Quality Pipes

Daniel Pipes, not everyone's cup of tea (who is?), makes a most astute comment as the occasion of 10 Years After 9/11 approaches and he (along with 29 other writers) is asked by the Center for Security Policy: "Are We Safe?"

In part, says he:

However much politicians, journalists, and academics obscure the nature of the threat and the proper response to it, 9/11 began a discussion about Islam and Islamism that has not stopped. As the years go by and its quality improves, I am increasingly heartened. (September 8, 2011)

Upon much reflection (continuing), I agree.

Let the (quality) discussion(s) continue.

Lost Mystery?

Not my usual, but the following is an excerpt of an article from the Christian Research Journal by Ronald Nash.

What were the mystery religions?

Other than Judaism and Christianity, the mystery religions were the most influential religions in the early centuries after Christ. The reason these cults were called "mystery religions" is that they involved secret ceremonies known only to those initiated into the cult. The major benefit of these practices was thought to be some kind of salvation.

The mystery religions were not, of course, the only manifestations of the religious spirit in the eastern Roman Empire. One could also find public cults not requiring an initiation ceremony into secret beliefs and practices. The Greek Olympian religion and its Roman counterpart are examples of this type of religion.

Each Mediterranean region produced its own mystery religion. Out of Greece came the cults of Demeter and Dionysus, as well as the Eleusinian and Orphic mystery religions, which developed later.

Mystery Religion - Basic Traits

One must avoid any suggestion that there was one common mystery religion. While a tendency toward eclecti­cism or synthesis developed after A.D. 300, each of the mystery cults was a separate and distinct religion during the century that saw the birth of the Christian church. Moreover, each mystery cult assumed different forms in different cultural settings and underwent significant changes, especially after A.D. 100. Nevertheless, the mystery religions exhibited five common traits.

(1) Central to each mystery was its use of an annual vegetation cycle in which life is renewed each spring and dies each fall. Followers of the mystery cults found deep symbolic significance in the natural processes of growth, death, decay, and rebirth.

(2) As noted above, each cult made important use of secret ceremonies or mysteries, often in connection with an initiation rite. Each mystery religion also passed on a "secret" to the initiate that included information about the life of the cult's god or goddess and how humans might achieve unity with that deity. This "knowledge" was always a secret or esoteric knowledge, unattainable by any outside the circle of the cult.

(3) Each mystery also centered around a myth in which the deity either returned to life after death or else triumphed over his enemies. Implicit in the myth was the theme of redemption from everything earthly and temporal. The secret meaning of the cult and its accompanying myth was expressed in a "sacramental drama" that appealed largely to the feelings and emotions of the initiates. This religious ecstasy was supposed to lead them to think they were experiencing the beginning of a new life.

(4) The mysteries had little or no use for doctrine and correct belief. They were primarily concerned with the emotional life of their followers. The cults used many different means to affect the emotions and imaginations of initiates and hence bring about "union with the god": processions, fasting, a play, acts of purification, blazing lights, and esoteric liturgies. This lack of any emphasis on correct belief marked an important difference between the mysteries and Christianity.

The Christian faith was exclusivistic in the sense that it recognized only one legitimate path to God and salvation, Jesus Christ. The mysteries were inclusivistic in the sense that nothing prevented a believer in one cult from following other mysteries.

(5) The immediate goal of the initiates was a mystical experience that led them to feel they had achieved union with their god. Beyond this quest for mystical union were two more ultimate goals: some kind of redemption or salvation, and immortality.

Mystery Religion - Evolution

Before A.D. 100, the mystery religions were still largely confined to specific localities and were still a relatively novel phenomenon. After A.D. 100, they gradually began to attain a widespread popular influence throughout the Roman Empire. But they also underwent significant changes that often resulted from the various cults absorbing elements from each other. As devotees of the mysteries became increasingly eclectic in their beliefs and practices, new and odd combinations of the older mysteries began to emerge.

And as the cults continued to tone down the more objectionable features of their older practices, they began to attract greater numbers of followers.

The full article (in PDF form), "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?" lies here.

So has all this toning down, while certainly making some things less objectionable, concurrently washed away that most precious veneer (or substance) of mystery that made the lifestyle, the acts, the works [of true believers] so very appealing in the first place?

Where once, religion (including religious art and music) was the envy (or bane, occasionally) of the scientist as well as the common man; today, the scientist and the clever marketer have become the envy of those who profess and seek to substantiate their moral and/or religious (or spiritualized, if you will) vision.

In the process, somehow or somehere, the appeal to spiritual mystery and majesty, it seems, has been trivialized or abandoned.

At best, perhaps we might hope that such has merely been suspended or supplanted (temporarily?) by the great, worldwide flood of information and the multitude of modern scientific marvels feeding current voracious appetites for greater happiness, personal fulfillment and blind expediency.

With history a constant flux and, at least, seemingly, a neverending inconclusion, can an appealing (mysterious!) science/religion (and vice versa) synthesis or synergy ever fully emerge?

*******************************

Afterthought/Sidebar:

Dr. Frank Kaufmann cites research by Duke University religion and sociology Professor Mark Chaves on the decline in public faith in religious leaders.

Can confidence in the virtue of any one (living, breathing, that is) leader actually translate or transmute into some kind of general or widespread confidence (or public faith) in virtue itself?

And, ergo, can any faith, whether public or private, currently (or ever) truly be described as full, complete or even absolute?

********************************

"It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion."

~Albert Einstein

"Where mystery begins religion ends.”
 ~Edmund Burke

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Debt deals, eternal soul searching, justice wheels unmoving or notwithstanding, we live in very, very troubled times.

So who shall emerge (or lies hidden) as the world's bodyguard?

Can I have another Apple, please?

