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Digging deeper - The Golden Bough

Started by David Pinnegar, November 09, 2010, 08:07:08 AM

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David Pinnegar

Hi!

On the Organists who think they are Atheists thread I mentioned The Golden Bough by Frazer.

Aeneas and the Sybil have just presented the Golden Bough, which allows entry to the Elysian Fields, to the gatekeeper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough

QuoteIn this sacred grove there grew a certain tree round which at any time of the day, and probably far into the night, a grim figure might be seen to prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn sword, and he kept peering warily about him as if at every instant he expected to be set upon by an enemy. He was a priest and a murderer; and the man for whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in his stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary.

It's online, chapter by chapter at
http://www.bartleby.com/196/
and I recommend its study.

As a matter of mere entertainment here, the following passage makes the mind boggle. If ever you have fancied more than one lady on your life, or to die in the lap of a nubile virgin, or had aspirations to be prime-minister, or king . . . BEWARE!

http://www.bartleby.com/196/62.html
QuoteA custom of putting their divine kings to death at the first symptoms of infirmity or old age prevailed until lately, if indeed it is even now extinct and not merely dormant, among the Shilluk of the White Nile, and in recent years it has been carefully investigated by Dr. C. G. Seligman. The reverence which the Shilluk pay to their king appears to arise chiefly from the conviction that he is a reincarnation of the spirit of Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who founded the dynasty and settled the tribe in their present territory. It is a fundamental article of the Shilluk creed that the spirit of the divine or semi-divine Nyakang is incarnate in the reigning king, who is accordingly himself invested to some extent with the character of a divinity. But while the Shilluk hold their kings in high, indeed religious reverence and take every precaution against their accidental death, nevertheless they cherish "the conviction that the king must not be allowed to become ill or senile, lest with his diminishing vigour the cattle should sicken and fail to bear their increase, the crops should rot in the fields, and man, stricken with disease, should die in ever-increasing numbers."

To prevent these calamities it used to be the regular custom with the Shilluk to put the king to death whenever he showed signs of ill-health or failing strength.

One of the fatal symptoms of decay was taken to be an incapacity to satisfy the sexual passions of his wives, of whom he has very many, distributed in a large number of houses at Fashoda. When this ominous weakness manifested itself, the wives reported it to the chiefs, who are popularly said to have intimated to the king his doom by spreading a white cloth over his face and knees as he lay slumbering in the heat of the sultry afternoon.

Execution soon followed the sentence of death. A hut was specially built for the occasion: the king was led into it and lay down with his head resting on the lap of a nubile virgin: the door of the hut was then walled up; and the couple were left without food, water, or fire to die of hunger and suffocation. This was the old custom, but it was abolished some five generations ago on account of the excessive sufferings of one of the kings who perished in this way. It is said that the chiefs announce his fate to the king, and that afterwards he is strangled in a hut which has been specially built for the occasion.      

  From Dr. Seligman's enquiries it appears that not only was the Shilluk king liable to be killed with due ceremony at the first symptoms of incipient decay, but even while he was yet in the prime of health and strength he might be attacked at any time by a rival and have to defend his crown in a combat to the death. According to the common Shilluk tradition any son of a king had the right thus to fight the king in possession and, if he succeeded in killing him, to reign in his stead.

As every king had a large harem and many sons, the number of possible candidates for the throne at any time may well have been not inconsiderable, and the reigning monarch must have carried his life in his hand.

But the attack on him could only take place with any prospect of success at night; for during the day the king surrounded himself with his friends and bodyguards, and an aspirant to the throne could hardly hope to cut his way through them and strike home. It was otherwise at night. For then the guards were dismissed and the king was alone in his enclosure with his favourite wives, and there was no man near to defend him except a few herdsmen, whose huts stood a little way off. The hours of darkness were therefore the season of peril for the king. It is said that he used to pass them in constant watchfulness, prowling round his huts fully armed, peering into the blackest shadows, or himself standing silent and alert, like a sentinel on duty, in some dark corner.

When at last his rival appeared, the fight would take place in grim silence, broken only by the clash of spears and shields, for it was a point of honour with the king not to call the herdsmen to his assistance.      

  Like Nyakang himself, their founder, each of the Shilluk kings after death is worshipped at a shrine, which is erected over his grave, and the grave of a king is always in the village where he was born. The tomb-shrine of a king resembles the shrine of Nyakang, consisting of a few huts enclosed by a fence; one of the huts is built over the king's grave, the others are occupied by the guardians of the shrine. Indeed the shrines of Nyakang and the shrines of the kings are scarcely to be distinguished from each other, and the religious rituals observed at all of them are identical in form and vary only in matters of detail, the variations being due apparently to the far greater sanctity attributed to the shrines of Nyakang. The grave-shrines of the kings are tended by certain old men or women, who correspond to the guardians of the shrines of Nyakang. They are usually widows or old men-servants of the deceased king, and when they die they are succeeded in their office by their descendants. Moreover, cattle are dedicated to the grave-shrines of the kings and sacrifices are offered at them just as at the shrines of Nyakang.      

