Is This Idolatry

Namaste Jesus said:
That said, I never much cared for the graphic nature of the crucifix.
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I heartily agree.

We had long discussions when we did Sacramental Theology and the Eucharist. From around the turn of the first millennium, there became an increasing focus in the west on the humanity of Christ, a disproportionate view of the human-divine binary nature. This transferred itself into how the Eucharist was perceived, until certain excesses in homiletic preaching revelled in the blood and ruin, rather akin to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ".

As someone observed, in the Mass, Christ is with us at the altar, but too often the focus is in Christ on the altar, as if one might look up and see rivers of blood soaking through the altar cloth.

In the East, the emphasis, I'm told, is more on the Cosmic/Divine nature of Christ?

My favourite icon is Christ Pantocrator:

Pantocrator.jpg




When it comes to the Cross, i rather like Salvador Dali's 'Christ of St John of the Cross':

st john of the cross.jpg
 
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Lol, it sure is....not everyone likes what you like, not everyone wants done unto them as you want done unto you....that thought is selfish...

Do unto others as they'd have done unto them!

We've screwed up whole communities and countries forcing our ways unto others thinking we know what is best for everyone.
 
Evidently you don't understand the Golden Rule then. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has nothing to do with imposing your will on others. Your likes, your dislikes, your wants your needs. Just the opposite. To respect the wants, needs, likes and dislikes of others. Just as you would want them to respect yours.
 
No, the majority of the civilized world does not understand the golden rule...as they send missionaries to savages to enlighten them...as we impose our beliefs on the world, expect them to behave like us and get into materialism when they have been coexisting with nature for millenia...

We export idiocracy, our enemies enemy is our friend as we create new enemies.... We are the example of the peter principle. But yeah... this is the best we've ever been. And still think we know all.
 
Tis true, many do not follow the Golden Rule while others twist and distort it's meaning. Tis also true many more had not even heard the Golden Rule until it was presented to them by visiting missionaries.
 
Thomas said:
jt3 said:
The whole "turn the other cheek" thing (which in my opinion is commonly taught incorrectly) suggests I have the right, duty and obligation to meet "disrespect" with whatever is required to defend myself.
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Does it? Not to me ... ?
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Fair enough...I choose to take my interpretation from the Aramaic "horse's mouth" so to speak, where it is a native idiom (figure of speech) meaning not to start a quarrel or fight with your neighbor, but that if your neighbor starts one with you to defend yourself.

I am not speaking of retribution or vengeance.

This would have been better understood by the Nazareans and Ebionites...but they were shouted down and voted out. ;)

BTW...for the record, Jesus spoke and taught his followers in Aramaic, so it is only reasonable he would understand very well the nuance attached to this figure of speech. He didn't teach in Latin, or Greek, and He darn sure didn't teach in English.
 
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wil said:
We've screwed up whole communities and countries forcing our ways unto others thinking we know what is best for everyone.
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And we continue to this day, primarily through the Religion of Science, the denomination called Anthropology, which has done far more to destroy whole cultures in the last 100 years than all of Religion has done in all the millennia previous
 
But I think @wil may really be talking about respect for the 'articles of faith' doctrines of any faith which demands respect and allegiance purely on the dogma that it has a book in which all that is written is true, every word?

Now THAT might be idolatory?
(Ducks for cover ...)
 
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minik_Wallace

This is the story of Minik Wallace...his adopted name

He had to endure the indignity of seeing his own father stuffed and on display as a curiosity in the American Museum of Natural History, among other tragedies inflicted on his kin by "First World" cultural superiority.

His story is far from the only...
 
It may not be right to think of missionaries as going in demanding the natives wear trousers. That's probably not true. They go in wishing to spread the gospel, true enough -- but also to prove the benefits of education, efficient agriculture, hygiene for health and so on.

They are unarmed and have to rely on local goodwill. They were probably not the deliberate bridgehead for the force of colonialization that followed. Especially in Africa.

And now that colonialization has gone -- often replaced by really nasty tyrants -- there are still brave missionaries of several Christian denominations quietly working with lepers and AIDS sufferers, raising charity money from the west for water pumps, etc.
 
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Essentially yes, that was my point. Generally, when speaking of religious outreach, it isn't so much a total destruction of a culture, rather an indoctrination or blending...which to be fair creates its own issues.

But the scientific POV relegates minority cultures to an inferior, even sub-human status, treating them as just another resource to be exploited, to be put on display for general amusement for the price of admission...ultimately engaging in the horrors of the Holocaust. Things are only marginally better now...children still learn that species are noted by skin color and the size of the nose, among other things...with the unspoken insinuation that people who do not look like / act like / think like you are not really human.
 
