I've heard a lot of conflicting reports, but I don't actually know the truth.
My elementary school religion teacher said Denmark converted and allied themselves with Germany before waging war on the other Scandis and forcibly converting them, Someone I know told me parts of Norway were the first to convert, after having brought over christian thralls from their raids, and I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that it was all a slow crawl of peaceful conversion after peaceful conversion, with very little force involved in any of it.
What exactly made the Vikings decide to stop believing in the Norse pantheon?
>elementary school religion teacher
How is this even a thing? Do you live in Saudi Arabia?
>>307800
Do they not teach you religious studies in whatever country you're from? That seems like a pretty big gap in your education.
Saint Olaf
>>307812
I'm from California and we just watched a little vhs tape on abrahamic faiths once
>>307827
Well maybe that's part of the reason why California is such a horrible place.
>>307812
Some countries actually have true separation of churches and state. Religion should be a private matter only.
>>307844
How? We still have a shitton of religious people
>>307844
>America
FTFY. You can't even approach religion in US schools without someone going fucking batshit insane about what's being covered. Cover Christianity, atheist parents lose their shit. Cover Islam, Christian parents lose their shit.
>>307848
this
It was mostly a prestige and political move for the norse kings to convert.
>>307848
>America >Separation of church and state
Nice lie, but this isn't about separation of jack or shit, this is about educating children in important subjects.
Like it or not, religion is a huge factor in the world, and has been since the dawn of time. You can't understand anything about history if you're ignorant about religion, for example.
>>307875
who did the prestige / political moves? Denmark?
>>307782
Saint "imma giant butthole" Olaf made everyone in norway submitt to christianity. if you fought back he killed you.
>>307848
Yes but how can you make a private, informed decision on the matter without proper education on the matter? Like it or not, religion has a lot of relevancy in history and it's better to know about religions so that you can better understand social sciences such as history.
The earliest conversion were conversions by persuasion of ordinary people, by missionaries or by people that had been converted abroad.
As this was happening kings, lesser lords and such got converted as well, and brought with them priests from abroad to Christianize more. Kings and lesser lord spent a lot of time plundering and trading down south, so it's no strange they converted. They also saw that Christian monarchs had much more power and wealth than them, so they wanted to copy that back home.
Soon Christian kings started force converting people that were still pagan, and pagan lords fought back, but were eventually defeated. Christianity was used as precedent for legitimacy to rule.
The new Christian kingdoms became more centralized and with clerical bureaucracy, also a more advanced legal system.
Missionairies converted people as much as possible, breaking into mead halls n shit to baptize peasants, who didn't really give two shits.
A danish king wanted to become an ally with his southern neighbours and thus became christian, and so did his bloodline, and in time everyone slowly converted.
Not a painful process in Sweden at least.
>>307848
How does secular religious studies infringe on the seperation of church and state? Informing people of the different believes in the world is not the same as sponsoring religion. Your post is as stupid as claiming that poltical studies is infringing on peoples right to vote the way they want.
>>307782
>Scandinavians settled the rest of England in the 1000s
Wut?
>>311187
That anon you replied to is either an idiot or seriously underage. Studies of all the major world religions are standard middle and high school subjects in the US. They keep it out of elementary school since parents are usually still explaining their own religions to them at that age and would object.
>>311200
Probably refers to the Normans since the red part had already been subjected to muh Danelaw.
>>307782
In Sweden there's a story of Eric the Victorious, the first king of both Swedes and Goths. Its said that he invaded Denmark, made himself king there and converted to Christianity before returning to Sweden, converting back to the Norse faith and started raiding again. Swell guy.
>>307782
>>307879
Dane here
I've heard the same story as this guy >>307875
It was Harold Bluetooth who made Denmark Christian, and then the rest of Scandinavia followed
>pic related
It's our birth certificate, that was raised him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelling_stones
Bluetooth did it because every other European country did it, and so he converted Denmark because he wouldn't risk an attack, and he also gained power in Europe and was at the inner center at the elites in Europe.
>>307848
Schools in France are completely religionless yet the children are educated about Christianity and Islam.
>>307782
Harald Bluetooth, the king of Denmark converted to Christianity. Denmark had become greatly involved in european politics and gained great knowledge of christianity from there. In the end it was politically expedient to convert. Christians did after all prefer to deal with other christians.
There had been failed attempts at conversion, as with Saint Ansgar who tried to convert the Swedes. Or norwegian King Haakon the Good who had been raised in England.
Olof Skötkonung was the first Swedish king who converted to christianity but he failed to convert all of his subjects. The conversion was gradual for the most part.
In Norway Olaf I had fought in various wars around europe and converted after meeting a Christian seer. He then set out to persecute all Norwegian pagans and convert his subjects by force.
>>313574
>Christians did after all prefer to deal with other christians.
It does not seem to have been of immediate concern, however. Some of the Icelander sagas mention a ceremony that Christian kings often would let pagan warriors fighting for them go through so that they would be counted as Christians when in Christian lands while still remaining pagan.
>>307848
Separation of church and state does not mean that children shouldn't be educated on the major religions of the world. How are you expecting to understand world history and politics if you don't understand at least the basics of the major world religions and the schisms that exist within them?