  In general the principal element in the religion of the Shilluk would seem to be the worship which they pay to their sacred or divine kings, whether dead or alive. These are believed to be animated by a single divine spirit, which has been transmitted from the semi-mythical, but probably in substance historical, founder of the dynasty through all his successors to the present day. Hence, regarding their kings as incarnate divinities on whom the welfare of men, of cattle, and of the corn implicitly depends, the Shilluk naturally pay them the greatest respect and take every care of them; and however strange it may seem to us, their custom of putting the divine king to death as soon as he shows signs of ill-health or failing strength springs directly from their profound veneration for him and from their anxiety to preserve him, or rather the divine spirit by which he is animated, in the most perfect state of efficiency: nay, we may go further and say that their practice of regicide is the best proof they can give of the high regard in which they hold their kings. For they believe, as we have seen, that the king's life or spirit is so sympathetically bound up with the prosperity of the whole country, that if he fell ill or grew senile the cattle would sicken and cease to multiply, the crops would rot in the fields, and men would perish of widespread disease. Hence, in their opinion, the only way of averting these calamities is to put the king to death while he is still hale and hearty, in order that the divine spirit which he has inherited from his predecessors may be transmitted in turn by him to his successor while it is still in full vigour and has not yet been impaired by the weakness of disease and old age. In this connexion the particular symptom which is commonly said to seal the king's death-warrant is highly significant; when he can no longer satisfy the passions of his numerous wives, in other words, when he has ceased, whether partially or wholly, to be able to reproduce his kind, it is time for him to die and to make room for a more vigorous successor. Taken along with the other reasons which are alleged for putting the king to death, this one suggests that the fertility of men, of cattle, and of the crops is believed to depend sympathetically on the generative power of the king, so that the complete failure of that power in him would involve a corresponding failure in men, animals, and plants, and would thereby entail at no distant date the entire extinction of all life, whether human, animal, or vegetable. No wonder, that with such a danger before their eyes the Shilluk should be most careful not to let the king die what we should call a natural death of sickness or old age. It is characteristic of their attitude towards the death of the kings that they refrain from speaking of it as death: they do not say that a king has died but simply that he has "gone away" like his divine ancestors Nyakang and Dag, the two first kings of the dynasty, both of whom are reported not to have died but to have disappeared. The similar legends of the mysterious disappearance of early kings in other lands, for example at Rome and in Uganda, may well point to a similar custom of putting them to death for the purpose of preserving their life.      

  On the whole the theory and practice of the divine kings of the Shilluk correspond very nearly to the theory and practice of the priests of Nemi, the Kings of the Wood, if my view of the latter is correct. In both we see a series of divine kings on whose life the fertility of men, of cattle, and of vegetation is believed to depend, and who are put to death, whether in single combat or otherwise, in order that their divine spirit may be transmitted to their successors in full vigour, uncontaminated by the weakness and decay of sickness or old age, because any such degeneration on the part of the king would, in the opinion of his worshippers, entail a corresponding degeneration on mankind, on cattle, and on the crops. Some points in this explanation of the custom of putting divine kings to death, particularly the method of transmitting their divine souls to their successors, will be dealt with more fully in the sequel. Meantime we pass to other examples of the general practice.

If anyone can find the section from the unabridged edition, I'd be very interested to see Frazer's analysis of the Crucifiction.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

#1
Oh dear! Seeing no new posts today, is this so shocking that everyone has disappeared in horror? :) Am I to be burned at the stake?

Worse is to come.

I was reading today about the worship of the pine tree . . . and guess what  . . . !? It's all linked with the worship of Adonis, Attis, Astate etc. And it gets worse . . .

http://www.bartleby.com/196/81.html

QuoteLike Adonis, he appears to have been a god of vegetation, and his death and resurrection were annually mourned and rejoiced over at a festival in spring. The legends and rites of the two gods were so much alike that the ancients themselves sometimes identified them. Attis was said to have been a fair young shepherd or herdsman beloved by Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, a great Asiatic goddess of fertility, who had her chief home in Phrygia. Some held that Attis was her son.

His birth, like that of many other heroes, is said to have been miraculous. His mother, Nana, was a virgin, who conceived by putting a ripe almond or a pomegranate in her bosom. Indeed in the Phrygian cosmogony an almond figured as the father of all things, perhaps because its delicate lilac blossom is one of the first heralds of the spring, appearing on the bare boughs before the leaves have opened.

Such tales of virgin mothers are relics of an age of childish ignorance when men had not yet recognized the intercourse of the sexes as the true cause of offspring. Two different accounts of the death of Attis were current. According to the one he was killed by a boar, like Adonis. According to the other he unmanned himself under a pine-tree, and bled to death on the spot.

We have Attis, the god of vegetation, born on 25th December, worshipped in conjunction with pine trees, whose priests were unmarried . . . having turned themselves into eunuchs.

QuoteOn the twenty-second day of March, a pine-tree was cut in the woods and brought into the sanctuary of Cybele, where it was treated as a great divinity. The duty of carrying the sacred tree was entrusted to a guild of Tree-bearers.

The trunk was swathed like a corpse with woollen bands and decked with wreaths of violets, for violets were said to have sprung from the blood of Attis, as roses and anemones from the blood of Adonis; and the effigy of a young man, doubtless Attis himself, was tied to the middle of the stem. On the second day of the festival, the twenty-third of March, the chief ceremony seems to have been a blowing of trumpets. The third day, the twenty-fourth of March, was known as the Day of Blood: the Archigallus or highpriest drew blood from his arms and presented it as an offering. Nor was he alone in making this bloody sacrifice. Stirred by the wild barbaric music of clashing cymbals, rumbling drums, droning horns, and screaming flutes, the inferior clergy whirled about in the dance with waggling heads and streaming hair, until, rapt into a frenzy of excitement and insensible to pain, they gashed their bodies with potsherds or slashed them with knives in order to bespatter the altar and the sacred tree with their flowing blood. The ghastly rite probably formed part of the mourning for Attis and may have been intended to strengthen him for the resurrection.

