Workman
UNIQUE
Logic/knowledge.
logic and knowledge is limited.
The answer is God, there are NO limitations.
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What is inherently wrong with...
- Thread starter Unveiled Artist
- Start date
logic and knowledge is limited.
The answer is God, there are NO limitations.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I can see that. Would another way to see it is that ritual and worship are one and the same?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Not sure what you're saying. You'd have to explain it more so I'm not guessing.
Assuming rituals are not limitations and neither is worship, wouldn't they be one and the same?
I see there will always be a connection of some ritual in worship. At the same time I see it is important not to let the ritual to distract, or blind us from the purpose
The ritual of the breaking of bread and drinking of wine is an example. It was a covenant that was to prepare the person for the Return of Christ. It was to partake of the Love and Remembrance of Christ and the Word until Christ returned. If the ritual does not achieve the aim, then its practice is fruitless. The ritual may become a cloud, that only prevents us seeing the true intent.
Regards Tony
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Right?! The effect I am sure is the same: pain in those contexts tends to create a powerful mental state (headspace, eh?) that is euphoric, lending a bit of magic to the ritual.
And the catharsis.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Yes! My wife and I have learned that when either of us has a really hard day at work, it's best to break out the crop!
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
It could be the other way around too. Breaking bread and wine and communion is spiritually important regardless the reason one goes to Mass. So, if one takes part in Communion (Eucharist) without the intent and heart behind it, the ritual still is a spiritual means to come to christ in communion but it's "just a ritual" if one doesn't have the heart to participate in it.
Putting more precedence in the ritual since, like worship, it's just as important and if one doesn't perform the ritual with a heart of grace, it means nothing. If one has a heart of grace but doesn't see the ritual beyond externals, the grace means nothing.
Once one gets beyond symbolism on one side and heart-only-faith on the other, external and internal become one in the same regardless the religion, thing, and person.
Is ritual a bad thing because of its external nature?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
@Tony Bristow-Stagg
Think of a headache and painkillers. The headache is the abstract (heart) and the painkillers is the concrete (ritual). One can pray the headache away, but medically, that won't work. One can take painkillers when there is no headache, that would be silly. If they are both combined, there is no one over the other. The headache is made pure by the medicine. The medicine becomes well worth it when it cures the headache.
If ya follow me?
Think of a headache and painkillers. The headache is the abstract (heart) and the painkillers is the concrete (ritual). One can pray the headache away, but medically, that won't work. One can take painkillers when there is no headache, that would be silly. If they are both combined, there is no one over the other. The headache is made pure by the medicine. The medicine becomes well worth it when it cures the headache.
If ya follow me?
Why and how? A lack of respect for opinions that are diverse and may go against one's sincerely and deeply held worldviews. Also known as ignorance and fear. And not every "other" religion does this, many like myself care not what others believe or think. They are Culturally specific and all serve a purpose.
God. I think I would much prefer to die fighting for my life in battle, than having a priest rip my heart out in a religious ritual. Oh hell yeah, let me die fighting.
No it is not a bad thing, unless it did not serve the purpose intended.
RegardsTony
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Why do people think it serves no purpose?
It's like marriage. Blaming the ritual caused the divorce rather than the couple.
There's nothing inherently wrong with rituals but each one can and should be judged on its own merits.
Human beings - at least the majority of us - are fairly sentimental creatures. We develop strong emotional attachments to objects, places and activities that are familiar to us, pretty much by instinct. We also learn by rote and repetition.
Rituals, whether private or public, give meaning and mystery to our (at times) mundane existences. They help us to value things more, imbuing everyday objects or sights with a sacred significance known only to those engaged in the ritual, whether that be natural wonders - as for instance, Celtic pagans gathering in glades to collectively worship a yew tree and show respect to mother nature - or in a more abstract sense, aspects of human life.
