Is The ' Lords Supper ' a cannibalistic ritual?
- Thread starter Skeptical Greg
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Socrates
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c4ts said:
Well, technically, he isn't the only person who is supposed to live forever. Cannibalism is not unique to the Christian religion. It was practiced for centuries in Central/South America and in Africa. There are rumors that it is still practiced on a limited basis in some places.
If I recall correctly (I would refer you to Joseph Campbell's writings on the subject for a more reliable opinion), the idea behind cannibalism is that the person being eaten obtains immortality through the act of cannibalism.
The body and spirit, of the person being consumed, live on in the bodies and spirits of those that consume him. And, because he is in those people, he will be in the next person to be cannibalized and so on. He will live as long as there are people eating him.
Weird, eh?
Love,
Socrates
Ladyhawk
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BillyTK said:
Who was the comedian that did a great take on the whole loaves and fishes thing? Wasn't it Kinison who stated that it wasn't a miracle because the fish and loaves were days old so, when the baskets were passed around, people took one look and just put them back???
stamenflicker
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This concept is discussed in depth in Young's "Origin of the Sacred;" and numerous different mythologists including Campbell, Jung, and Frazier. If you ask me, it's a brilliant mythological coding of a basic human psychological need to tear flesh. It many ways it serves to curb the animal, not throw him into a cannibalistic frenzy.
Flick
Flick
Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
stamenflicker said:
Assuming the animal needs to be curbed.
Is this considered to be an underlying trait of those who tend to participate in this ritual?
Lord Kenneth
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Jesus Christ is walking down the street. He is preparing to unlease himself to the world, thus the Second Coming.
A boy, of mere 16, is hiding in the bushes. He sees Jesus, and he knows what to do.
Suddenly, like a tiger, he pounces on Jesus, his mouth swooping down onto his chest, pulling out the flesh and gobbling it up raw.
Jesus, of course, is screaming in pain, but Dark Cobra continues to chew into his body. DC, feeling a belch coming on, lifts his head for a second, blood dripping down his chin like a messy spagetti dinner. He belches, his Christ-gut breath filling the air around them, while Jesus continues to scream. After hallowing Jesus' insides, DC slips inside him, hallows out his head, then eats Jesus' face from the inside after cracking his skull like an egg.
Finally, Christ is all gone, with only bits of lung and blood and bone splattered on the ground. This was DC's holy eucharist, The blood and body of Christ.
DC shall ascend into heaven, despite eating the Son of God.
-Hack fiction bought to you by Dark Cobra
A boy, of mere 16, is hiding in the bushes. He sees Jesus, and he knows what to do.
Suddenly, like a tiger, he pounces on Jesus, his mouth swooping down onto his chest, pulling out the flesh and gobbling it up raw.
Jesus, of course, is screaming in pain, but Dark Cobra continues to chew into his body. DC, feeling a belch coming on, lifts his head for a second, blood dripping down his chin like a messy spagetti dinner. He belches, his Christ-gut breath filling the air around them, while Jesus continues to scream. After hallowing Jesus' insides, DC slips inside him, hallows out his head, then eats Jesus' face from the inside after cracking his skull like an egg.
Finally, Christ is all gone, with only bits of lung and blood and bone splattered on the ground. This was DC's holy eucharist, The blood and body of Christ.
DC shall ascend into heaven, despite eating the Son of God.
-Hack fiction bought to you by Dark Cobra
Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
Dark Cobra said:
Uhhhh... You forget that J.C.'s buddy, Peter, is with him.. Peter whips out his sword, planning to to cut off D.C.'s ear.. He misses, and cuts off his head.. Armageddon ensues. Satan perishes..
stamenflicker
Unregistered
S
Is this considered to be an underlying trait of those who tend to participate in this ritual?
It is a universal underlying trait. It doesn't matter what your religious or anti-religious stance may be. It's a part of the universal collective unconscious-- that's why it springs up in almost every religion regardless of how far the groups are separated.
Dudley Young's book explains this very well. The shedding of blood meant life to the ancients in that killing and eating are so closely tied. I suppose it still does. The American Indians for example has numerous different rituals surrounding the slaying of their next meal. Even today, a common ritual for deer hunters is applying a spash of blood to their face after killing their first deer. Blood is for very good reason attached to the concept of life. By consuming the flesh of the beast, we gain vitality.