QuoteAt all events, we can hardly doubt that the Day of Blood witnessed the mourning for Attis over an effigy of him which was afterwards buried. The image thus laid in the sepulchre was probably the same which had hung upon the tree. Throughout the period of mourning the worshippers fasted from bread, nominally because Cybele had done so in her grief for the death of Attis, but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a sacramental meal.      

  But when night had fallen, the sorrow of the worshippers was turned to joy. For suddenly a light shone in the darkness: the tomb was opened: the god had risen from the dead; and as the priest touched the lips of the weeping mourners with balm, he softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation. The resurrection of the god was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave. On the morrow, the twenty-fifth day of March, which was reckoned the vernal equinox, the divine resurrection was celebrated with a wild outburst of glee. At Rome, and probably elsewhere, the celebration took the form of a carnival. It was the Festival of Joy (Hilaria).

QuoteAt Rome the new birth and the remission of sins by the shedding of bull's blood appear to have been carried out above all at the sanctuary of the Phrygian goddess on the Vatican Hill, at or near the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter's now stands; for many inscriptions relating to the rites were found when the church was being enlarged in 1608 or 1609.

In relation to precedence for death on a gallows followed by wounding with a spear, it gets worse:

QuoteIn the holy grove at Upsala men and animals were sacrificed by being hanged upon the sacred trees. The human victims dedicated to Odin were regularly put to death by hanging or by a combination of hanging and stabbing, the man being strung up to a tree or a gallows and then wounded with a spear. Hence Odin was called the Lord of the Gallows or the God of the Hanged, and he is represented sitting under a gallows tree. Indeed he is said to have been sacrificed to himself in the ordinary way, as we learn from the weird verses of the Havamal, in which the god describes how he acquired his divine power by learning the magic runes:

"I know that I hung on the windy tree
For nine whole nights,
Wounded with the spear, dedicated to Odin,
Myself to myself."

QuoteTHE WORSHIP of the Great Mother of the Gods and her lover or son was very popular under the Roman Empire. . . .

QuoteAn instructive relic of the long struggle is preserved in our festival of Christmas, which the Church seems to have borrowed directly from its heathen rival. In the Julian calendar the twenty-fifth of December was reckoned the winter solstice, and it was regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase from that turning-point of the year. The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, "The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!" The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte. Now Mithra was regularly identified by his worshippers with the Sun, the Unconquered Sun, as they called him; hence his nativity also fell on the twenty-fifth of December.

The Gospels say nothing as to the day of Christ's birth, and accordingly the early Church did not celebrate it. In time, however, the Christians of Egypt came to regard the sixth of January as the date of the Nativity, and the custom of commemorating the birth of the Saviour on that day gradually spread until by the fourth century it was universally established in the East. But at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century the Western Church, which had never recognised the sixth of January as the day of the Nativity, adopted the twenty-fifth of December as the true date, and in time its decision was accepted also by the Eastern Church. At Antioch the change was not introduced till about the year 375 A.D.      

  What considerations led the ecclesiastical authorities to institute the festival of Christmas? The motives for the innovation are stated with great frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian. "The reason," he tells us, "why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the practice has prevailed of kindling fires till the sixth."

The heathen origin of Christmas is plainly hinted at, if not tacitly admitted, by Augustine when he exhorts his Christian brethren not to celebrate that solemn day like the heathen on account of the sun, but on account of him who made the sun. In like manner Leo the Great rebuked the pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnised because of the birth of the new sun, as it was called, and not because of the nativity of Christ.      

  Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness. If that was so, there can be no intrinsic improbability in the conjecture that motives of the same sort may have led the ecclesiastical authorities to assimilate the Easter festival of the death and resurrection of their Lord to the festival of the death and resurrection of another Asiatic god which fell at the same season.

Now the Easter rites still observed in Greece, Sicily, and Southern Italy bear in some respects a striking resemblance to the rites of Adonis, and I have suggested that the Church may have consciously adapted the new festival to its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ.

It really does appear that so much of which that wraps up Christianity has very long roots and traditions before Christ . . . and it's for this reason that I have always maintained that the only things upon which we can rely as Christians are Christ's teachings, his parables and actions.

As a Roman I'm very sure that Saul knew exactly what he was doing on the road to Damascus and certainly by what he did for Christianity, Christ's teachings have been preserved and passed down. He and his successors cleverly sold the story as all things to all men, preserving the continuing vestiges of the bureaucracy of Roman power.

These are the reasons for stripping away the raiments of the Religion down to the naked and universal truths of Christ's teachings. In doing so, one is able to remove all the impediments to cooperation and understandings between faiths. They probably have rather a lot in shared common origins.

I do hope that the rabid trainee priest I met at the funeral at the United Reformed Church in Carshalton in the summer comes to read this thread.

Quote. . . the tradition which placed the death of Christ on the twenty-fifth of March was ancient and deeply rooted. It is all the more remarkable because astronomical considerations prove that it can have had no historical foundation. The inference appears to be inevitable that the passion of Christ must have been arbitrarily referred to that date in order to harmonise with an older festival of the spring equinox.

This is the view of the learned ecclesiastical historian Mgr. Duchesne, who points out that the death of the Saviour was thus made to fall upon the very day on which, according to a widespread belief, the world had been created. But the resurrection of Attis, who combined in himself the characters of the divine Father and the divine Son, was officially celebrated at Rome on the same day.