We are inherently sensual beings and rituals stimulate our senses: the scent of incense burning or aromatic spice; the taste of communion wine or ayahuasca (the Amazonian spiritual brew involving the drug DMT); the sensation of touching rosary beads or feeling the water of baptism on your skin; the sound of a calming Gregorian Chant or the Islamic call to prayer and the sight of an exquisitely painted icon or statue.
It can be quite a humbling experience to think oneself the heir and keeper of a sacred ritual that is immemorial (or which has an air of being 'time immemorial'): a rite that has a deep history of moral meaning, passed down from one generation of faith to the next. There's a real beauty to that.
Public rituals promote 'pro-social' behaviour - often acting as a glue with which to bind a community together, including through times of hardship. There are rituals for every part of life: rituals for merriment, festivities, a way of marking joyful milestones in life such as marriage and childbirth etc. It can also help people to come to terms with grief, as for instance through funeral rites for a departed relative and to celebrate the memory of that person in a way particularly fitting according to their culture/religion.
Without rituals, I imagine human civilisation would be pretty dull, uninspiring and lacking in colour. We'd be poorer as a culture and as a species.
However, rituals - community rituals in particular, if misused - can also be very negative in their psychosocial effects. For a start, they are powerful symbols that in a collective context often create very strong in-group solidarities, which can imply the exclusion of those "outside" who don't happen to participate in the same rituals (say, a blood oath of a particular gang). They can therefore breed xenophobia, social exclusion, isolationism, an illusion of superiority of one's group over other groups and inter-community strife.
Taboos arising from rituals can restrict personal freedom and make people feel 'guilty', 'dirty', 'ashamed' or 'afraid' for having violated a religious norm that the community regards as a holy custom. The act, from a rational and objective perspective, might be entirely innocent - i.e. walking into a temple without first taking off your shoes - but the action, in that religious ritual context, can have absolutely dire social consequences for the person involved.
Rituals can also be used to cement hierarchies - consisting of people more 'learned' in the lore underlying the ritual - and regiment human life in a variety of ways, thereby impinging on the individual pursuit of happiness and the human welfare. As an example, consider witch-burnings, human sacrifice, paedophilic rites, ritualistic spirit possession or taboos that segregate people based upon sex, race or out of ableism.
Had the community in question been exposed to a more reasonable and self-critical way of thinking about their inherited customs - there would be no need to retain rituals, at least in the form presented, which violate human rights and dignity just "because" that's the way things have always been done. But strongly ritualised societies themselves, by their very nature, can inhibit and prevent such freedom of thought from manifesting itself in the first place, through social isolation and punishment of 'ritual offenders' as "deviants".
Gormenghast a novel by Mervyn Peake is a literary exploration of the pitfalls of living in a society hidebound by arcane rituals no one understands the meaning of anymore, but which everyone is terrified to risk breaking because of strong cultural conditioning, taboos and a range of superstitious sanctions involving social costs:
Gormenghast (abridged)
I think this is where "ritual" can become harmful: if it is entirely unthinking and one lives in a society where hardly anyone ever thinks to question or consider the meaning, purpose and use of the community's rituals or indeed discourages / ostracises those who try to apply a more critical, free-thinking framework.
This is especially problematic in scenarios where you have a 'state cult'; with the public religious rituals being bound up into the fabric of a society's functioning and basic assumptions, to such an extent that questioning, refraining from participating in or violating the said religious rituals are deemed acts against the state and sociopolitical order itself - treason, in other words.
Human beings - at least the majority of us - are fairly sentimental creatures. We develop strong emotional attachments to objects, places and activities that are familiar to us, pretty much by instinct. We also learn by rote and repetition.
Rituals, whether private or public, give meaning and mystery to our (at times) mundane existences. They help us to value things more, imbuing everyday objects or sights with a sacred significance known only to those engaged in the ritual, whether that be natural wonders - as for instance, Celtic pagans gathering in glades to collectively worship a yew tree and show respect to mother nature - or in a more abstract sense, aspects of human life.
