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Author Topic:   Ritualised cannibalism
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 51 (27228)
12-18-2002 2:11 PM


South american headhunters believe that by eating the heart of a slain foe they gain his courage.
Some christian sects believe that by eating the blood and body of christ they gain his holiness.
I can't detect a difference.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by TrueCreation, posted 12-18-2002 2:18 PM metatron has replied
 Message 5 by Chara, posted 12-18-2002 3:06 PM metatron has replied
 Message 11 by graedek, posted 12-18-2002 8:09 PM metatron has not replied

  
TrueCreation
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 51 (27229)
12-18-2002 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by metatron
12-18-2002 2:11 PM


"South american headhunters believe that by eating the heart of a slain foe they gain his courage.
Some christian sects believe that by eating the blood and body of christ they gain his holiness.
I can't detect a difference.
"
--The latter is symbolic.
------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 2:11 PM metatron has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 2:23 PM TrueCreation has replied

  
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 51 (27231)
12-18-2002 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by TrueCreation
12-18-2002 2:18 PM


Its not symbolic if you actaully believe the rituals the sacrement is "transformed" into JC's blood and body. A devout believer who does not believe in the transformation is not a devout believer.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by TrueCreation, posted 12-18-2002 2:18 PM TrueCreation has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by TrueCreation, posted 12-18-2002 2:27 PM metatron has not replied

  
TrueCreation
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 51 (27233)
12-18-2002 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by metatron
12-18-2002 2:23 PM


"Its not symbolic if you actaully believe the rituals the sacrement is "transformed" into JC's blood and body. A devout believer who does not believe in the transformation is not a devout believer. "
--Please supply a reference.
------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 2:23 PM metatron has not replied

  
Chara
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 51 (27239)
12-18-2002 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by metatron
12-18-2002 2:11 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Metatron:
South american headhunters believe that by eating the heart of a slain foe they gain his courage.
Some christian sects believe that by eating the blood and body of christ they gain his holiness.
I can't detect a difference.

I think what you are referring to here Metatron is transsubstantiation - a theory accepted by Rome in 1215 in which they believe that the elements (the bread and wine) actually transform into the the body of Christ. My knowledge of which Christian sects you might be referring to is limited, but I do know that this is a teaching of at least the Roman Catholic Church which I have noticed you have mentioned before. It is not supported by Scripture.
Jesus served the elements to his disciples saying, "This do in rememberance of Me." His purpose? To illustrate that He is the true substitute for the Passover Lamb, but also as a sacrifice in accordance with other OT analogies.
In the sacrificial ritual the portion of peace offering not consumed by fire and thus not offered to God as his food (cf. Lev. 3:1-11; Numb. 28:2) was eaten by priests and people (Lev. 19:5-6; 1 Sam. 9:13) in an act of fellowship with the altar and the sacrifice (Exod. 24:1-11; Duet. 27:7; cf. Numb 25:1-5; 1 Cor. 10). Jesus in giving the elements thus gave to his disciples a sign of their own fellowship and participation in the event of his sacrificial death. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
When believers celebrate what is commonly known as Communion (or the Lord's Supper) it is done in rememberance of what He has done, and in awaiting His return not to gain His holiness.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 2:11 PM metatron has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 6:21 PM Chara has replied

  
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 51 (27256)
12-18-2002 6:21 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Chara
12-18-2002 3:06 PM


Then why refer to it as the "blood and body"?.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Chara, posted 12-18-2002 3:06 PM Chara has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by funkmasterfreaky, posted 12-18-2002 6:32 PM metatron has replied
 Message 10 by Chara, posted 12-18-2002 8:05 PM metatron has not replied

  
funkmasterfreaky
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 51 (27259)
12-18-2002 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by metatron
12-18-2002 6:21 PM


It's just symbolism, done in remembrance of what Jesus has done for us. That he shed his blood and sacraficed his body beneath Roman whips and torture in order that we might know God. When I take communion I know that it is only juice and bread. It's a time to stop and reflect on the wonderous gift our Lord has bestowed on us. To know that it is Christ in me that allows me this wonderful relationship with my creator, that by his blood and body I can be seen as righteous before the Lord God. There are probably some who disagree, however scripturally it's just a remebrance thing.
------------------
Saved by an incredible Grace.
[This message has been edited by funkmasterfreaky, 12-18-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 6:21 PM metatron has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 7:39 PM funkmasterfreaky has not replied

  
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 51 (27270)
12-18-2002 7:39 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by funkmasterfreaky
12-18-2002 6:32 PM


Its called the blood and body of christ, its then eaten that is cannibalism. The mystic sacrificial rites that accompany the ceremony are ritualistic hence ritualistic cannibalism.
The minute variations in wording from one sect to another have no relevance outside those sects, to an outsider its just another odd pagan practice.
I still dont see a difference between eating people to gain valour and eating people to gain the approval of a certain god.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by funkmasterfreaky, posted 12-18-2002 6:32 PM funkmasterfreaky has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 7:57 PM metatron has not replied
 Message 12 by forgiven, posted 12-18-2002 8:29 PM metatron has replied

