Hello Loki,
Well, where to start? You opened many interesting questions in that post and I'd like to just give a brief answer to each one to get the ball rolling.
Yes, I sometimes find it funny that only five years ago I was the ultimate uber atheist and now I know the gods exist. My knowledge of the gods of the north had to first be filtered through my rationalism and my first attempts at communication that I conducted as occult scientific experiments (doesn't work very well as I was expecting communication in the form of language and not in the form of emotional agragates). I would say that I am no longer an atheist but I am by no means superstitous and my dislike of organized religion is very strong. I don't want to sound flippant, but I came to be a heathen because the northern gods are the only ones that work with me.
Are we relevant? Are our beliefs modern? Can they be? Loki
I think we are becoming more relevant by the day. The way the quantum pyhsical universe sounds remarkably like the universe as discribed by the shamans of many cultures throughout human history was the driving force behind my exploration of the occult.