5 ms·

Its called syncretism. The Greeks and Romans have been doing it since the time of Alexander the Great.

broken-kebab 25d ago
Syncretism is mixing religions (as doctrines, beliefs). Assimilating local traditions into one's religious rituals is not that.
- phyzix5761 25d ago
  "It can include assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in theology and mythology, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to multiple faiths." "...in the realm of religion, it specifically denotes a more integrated merging of beliefs into a unified system, distinct from eclecticism, which implies a selective adoption of elements from different traditions without necessarily blending them into a new, cohesive belief system." "It provides an opportunity to bring beliefs, values, and customs from one cultural tradition into contact with, and to engage different cultural traditions." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism
  - broken-kebab 25d ago
    Which is what I wrote above?
ASalazarMX 25d ago
It's more cultural colonization than syncretism. For example, America was culturally colonized by forcibly converting its inhabitants to Catholicism. Their temples were destroyed, the stones used to build churches, and while celebrations were still observed, the deities were replaced with Catholic ones. Even the folklore was rewritten with Catholic characters. It wasn't syncretism, it was systematic eradication. Syncretism is more akin to reconciliation of different views.
- pstuart 25d ago
  Another appropriate word for the colonization of America is genocide. I'm old enough to remember being taught how America was settled by expanding into the vast wilderness of the continent, and that sometimes they had skirmishes with natives but they found them new places to live. It turns out it wasn't quite as neat and tidy as suggested.
  - philipallstar 24d ago
    "It's not neat and tidy so it must be genocide" - not sure that's quite right.
    - dsr_ 24d ago
      In this case, it was genocide.
      - amanaplanacanal 24d ago
        It definitely was. There were at least sometimes extenuating circumstances though. My sense is that in the US and Canada settlers found a great deal of "apparently" uninhabited land, largely a result of the diseases that had swept through because of earlier contact, decimating the existing population. My guess is that had disease not done its work, the European settlers would have found it much harder to displace the existing inhabitants.
        pstuart 24d ago
        I have yet to read 1491, but yes I imagine that it would have been much more challenging without that first strike. But the weapons capabilities of the europeans were also going to make it happen one way or another.
  - kspacewalk2 24d ago
    America is a big place, populated by a lot of different people. Some of those were in fact victims of a genocide by European colonists. Others were allied to the European colonists from day one, and were instrumental in defeating/exterminating their indigenous enemies (see e.g. Tlaxcallans). Most of the victims were decimated by Eurasian diseases well before seeing any European with their own eyes. So presenting colonization of America as a "genocide" is every bit as selective and simplistic as what you're old enough to remember being taught, just in the opposite direction. The history of Americas is much more interesting and complex than all that.
cwnyth 25d ago
The Greeks and Romans were doing it long before Alexander, as were all the cultures of the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East as far back as history allows. Egyptians were borrowing Levantine gods early in the Bronze Age, and ancient Akkadian adopted the Sumerian pantheon wholesale. Turns out, culture isn't a singular thing you can just have. People everywhere all the time are picking up bits of things to do, things to say, things to believe in, and borders, no matter how fluid they are, only exist in the aggregate.
lo_zamoyski 25d ago
That's not the right word here, as Catholic dogmatic teaching does not enter into negotiation with what you might call competing doctrines. It doesn't blend bodies of doctrine like that. We're talking about adopting cultural practices in a selective and transfigurative way. If a cultural practice doesn't conflict with the Church's teachings and would be beneficial, then it could be embraced as such. A cultural practice may also be transfigured and adapted into something that maintains a certain resemblance, but has a changed and elevated meaning. For instance, having encountered a culture that practices ancestor worship, it might take that practice and transfigure it into a restrained expression of filial piety that moves it away from idolatry. Pagan harvest festivals are another example where the symbolic meaning is changed.
indoordin0saur 24d ago
It's interesting that in religion back then they took the idea of the gods' existence as an obvious fact. So when they encountered other people with different gods they assumed that they were actually the same gods, just by different names. If they encountered civilized/intelligent people with different mythologies it meant either that those people knew something the Greeks previously didn't or they had just gotten events confused and it would become a matter of debate. It was more like two people with different, but honest, accounts of an event in the remote past trying to reconcile their own limited recollection or view point.
- dd8601fn 24d ago
  I guess for the ones associating their gods with real phenomena, it seems almost inevitable.
- 1659447091 24d ago
  > So when they encountered other people with different gods they assumed that they were actually the same gods, just by different names. [...] It was more like two people with different, but honest, accounts of an event in the remote past trying to reconcile their own limited recollection or view point. And not just with the classic Greek/Roman Gods. The similarities between Pandora and Eve, the Flood myths[0] like Deucalion and Noah; there are so many appropriated stories in the Abrahamic religions (probably others, but most familiar with Greek and Abrahamic ones) I don't even understand how these days religion is taken seriously given the historical pattern of appropriation and cleansing of the more fantastical shape-shifting, creature, magic-spell type bits. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth
  - Woodi 24d ago
    There is nothing wrong with stories that purpose is to give you wisdom. Try to study few theological comments on eg. Genesis book from eg. "desert fathers" :) In Bible we have stories, songs, history (that cruel part), teachings, prophecies and straight jurnalists like researched relations of Someone life and words. Think about that: Church know that some stories are older myths and did not removed them from official books. Why ? Becouse religion is much serious thing that some industrialized system. At least for Christians. And "history" can only help to true seekers - why censor the truth, what someone did ? Learn in what "context" things was done and how it looks on others doings background and what was later and what you can learn from all of that. But someone with bad intensions can't be bothered to think much... And about shape-shifting :) a) if omnipotent God exists than He can do miraculous things, right ? b) that magical creatures are usually described in books that are stories or prophecies not historical one. In case of doubt look a) ;) Anyway: there is _insane_ amount of wisdom in Christianity teachings, even for atheists. And if God is True then finally everything He done will be explained as good and just - logic :) There is 'if' there because faith is important. IMO without faith there is no free will - humans are not like angels that just know and decide only once...