When we remember that

  • the festival of St. George in April has replaced the ancient pagan festival of the Parilia; that
  • the festival of St. John the Baptist in June has succeeded to a heathen midsummer festival of water: that
  • the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin in August has ousted the festival of Diana; that
  • the feast of All Souls in November is a continuation of an old heathen feast of the dead; and that
  • the Nativity of Christ himself was assigned to the winter solstice in December because that day was deemed the Nativity of the Sun;
we can hardly be thought rash or unreasonable in conjecturing that the other cardinal festival of the Christian church—the solemnisation of Easter—may have been in like manner, and from like motives of edification, adapted to a similar celebration of the Phrygian god Attis at the vernal equinox.

As Christians we have to ask ourselves "What is our core faith?". Is it the accoutrement of baggage brought over from savage times - even though it's parallels may reveal truths - or the teachings and actions of Christ? Is it the carrots of reward and comfort zone brought over from other religions and subsumed into ours as part of "our story" to feed our own egos, provide "our identity" superior to others, in which we have pride (deadly sin) and cause us to have to defend and fight others merely to protect our ego? Or is it the teachings of Christ which promote universal harmony in the natural order of life in this realm seen and in the others unseen?

Were christianity to be focussed not on the baggage of subsumed paganism but upon the actual teachings and actions of Christ, not necessarily as told by the salesmen who brought them into the Roman religion, then I'm sure many would not rebel in declaring atheism.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

#2
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 08, 2010, 04:21:39 AMYou have a problem with Christmas trees too now? I dare say it's another custom/tradition hijacked by Christianity, but the connection with the Tree of Life is so obvious...

Hi!

No actually, I'm not so sure I see the obvious connexion. Please can you enlighten us?

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

There seemed to be a negative tone to your post as you expected pine trees to be springing up in churches, and making reference to Attis and someone else (since I can't find the original post I can't remember what exactly you said).

Incidentally, could you please reply to/act on my last PM to you?

David Pinnegar

Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 08, 2010, 04:32:18 AM
There seemed to be a negative tone to your post as you expected pine trees to be springing up in churches, and making reference to Attis and someone else

Hi!

Yes - we are about to see so-called Christmas trees brought into churches and upon reading The Golden Bough it seems that they have a great deal to do with tree worship, tree spirit and sun worship, renewal of course, but not a great deal to Christianity nor the Tree of Life . . . .

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

It's just a simple bit of symbolism! Can't you get over what they might have stood for in the past and just think about what they represent today?

KB7DQH

In my "neck of the woods" they represent a big chunk of the local economy! Yes, I come from the land of airplanes and universally used computer software and corner coffee shops, but a goodly chunk of the planet's Christmas trees are harvested from the counties surrounding and including the one in which I live :o :-[ ;)

Lest we forget our beloved organ began as a "pagan" instrument in ancient Greece... ;D ;D ;D
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

revtonynewnham

Quote from: KB7DQH on December 08, 2010, 10:34:50 AM


Lest we forget our beloved organ began as a "pagan" instrument in ancient Greece... ;D ;D ;D

Hi

And was used to accompany gladatorial games while Christians were being put to death!  There's a picture of Salvation in their somewhere - maybe.

I have some reservations about Christmas symbols - but I'm more concerned about the real message of Immanuel - God with us - getting lost in the crass commercialization of the feast.  A good bit of what we portray (including the stable) is most likely not true to the Bible  - for example, the "carol" "In the Bleak Mid-Winter" is said to owe more to Decemebr in North Yorkshire than to Christmas in the Holy Land - but despite that, the picture has become part of Western culture - and the last verse of that carol is well worth pondering.

I'll post more once I've finished planning our christmas services and writing the sermons!

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

#8
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 08, 2010, 05:31:52 AM
It's just a simple bit of symbolism! Can't you get over what they might have stood for in the past and just think about what they represent today?

Hi!

Yes! Forests being cut down and our environment devastated, particularly in Sumatra. Not, of course Xmas trees in Sumatra, but that's the symbolism. Tree of Life? The story of the Tree of Life might be said to be more to do with the invention or discovery of sexual reproduction and thereby the multiplication of mankind than pine trees. Pine cones tipped the Thyrsus, the staff carried by Dionysus, Satyrs and his revellers

in ceremonies culminating in ecstatic wild sexual orgies, the Dionysus story being one of death and resurrection and promoting crops, of which phallic rites were central to the celebration of creation and good crops in the future. The natural cycle of death of nature in the autumn, deathly barrenness of winter and rebirth in the spring, to which the Winter Solstice looks forward, was central to the ancient understanding of the world.

The pine tree in church is more to do with those ancient understandings than anything taught by Christ.

If I think of an image of the tree of life, I go for one of those evergreen oaks, known as Roman Oaks by some (there's some by the war memorial at the bottom of the hill below Windsor Castle) or the incredibly ancient olive trees in Mallorca:
http://www.info-mallorca.co.uk/deia/PC-DSCF2212.JPG[/img]]http://www.info-mallorca.co.uk/deia/

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

Quote from: David Pinnegar on December 08, 2010, 06:09:00 PM
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 08, 2010, 05:31:52 AM
It's just a simple bit of symbolism! Can't you get over what they might have stood for in the past and just think about what they represent today?

Hi!

