[Timo]

I wish I had been so fortunate. I'm afraid my experiences have been more along the lines of the pagan who wrote the original post.

Well, that is probably because you are a christian and they were debating you, maybe they felt threatened and had to be aggressive. I the chats I experience are ones with mature adults of heathen (pagan) organizations that are actually serious about movements and getting foundations together to start something. They don't mention christians, because it is not on the chat agenda. Basically if we are left alone by christian, their is no need for hostility, as I see it.

Techincally, no.
To be Christian you would have to reject the rest of them. If you incorporate Christ into a pantheistic pantheon then you haven't become Christian. You've just developed a new heresy or a new pantheon,, depending on how you look at it.

I understand. But from my point of view, one accepting christ as son of the one god of christianity, one is christian of some form.

That's interesting. you actually believe in their literal existence?

I believe in the Gods literal existance, yes. Do they still exist? It is a question I don't know the answer too. Remember that the gods of my ancestors, the germanic gods, were mortal. They grew old, they could be killed, they were only kept young by eating the Apples from a sacred tree that the goddess Idunna had to gaurd.

If so then you are the first one I've met. It seems all the others I've met ultimately are athiest but use the imagery and names of old pagan gods to embody certain abstract concepts and attempt to make them feel more "at one" with their heritage somehow.

Then they are not really Ásatrúar.
Ása - old icelandic, meaning Gods, genitive form of Æsir
-trú - meaning faith, or belief

Ásatrú is faith in the gods, the Æsir, and Ásatrúar is a person who has faith in the Æsir.
They may be of different beliefs than I and totally going on their own paths. I don't know them, I don't judge anyway. They are many, many personal forms of heathenism/paganism and each is unique. It is more personal than say, and Organized religion with priests and rabbis, etc.

Does it go further for you into the realms of real paganism?

I don't know what is real paganism (personaly prefer heathenism to discribe myself). I think that I am a real heathen. Otherwise I would not call myself one, really. As for fundimentalism of the old beliefs, I don't take all of the literally. I must inject some science and leave room for speculation and just big question marks. I think that the ancient people were tried to explain the world around them with the tales of the gods and their legends, such as the creation story, as best they could with their limited knowledge and science. I like to think the 9 worlds in germanic belief (Alfheim, Midgard, Asgard, etc.) are the 9 planets of the solar system. It fits doesn't it? I like to think that Yggdrassil (the support and center of all worlds, literally goes through each one and they sit upon it) is the gravitational field of the Sun or the Sun itself.
At Ragnarök, it is said that Surtr and his kind (fire giants) will engulf the 9 worlds with flame and all will be destroyed eccept Yggdrassil. This sounds to me like a supernova or the sun dying at some point, no? Hehe, that is just a way I take the old stories and try to give them life and shape in todays modern world. I am not afriad to say, however, that I just don't know a lot of the answers to the big questions. Look to my post on: is Belief Necessary?

If you cannot make peace with Christ then I suppose that's fair enough.

I think that will be impossible, for I don't believe he was the son of god. I don't even believe in the god he is supposedly the son of, so it will be impossible for me to 'make peace' (I think we are talking of accepting him as Saviour, no?).

But it is important to at least respect the beliefs of others.

My father and family are still devout Lutherans. I have religious conversations with them all the time. Because we love each other we hug each other even if we get "spirited" in our arguments of theology. If I can respect my parent's beliefs, I can respect the rest of the worlds religious beliefs - even though I don't agree with them or believe in them myself.