Syncretism is mixing religions (as doctrines, beliefs). Assimilating local traditions into one's religious rituals is not that.

phyzix5761 25d ago
"It can include assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in theology and mythology, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to multiple faiths." "...in the realm of religion, it specifically denotes a more integrated merging of beliefs into a unified system, distinct from eclecticism, which implies a selective adoption of elements from different traditions without necessarily blending them into a new, cohesive belief system." "It provides an opportunity to bring beliefs, values, and customs from one cultural tradition into contact with, and to engage different cultural traditions." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism
- broken-kebab 25d ago
  Which is what I wrote above?

ASalazarMX 25d ago

It's more cultural colonization than syncretism. For example, America was culturally colonized by forcibly converting its inhabitants to Catholicism. Their temples were destroyed, the stones used to build churches, and while celebrations were still observed, the deities were replaced with Catholic ones. Even the folklore was rewritten with Catholic characters. It wasn't syncretism, it was systematic eradication. Syncretism is more akin to reconciliation of different views.

pstuart 25d ago
Another appropriate word for the colonization of America is genocide. I'm old enough to remember being taught how America was settled by expanding into the vast wilderness of the continent, and that sometimes they had skirmishes with natives but they found them new places to live. It turns out it wasn't quite as neat and tidy as suggested.
- philipallstar 24d ago
  "It's not neat and tidy so it must be genocide" - not sure that's quite right.
  - dsr_ 24d ago
    In this case, it was genocide.
    - amanaplanacanal 24d ago
      It definitely was. There were at least sometimes extenuating circumstances though. My sense is that in the US and Canada settlers found a great deal of "apparently" uninhabited land, largely a result of the diseases that had swept through because of earlier contact, decimating the existing population. My guess is that had disease not done its work, the European settlers would have found it much harder to displace the existing inhabitants.
      - pstuart 24d ago
        I have yet to read 1491, but yes I imagine that it would have been much more challenging without that first strike. But the weapons capabilities of the europeans were also going to make it happen one way or another.
- kspacewalk2 24d ago
  America is a big place, populated by a lot of different people. Some of those were in fact victims of a genocide by European colonists. Others were allied to the European colonists from day one, and were instrumental in defeating/exterminating their indigenous enemies (see e.g. Tlaxcallans). Most of the victims were decimated by Eurasian diseases well before seeing any European with their own eyes. So presenting colonization of America as a "genocide" is every bit as selective and simplistic as what you're old enough to remember being taught, just in the opposite direction. The history of Americas is much more interesting and complex than all that.

