisdom

Comments

[razorsharpblade]

As a brief comment, the difficulty appears to me to be scant knowledge or attention paid to hermeneutics. That's where I reckon the interesting stuff is at but I see most discussions ranging into armchair literary academics and there's enough trained academics around doing that. Important to know but for Heathenry it isn't the most helpful place to focus, coz then we get lost in minutiae.

[fleabear]

I completely agree with you. Heathenry is a living tradition and as such needs to be modern. I think that the old ways have a lot to offer, but things are a lot different now. I had an argument once with someone we both know who tried to tell me that I was not a proper heathen because, as a single woman living alone, I would not open my house to other heathens who I did not know for crash space. I was breaking hospitality laws. He refused to listen when I pointed out that our ancestors lived in a very different world. It is one thing to have a stranger stay in the long house when the community is also there. It would have been another thing entirely to open your home up when you are alone. I think even our ancestors would have agreed that it isn't wise.

[weofodthignen]

Just one correction - it wasn't Manny Olds. The typology of goðar was her, but someone else came up with UPG. Personally I use UPI. It avoids the cutesy/sneering use of Greek jargon

[dfreybur]

Thing is a UPG is a religious revelation. In a religion not openly based on religious revelations. That automatically gives us a great deal of ambiguity in how we deal with them. Ultimately all stories in all religions either started as UPG (someone's mystical vision) or they were just plain made up out of nowhere but still contained enough of value to be told again and again across the generations