Modern man thinks he has "grown-up" and no longer carries such superstitions in his highly developed brain. But these connections are made in his unconscious and are part of his evolutionary history; they find their way out in numerous un-pleasant ways. Why is it that in our highly developed and intelligent society we lead the world in murders per capita? Why does a movie like Hannibal draw millions to the theater? How does the American economy develop expressions like "dog-eat-dog" or why do merchants refer to patrons as "consumers?"
We are a society consumed by violence. It is estimated that a child will see over 100,000 acts of violence on television before he leaves middle school. Why? Because violence sells? Because it is stimulating to us? Why? Why do we instinctively find violence more appealing than peace? Look at any local news outlet... the bad is reported, because the bad is newsworthy. Why? Why are we in tune more with murder, rape, war and the likes.
Because we are hard wired that way. Thank evolutionary biology for that. The need to tear flesh is like a vestigle organ in the brain-- it was once a solid and welcomed part of being human and staying alive. The sacrifice motif is engrained, mythologically speaking. The Christ motif takes an existing metaphor in the attempt to saitate the beast.
Flick
It is a universal underlying trait. It doesn't matter what your religious or anti-religious stance may be. It's a part of the universal collective unconscious-- that's why it springs up in almost every religion regardless of how far the groups are separated.
Dudley Young's book explains this very well. The shedding of blood meant life to the ancients in that killing and eating are so closely tied. I suppose it still does. The American Indians for example has numerous different rituals surrounding the slaying of their next meal. Even today, a common ritual for deer hunters is applying a spash of blood to their face after killing their first deer. Blood is for very good reason attached to the concept of life. By consuming the flesh of the beast, we gain vitality.
Modern man thinks he has "grown-up" and no longer carries such superstitions in his highly developed brain. But these connections are made in his unconscious and are part of his evolutionary history; they find their way out in numerous un-pleasant ways. Why is it that in our highly developed and intelligent society we lead the world in murders per capita? Why does a movie like Hannibal draw millions to the theater? How does the American economy develop expressions like "dog-eat-dog" or why do merchants refer to patrons as "consumers?"
We are a society consumed by violence. It is estimated that a child will see over 100,000 acts of violence on television before he leaves middle school. Why? Because violence sells? Because it is stimulating to us? Why? Why do we instinctively find violence more appealing than peace? Look at any local news outlet... the bad is reported, because the bad is newsworthy. Why? Why are we in tune more with murder, rape, war and the likes.
Because we are hard wired that way. Thank evolutionary biology for that. The need to tear flesh is like a vestigle organ in the brain-- it was once a solid and welcomed part of being human and staying alive. The sacrifice motif is engrained, mythologically speaking. The Christ motif takes an existing metaphor in the attempt to saitate the beast.
Flick
Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
Oh, I understand our passion for violence, and how we satisfy it with video games and movies.. ( .... was comic books for me) But I don't see eating a cracker, taking a sip of wine and pretending you are snacking on Jesus, as filling this need. Sure the metaphor is there, but I would venture that 99% of the people who take communion would be revolted with the true meaning of what they are doing.
stamenflicker
Unregistered
S
The thing is it is a ritual. Rituals meets the needs of the subconscious and its particpants go through the ritual, not to gain a conscious understanding of the outer world, but to organize and distribute emotional-sprititual energy in their inner worlds. The notion that the Catholic church has taken such a powerful experience and tried to literalize it, has only served to reduce its mythological power base-- and I think in a sense it cheapens it.
I agree with you that most people would be revolted, even if they just think about it deeply for 5 minutes. I completed a screenplay in December 2001 that traces the elements of the sacrifice metaphor as it ran through characters in a highly competive community. I think most folks are totally oblivious to the implications, as you have noted. It sure made for some sickening and hilarious scenes though...
Flick
I agree with you that most people would be revolted, even if they just think about it deeply for 5 minutes. I completed a screenplay in December 2001 that traces the elements of the sacrifice metaphor as it ran through characters in a highly competive community. I think most folks are totally oblivious to the implications, as you have noted. It sure made for some sickening and hilarious scenes though...
Flick
shemp
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
What wine does one serve with Roast Leg of Jesus?
susheel
Unregistered
S
Anthropological studies have shown that ritualistic cannibalism is a part of quite a few cultures. Perhaps they are all remnants of a very distant past when cannibalism was very much a part of man's daily life.
Again, many pagan (somehow I dislike this word, but I am using it since I can's find a better one now) cultures have legends of cannibalism.