cwnyth 25d ago

The Greeks and Romans were doing it long before Alexander, as were all the cultures of the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East as far back as history allows. Egyptians were borrowing Levantine gods early in the Bronze Age, and ancient Akkadian adopted the Sumerian pantheon wholesale. Turns out, culture isn't a singular thing you can just have. People everywhere all the time are picking up bits of things to do, things to say, things to believe in, and borders, no matter how fluid they are, only exist in the aggregate.

lo_zamoyski 25d ago

That's not the right word here, as Catholic dogmatic teaching does not enter into negotiation with what you might call competing doctrines. It doesn't blend bodies of doctrine like that. We're talking about adopting cultural practices in a selective and transfigurative way. If a cultural practice doesn't conflict with the Church's teachings and would be beneficial, then it could be embraced as such. A cultural practice may also be transfigured and adapted into something that maintains a certain resemblance, but has a changed and elevated meaning. For instance, having encountered a culture that practices ancestor worship, it might take that practice and transfigure it into a restrained expression of filial piety that moves it away from idolatry. Pagan harvest festivals are another example where the symbolic meaning is changed.

indoordin0saur 24d ago

It's interesting that in religion back then they took the idea of the gods' existence as an obvious fact. So when they encountered other people with different gods they assumed that they were actually the same gods, just by different names. If they encountered civilized/intelligent people with different mythologies it meant either that those people knew something the Greeks previously didn't or they had just gotten events confused and it would become a matter of debate. It was more like two people with different, but honest, accounts of an event in the remote past trying to reconcile their own limited recollection or view point.

dd8601fn 24d ago
I guess for the ones associating their gods with real phenomena, it seems almost inevitable.
1659447091 24d ago
> So when they encountered other people with different gods they assumed that they were actually the same gods, just by different names. [...] It was more like two people with different, but honest, accounts of an event in the remote past trying to reconcile their own limited recollection or view point. And not just with the classic Greek/Roman Gods. The similarities between Pandora and Eve, the Flood myths[0] like Deucalion and Noah; there are so many appropriated stories in the Abrahamic religions (probably others, but most familiar with Greek and Abrahamic ones) I don't even understand how these days religion is taken seriously given the historical pattern of appropriation and cleansing of the more fantastical shape-shifting, creature, magic-spell type bits. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth
- Woodi 24d ago
  There is nothing wrong with stories that purpose is to give you wisdom. Try to study few theological comments on eg. Genesis book from eg. "desert fathers" :) In Bible we have stories, songs, history (that cruel part), teachings, prophecies and straight jurnalists like researched relations of Someone life and words. Think about that: Church know that some stories are older myths and did not removed them from official books. Why ? Becouse religion is much serious thing that some industrialized system. At least for Christians. And "history" can only help to true seekers - why censor the truth, what someone did ? Learn in what "context" things was done and how it looks on others doings background and what was later and what you can learn from all of that. But someone with bad intensions can't be bothered to think much... And about shape-shifting :) a) if omnipotent God exists than He can do miraculous things, right ? b) that magical creatures are usually described in books that are stories or prophecies not historical one. In case of doubt look a) ;) Anyway: there is _insane_ amount of wisdom in Christianity teachings, even for atheists. And if God is True then finally everything He done will be explained as good and just - logic :) There is 'if' there because faith is important. IMO without faith there is no free will - humans are not like angels that just know and decide only once...