Yes! Forests being cut down and our environment devastated, particularly in Sumatra. Not, of course Xmas trees in Sumatra, but that's the symbolism. Tree of Life? The story of the Tree of Life might be said to be more to do with the invention or discovery of sexual reproduction and thereby the multiplication of mankind than pine trees. Pine cones tipped the Thyrsus, the staff carried by Dionysus, Satyrs and his revellers

in ceremonies culminating in ecstatic wild sexual orgies, the Dionysus story being one of death and resurrection and promoting crops, of which phallic rites were central to the celebration of creation and good crops in the future. The natural cycle of death of nature in the autumn, deathly barrenness of winter and rebirth in the spring, to which the Winter Solstice looks forward, was central to the ancient understanding of the world.

The pine tree in church is more to do with those ancient understandings than anything taught by Christ.

If I think of an image of the tree of life, I go for one of those evergreen oaks, known as Roman Oaks by some (there's some by the war memorial at the bottom of the hill below Windsor Castle) or the incredibly ancient olive trees in Mallorca:
http://www.info-mallorca.co.uk/deia/PC-DSCF2212.JPG[/img]]http://www.info-mallorca.co.uk/deia/

Best wishes

David P

Actually, given the huge acreage of plantation, the Christmas tree industry actually keeps our world more thickly forested than would be the case otherwise. The planting and felling is all done sustainably - I forget the ratio of trees planted to trees felled, but it's making sure we always have more than enough trees.

As for old trees, I was at a friend's art exhibition at the church at Little Bookham, where the obligatory churchyard yew tree dates back to approximately A.D. 700.

I can't comment on the rest, but can you drop your conceptions of what the trees may once have stood for and just accept them for what they are now?

David Pinnegar

#10
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 09, 2010, 03:51:31 AM
I can't comment on the rest, but can you drop your conceptions of what the trees may once have stood for and just accept them for what they are now?

Hi!

Yes - of course - they are trees. That is what they are now. They are trees.

Tree worship is nature worship and nothing to do with Christ's birth. Some people talk to trees, but we don't do that to the pine tree we chop down and bring into Church.

Of course in loving God, we also love nature. That is the importance of the Tree in Church, but we should be honest about it. Worshipping Nature is worshipping God. What I rail against is the mental blank of the religion to accept the past that it incorporated. The result is a narrow minded blinkeredness that denies the validity of others and causes arguments with other religions when those arguments are wholly unnecessary.

That's why, when I see a tree in Church I say "Hail Attis, Hail Cybele, Hail Dionysus who taught us agriculture, Hail the winter death and renewal of life that the Evergreen Tree represents". In that is a much fuller understanding of what Christ represented in the widest sense.

It's only when one understands what the tree stood for that one has one's Christianity in proper perspective so that one may better love one's neighbour as one's self.

When I take communion, I think of the past ceremonies when the body and the blood were eaten and drunk. The animal was placed on the altar. The throat was slit and the blood and the life drained out. It dripped off the edge of the altar. The meat was cooked. The spirit of the divine entered the meat. The fat oozed out and dripped off the edge of the altar. (This is depicted in architecture in the mutules and guttae that we see adorning the outside of Greek and Roman classical buildings and on cornices of some ceilings inside buildings today.) We ate the meat, we drank the blood, and we imbibed and fed on the spirit of the Divine. The skins, formerly worn by the Gods before they left (Nephilim or Sons of God)

at feasts such as that over which Prometheus presided, were now replaced over the bones of the animal on the altar. They were now worn symbolically as having been brought back to life and resurrected and the  dancers in the Dionysian ceremonies dressed up as the sacrificed goat, Tragos, and interacted with the musicians as actors, starting the tradition of the theatre with greek Tragedies (τραγῳδία, tragōidia - he-goat-song). Death and resurrection follows a line through the understanding of the earth's rhythm, from the dying of vegetation in the autumn and winter, and even the sun itself, and its resurrection in the Spring, dependant of course on making the right propitiations at the Solstice to make the sun and the vegetation return and grow . . . through the Attis and Adonis myths, through Osiris, Dionysus, from memory Mithras or Mazda too, through to the Christ story.

It is of course symbolic of so much in life which appears to die but which comes back in some form and in that way, helpful to us as followers of the religion of Christianity in living our lives often particlularly helpfully through the low bits. It is a life story upon which we hang our coat to remind us to carry on. There is a low point. There is a solstice. The Sun will return and enlighten our lives. The green trees and pleasant groves and the fruits of the vegetation will return to reward us.

But the tree has nothing whatever to do with Christ's own teachings of Love thy God, and your Neighbour as Yourself. It has nothing to do with any parable or teaching, the only reference to which as a tree was that of having faith the size of a mustard seed would empower you to move a mountain or to make an olive tree whither and die . . . Hardly the spirit of the tree in church covered in baubles and strings of mock-ice.

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

Quote from: David Pinnegar on December 09, 2010, 07:19:14 AM
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 09, 2010, 03:51:31 AM
I can't comment on the rest, but can you drop your conceptions of what the trees may once have stood for and just accept them for what they are now?

Hi!

Yes - of course - they are trees. That is what they are now. They are trees.

Tree worship is nature worship and nothing to do with Christ's birth. Some people talk to trees, but we don't do that to the pine tree we chop down and bring into Church.

Of course in loving God, we also love nature. That is the importance of the Tree in Church, but we should be honest about it. Worshipping Nature is worshipping God. What I rail against is the mental blank of the religion to accept the past that it incorporated. The result is a narrow minded blinkeredness that denies the validity of others and causes arguments with other religions when those arguments are wholly unnecessary.

