Myth and Ritual

[Ecurb]

I once attended an Orthodox church service. Their promotional literature interested me. From memory, the Orthodox claim that Protestants (especially fundamentalists) ignore Jesus' commands ("This do in remembrance of me.") and have a limited view of Christianity (sola scriptura). The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, have added to apostolic Christianity (with their hierarchies and papal infallibility, etc.)

The Protestant notion that myth and “belief” are the foundations of religion is, I think, dubious. Ritual may be necessary to inspire faith,create a meditative state, and foment the communal feelings engendered by religion.

The “myth/ritual” school of anthropology that developed at Cambridge suggested that rituals may have predated myths, and myth developed to explain the rituals. Thus ritual is the foundation of religion. This makes sense in that non-linguistic animals often engage in strange rituals, but, of course, cannot tell myths.

The relationship between myth and ritual is unclear. Doubtless some myths developed as an explanation of rituals, and some rituals developed as a celebration of myth (as Malinowski pointed out). Nonetheless, the Fundamentalist emphasis on myth is, I think, problematic.

Happy Easter! And one of my favorite biblical quotes: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

[Stoppelmann]

I once attended an Orthodox church service. Their promotional literature interested me. From memory, the Orthodox claim that Protestants (especially fundamentalists) ignore Jesus' commands ("This do in remembrance of me.") and have a limited view of Christianity (sola scriptura). The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, have added to apostolic Christianity (with their hierarchies and papal infallibility, etc.)

The Protestant notion that myth and “belief” are the foundations of religion is, I think, dubious. Ritual may be necessary to inspire faith,create a meditative state, and foment the communal feelings engendered by religion.

I think you are right and that the enacted narrative (ritual) preceded the written one, which seems straightforward in a way. The whole issue of how religion grew seems to me to revolve around ritual, whether as coming-of-age ceremonies, nuptial rituals, healing and funeral rites, hunting rituals, harvest rituals, worship or remembrance rituals, invocation via prayer, meditation, chanting, dance and singing. Of course, there may have been a mixture of such elements.

Not only religion will have grown from these beginnings, but also shamanic artistic or theatrical performances intended to evoke a particular emotional or psychological response as well as formalized ceremonies or events that are used to mark important transitions, such as the inauguration of a new leader. So, I think that ritual is an important part of our ability to think on a meta level of thought, which seems to have started by projecting ideas as narratives using various methods.

Unfortunately, especially Protestant traditions seem to imagine the narrative as a kind of history, and believing in this deity or that as foundational, because scripture plays such an important role in Judeo-Christian tradition and it is assumed that the tradition grew in those circles rather than having been gathered from surrounding cultures, and redacted to form a narrative. Rituals were re-imagined as the church grew, but the Reformation was the begin of puritanism, of censorious moral beliefs, especially about self-indulgence and sex, but also sought to eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.

Happy Easter! And one of my favorite biblical quotes: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

Happy Easter, and that is an important question …

[The Beast]

Resurrection.
… and there is Erica Hunter at Cambridge. Is there any difference in the wiring (patterns of motions) of males and females. It would imply the term “witchy woman” versus “the Prophet”. What is it like?

[Leontiskos]

I once attended an Orthodox church service. Their promotional literature interested me. From memory, the Orthodox claim that Protestants (especially fundamentalists) ignore Jesus' commands ("This do in remembrance of me.") and have a limited view of Christianity (sola scriptura). The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, have added to apostolic Christianity (with their hierarchies and papal infallibility, etc.)

The Protestant notion that myth and “belief” are the foundations of religion is, I think, dubious. Ritual may be necessary to inspire faith,create a meditative state, and foment the communal feelings engendered by religion.

The “myth/ritual” school of anthropology that developed at Cambridge suggested that rituals may have predated myths, and myth developed to explain the rituals. Thus ritual is the foundation of religion. This makes sense in that non-linguistic animals often engage in strange rituals, but, of course, cannot tell myths.

The relationship between myth and ritual is unclear. Doubtless some myths developed as an explanation of rituals, and some rituals developed as a celebration of myth (as Malinowski pointed out). Nonetheless, the Fundamentalist emphasis on myth is, I think, problematic.

Yes, I do not think that more abstract elements like myth or belief are self-supporting or able to provide a real foundation. I actually don't think ritual is sufficient to explain the genesis of religions either, but it is closer to experience and therefore more plausible. Certainly a religion cannot be sustained over time without ritual elements.

Happy Easter! And one of my favorite biblical quotes: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

Happy Easter!

[Stoppelmann]

Yes, I do not think that more abstract elements like myth or belief are self-supporting or able to provide a real foundation. I actually don't think ritual is sufficient to explain the genesis of religions either, but it is closer to experience and therefore more plausible. Certainly a religion cannot be sustained over time without ritual elements.

And the problem is, in my eyes, that less wholesome rituals are becoming popular in society, because we have lost the meaning behind the more traditional ones.

[AgentSmith]

There are rituals, a whole bloody set of them, and also, lucky us, there's a whole bloody set of myths. A certain quotation is perfect for the occasion but woe is me, memory issues, age has taken its toll on me poor brain. Perhaps someone can connect the dots for me; may beno one will. Allah rahim. What's the Kasparov move? Any ideas?

[The Beast]

The word Catholic means all-embracing path and Universal path or the purification way. There is the addition of apostolic (teachings) and Roman (rites of purification and doctrine). Part of the root doctrine is the issuing of special privileges and decrees as was the case with Limbo. Technically, every Christian is Catholic. However, it is in the name (doctrine) we know the orthodoxy. Moreover. Instead of Catholic they may choose Advent or Method of Salvation, etc.…

[Belindi]

Rituals developed from important actions that are necessarily repetitive such as spinning, forging, hunting, planting,harvesting, defending. These activities are so important that people protect them by magically connecting them to gods, and make up stories about them stories that we call myths.

[anshu2101]

Deep learning online course is a branch of artificial intelligence that relies on data representations rather than task-specific methods. It is sometimes referred to as deep neural learning or deep neural network. Unsupervised, supervised, and semi-supervised learning can all be conducted using this tool.

[ezechuckwu]

Yes it's pure and Claire but people underestimate it due to existing in curt of Christianity blindness.

[thequietdramatist]

The relationship between myth and ritual is unclear. Doubtless some myths developed as an explanation of rituals, and some rituals developed as a celebration of myth (as Malinowski pointed out). Nonetheless, the Fundamentalist emphasis on myth is, I think, problematic.

It sounds like the chicken and the egg argument. Which came first the ritual or the myth?

I think what came first was someone wanting something and then they created a myth as a way of getting it. For example, the myth of Jesus makes everyone guilty even before they have done anything. You are eternally in Jesus' debt for paying for your sins. What a great way to control people!

[Belindi]

The relationship between myth and ritual is unclear. Doubtless some myths developed as an explanation of rituals, and some rituals developed as a celebration of myth (as Malinowski pointed out). Nonetheless, the Fundamentalist emphasis on myth is, I think, problematic.

It sounds like the chicken and the egg argument. Which came first the ritual or the myth?

I think what came first was someone wanting something and then they created a myth as a way of getting it. For example, the myth of Jesus makes everyone guilty even before they have done anything. You are eternally in Jesus' debt for paying for your sins. What a great way to control people!

Is it not possible to take care of others and so hold society together, without also believing the doctrine of the Atonement?