We are inherently sensual beings and rituals stimulate our senses: the scent of incense burning or aromatic spice; the taste of communion wine or ayahuasca (the Amazonian spiritual brew involving the drug DMT); the sensation of touching rosary beads or feeling the water of baptism on your skin; the sound of a calming Gregorian Chant or the Islamic call to prayer and the sight of an exquisitely painted icon or statue.
It can be quite a humbling experience to think oneself the heir and keeper of a sacred ritual that is immemorial (or which has an air of being 'time immemorial'): a rite that has a deep history of moral meaning, passed down from one generation of faith to the next. There's a real beauty to that.
Public rituals promote 'pro-social' behaviour - often acting as a glue with which to bind a community together, including through times of hardship. There are rituals for every part of life: rituals for merriment, festivities, a way of marking joyful milestones in life such as marriage and childbirth etc. It can also help people to come to terms with grief, as for instance through funeral rites for a departed relative and to celebrate the memory of that person in a way particularly fitting according to their culture/religion.
Without rituals, I imagine human civilisation would be pretty dull, uninspiring and lacking in colour. We'd be poorer as a culture and as a species.
However, rituals - community rituals in particular, if misused - can also be very negative in their psychosocial effects. For a start, they are powerful symbols that in a collective context often create very strong in-group solidarities, which can imply the exclusion of those "outside" who don't happen to participate in the same rituals (say, a blood oath of a particular gang). They can therefore breed xenophobia, social exclusion, isolationism, an illusion of superiority of one's group over other groups and inter-community strife.
Taboos arising from rituals can restrict personal freedom and make people feel 'guilty', 'dirty', 'ashamed' or 'afraid' for having violated a religious norm that the community regards as a holy custom. The act, from a rational and objective perspective, might be entirely innocent - i.e. walking into a temple without first taking off your shoes - but the action, in that religious ritual context, can have absolutely dire social consequences for the person involved.
Rituals can also be used to cement hierarchies - consisting of people more 'learned' in the lore underlying the ritual - and regiment human life in a variety of ways, thereby impinging on the individual pursuit of happiness and the human welfare. As an example, consider witch-burnings, human sacrifice, paedophilic rites, ritualistic spirit possession or taboos that segregate people based upon sex, race or out of ableism.
Had the community in question been exposed to a more reasonable and self-critical way of thinking about their inherited customs - there would be no need to retain rituals, at least in the form presented, which violate human rights and dignity just "because" that's the way things have always been done. But strongly ritualised societies themselves, by their very nature, can inhibit and prevent such freedom of thought from manifesting itself in the first place, through social isolation and punishment of 'ritual offenders' as "deviants".
Gormenghast a novel by Mervyn Peake is a literary exploration of the pitfalls of living in a society hidebound by arcane rituals no one understands the meaning of anymore, but which everyone is terrified to risk breaking because of strong cultural conditioning, taboos and a range of superstitious sanctions involving social costs:
The left hand pages were headed with the date and in the first of the three books this was followed by a list of the activities to be performed hour by hour during the day by his lordship. The exact times; the garments to be worn for each occasion and the symbolic gestures to be used. Diagrams facing the left hand page gave particulars of the routes by which his lordship should approach the various scenes of operation. The diagrams were hand tinted.
The second tome was full of blank pages and was entirely symbolic, while the third was a mass of cross references. . . This complex system was understood in its entirety only by Sourdust – the technicalities demanding the devotion of a lifetime, though the sacred spirit of tradition implied by the daily manifestations was understood by all.
(Titus Groan)
The second tome was full of blank pages and was entirely symbolic, while the third was a mass of cross references. . . This complex system was understood in its entirety only by Sourdust – the technicalities demanding the devotion of a lifetime, though the sacred spirit of tradition implied by the daily manifestations was understood by all.