That's why, when I see a tree in Church I say "Hail Attis, Hail Cybele, Hail Dionysus who taught us agriculture, Hail the winter death and renewal of life that the Evergreen Tree represents". In that is a much fuller understanding of what Christ represented in the widest sense.

It's only when one understands what the tree stood for that one has one's Christianity in proper perspective so that one may better love one's neighbour as one's self.

When I take communion, I think of the past ceremonies when the body and the blood were eaten and drunk. The animal was placed on the altar. The throat was slit and the blood and the life drained out. It dripped off the edge of the altar. The meat was cooked. The spirit of the divine entered the meat. The fat oozed out and dripped off the edge of the altar. (This is depicted in architecture in the mutules and guttae that we see adorning the outside of Greek and Roman classical buildings and on cornices of some ceilings inside buildings today.) We ate the meat, we drank the blood, and we imbibed and fed on the spirit of the Divine. The skins, formerly worn by the Gods before they left (Nephilim or Sons of God)

at feasts such as that over which Prometheus presided, were now replaced over the bones of the animal on the altar. They were now worn symbolically as having been brought back to life and resurrected and the  dancers in the Dionysian ceremonies dressed up as the sacrificed goat, Tragos, and interacted with the musicians as actors, starting the tradition of the theatre with greek Tragedies (τραγῳδία, tragōidia - he-goat-song). Death and resurrection follows a line through the understanding of the earth's rhythm, from the dying of vegetation in the autumn and winter, and even the sun itself, and its resurrection in the Spring, dependant of course on making the right propitiations at the Solstice to make the sun and the vegetation return and grow . . . through the Attis and Adonis myths, through Osiris, Dionysus, from memory Mithras or Mazda too, through to the Christ story.

It is of course symbolic of so much in life which appears to die but which comes back in some form and in that way, helpful to us as followers of the religion of Christianity in living our lives often particlularly helpfully through the low bits. It is a life story upon which we hang our coat to remind us to carry on. There is a low point. There is a solstice. The Sun will return and enlighten our lives. The green trees and pleasant groves and the fruits of the vegetation will return to reward us.

But the tree has nothing whatever to do with Christ's own teachings of Love thy God, and your Neighbour as Yourself. It has nothing to do with any parable or teaching, the only reference to which as a tree was that of having faith the size of a mustard seed would empower you to move a mountain or to make an olive tree whither and die . . . Hardly the spirit of the tree in church covered in baubles and strings of mock-ice.

Best wishes

David P

I've never been aware of the Christian tradition of Christmas trees being in any way tree worship. There's a big difference between believing it (rightly or wrongly) to be symbolic of Christ's death on the Cross, or indeed of the temptation to selfish excess of the tree in the Garden of Eden, and actually worshipping trees - since my knowledge of Biblical scripture is less than comprehensive, I'll leave Tony to find any quotes on the Tree of Life.

As for 'hailing' Attis, Cybele and Dionysus - Dionysus is, perhaps, the more relevant to Christianity, but Attis has - other than supposedly being reborn as a pine tree - no relevance to Christianity and, indeed, no real basis whatsoever. The same goes for Cybele. Certainly, the self-castration which seems to be the main theme with them makes for a disturbing contrast with Christian doctrine of the sacred nature of the body. I really don't need any belief in false Gods from a dead religion in Greece to allow me to respect others and to love my neighbours. As it is, I have Muslim friends, Jewish friends, Christian friends, atheist, agnostic, loosely theistic friends, and know other people from all of those categories too. Those who I lack respect for, I lack respect for personal reasons, nothing to do with religion/faith/lack thereof.

Also, regarding the sacrifice of an animal in older religions as a parallel to Christ's sacrifice - in all but the most superficial of terms, there is no parallel. Christ's sacrifice may have taken a vaguely similar form - from bread and wine into the body, blood soul and divinity of Christ under the continuing appearance of bread and wine - but that is where the parallel ends. Those of a more Low Church Anglican disposition would probably argue (being High Church Roman Catholic, I won't), that the Last Supper and all Eucharistic consecrations since are merely symbolic of the Crucifixion. To be honest, if you're metaphorically doffing your titfer in the direction of pagan Gods and thinking of Pagan animal sacrifices as you receive communion, I would be considering very seriously whether I really ought to be receiving communion at all.

I have rather more respect for the Pagan festivals of the Solstices and Equinoxes - taken without false deities of Phrygian/Graeco-Romanic origin, they remain relevant to a lot of peoples' lives. I wouldn't mind going down to Stonehenge or somesuch for such a festival - the deep mystery of the true original purpose of Stonehenge has wiped from the place any pagan deities and it is merely a mysterious, ancient, spiritual place, and the sunrise/sunset and timing thereof and the weather can be symbolic of a lot in life for people of any faith or none. My only worry is that it's probably been taken over by the post-CND ecofascists...

QuoteBut the tree has nothing whatever to do with Christ's own teachings of Love thy God, and your Neighbour as Yourself. It has nothing to do with any parable or teaching, the only reference to which as a tree was that of having faith the size of a mustard seed would empower you to move a mountain or to make an olive tree whither and die

Just not true. Even I know that there are more references to trees in the Bible than that. Trees are mentioned in Genesis, Exodus, Ezekiel, Proverbs, Revelation... This is what Revelation has to say (courtesy of Wikipedia):

"The angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:1-2)

So, there you go. I'll PM Tony, try and get his view on this!  :)

David Pinnegar

Hi!

