Comment by saghm
5 days ago
Without speaking for religions I'm not familiar with, I grew up Catholic, and one of the most important Catholic beliefs is that during Mass, the bread (i.e. "communion" wafers) and wine quite literally transform into the body and blood of Jesus, and that eating and drinking it is a necessary ritual to get into heaven[1], which was a source of controversy even back as far as the Protestant Reformation, with some sects retaining that doctrine and others abandoning it. In a lot of ways, what's considered "normal" or "crazy" in a religion comes to what you're familiar with.
For those not familiar with the bible enough to know what to look for to find the wild stuff, look up the story of Elisha summoning bears out of the first to maul children for calling him bald, or the last two chapters of Daniel (which I think are only in the Catholic bible) where he literally blows up a dragon by feeding it a cake.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the...
The "bears" story reads a lot more sensibly if you translated it correctly as "a gang of thugs tries to bully Elisha into killing himself." Still reliant on the supernatural, but what do you expect from such a book?
Where do you see that in the text? I am looking at the Hebrew script, and the text only reads that as Elisha went up a path, young lads left the city and mocked him by saying "get up baldy", and he turned to them and cursed them to be killed by two she bears. I don't think saying "get up baldy" to a guy walking up a hill constitutes bullying him into killing himself.
It's called context. The beginning of the chapter is Elijah (Elisha's master) being removed from Earth and going up (using the exact same Hebrew word) to Heaven. Considering that the thugs are clearly not pious people, "remove yourself from the world, like your master did" has only one viable interpretation.
As for my choice of the word "thugs" ("mob" would be another good word), that is necessary to preserve the connotation. Remember, there were 42 of them punished, possibly more escaped - this is a threatening crowd size (remember the duck/horse meme?). Their claimed youth does imply "not an established veteran of the major annual wars", but that's not the same as "not acquainted with violence".
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Never underestimate the power of words. Kids have unalived themselves over it.
I think the true meaning has been lost to time. The Hebrew text has been translated and rewritten so many times it’s a children’s book. The original texts of the Dead Sea scrolls are bits and pieces of that long lost story. All we have left are the transliterations of transliterations.
Yeah "Transubstantiation" is another technical term people might want to look at in this topic. The art piece "An Oak Tree" is a comment on these ideas. It's a glass of water. But, the artist's notes for this work insist it is an oak tree.
Someone else who knows "An Oak Tree"! It is one of my favorite pieces because it wants not reality itself to be the primary way to see the world, but the belief of what reality could be.
Interesting you bring art into the discussion. Often thought that some "artists" have a lot in common with cult leaders. My definition of art would be that is immediately understood, zero explanation needed.
I definitely can't get behind that definition. The one I've used for a good while is: The unnecessary done on purpose.
Take Barbara Hepworth's "Two Figures" a sculpture which is just sat there on the campus where I studied for many years (and where I also happen to work today). What's going on there? I'm not sure.
Sculpture of ideals I get. Liberty, stood on her island, Justice (with or without her blindfold, but always carrying not only the scales but also a sword†). I used to spend a lot of time in the hall where "The Meeting Place" is. They're not specific people, they're an idea, they're the spirit of the purpose of this place (a railway station, in fact a major international terminus). That's immediately understood, yeah.
But I did not receive an immediate understanding of "Two figures". It's an interesting piece. I still occasionally stop and look at it as I walk across the campus, but I couldn't summarise it in a sentence even now.
† when you look at that cartoon of the GOP operatives with their hands over Justice's mouth, keep in mind that out of shot she has a sword. Nobody gets out of here alive.
I've recently started attending an Episcopal church. We have some people who lean heavy on transubstantiation, but our priest says, "look, something holy happens during communion, exactly what, we don't know."
See also: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/real-presence/?
"Belief in the real presence does not imply a claim to know how Christ is present in the eucharistic elements. Belief in the real presence does not imply belief that the consecrated eucharistic elements cease to be bread and wine."
Same could be said for bowel movements too though.
There’s a fine line between suspension of disbelief and righteousness. All it takes is for one to believe their own delusion.
To be fair, the description of the dragon incident is pretty mundane, and all he does is prove that the large reptile they had previously been feeding (& worshiping) could be killed:
"Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder: and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship."
I don't think it's mundane to cause something to "burst in sunder" by putting some pitch, fat, and hair in its mouth.
The story is pretty clearly meant to indicate that the Babylonians were worshiping an animal though. The theology of the book of Daniel emphasises that the Gods of the Babylonians don't exist, this story happens around the same time Daniel proves the priests had a secret passage they were using to get the food offered to Bel and eat it at night while pretending that Bel was eating it. Or when Daniel talks to King Belshazzar and says "You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose power is your very breath and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored". This is not to argue for the historical accuracy of the stories, just that the point is that Daniel is acting as a debunker of the Babylonian beliefs in these stories while asserting the supremacy of the Israelite beliefs.
Yes, Catholicism has definitely accumulated some cruft :)