(Titus Groan)
Gormenghast (abridged)
Titus, Earl of Groan, is becoming aware of a world beyond the suffocating confines of Gormenghast, bound by centuries of tradition into a pattern of decaying rituals. He yearns for freedom. Meanwhile the amoral Steerpike continues to forge his way into a position of power, leaving death in his wake and nearly dying in the process. But his rise places him at odds with Titus himself; and only one will survive...
Titus grows from a young boy into a young man, and he loses none of his defiant spirit, but instead adds to it a fully-formed desire to be free of the mantle of Gormenghast and its endless rituals, and to become his own man, and not a symbol - not an Earl. He is therefore both the symbol of Gormenghast, and the enemy of all that it is.
Titus grows from a young boy into a young man, and he loses none of his defiant spirit, but instead adds to it a fully-formed desire to be free of the mantle of Gormenghast and its endless rituals, and to become his own man, and not a symbol - not an Earl. He is therefore both the symbol of Gormenghast, and the enemy of all that it is.
I think this is where "ritual" can become harmful: if it is entirely unthinking and one lives in a society where hardly anyone ever thinks to question or consider the meaning, purpose and use of the community's rituals or indeed discourages / ostracises those who try to apply a more critical, free-thinking framework.
This is especially problematic in scenarios where you have a 'state cult'; with the public religious rituals being bound up into the fabric of a society's functioning and basic assumptions, to such an extent that questioning, refraining from participating in or violating the said religious rituals are deemed acts against the state and sociopolitical order itself - treason, in other words.
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Inherently? Nothing. Rituals are a way for us to express significance.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
What do you think is behind people's distaste in rituals (to the point of invalidating worship if done with ritual)?
Rituals can be symbolic and if carried out as God himself directed, then nothing wrong with that.
The problem arises IMO when humans add to what God has commanded and take things to a ridiculous degree....then ritual becomes a man-made burden for no good reason apart from the idea that "if a little is good, a lot must be better"....it doesn't work that way with God...all he wants you to do is obey him without altering or adding to his instructions.
No, they are not the same. "Religion" is a man made concept. Religion is not the same as worship.
When humans left off being obedient to God and wanted to do things their own way, they invented religion as a means to practice worship according to their own rules, not God's. I believe that the devil played right into that scenario, providing all manner of rituals to enslave the stupid humans who didn't even realize that he was having a lend of them.
Ritual, if it is not from God serves no purpose whatsoever. It just makes people feel better. It does nothing for God...doesn't honor him in any way.
If God did not command it...it should not be done....simple.
Who is honored by repeating the same things, mindlessly, over and over...is God a moron? If our own children did that to us, we would haul them off for a mental health assessment. Ritual, if it has no scriptural mandate, accomplishes nothing of value to either its intended audience or to the one performing it...(only selfishly perhaps)
Matthew 6:5-9....Jesus said....
“Also, when you pray, do not act like the hypocrites, for they like to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the main streets to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your private room and, after shutting your door, pray to your Father who is in secret. Then your Father who looks on in secret will repay you. 7 When praying, do not say the same things over and over again as the people of the nations do, for they imagine they will get a hearing for their use of many words. 8 So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.
9 “You must pray, then, this way:...."
We are commanded NOT to go beyond what is written in the Bible.
Sand Dancer
Crazy Cat Lady
It makes people feel like they are part of the scheme of things.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
It also depends on how you personally define ritual. Some think it's a nasty "five-letter" word. Devotional practices is a good term for it. Takes away the bias attached to it (as with god, Church, and other 'sensitive' words)
What are some rituals that are in the bible and god does promote?
(Mind you Sat/Sun service, evangalizing is a ritual no different than Communion and ongoing repentance)
On that note, it depends on how you see it.
Do you believe just repeating the same thing in a religious context is the only solid definition of a ritual?
Ha. It's similar to saying I love you to your mother. Not all mothers would smack their kids if they said I love you too many times (of course, I can't speak for all parents).
Let me ask, is spirituality abstract in nature?
I notice every other mystic religious I speak with put aside the material for the "spirit-ual."