The whole point of this series of threads is that one should always challenge the periphery in order to find the core. The job of a physicist is to "find the assumption" and so should be that of the theologian too.

Understanding what bits of periphery came from where, and possibly why, enables one to have a bigger and broader picture. Religion should be a way of life, not a baby's comfort rag to cling on to. For so many, the superficial trappings of the religion are merely their security blanket, representing their state of comfort and being no deeper within their way of life than the superficial periphery they are. People who go to carol services but not to church during the whole of the rest of the year are likely to be looking at the superficiality of christianity that way, and either digging no deeper, or rejecting the religion wholesale on account of it appearing to be a sham.

Perhaps there is a significant difference between the perspectives of those of us with children and those who have not go there yet. When we grow out of the innocence of childhood, we come to know that Father C does not really come down chimneys and that he really doesn't exist. But those of us who have children know that Father C does exist. We have the responsibility to be Father C ourselves.

And that is where, whatever is fact and whatever is fiction, christianity becomes the way of life, the way of the Universal, the Omnipotent and the All Powerful. Those who follow such a way of life contribute so much to society, and some follow it without knowing it. It is the spirit of the actions of people operating in such a manner that distinguishes the civilised human being from the mere animal that otherwise we can be inclined to be.

The way of life that the understanding of these things promotes has so much to offer humanity that it's worth getting to understand better. So much of the religion is a parable, not to express absolutes but to get us to think in the right direction.

Religion without thought is perhaps a subject that should be assigned to the thread of The Evils of Religious Fundamentalists.

The tree as spring renewal of vegetation is nothing to do with christianity but the understanding of nature as part of the that created by the All Powerful, the Infinite, the Everywhere is so very important to the understanding of a people nowadays as familiar with the natural process of the world as with classical music.

Whether or not Christ was born of a Virgin, whether there is life after death (although ghosts and telepathic experiences suggest there are interactions in the dimensions of which we are not usually aware), whether or not Christ died on the Cross and resurrected - all of these things the cause of so much dispute and loss of faith to some - are irrelevant to Christ's teachings. Whilst on earth, our task is as in the Prayer "on earth as it is in Heaven". All of the periphery of Christianity is there to dress the teachings and is there, as the parables are, as a parable for those who need them on their path in order to pass the mileposts that their contemplation as parables represent.

It's in this vein that I started the thread "God is not Big Daddy".

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

I agree entirely with the premise of your most recent post - but to describe Christ's supposed crucifixion, death and resurrection as being merely on the periphery of Christianity and irrelevant to Christ's teachings is, I think, to miss the point: Christ's willingness to sacrifice himself, submitting to His father's will and giving up his life for the greater good, is central to all of his teachings. One might argue that the virgin birth is a little less important - but to cast doubt on that is, I think, to open the door for others to interpret this as "Oh, so Christ may not have been divine at all, just another man, another prophet maybe", which he wasn't. One cannot pick and mix teachings and beliefs with Christianity: either you accept it and truly believe it or you don't.

Sadly, I suspect I am one of those you attack in this post... I haven't been to church much at all this year. Managed Farnborough Abbey once or twice over the Easter Triduum (if you haven't ever been, you really must, if only for the organ), got to St Paul's Cathedral for All Saints' Day (I was in London for the David Sanger Memorial recital at St Michael's Cornhill that lunchtime anyway), but I don't think I received communion at Farnborough, and I certainly didn't at St Paul's. Alas, around here, good churchmanship and profound spirituality is very hard to come by... where it is found, usually it's too far from here/too convoluted a journey to make it viable as a regular proposition.

David Pinnegar

Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on December 13, 2010, 03:54:21 AM
I agree entirely with the premise of your most recent post - but to describe Christ's supposed crucifixion, death and resurrection as being merely on the periphery of Christianity and irrelevant to Christ's teachings is, I think, to miss the point: Christ's willingness to sacrifice himself, submitting to His father's will and giving up his life for the greater good, is central to all of his teachings. One might argue that the virgin birth is a little less important - but to cast doubt on that is, I think, to open the door for others to interpret this as "Oh, so Christ may not have been divine at all, just another man, another prophet maybe", which he wasn't. One cannot pick and mix teachings and beliefs with Christianity: either you accept it and truly believe it or you don't.

Thirty years ago I would have agreed with you.

But I am asking now whether such matters are merely a comfort blanket to which metaphorically I like to cling as a comfort blanket and as to whether they are necessary to Christ's teachings to assist one in living the sort of life that Christ taught in loving one's neighbour and loving the Universal, the Infinite and Omnipotent? I don't think so. They are in themselves metaphors which dress the religion in the mold of those who need to see the religion in terms of the more primitive instincts of killing the King and of the Divine Creation, especially the latter in relation to those who cannot see it all around them. Perhaps it doesn't matter as to whether Christ actually died or whether he was taken down from the cross passing for dead. All these matters have caused divide and to some, loss of faith.

The reality however, is that these matters can be simply tools to help the christian to think in a helpful way. Taken as tools, and part of the parable that is, they are helpful. But so often they are the stumbling blocks upon which we fail to love our neighbours.

I come to this thread from the point of view of knowing that there are organists who think that they are aetheists. Being able to set up a chinese wall in one's mind and look at a problem from the other side enables one not only to empathise with others but also possibly to sort out what is most important from one's own side. There are people who disagree with what some would say be the central tenets of Christianity, but still know God and beleive in God and do so through the teachings of christianity. If those central tenets be the dressing of christianity rather than its substance, then many more will know that they are christian and come to stronger faith.

