5 ms·

Basically how christians have always operated since they first emerged and started doing the same throughout the hellenic world. Most (all?) christian tradition

by asdff 1mo ago

Basically how christians have always operated since they first emerged and started doing the same throughout the hellenic world. Most (all?) christian traditions are pagan in origin. The main goal was not necessarily replacement but a sort of corporate ownership takeover of the littany of existing traditions, such that these cultures might be ingrained into a unified fold of christian power/influence/customs/laws/expectations and not see themselves as some distinct independent people. And boy that model worked to tame europe and much of the known world under the whip of the pope in a way the roman emperors never could, at least until Martin Luther screwed up a bit of that unity. Mexico is interesting because it is a certainly a different catholicism than what is practiced elsewhere. Tell a devout old world European catholic about say Day of the Dead traditions and they will probably think its blasphemy. There is a lot of what amounts to local diety worship still as well, although they just label them as some patron saint of somesuch to preserve the veil of monotheism.

ASalazarMX 1mo ago
> Tell a devout old world European catholic about say Day of the Dead traditions and they will probably think its blasphemy. Want to make a Catholic mad? Tell them saints are just minor gods of the Christian pantheon.
- asdff 1mo ago
  Yeah the protestants think the saint stuff is absurd and even creepy when you get into the relics. I'm not sure where it came from but I'm guessing some weird roman religion origin.
  - andrewflnr 1mo ago
    There's no reason the Catholics couldn't have invented it independently. I think that's just the human instinctive approach to religion. Lots of little per-concept semi-spiritual entities, sacred and profane objects, etc.
    - notahacker 1mo ago
      Religious groups other than Catholics with few plausible connections to ancient Rome have independently conceived the idea of the importance of things like relics (e.g Buddhism), but it's called the Roman Catholic Church for a reason...
      - asdff 1mo ago
        Of course the buddhist and the classical world were not so separated as people assumed, there was a period of cultural exchange after the conquests of Alexander and resulting greco-buddhist rump states.
    - asdff 1mo ago
      It could be an independent thing but it just reeks of that culture practice used in roman and egyptian times of elevating some great man e.g. emperor to the status of a god and having them be worshipped as such after death, and makes sense in terms of continuity that it might have just been adopted over inventing the same concept in the same part of the world around the same time but somehow having this be a purely independent invention. Society was already socialized for this sort of thing and support the political control of their own leadership through deep cultural ties like making them a seemingly unassailable part of the religion or some unstoppable force of nature.
- jact 1mo ago
  > Tell them saints are just minor gods of the Christian pantheon That’s the whole idea though: “God became man so that men might become gods,” -St. Athanasius
  - geye1234 1mo ago
    Good reply! St Peter's words about "becom[ing] partakers of the Divine Nature" are intended literally.
    - ASalazarMX 1mo ago
      Thank you both for the interesting rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)
- jhbadger 1mo ago
  Tolkien, who was a devout Catholic and who wanted his religion in LOTR to not contradict his own, literally had minor gods (the Valar). He squared that with his Catholicism because he had them subordinate to Ilúvatar (God), much like how saints and angels are.
jact 1mo ago
It is not true that Christian practices are mostly pagan in origin. You do not need to look far to find the origin of the vast majority of what you would have seen in a medieval church service. You can see the common origin if you compare and contrast an Orthodox Jewish synagogue service with an Orthodox Christian liturgy. The first half of the Divine Liturgy and the synagogue service are virtually the same even in terms of the motions — the Torah scroll is replaced with the gospel book. Christianity owes far more to second-temple Jewish practices than it does to anything pagan. It’s worth noting that “monotheism” is a modern word. It was not a word used by theologians of the pre-modern era. The Bible is insistent that God is in some sense “one” or “alone,” and that you don’t offer sacrifices to other gods. People just thought that other gods were demons. It made a big difference to this point of view whether a sailor was asking St. Nicholas to help him get home safely or asking a demon for help, in the same way it makes a big difference whether you call the local mob or the municipal police when you have a problem. The latter are quite analogous to an angel/saint because police don’t have power or make laws in their own right, they are just servants of a higher authority (ultimately, the constitution). The mob, like the demon in the Christian point of view, are in disobedience to that higher authority or in direct competition/rebellion against it. There’s a really big difference even if both paths end with armed men with guns coming to solve my problem.
- asdff 1mo ago
  I'd call judaisim pagan too as it was originally polytheistic little different than the rest of middle eastern paganism, until it became a cult of yahweh that rejected the rest of the proto canaanite pantheon. So that tracks with my interpretation of "nothing new in christianity" really.
  - amanaplanacanal 1mo ago
    Even then, they only claimed Yahweh as their God (of the Jews), not the one god of everybody. Things have certainly changed with the ascendance of Christianity though.
  - jact 1mo ago
    If second-temple era Jews are “pagan” then the term “pagan” has been expanded such as to denude it of all meaning, even if we assume this evolutionary view of Jewish religion, which is actually a very questionable view. There are plenty of unique Christian traditions too that didn’t come from surrounding culture. The veneration of relics and body parts of saints in particular was considered grossly alien and offensive to the pagans of the time. It was deeply countercultural to have such veneration for pieces of a dead body and to go so far as to build your places of worship around them, to kiss them, etc. And as far as we know the Christians didn’t get this idea from contact with anyone else, they came up with it themselves. It’s deeply myopic to treat ancient people as devoid of creativity or agency.
xhevahir 1mo ago
I don't think Mexico is an exception in that respect. There are some pretty significant Incan elements in the Catholicism practiced in the Andes, Vodou and Santería stuff in the Caribbean, El Tío in Bolivia, Tetri Giorgi/Uastyrdzhi in the Caucasus, and lots of others no doubt. Christianity (and Western culture) didn't demolish these beliefs and practices.
- asdff 1mo ago
  Oh absolutely. Catholicism had to be modified wherever it was spread to fit existing societal expectations in order to maintain power structures and control. There is a sort of notion I think that colonialism meant a clean slate, but it was more akin to a corporate change in ownership as many of these cultures were already dominated by local or regional feudal powers, and well structured for this sort of exchange of power between one group of ruling class elites you pay tribute to, to another.