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juantoo3 said:
... But the scientific POV that relegates minority cultures to an inferior, even sub-human status, treating them as just another resource to be exploited, put on display for general amusement for the price of admission...and ultimately engaging in the horrors of the Holocaust. Things are only marginally better now...children still learn that species are noted by skin color and the size of the nose, among other things...with the unspoken insinuation that people who do not look like / act like / think like you are not really human.
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I think 21st Century science has gone far past this sort of Victorian 'science' sort of stuff. There are more than a billion transistors in my smartphone. That's science ...
 
RJM said:
I think 21st Century science has gone far past this sort of Victorian 'science' sort of stuff. There are more than a billion transistors in my smartphone. That's science ...
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While that is true, for Engineering...Anthropology still has a great deal of cultural superiority complex in its attitudes and treatments of minority cultures.

https://www.nature.com/news/north-a...d-to-us-tribe-after-genome-sequencing-1.21108

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/geologist-fights-mungo-man-remains

http://www.tribaltribune.com/news/article_aa38c0c2-f66f-11e6-9b50-7bb1418f3d3d.html

I don't say these things lightly. I consider myself an armchair anthropologist. But I am fervently in the camp of observing, not interfering with, other cultures.

Not everything the First World has to offer is beneficial to, or even compatible with other cultures. Leading with a nanny-state attitude only lends to unforeseen and unintended but no less destructive consequences. I only have to point to the plight of every Native American tribe to illustrate, though no doubt it applies far and wide outside of America as well. To be fair, Christian "schools" and government interference have as much to do with purposely upsetting the various Native Tribal cultures as anything to do directly with Anthropology in America.
 
Thomas said:
I heartily agree.

We had long discussions when we did Sacramental Theology and the Eucharist. From around the turn of the first millennium, there became an increasing focus in the west on the humanity of Christ, a disproportionate view of the human-divine binary nature. This transferred itself into how the Eucharist was perceived, until certain excesses in homiletic preaching revelled in the blood and ruin, rather akin to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ".

As someone observed, in the Mass, Christ is with us at the altar, but too often the focus is in Christ on the altar, as if one might look up and see rivers of blood soaking through the altar cloth.

In the East, the emphasis, I'm told, is more on the Cosmic/Divine nature of Christ?

My favourite icon is Christ Pantocrator:

View attachment 1845



When it comes to the Cross, i rather like Salvador Dali's 'Christ of St John of the Cross':

View attachment 1846
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Pantocrator.jpg

I want this one. I'm going to get it. Thank you
 

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juantoo3 said:
... Not everything the First World has to offer is beneficial to ...
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Of course not. Who's defending it? I read a book with photos of American missionaries landing an aircraft on a river beach and giving a Big Mac to the first naked Amazon native they encountered. It's really true and I'll source it if required.

Essentially what transpired is eventually the indians got tired of the missionaries trying to make them wear trousers, and killed them with wooden spears and went back to happily shooting birds with blowpipes in the jungle.

This is really true, lol ...
 
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Just as well...the Big Macs would have killed the natives with high cholesterol and artificial ingredients eventually anyway... ;) Sounds like self-defense to me.
 
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juantoo3 said:
Fair enough... I choose to take my interpretation from the Aramaic "horse's mouth" so to speak, where it is a native idiom (figure of speech) meaning not to start a quarrel or fight with your neighbor, but that if your neighbor starts one with you to defend yourself.
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OK.

juantoo3 said:
I am not speaking of retribution or vengeance.
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That's probably a western view of the Jewish saying?

juantoo3 said:
This would have been better understood by the Nazareans and Ebionites...but they were shouted down and voted out. ;)
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Do we know enough about them to say? But I'm sure you're right. The zealots among the Jews — of whom Saul of Tarsus was one, by his own declaration — were a shade more for 'affirmative action', and no doubt every group had its fair share.

juantoo3 said:
BTW...for the record, Jesus spoke and taught his followers in Aramaic, so it is only reasonable he would understand very well the nuance attached to this figure of speech. He didn't teach in Latin, or Greek, and He darn sure didn't teach in English.
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Well he might have had some Greek, and a smattering of Latin, that wasn't uncommon in the times, being an occupied territory, and educated Jews speaking Greek, which was the lingua franca of the region, as I understand it? John wrote very fine Greek, Mark's a bit more vernacular. The source of Matthew was probably Hebrew or Aramaic, and Luke was of course another educated Greek speaker.

And I'm pretty sure his followers understood it as you do.
 
Our family had a missionary friend who worked with the Karamajong in Uganda. They ran a school, mission hospital out on the plains. They did nothing to inculcate contemporary western values compared to Idi Amin, who purchased clothing wholesale, by the container load, and insisted the country people wear western clothing, and set about destroying the country's cultural heritage. The missions were thrown out when they complained. Fr Franco actually performed a Christian marriage of a local chief to all his wives, informing the Mother House after the fact, and was not censured for it. Fr Sembianté, another family friend, spent his life caring for the sick in a leper colony ... both men seemed to think and act as if the person was more important than their clothes.
 
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