Around the world in 80 Faiths

[cathopologist]

Its a strange mix of Orientalism, self hate and a warped sense of ‘‘white mans burden’’, they are Christians now, and he feels bad about that, though he admits he knows nothing at all about the dream time he feels he should be the one to remind them of it.

Is this ‘Anglimentary’ available online? I feel a need to throw popcorns at my computer screen.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Is this ‘Anglimentary’ available online? I feel a need to throw popcorns at my computer screen.

Well I can watch it on the BBC iPlayer though I don’t actually know if it works on computers outside of the U.K, should do though. Let me know if it works

The man really is a piece of work, declaring Wicca to be an ancient faith that is ‘‘really in touch with nature’’, how so? Well they gather in a flat in urban Sydney (which he is preparing for the ritual with the most natural of tools, a power drill), get naked and dance around some animal bones spouting on about the moon

Actually I should point out a warning that the Wiccan part contains nudity.

 

[cathopologist]

Well I can watch it on the BBC iPlayer though I don’t actually know if it works on computers outside of the U.K, should do though. Let me know if it works

The man really is a piece of work, declaring Wicca to be an ancient faith that is ‘‘really in touch with nature’’, how so? Well they gather in a flat in urban Sydney (which he is preparing for the ritual with the most natural of tools, a power drill), get naked and dance around some animal bones spouting on about the moon

Actually I should point out a warning that the Wiccan part contains nudity.

Thanks. Access to the program is only for UK residents. It uses a Geo-IP technology to block access to those outside the UK. But you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way…

 

[survive]

I live where there is a huge Native population, and a huge New Age dominant group, and the New Agers are always telling the natives who they are and who they ought to be and what it really means to be indigenous.:tsktsk: They’re accused of “self-hatred” and “losing everything that makes them special” if they don’t want to put on a show, be shamans etc. but just want to be themselves, including most being Christian – by choice, and fully aware what the alternatives are. It drives me up the wall to watch people try to make exotic showpieces out of other people. It’s so patronizing and self-centered when you come right down to it.

The man really is a piece of work, declaring Wicca to be an ancient faith that is ‘‘really in touch with nature’’, how so? Well they gather in a flat in urban Sydney (which he is preparing for the ritual with the most natural of tools, a power drill), get naked and dance around some animal bones spouting on about the moon.

Wicca was invented in the early 20th or possibly very late 19th Century by Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have learned it from his anciently European Wiccan family but never offered any reason to believe this. It’s so unlike ancient European pagan practices and ways of thinking, and so similar to Crowley’s pseudo-Egyptian system, that it really isn’t exactly pagan at all. but oh well, bringing that up would ruin the party.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Wicca was invented in the early 20th or possibly very late 19th Century by Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have learned it from his anciently European Wiccan family but never offered any reason to believe this. It’s so unlike ancient European pagan practices and ways of thinking, and so similar to Crowley’s pseudo-Egyptian system, that it really isn’t exactly pagan at all. but oh well, bringing that up would ruin the party.

Woah there! You can’t go saying things like that! Naked dancing around an apartment with your Wicca circle while chanting in English is a rich and ancient Australian tradition dating back to AT LEAST the early 1900s…in military time.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Anglicanism is the single greatest driving force in the conversion of large numbers of Britons to Catholicism.

A lot of Britons seem to still want church and are sensitive enough to want a real one.

I’m not sure if these numbers are correct, but the point is accurate.

There are 80 million anglicans in England, but only 4 million attend services weekly.

I believe there are 20 million Catholics and 5 million attend weekly services.

Nothing to brag about, but there is some life in the English Catholic church.

 

[bpcatholic]

Thanks. Access to the program is only for UK residents. It uses a Geo-IP technology to block access to those outside the UK. But you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way…

I found some videos on youtube.

 

[survive]

It’s astonishing how the historians can’t seem to find out anything about the Druids while so many people who know all about them are initiating one another in yurts everywhere.
I had a bf who was sure he was a Druid as well as a shaman and a prophet and a journalist and a lawyer, all without going to college. Now, lately, he’s been to a Reiki practitioner and a shaman who have told him he’s really a bard. I’m avoiding him.

 

[LDNCatholic]

But…I bought the armour and everything

 

[bpcatholic]

But…I bought the armour and everything

I would walk around as a Roman centurion!

 

[LDNCatholic]

Proved you wrong JC!

 

[LDNCatholic]

Unionist right?

Joking!

 

[T700]

A man with my love for the Brits! Perchance we’ll meet under the Plough and Stars.