  
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 51 (27273)
12-18-2002 7:57 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by metatron
12-18-2002 7:39 PM


COMMUNION:
Ritualized Cannibalism William Edelen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hanging on the wall of my study is a remarkable map. It is about three feet wide and six feet long. It shows the history of religious evolution starting about 180,000 years ago and ending at the bottom in 1966. The title is "The History Map of Religions." It is in eight colors, with each color representing a flow of mythologies, and concepts, from one religion to another. For instance, if you follow the color "blue," you can see the mythological diffusion, or continuity, from Zoroastrianism and Mithraism into Christianism. It is quite an educational experience to stand in front of the map and study the overall evolution of religions from the 3rd (warm) interglacial period, from the Lower Mousterian Culture of Neanderthal man in Europe to the religious picture of the Earth in 1966.
We ask: "Where did it all begin, this behavior that we call religious?" How far back do we go to find the origins of some of our beliefs, like life after death, or the belief in supernatural beings and spirits? Anthropologists think that religious behavior can easily be found in the Neanderthal period of 135,000 years ago. The Neanderthal people buried their dead with great sensitivity and care. Flowers were put into the graves. Artifacts were buried with the dead. Artifacts were either to take with you into another life following death, or to have them for an offering to the gods or goddesses.
We ask: "What led them to believe in an afterlife, or supernatural beings?" The answer that I am the most comfortable with is fear and dreams. We all know what fear can do, and when you realize that the Neanderthal people could not possibly have had an explanation for lightning and forest fire, earthquake and storm, thunder and gale, what else would they think but that supernatural beings were behind it all and had to be placated, worshiped and feared?
Fear must have played a major part in the development of ideas concerning supernatural beings. For we know that today, even in our own time, it is fear that drives millions to churches and to their knees, either begging or asking the gods for forgiveness of one thing or another. Today, millions live filled with a fear of what is going to happen to them after death. Still today, it is fear that is one of the primary religious motivators of our species, Homo sapiens.
As for life-after-death beliefs, I like the dream theory better than any other. We all know how vivid, alive, real and moving dreams can be, to such an extent that when we awaken we are amazed it was a dream. My father died 20 years ago, and yet from time to time, my dreams of him are so sharp and clear it is staggering.
What would you think if you were a member of the Neanderthal group, and you knew that you had buried one of your friends long, long ago and yet, last night, in a vivid dream once again you were with him, hunting? He was alive! But how could that be? You buried him many moons ago. Last night he was alive and hunting with you. Why, your friend is not dead at all. He lives on after death in some other place.
From such a beginning, thousands and thousands of years ago, there developed and evolved basic ritualistic behavioral patterns, and mythological motifs, or themes, that have spread by a process of diffusion from, at least, the Neanderthal period through Cro-Magnon caves, and into the Christian churches and cathedrals of 20th-century America.
One of the more obvious of these is the "sacred meal" or ritualistic cannibalism. We still practice this ritual today in the Protestant and Roman Catholic communion, where we eat the body and drink the blood of the divine leader.
The Christian church calls it "communion," or "taking communion." The communicant eats and drinks, symbolically or literally, the flesh and blood of the divine "leader." The traditional invitation to Communion, spoken by the presiding clergy, is this: "Take, eat, this is my body . . . this cup is the new covenant is my blood . . . drink."
Eating a body and drinking blood is a cannibalistic theme, no matter how hard the clergy try to water it down, or theo-babble around it by calling it "only symbolic" cannibalism. In the 9th century, the clergy said that God made the flesh of Jesus only look like a wafer so as not to upset the worshipers. They were really cannibals, but they didn't have to face up to it, admit it, or be vividly aware of it.
How convenient. History reeks with Theo-babble. ("Theo" God-babble.) One anthropological scholar who has spent a lifetime studying this ritual is Dr. Jean-Paul Dumont, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington. He writes: "Cannibalism has always been a part of religious behavior. The principle is the same . . . acquiring through ingestion the powers of something, whether human or divine. The purpose has always been to take on the qualities of the person being eaten. Through the ritual you share in the divinity of the one being eaten. In our Christian traditions we still practice this cannibalistic ritual in taking Communion."
People often ask me, "How could you serve communion when you were a Congregational minister, knowing it was a cannibalistic ritual?" My answer: "I never did use the cannibalistic words or invitation, and the congregations loved my honesty."
I spoke only of the joy of breaking bread together and drinking wine, which has for thousands of years been a way to celebrate life. Bread has been a symbol of strength, and wine for life and wisdom. Says the Hebrew Qabbalah, "It is the symbol for the mysterious vitality and spiritual energy of all created things."
There is a beautiful teaching in Judaism that says Abraham went to see his great-grandfather Shem, and Shem gave him bread and wine. Shem's message to Abraham was that if you want to turn the world to God, you have to give them bread and wine; the old must be connected to the new and fresh and vital. Bread is best when it is fresh. With wine, the older it is, the more beautiful it is.
When bread is broken and wine is drunk around a table of joy, there is a glorious communion of kindred spirits, whether Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Hebrew, American Indian, Hindu, Agnostic, Humanist, Atheist or Deist, Druid or Pantheist.
There is a communion of more than our bodies.
For those who cling to the archaic cannibalistic theme, I would remind them of the Christian tragedy, never better expressed than by Samuel Driver, when he was a professor of Hebrew at Oxford University:
Nothing is more tragic in Christianity than the fact that Communion has for centuries been, and still is, a subject for the most intense hatred and fighting. Christians have been put to death, cruel deaths, by other Christians for not believing the same doctrines about the Lord's Supper, which cannot be proved, and are not even true. It became a sacrament of hate and destruction, because men have claimed they possessed knowledge which cannot be possessed.
For those who still believe they are eating a body and drinking blood, they are, quite honestly, cannibals, whether symbolic or literal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 7:39 PM metatron has not replied

