I went to a crypt in Britain as a kid, can't remember where tf it was, but I still remember it because it was super interesting.
It's where I learned about Trepanning and how they did it back in olden times to "let the bad spirits out" and it actually worked because it reduced swelling around the brain by giving the blood a way out.
This is correct. There's actually a little plaque that has this explanation on it before you go into the crypt.
It's this funny little Latin lesson before you descend into a skeleton catacomb and are confronted with the living memory that you, too, are temporary.
Chances are, it isn’t. The early Catholic Church did a lot of this kind of thing, where they would claim to have a piece of the cross, or a bone of St Peter in a church. It was just to drive tourism into their churches. If you took all the claimed pieces of the cross and assembled them, it would make far more than one cross.
I like Martin Luther's polemic about relics: "How many pieces of the true cross are there in the world? How many thorns from Christ's crown of thorns? How many nails from the crucifixion? There are enough nails to shoe all the horses in Saxony. And if all the relics of the saints were gathered together, there would be enough bones to build a ship and enough wood to boil all the water in the sea."
In that sense it's one of Mary Magdalene's many heads.
IDK their religion allows straight up substitution magic, they turn wine and crackers into pieces of their dead god. Why can't thorns and pieces of wood turn into the implements that killed him?
You shall make no idols to yourselves; and you shall not set up for yourselves graven images, or a memorial pillar. And you shall not set up any image of stone in your land in order to bow down to it. For I am Jehovah your God.
He went pretty ape shit about the golden cow—as believable any part of that story goes. Catholics seem to be all about idoloc knick-knacks and getting all stabby and controlling over them... Like, the opposite of what a Christian is meant to do.
That's one of the fundamental disagreements between Catholics and Protestants.
A Catholic would argue that veneration of saints isn't worship, it's showing respect for someone who exemplified Christian ideals, or died as a martyr. Canonization is basically the religious version of the Medal of Honor.
A Protestant would argue that the distinction between veneration and worship is arbitrary, and veneration of a saint essentially amounts to idolatry anyway.
As an apostate, I don't really see a difference, but it feels inconsistent to see people praying to a specific Saint all the time. Are they supposed to be the middle man between you and God? Didn't Jesus die specifically for that?
I’m a secular person now but as a formally very religious person I know a bad Bible translation when I see it.
Assuming you a referring to Leviticus 26:1 a better translation from the NIV is:
Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.
Given this I can see how Catholics can justify having statues and art and the like.
In case you don’t like the NIV here is a meta comparison.
Ah, we were taught to avoid the NIV as it was like the Merrium-Webster of translation; a bit more adapted for the modern Pentecost, so obviously it would be lenient compared to traditional translations.
But saints are not gods, they are more like emissaries. You pray for them to bring your word to God.
But in the end, religious beliefs don't make sense anyway, so why bother analyzing contradictions. Faith is based on believing without needing proof, so any logic reasoning against religion fails against that statement.
Sure it is. Let's just pretend there is no monetary incentive for a region to have a holy relic which brings them a bunch of tourism. Ain't nothing holy under capitalism.
Every single consecrated Catholic altar contains a relic of a saint. Usually they're pretty small, maybe a piece of a fingerbone or something. You're right that a good one like this would bring in lots of pilgrims (tourist dollars,) but it's a tradition that way predates capitalism.
I'm not in the business of defending the Catholic Church or capitalism, just wanted to clarify.
Socialists don't see a fundamental difference between a king or church owning the means of production and a merchant/capitalist/whatever owning it, because there isn't a significant difference. Adam Smith was observing truths on the nature of property ownership and how to increase the gains from such, not describing the idea of rich and powerful people owning property that would make them money by exploiting the value of labor. That idea is as old as agriculture.
Where it might get tricky is if the gains from owning the "relic" were funding welfare programs/charity more than they were funding the excessive lifestyle of the clergy, but that's not something Catholics are particularly known for living up to, responsible usage of tithes and actually following the precepts of ascetism in the clergy.
As someone who grew up in a Muslim country, I have to say, Westerners this is some weird shit man. Like, call the police weird. We are supposed to be the barbarians yet you get to have skull thrones and shit? WTF?
All the Abrahamic religions are death cults. It's just as morbid as muslim sects that force women to dress head to toe black robes or w/e. The extremism just becomes part of the scenery when you're around it, but it's all objectively bizzare.
Like think about it, these religions were literally invented by bronze age goat herds who thought the earth was flat and covered by a dome, and people in the modern day still believe in them. It's literally group insanity.
It would be like someone who still believes in the greek gods or something.
How to say that you have no idea about Abrahamic religions without saying that you have no idea about Abrahamic religions.
The Bronze Age ended around 1200 BC. 1200 Before Christ. Most of the prophets of the Torah are estimated to have lived around 1000 BC up until Jesus was born. Mohammed s.a.s. lived in the 7th century AD.
Also if your argument is that something originating in the bronze age is bad, i recommend you to stop using metal tools, eat bread and cultivated fruits. Obviously no beer and while you are at it reject math, astronomy and most of architecture. All stuff originating in the Bronze Age.
It expresses the view that the current aeonic civilization is that of the Western world, but it claims that the evolution of this society is threatened by the "Magian/Nazarene" influence of the Judeo-Christian religion, which the Order seeks to combat in order to establish a militaristic new social order, which it calls the "Imperium". According to Order teachings, this is necessary in order for a galactic civilization to form, in which "Aryan" society will colonise the Milky Way.
Well ok but this ONA has nothing to do with Christianity, they explicitly state it's a militant Satanic left-hand path occultist network. I mean being Satanic kinda goes hand in hand with heresy.
As with many other occult organisations, the Order shrouds its history in "mystery and legend", creating a "mythical narrative" for its origins and development. The ONA claims to be the descendant of pre-Christian pagan traditions which survived the Christianisation of Britain and were passed down from the Middle Ages onward in small groups or "temples"
For sure, I totally agree with what you're saying. I was only using the word in the 40k version where nearly everything is hersasy, not the sensible version of the word youre using.