Back on topic, this is exactly the sort of thing that led me to leave the Anglican faith. Sadly, it seems there is a fair amount of the same in many Catholics? I constantly surprised to hear things like, “All religions, so long as teach us to be good, are the same,” from an RCIA instructor. Or a deacon’s sermon that included the line, “We can never know God or his will, but he is present in all things and all people and all religions.”

Paul

 

[T700]

Sadly, I didn’t make myself clear. Those two quotes were from Catholics. In fact, the deacon’s words were written down verbatim as I took notes at this morning’s homily (a habit I picked up in college).

Paul

 

[survive]

A man with my love for the Brits! Perchance we’ll meet under the Plough and Stars.

Back on topic, this is exactly the sort of thing that led me to leave the Anglican faith. Sadly, it seems there is a fair amount of the same in many Catholics? I constantly surprised to hear things like, “All religions, so long as teach us to be good, are the same,” from an RCIA instructor. Or a deacon’s sermon that included the line, “We can never know God or his will, but he is present in all things and all people and all religions.”

Paul

All Ph values, so long as they lead us into the chemistry lab, are the same… All speed limits, so long as they have to do with cars, are the same… All digits on the dial pad, so long as they light up the cell screen, are the same, so what does it matter whom you call, so long as you’re sincerely trying to dial? It’s been wearing out my last nerve for twenty years or more.

 

[Lee1440]

The Anglican priest’s discovery of the loss of the knowledge of “Dream time” is evidence of how missionaryism has been the downfall of some extraordinary mental/spiritual maps, and therefore experiences. Ho’oponopono is another.

Okay, I tried not to reply, but I gave in to the temptation. This line of thought is addressed in a very excellent book called “Truth and Tolerance,” in which Pope Benedict XVI explores the notion of truth, what it is, does it exist, and how does that affect us if it does exist. And is religion about “experience” or “truth”?

If there is such a thing as objective truth, and if one discovers it, and if that truth changes one’s life and gives one unimagined joy, wouldn’t one want to share it? (Witness all the Westerners who go absolutely ga-ga over any teaching that can claim an ancient pedigree, and I speak from personal experience.)

And if that objective truth happened to have been delivered by a religious figure, wouldn’t one want to bring others to that figure? (None of the Westerners I know, for example, who lament the conversion of people to Christianity, lament the conversion of anyone to Buddhism or Wicca.)

And if that religious figure actually commanded his or her followers to go out and spread the word about this truth and bring them to the truth, wouldn’t one want to do just that? (I rarely see Catholics doing this; we’re not known for going door-to-door, but then I don’t remember ever seeing Buddhists do this either. However, both Buddhists and Catholics claim to have found the truth. Well, Buddhism has a slightly different take on what truth is and pretty much denies the existence of any sort of absolute… But both groups, if I may use that word, have made much material available for those who are interested.)

You see, I think what is truly lamentable here is that there aren’t more conversions to the Catholic Church. I don’t think that one should hold to one’s religion merely because of heredity or environment. Lord, I’ve been down a ridiculous number of paths myself, because I was always open to truth, wherever that search might take me.

If one views religion as a mere hobby or a matter of personal taste, then one probably sees no reason to convert to any other religion. Or to be religious at all, for that matter. But if one sees religion as a way to search for truth, to find truth and to serve truth, then one would surely want as much of the truth as one could possibly lay hold of. So these people who give up one path for another are not losing their ancestral ways so much as gaining the highest truth, as they see it.

And if you really think about it, the whole attitude that they should stay the same as they’ve always been and never change is really rather strange. (I would’ve expected you to embrace the notion of evolution.) I think the aborigines who have converted to Christianity have probably benefited from it. The problems they have are with people who treat them as second-class citizens in their own land–people who just might be much more in need of real conversion than the aborigines are.

 

[Lee1440]

Wicca was invented in the early 20th or possibly very late 19th Century by Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have learned it from his anciently European Wiccan family but never offered any reason to believe this. It’s so unlike ancient European pagan practices and ways of thinking, and so similar to Crowley’s pseudo-Egyptian system, that it really isn’t exactly pagan at all. but oh well, bringing that up would ruin the party.

I do believe ol’ Aliester was there with Gerald that weekend, survive. I’ve told so many Wiccans this when they make these ridiculous and outlandish claims for the veracity and hoary age of their “religion.” The dastardly duo must be rolling with laughter in their graves.

Or screamin’ for water, if they’re someplace else, which I rather fancy they are.