Vikingrs - Barbarians or Civilized

I'm fully certain that you are an expert on the subject. Tell me, how many degrees do you have concerning viking culture?

I'm not so sure they make those kinds of degrees. But you seem pretty smart, so I'll assume that you're correct, and say that you don't need one to know about Valhalla dude, it's a pretty solid fact that they were a very warlike culture who thought you could only go to heaven(Valhalla) if you died in battle. Life was more or less a game to them, and they didn't put much value on a person's life.

32 including PhDs in Beardology and Horned Helmet Etiquette.

From what I heard their beliefs were sort of nihilistic. Apparently they believed they would go to valhalla (if they died in battle) and battle the giants alongside the gods but in the end the giants would win anyway when Ragnarok came.

[spoiler:k1hqji74]Edit: it took three edits to weed out all the fucked up spelling mistakes I made in this post, this is a good time to get my euro ass to sleep[/spoiler:k1hqji74]

Yep but it would be the end of the world and every one would dieaswell even the giant's and fimbur wolves, so they wanted to be a part of the final showdown.

If your going to say the Vikings were justified you might as well support the Holocaust executors as "putting food on the table".

In fact, it was probably a lot less humane than the Holocaust.

Clearly the people slaughtering men, women, children, priests, farmers, and anyone who wasn't them were civilized. The only real thing I can think of culturally was the Norse religion, that's it. Western culture would've been much better for them, and was when it took over.

That makes no fucking sense.

Okay first................. Have you even read the wiki page about them?
Second the Vikings plundered and killed, but that was common for the age. I don't say it was alright, but the romans, mongols, crusaders, Spaniards etc. did this too, and I still think they were civilised. The "slaughtering everyone" is not really true, they weren't really big on the whole killing thing as much as the money thing. They also killed each other over what would seem like trivial causes(not that it make them more civilised just wanted to point out that you were wrong)

i have some viking heritage and i can tell you they were very civilized. there are situations where much more brutal things have happened. i seem to remember something called THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE.

@theteremaster
Well I am a DANE so I win!!! :lol:
And I'm not sure if you get what I was saying, but I totally agree with you.

but you cannot compare the technology nor wealth to other European powers.
Yeah wealth to be taken by viking and russians too you know ,and whats the point of this technology?Do you really think full plate armor will protect from everything?Both russians and vikings were physicaly stronger than most europeans and their belief in their pagan gods made them even stronger.Even though both of them wore light armors they could take out an heaveli armored knight or even a cavalry,because they were taught to use swords and axes from young age.

And by the way its hard to consider North europeans and East europeans more uncivilised than the West ,because it was not a sin to was yourselves unlike in West Europe.

Viking warriors: barbarians and killers they were fucking disgusting

Viking settlers, explorers:explorers were cool, settlers were pretty much civilized

How were they disgusting? Plenty of more "civilized" people did worse things...

I am not saying there isn't more brutal nations through history, but just looking at the barbarian raids... I think they were disgusting, unlike Romans who conquered and did those things what Viking did, but they spread their civilization, that eventually people were better off under Romans than their tribes

first things first!

in the begining of the dark ages... scandinavia had a huge population boom and unable to feed so many people the scandinavians started to fight amongst themselves, however they got news from the south about large cities filled to the brim with silver (the vikings preferred it over gold), slaves and other resources that they could'nt get back home.

so some clans and tribes joined together and sailes for the rest of europe on their longships, they were called the vikings.

however not all scandinavians were vikings, in fact most people stayed at home to tend to the farms or went to the mediterranean to trade exotic gods.
in fact, archaeologists have recently discoverd a buddist statue in a former vinking settlement!

they also used genius tactics

here's a video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5540653740537148834

THEY DID'NT ONLY RAPE AND PILLAGE

the black death had'nt even reached europe at the time

Actually the Vikings existed around 1200-1300. Black death arrived 1348. And the Vikings DIDN'T only rape and pillage, they also settled and did fair trade.