That is the point of religious ritual. Everything else is gobbledygook.
But you're painting rituals in general as man-made rather than going by the context rather than how many times they say I love you god. Of course the sincerity depends on the person (we can't judge), but it shouldn't be a blanked statement for all people say they love god more than once an day.
Let me ask. When does it not become a ritual when one says I love you to god? (Are there intervals?)
A good example of religion (sorry to say) is going to the Hall, evangelizing, history of JW, and studying of the bible. Religion and rituals are not always the same. It has to do with traditions passed down, practices (well, JW isn't once an hour, so I guess that's okay? Sorry. Being sarcastic on purpose but making a point)
As for the devil, I don't know how that plays into a loving religion (not sure how one gets that impression if one isn't a slave to god)
There we go. That's better.
I read that before. Why do you think everyone who does ritual prays like the hypocrites?
Unless you know their relationship with god, that's a bold claim to make, no?
When I was in the Church, most of our prayers were silent. What I like about the Church is they have to where one has a place to be in prayer (as opposed to in a closet with junk or at the bus station). Mass isn't 24/7. So, a lot of us went before Mass (or more than that for me) and just sit and prayed. Touching statues and rosaries are a -different- conversation but actual Lord's Prayer, signing the cross, and being in front of communion itself is all part of scripture. I'm just not sure why one ritual is better than another.
Discredit repetitive prayers day and night; that's fine. Rituals or continuous devotional practices are an expression of following scripture.
When you take out all the physical things but keep the bible and people, what exactly does christianity (in the general sense of the term) stand for?
What are some rituals that are in the bible and god does promote?
(Mind you Sat/Sun service, evangalizing is a ritual no different than Communion and ongoing repentance)
Who is honored by repeating the same things, mindlessly, over and over...is God a moron?
If our own children did that to us, we would haul them off for a mental health assessment. Ritual, if it has no scriptural mandate, accomplishes nothing of value to either its intended audience or to the one performing it...(only selfishly perhaps)
On that note, it depends on how you see it.
Do you believe just repeating the same thing in a religious context is the only solid definition of a ritual?
Ha. It's similar to saying I love you to your mother. Not all mothers would smack their kids if they said I love you too many times (of course, I can't speak for all parents).
Let me ask, is spirituality abstract in nature?
I notice every other mystic religious I speak with put aside the material for the "spirit-ual."
That is the point of religious ritual. Everything else is gobbledygook.
But you're painting rituals in general as man-made rather than going by the context rather than how many times they say I love you god. Of course the sincerity depends on the person (we can't judge), but it shouldn't be a blanked statement for all people say they love god more than once an day.
Let me ask. When does it not become a ritual when one says I love you to god? (Are there intervals?)
A good example of religion (sorry to say) is going to the Hall, evangelizing, history of JW, and studying of the bible. Religion and rituals are not always the same. It has to do with traditions passed down, practices (well, JW isn't once an hour, so I guess that's okay? Sorry. Being sarcastic on purpose but making a point)
As for the devil, I don't know how that plays into a loving religion (not sure how one gets that impression if one isn't a slave to god)
There we go. That's better.
I read that before. Why do you think everyone who does ritual prays like the hypocrites?
Unless you know their relationship with god, that's a bold claim to make, no?
When I was in the Church, most of our prayers were silent. What I like about the Church is they have to where one has a place to be in prayer (as opposed to in a closet with junk or at the bus station). Mass isn't 24/7. So, a lot of us went before Mass (or more than that for me) and just sit and prayed. Touching statues and rosaries are a -different- conversation but actual Lord's Prayer, signing the cross, and being in front of communion itself is all part of scripture. I'm just not sure why one ritual is better than another.
Discredit repetitive prayers day and night; that's fine. Rituals or continuous devotional practices are an expression of following scripture.
When you take out all the physical things but keep the bible and people, what exactly does christianity (in the general sense of the term) stand for?