The United States of Apple: How Jobs & Co. Amassed More Cash Than The Federal Government

Five steps to Being Al (or Triple A or simply A1 [not the steak sauce, but oh, how my poor, depraved capitalist mouth drools right now):

1. Shatter conventional wisdom.

2. No limits.

3. Innovation wins.

4. Design matters.

5. Passion first.

"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again." ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Meanwhile, keeping with the Al (or A1) theme today, come these words:

"They are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar." ~Vladimir Putin

Oops, sorry that's Vlad (Bill).

Via The Telegraph on July 18th.

Way to keep it real, man.

In praise of . . .

Not all that long ago (1982 to be exact) there was a President who signed a mandate that freed 30 million pounds of processed cheese.

Back then, as part of an $11 billion farm price-support bill, the Government gave away ALL of THAT** surplus cheese to states for distribution to the needy. [!]

Explained President Ronald Wilson Reagan: "At a time when American families are under increasing financial pressure, their Government cannot sit by and watch millions of pounds of food turn to waste."

Well-aged; And sing along here with Keb' Mo'

Giveaways, government and otherwise have long been part of the great American free enterprise/marketing fabric.

Witness the more recent, happy phenomena of Oprah Winfrey and it becomes apparent that altruism clothed in giveaways, great and small, can indeed capture and captivate a MASSIVE NUMBER, however one may care to categorize or describe that.
Elsewhere, less noticeable perhaps, there have been (and remain) ubiquitous examples of such generous marketing of "favorite" (or surplus) things to the public for (even) more evangelical or purported spiritual purposes.

The Gideons (or The Gideons International) founded in 1899 stand as perhaps the quietest and most enduring example of this.

Marking just over 100 years of "freely" distributing Bibles, The Gideons remain a formidable, albeit, often unheralded force for sharing "God's Word" as such "can and does lead people to faith in Christ, and those new Christians then grow by studying their Scriptures and even use them to share their faith with others" in association with the massive, worldwide Presbyterian/Protestant Church community.

As stated among certain frequently asked questions on its website, Gideon membership is open to "Christian businessmen and professional men age 21 and older (or retired businessmen and professional men) who adhere to the core spiritual beliefs held by Gideons. In addition to meeting our professional and spiritual qualifications, potential Gideons must also be recommended by their pastors."

The core spiritual beliefs remain the same distillation of Biblical devotion as ever:

Become . . . a Christian.

May all such enduring devotions, giveaways and quiet crusades, whether utilizing such marketing genius or not, lead the complicated masses of over-brimming humanity to the same conclusion.

Bhaktipedia today

Came across this very interesting resource and found this entry (coinciding with a fairly vivid dream myself, earlier) by Swami B.A. Paramadvait, particularly poignant:

Blind faith is confusion. Manipulated faith means that you have lost track by
being misguided by those who are not truthful. You have to give them up in order
to make some real progress. Distorted faith is what you have produced yourself
by your own cheating mentality, by being too attached to matter and sense
gratification. Very often the loss of superior faith takes place by being
involved with activities in distorted faith, such as intoxication.

When you take intoxicants, like tobacco, marihuana, different drugs or alcohol,
even your positive, constructive, reasonable faith may become shaken. But that
is your mistake.

Disheartened faith is something else, which is more or less produced by having
encounters with people who disheartened you. You may have trusted them, but then
you got abandoned. That is of course a very painful experience. You have to go
through this to realize that only the truth, and the souls who are purely
dedicated to the truth, or at least those who are pure in purpose, can provide
healing faith. They have real faith, positive healing transcendental faith. You
will become disheartened when you put too much faith in somebody who does not
have these qualifications. Having been disheartened should encourage you to find
somebody appropriate to put your faith in.

We cannot walk without faith. We cannot even eat without faith. If you ate
something, which gave you a lot of pain in your stomach, then next time you
would not eat it. You would no longer have faith in that food. If something like
this happened, you would not stop eating altogether. You would try to go
somewhere else and get something else. If this something else gave you good
nutrition, then you would put your faith in that type of food. Disheartened
faith in that sense is an aid to finding real faith.

More readings in "perennial psychology" may be found here.


*****

Amidst certain gloom and doom, today I dreamt of a simple, joyful couple, living
in faith and truly sharing that, as reality.

May such dreams, however rare, never fade away . . .

History as pop culture

Contemplating universal law and other proprietaries this morning, came across this somewhat entertaining (2006-7) take on such from HBO's "Assume the Position [ATP] with Mr. [Robert] Wuhl."
The language may be offensive to some.





And if one cares for more:

Part II is here.

Part III can be found here.

Part IIII is found here.

"ATP 201" can be found here.

All content is subject to copyright and possible removal by Youtube.

The Healing Shield

Amidst the horror, the abuse, the absolute evil, and between that, the violent volleys of various wars (versus "not war"), a friend sent me this elegant piece of (partially translated) Cherokee verse.

O'siyo Great Spirit, I am Mother.

I was made by You so that the image of Your love

could be brought into existence.

May I always carry with me

the sacredness of this honor.

Creator, I am Daughter.

I am the learner of the Traditions.

May I carry them forward so that

the Elders and Ancestors will be

remembered for all time.

Maker-of-all-things, I am Sister.

Through me, may my brothers be shown

the manner in which I am to be respected.

May I join with my sisters in strength and power as a Healing Shield

so that they will no longer bear the stain of abuse.

Niskam, I am Committed Partner:

One who shares her spirit,

But is wise to remember never to give it away,

Lest it be lost,

And the two become less than one.

I am Woman,

Hear me "Great Spirit"

Da na da

Niskam = the act of unconditional giving or loving

O'siyo = welcome

Da na da = peace be with you, or go in peace

And lest any forget, The Trail of Tears . . .