Best wishes

David P

NonPlayingAnorak

Hmm... really not sure. Can you really believe in all that Christ taught if you don't believe in his crucifixion etc? If you don't believe that part of the Bible, how can you be so sure you believe the rest? I think you might have mixed up the Church with the Pick'n'Mix section in Woolworths... they let you pick and mix, look what happened to them! The church doesn't, and it's still there... yeah, yeah, silly and immature argument. What the hell, I need a bit of levity right now. Fact is, Christianity is what it is: believing only part of it means that what you believe in isn't Christianity, because Christianity is the whole of itself. One may not agree with everything the Vatican says about morals and so on, but you can't go filleting out the bits of the Bible you don't like or disagree with.

revtonynewnham

Hi

The crucifixion & subsequent resurrection of Jesus is the very heart of the Christian gospel - without it, we might just as well close all the churches!  See for example Romans 5 & the institution of the Lord's Supper in 1 Cor 13 and most tellingly, 1 Corinthians 15:14 "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."

The virgin birth is also pretty important - but I would argue primarily as a symbol of Christ becoming fully man - except for the issue of "original sin".  His life on earth was a demonstration of God's power - and an example to live by, but a futile example without the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit given to believers.

The crucifixion is prophesied throughout the Old Testament.  The cross, the common symbol of Christianity, links with His death & resurrection.

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

#17
Dear Tony

Of course I am being Devil's Advocate. But in doing so one finds revelation.

As a way of life, christianity is not about following rules. Christ was saying to Judaism that religion was not the blind following of laws or rules as to how to behave. Many people are satisfied with a religion, whatever it might be, of being told what to do and what to think. Christ's new dimension was that of saying to people not what to do but how to do, not what to think but how to think.

It is in this way that I believe one can peer through the lens of the Council of Nicea and of Saul's "conversion" on the Road to Damascus and all the religions that Christianity was to subsume into the parable not only in the plural by which Christ enlightened but also by the parable that is the text itself. It is a thought process. It is the eye of the needle. It is the door through which one passes.

It is in this way that mysticism went beyond what was merely taught, to the infinite mysteries beyond.

Life is so easy if a religion tells you "This is what to do and if you do it you will reach the Kingdom of Heaven: this is what to think and if you think it you will reach Nirvana". Following Christ's teachings to be christian is so very much more complex as there are no right answers universal to all situations and times: we have to go through the process to learn how to think in order to find how to do.

It is necessary to start the journey from the texts of Christianity, but then on the journey, if one is to process through the gate, one has to strip it bare of all except the essential. Not to do so impedes the way of loving our neighbours as ourselves, and indeed the devotees of other branches of religions who have found God through other paths will have done the same.

Sorry to be a very difficult and challenging member of your congregation. . .

Best wishes

David P

revtonynewnham

Hi David

You're not that difficult - at least you are prepared to think and to listen!  As you say, if Christianity was merely a set of rules and regulations, it would be straightforward - even if not easy.  Judaism, as portrayed in the Old Testament, is a set of rules- and look what happened to the people of Israel!  The unique thing about Christianity compared to other religions is that it's a relationship - but a relationship based on faith, and one of the key points of that faith is the resurrection.  Without that, Jesus becomes just another "good" man who happened to found a religion, rather than the Son of God - Immanuel, God with us.  That's the real mystery of Christmas.

Every Blessing

Tony
just about to start working on the sermon for our carol service next Sunday evening on the theme of Christ, the Light of the World.

David Pinnegar

Dear Tony

Thanks

Your post crossed with a postscript  . . . which possibly works in an interesting way in reply:

The gate might appear very attractive overgrown by sweet smelling and pretty roses. Such ornamentation of the gate attracts many and for that reason it is sacrosanct and none will want it pruned. However, in order to pass through one must expect either to be severely scratched and torn by the thorns, or even encaptured, entangled entirely by them never to pass through. Fighting the good fight means being prepared to good pruning.

Christ himself did that at the entrance to the temple, pruning the money changers. Of course he became that sacrifice which he told everyone at the temple was unnecessary. It is equally unnecessary to the pruning necessary to help us to love the Infinite, All Powerful and Invisible and our neighbours as ourselves.


Perhaps resurrection is a tool to thought that may be helpful in the parable of religion. Rebirth, resetting life anew, forgiveness, life springing from apparent disaster, but there are many whose faith gets stuck here and entangled in the unnecessary thorns. Sacrifice is the thought process from the most ancient of times, but it's not an obligatory process in the worship of the Almighty.

As you say, the faith is a relationship and unlike other religions, that relationship permits dialogue and thought. Processes of thinking take different forms appropriately at different times and differing circumstances. It is the process that leads to how we behave and if we simply cling on to the facts and the laws we can end up being like or being part of those so-called Christian institutions which do not behave in Christian ways.

The way in which Christ is the Light of the World is to shine light into even the darkest corners of our consciousnesses to make us question all about what we do and to then refine the light so that it shines outwards. There are many who stick to rules and laws who prefer the darker dustier places. It is the job of all _active_ followers of any religion to sharpen the pruning hooks to find the assumption, and thereby to find the truth from which resurrection follows.

An analogy to this is the grape vine which looks so dead in winter, which has to be cut back and pruned harshly, and will come back bearing even more growth and fruit in the next season. Hail Dionysus, bearer of the Vine, who comes down and rescues Children and Drunken Men

and Apollo too,

master of the light! (I jest, of course!)



Best wishes

David P