LOL @ SPAZnik!
I hadn't thought about it to that degree, but now that you mention it... yeah!
Christianity - a thoroughly pagan religion
by Norm 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Narkissos
"Pagan" is a negative notion which the concept of revealed religion casts, as its own shadow, on all other religious stuff, including everything it received from its own ancestry. Before it came up everything was "pagan," or, more correctly, nothing was.
Iow "pagan" must not be equated with "foreign" or "Gentile". The "Deuteronomistic" reform of Josiah's time retroactively branded 90 % of the native age-old Israelite religion (sanctuaries or "high places," temple prostitution, local priests and prophets, Asherah worship, etc.) "pagan" overnight. However this religion did not simply disappear in popular belief and practice. It kept on living and evolving underground.
Among the "Christian" stuff which differs from official monotheistic Judaism (and even more so from the narrow Pharisaic version it was reduced to in the wake of the temple destruction in 70 AD), some was probably borrowed from Gentile "paganism" (e.g. the virgin birth), but much more might be traced back to Israel's own repressed "paganism". Yahweh himself had been a "Son of God (El)," and, in some circles at least, a dying and rising god just as the Northern Baal (cf. Hosea 6:1-3 for instance).
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Satanus
LT
Maybe your point is so plainly stated that complex me can't see it. Anyway, are you saying that among all religions, some religions (the jws and christianity, for example) are unique, while the rest of the religions aren't? Or, are you saying that all religions are unique?
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LittleToe
Satanus:There are only a finite combination of practices and beliefs. Each manifestation is unique.
Another analogy: every human is a unique blend of all the features that make them human. Yet I am not you and you are not I. Put another way, each of us are splinters of the divine. Unique, yet wonderful splinters; unique in the dance of light.
This perspective is what keeps me from being truly happy with any label, but since we tend to categorise, I'll accept the title "Christian". For in that title is a union with "love", which I cannot deny...
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Satanus
Cool.
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Norm
Little Toe said:
"Superstition" is often rooted in ritual and warding off the unknown, and as a species we are very good at fixing a variety of rituals in our lives. To blow off the subject with the generalising "superstition" card is, IMHO disingenuous. It obviates a psuedo-rational mind from considering the deeper socialogical / psychological reasons for why religion / ritual is so prevalent among every human group, including the scientific community.
Believing in a virgin birth, people rising from the dead, demons, etc is of course superstitious, just like worshiping a tree or a stone. I know that Christians don’t like their faith to be called superstition as they seem to have been able to convince themselves that what they believe is somehow superior to the faith of “primitive” animistic religions, but of course the two are siamese twins.
Norm
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LittleToe
Norm:They are no more Siamese twins than you and I are. Of the same genus, but unique in their own right. Similar elements can be found in the fervour of a scientist espousing the Big Bang theory, i.e. virgin birth of the universe, life rising from "dead" [in]organic soup, demonic black holes. We all work with the same archetypes.
To substitute a word:
I know that Scientists don’t like their faith to be called superstition as they seem to have been able to convince themselves that what they believe is somehow superior to the faith of “primitive” animistic religions...
And thus it has always been. Hopefully in another few hundred years we will look back on our current scientific beliefs as primitive. I say "hopefully" because I truly believe we are continuing to evolve in our understanding of how everything works, and applaud the efforts of the scientists in a plethora of fields, especially that of the human mind.
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sf
proving themselves hypocrites
Again? Geez....
sKally