  
Chara
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 51 (27274)
12-18-2002 8:05 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by metatron
12-18-2002 6:21 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Metatron:
Then why refer to it as the "blood and body"?.
You know what Metatron? I get the feeling that you really don't care ... have a nice day.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 6:21 PM metatron has not replied

  
graedek
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 51 (27275)
12-18-2002 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by metatron
12-18-2002 2:11 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Metatron:
South american headhunters believe that by eating the heart of a slain foe they gain his courage.
Some christian sects believe that by eating the blood and body of christ they gain his holiness.
I can't detect a difference.

Whether or not there IS a difference between these 'christian' sects and south american headhunters has nothing to do with the real Jesus of scripture: what he stood for, and what he taught.
"The John 6 passage is simply an instance of Jesus using a metaphor to illustrate a concept. This particular metaphor is repeated during the Last Supper (e.g. Lk 20:19-20), when it's clearer that it's a metaphor and not literal cannibalism. Had Jesus meant it literally (or had the disciples interpreted it literally), the Gospels would have recorded the disciples' cannibalization of Jesus after his death rather than his burial. Jesus often used metaphors that his listeners misunderstood and interpreted literally (see Jn 2:19-21, 11:11-15)."
(Cannibalism in the Bible)
------------------
[This message has been edited by graedek, 12-18-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 2:11 PM metatron has not replied

  
forgiven
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 51 (27276)
12-18-2002 8:29 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by metatron
12-18-2002 7:39 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Metatron:
Its called the blood and body of christ, its then eaten that is cannibalism. The mystic sacrificial rites that accompany the ceremony are ritualistic hence ritualistic cannibalism.
The minute variations in wording from one sect to another have no relevance outside those sects, to an outsider its just another odd pagan practice.
I still dont see a difference between eating people to gain valour and eating people to gain the approval of a certain god.

you were told what it meant... it symbolizes Christ's body, broken for us, and his blood, shed for us, and is done in remembrance of him... of his sacrifice

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 7:39 PM metatron has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 9:44 PM forgiven has not replied

  
metatron
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 51 (27284)
12-18-2002 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by forgiven
12-18-2002 8:29 PM


So you say that its only symbolic ritual cannibalism.
..........
you were told what it meant... it symbolizes Christ's body, broken for us, and his blood, shed for us, and is done in remembrance of him... of his sacrifice
..........
If its not cannibalism why eat it?. Put it on top of your holy table or smear it on the head wizards hat or something. But the instant you eat it, its just another group of primitives who believe they gain power by consuming flesh.
I have a moral problem with cannibalism (symbolic or otherwise) except in certain survival situations.
[This message has been edited by Metatron, 12-18-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by forgiven, posted 12-18-2002 8:29 PM forgiven has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by TrueCreation, posted 12-18-2002 9:53 PM metatron has replied
 Message 16 by funkmasterfreaky, posted 12-18-2002 9:57 PM metatron has not replied

  
TrueCreation
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 51 (27285)
12-18-2002 9:53 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by metatron
12-18-2002 9:44 PM


"I have a moral problem with cannibalism (symbolic or otherwise) except in certain survival situations. "
--Even if you do want to describe it as 'ritualised cannibalism' your conserned are refuted by the fact that there is no moral inacceptability since it is entirely subjective. 'In certain survival situations' what is a subjective form of symbolism going to have anything to do with the 'survival' of anything?
--Partaking in the ritual does not constitute eating his body or drinking his blood literally.
--I'd still like that reference.
-------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 9:44 PM metatron has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 10:02 PM TrueCreation has replied

  
funkmasterfreaky
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 51 (27286)
12-18-2002 9:57 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by metatron
12-18-2002 9:44 PM


Well don't take communion. Pretty easy to avoid. This is my last post on this thread as I don't see how you equate communion with cannabalism. It was a metaphor Jesus used to help the disciples understand later on why he had died. When Jesus says take the plank out of your own eye first, do you think he meant that you may literally have a plank in your eye? This argument doesn't even seem logical to me. C ya
------------------
Saved by an incredible Grace.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by metatron, posted 12-18-2002 9:44 PM metatron has not replied

  
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