From: Manny Olds Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker Subject: Re: Evil Asatruers don't believe in Evil, in the sense of something that is bad just because it is bad. We consider actions in terms of their effects on Wyrd, the structure of the universe, the web that links all beings together. This is usually modeled as the Tree of Worlds, Yggdrasil. Things that water the roots of the tree are good to do; things that gnaw on the limbs are bad to do. We are each responsible for making our own thread or branch strong and also for the tree as a whole. We have evolved standards of conduct that we believe support this goal. We tackle that empirically. What, in the long term, seems to make the world better to live in? What increases order and security for our families? What choices seem to lead to good outcomes more or less reliably, and which seem to point you down a path of worse and worse results? What seems to strengthen the web? (We are not interested in mere *maintenance*--we want to make the tree bigger and stronger.) In practice, of course, you end up with a balancing process. Sometimes you have to choose the less bad of two bad choices, or let your own fate take a hit to weave a better pattern overall. (Sorry for all the metaphor mangling.) We believe that you should tell the truth and that you should keep your word. But we also believe that to formally swear an oath ties that statement more deeply into Wyrd (the structure of the universe, sort of) and that it involves all the witness (including divine ones) in the oath. It raises the stakes, increases the forces pressing you to keep the oath and those resisting your efforts, and it multiplies the potential consequences (for good or ill) of breaking or keeping the promise. I know that many people use moral relativism similar to this as an excuse *not* to make difficult choices or to worry about what is right. But Asatruers on the whole take this as the hard, responsible path. We each must make moral choices, actively and consciously, and we are expected to take responsibility for the consequences, in all nine worlds. Asatru conversations about ethics and morals tend to sound a lot like Talmudic scholars working over Sun Tzu, Miss Manners, and the Brothers Grimm.