by asdff 1mo ago

ASalazarMX 1mo ago

> Tell a devout old world European catholic about say Day of the Dead traditions and they will probably think its blasphemy. Want to make a Catholic mad? Tell them saints are just minor gods of the Christian pantheon.

asdff 1mo ago
Yeah the protestants think the saint stuff is absurd and even creepy when you get into the relics. I'm not sure where it came from but I'm guessing some weird roman religion origin.
- andrewflnr 1mo ago
  There's no reason the Catholics couldn't have invented it independently. I think that's just the human instinctive approach to religion. Lots of little per-concept semi-spiritual entities, sacred and profane objects, etc.
  - notahacker 1mo ago
    Religious groups other than Catholics with few plausible connections to ancient Rome have independently conceived the idea of the importance of things like relics (e.g Buddhism), but it's called the Roman Catholic Church for a reason...
    - asdff 1mo ago
      Of course the buddhist and the classical world were not so separated as people assumed, there was a period of cultural exchange after the conquests of Alexander and resulting greco-buddhist rump states.
  - asdff 1mo ago
    It could be an independent thing but it just reeks of that culture practice used in roman and egyptian times of elevating some great man e.g. emperor to the status of a god and having them be worshipped as such after death, and makes sense in terms of continuity that it might have just been adopted over inventing the same concept in the same part of the world around the same time but somehow having this be a purely independent invention. Society was already socialized for this sort of thing and support the political control of their own leadership through deep cultural ties like making them a seemingly unassailable part of the religion or some unstoppable force of nature.
jact 1mo ago
> Tell them saints are just minor gods of the Christian pantheon That’s the whole idea though: “God became man so that men might become gods,” -St. Athanasius
- geye1234 1mo ago
  Good reply! St Peter's words about "becom[ing] partakers of the Divine Nature" are intended literally.
  - ASalazarMX 1mo ago
    Thank you both for the interesting rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)
jhbadger 1mo ago
Tolkien, who was a devout Catholic and who wanted his religion in LOTR to not contradict his own, literally had minor gods (the Valar). He squared that with his Catholicism because he had them subordinate to Ilúvatar (God), much like how saints and angels are.

jact 1mo ago

It is not true that Christian practices are mostly pagan in origin. You do not need to look far to find the origin of the vast majority of what you would have seen in a medieval church service. You can see the common origin if you compare and contrast an Orthodox Jewish synagogue service with an Orthodox Christian liturgy. The first half of the Divine Liturgy and the synagogue service are virtually the same even in terms of the motions — the Torah scroll is replaced with the gospel book. Christianity owes far more to second-temple Jewish practices than it does to anything pagan. It’s worth noting that “monotheism” is a modern word. It was not a word used by theologians of the pre-modern era. The Bible is insistent that God is in some sense “one” or “alone,” and that you don’t offer sacrifices to other gods. People just thought that other gods were demons. It made a big difference to this point of view whether a sailor was asking St. Nicholas to help him get home safely or asking a demon for help, in the same way it makes a big difference whether you call the local mob or the municipal police when you have a problem. The latter are quite analogous to an angel/saint because police don’t have power or make laws in their own right, they are just servants of a higher authority (ultimately, the constitution). The mob, like the demon in the Christian point of view, are in disobedience to that higher authority or in direct competition/rebellion against it. There’s a really big difference even if both paths end with armed men with guns coming to solve my problem.

asdff 1mo ago
I'd call judaisim pagan too as it was originally polytheistic little different than the rest of middle eastern paganism, until it became a cult of yahweh that rejected the rest of the proto canaanite pantheon. So that tracks with my interpretation of "nothing new in christianity" really.
- amanaplanacanal 1mo ago
  Even then, they only claimed Yahweh as their God (of the Jews), not the one god of everybody. Things have certainly changed with the ascendance of Christianity though.
- jact 1mo ago
  If second-temple era Jews are “pagan” then the term “pagan” has been expanded such as to denude it of all meaning, even if we assume this evolutionary view of Jewish religion, which is actually a very questionable view. There are plenty of unique Christian traditions too that didn’t come from surrounding culture. The veneration of relics and body parts of saints in particular was considered grossly alien and offensive to the pagans of the time. It was deeply countercultural to have such veneration for pieces of a dead body and to go so far as to build your places of worship around them, to kiss them, etc. And as far as we know the Christians didn’t get this idea from contact with anyone else, they came up with it themselves. It’s deeply myopic to treat ancient people as devoid of creativity or agency.

xhevahir 1mo ago

I don't think Mexico is an exception in that respect. There are some pretty significant Incan elements in the Catholicism practiced in the Andes, Vodou and Santería stuff in the Caribbean, El Tío in Bolivia, Tetri Giorgi/Uastyrdzhi in the Caucasus, and lots of others no doubt. Christianity (and Western culture) didn't demolish these beliefs and practices.

asdff 1mo ago
Oh absolutely. Catholicism had to be modified wherever it was spread to fit existing societal expectations in order to maintain power structures and control. There is a sort of notion I think that colonialism meant a clean slate, but it was more akin to a corporate change in ownership as many of these cultures were already dominated by local or regional feudal powers, and well structured for this sort of exchange of power between one group of ruling class elites you pay tribute to, to another.