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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Stupid old fart
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Feb 11, 2008, 18:20
Re: Stupid old fart
Feb 11, 2008, 07:40
grufty jim wrote:
Holy crap. I've just gone and read the Magna Carta (probably for the first time since High School!) and it's one of the most religious, christian documents you'll ever read. I can't see how anyone can think it's a secular document when the first paragraph announces that the whole reason it's being written is "out of reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honor of God and the exaltation of holy church..." And it goes on and on like that. I'd forgotten just how religious it was.


Moses and Jesus. Two very enduring myths.

Just because we think we don't believe in them any more doesn't mean they aren't still doing their work in "secular" society and in mysterious ways. We think we determine our own moral systems as free-thinkers but really we don't. I wish we did.

For example lets look at food.

If our culture and societal structures were informed by say Hindu, Jannist or Sikh thought we might consider meat eating anathema. We take it for granted that meat eating is ok unless you actively opt-out. Not because it is "natural" in some Darwinist sense but because Christian and Muslim thought by and large says it is perfectly ok to kill animals. Seventh Day Adventists aside. Correct me if I am wrong but at root what is Halal about if not a form of ritual sacrifice in echo of Abraham?

Jewish food laws appear more complicated. Someone who knows would have to tell me the nuances but from the outside it looks like Kashrut leans heavily towards vegetarianism but those leanings are supressed in order for its adherents to be assimilated into "secular" / Christian society.

Anyway you follow my point. There is a religious concensus that killing animals is absolutely ok so those who chose not to are considered unusual. Not morally superior. More kooky outsiders. You can extrapolate the same kind of track-back to almost any aspect of society. We think we make this stuff up that we have "free will" and a unique personal intelligence but we inherit these allegedly freely considered ideas from myth and superstition.

It's a lot harder to kill these old Gods than we think and yet we've been at it for 250 years or so.

When we feel pressured into taking sides in a death match of faiths (which is what Williams is all about - a classic case of "to defeat your enemy sing his song") you can be pretty sure that there a lot of people just like us in all the other faith camps feelign coerced. The old grey men of both camps are interested in obedience first and foremost.

Just watch as these two religions go to war with secular society (each using the fear of the "other" as the bait) and then with each other.
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