Hey there seems to be something for a really nice paper in this. Maybe I will work it out into an article.
Again, many pagan (somehow I dislike this word, but I am using it since I can's find a better one now) cultures have legends of cannibalism.
Hey there seems to be something for a really nice paper in this. Maybe I will work it out into an article.
Not that it really matters to anyone on this thread, but transubstantiation does not change the physical properties of the bread and wine, it changes the substance. In other words, it may look like bread and wine (and by any physical test it would remain bread and wine) but it's substance is no longer bread and wine. I'd be the first to acknowledge that it's hard to understand what substance there is beyond what you can physically detect, but that's what transubstantiation is alluding to. Here's a little blurb about it (written by a priest) if anyone cares:BillyTK said:
"Normally we speak of the substance of anything as that which makes a thing what it is. With transubstantiation, however, the substance of bread and wine becomes everything which Christ is. After transubstantiation, the physical properties of bread and wine remain. But the "itness" or "thingness" of bread and wine ceases to exist. What had been the substance of bread and wine now becomes the whole Christ, in the words of the Council of Trent, the totus Christus. "
It's a mystery most Catholics accept because of their faith in their Church, not because it makes any logical sense.
Tim
Rockon said:
Gah! Abusing Aristotle! Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad! Aristotle deserves to beat that blurb with a metal baseball bat, if he had one. "Itness," and "thingness" is a reference to ousia (better known as "thinghood") which is composed of substance and form, which excludes properties, but that means you can't affect thinghood, because thinghood is what underlies the substance and all the properties! If you were to cause the ousia of the bread cease to exist, the ability to rationalize form and its material would topple like a house of cards. If you want to change the "it-ness," you have to destroy the wafer, and you'd need to destroy the idea or form of a wafer, if you want to destroy wafer-ness itself, because the ousia underlies its properties as well as its materials (since they both come from the form of a wafer, which isn't destroyed). To quote the Metaphysics, in context this time (Sachs translation, which is incredibly close to the Greek, especially in meaning):
For example, in order to change the thinghood of a bronze statue, you would either have to melt it down and pour the bronze into a different cast (changing the form), or you would have to change the material, perhaps by pouring gold into the cast instead of bronze. So, you can't eliminate a statue without destroying its statue-ness that underlies it. You could destroy the form, perhaps by melting the statue and the cast the bronze was poured into down to an amorphous puddle, or destroy the material (you could separate the bronze into copper and tin while leaving the mould intact). But if you were to simply point to the statue and say "this is not a statue, because even though it looks like a statue and has the form of nude Aphrodite, it lacks the thingness underlying it" you're violating Aristotle's law of contradictions, that is, something cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respects that it is not. So the wafer cannot have the "itness" of the flesh of Christ if its original ousia is destroyed, and if the "itness" of flesh is to replace it, it must underlie a replacement in either substance or form, neither of which occurs.
No matter who tells you what it is, it is still the same chalky wafer it was before the priest got to it! Communion is all about ritual; it's supposed to be symbolic of accepting the gifts Jesus gave to mankind by his sacrifice, and it works better that way than if you decide to flush rational thought down the great metaphysical toilet in the process. Why are they coming up with complicated excuses for making it an act of cannibalism if they don't say that it is supposed to be cannibalism?
Barbarians.
In the case of Catholicism, it's not symbolic. It's the real presence of Jesus in the bread and wine. The ritualistic aspects of it are important, but Catholic doctrine states that there is a real miracle at every Mass when the transubstantiation ocurrs.c4ts said:
As to why....well, because Catholics believe that's what Jesus taught them. Catholics have always believed in transubstantiation, although the phrase wasn't coined until the 1200's I think.
Tim
Rockon said:
The only miracle I see is the ability to go mad and have a surreal tea party while they're at it. Happy unbirthday, Mr. Rabbit! Would you like some jam on your corpse flesh? I have all flavors but strawberry. Our human blood selection is very fine indeed, because we live in an English house. The salad oil was not rancid today. Waiter, I would like seven razor blades and a jar of vasoline...
GrapeJ713
Unregistered
G
communion thing
Maybe jesus turned himself into crackers and wine just before he died so xians wouldn't really be cannibals. I stole that from South Park, those guys really know how to skewer the faithful.
Maybe jesus turned himself into crackers and wine just before he died so xians wouldn't really be cannibals. I stole that from South Park, those guys really know how to skewer the faithful.