THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: talk.euthanasia,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.religion.christian,alt.recovery.catholicism,talk.religion.misc,alt.tasteless,alt.consumers
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Subject: IDanziger: Symbolic Ritual Cannibalism
Date: 23 Dec 1996 22:33:43 -0800

[from alt.christnet: cp377@torfree.net (Itamar Danziger)]
[some duplication removed]

R F Minchin :
>Stix (stix@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>: >As many of you know, the Catholic mass contains certain points where
>: >worshippers are expected to kneel, particularly at the consecration of
>: >the host.

>: Call it what it is. "Symbolic Ritual Cannibalism."

>Out of these three words, only ritual is correct.
>1) Symbolic - it is not a symbol, it is truly the body and blood of our
>saviour

>2) Cannibalism - Christ was the Son of God.  We do not eat the body of a
>man, we take the body and blood of the Saviour as he commanded.

No! I think that you are wrong and that the other two words are correct as 
well.

You don't even know the basics of your own faith.  If I was your Catholic 
Priest I would send you back to school. Go and take a refresher course in 
basic catholic teachings....

The Roman Catholic Church claims that Jesus is "Fully Human and Fully Divine"

He is said to be both Human and God.  That is, a real living human person 
and the 2nd person of the trinity.

Semanticly speaking, the term "Symbolic Ritual Cannibalism" is neither correct 
or incorrect although I would personally agree with it 100%.

It is an epistemological stance.  It is what most people see when they watch 
the mass, if they are open minded excatholics or noncatholics. Or in other 
words if they are not conditioned into believing the anti-rational stance of 
the RCC on this issue.

The do not see human blood and human flesh, they see bread and wine treated 
as though it were human flesh and human blood, hence "symbolic". Most other 
Christian churches hold that this ritual called communion is symbolic. So this 
is just a theological tiff within a fragmented and fragmenting Christianity.

As for cannibalism. If Jesus was and is human and I see another human 
eating something that is said to be his body and drinking his blood then I 
call that cannibalism and so would any other truthful and rational person 
whether they are a Catholic or not. It is either symbolic or actual 
cannibalism according to where you stand on transubstanciation but it 
is cannibalism certainly.

The point is you don't agree that it is symbolic and you don't like the word 
cannibalism. Do you?

Why bother about the word cannibalism?  The question is not if it is 
cannibalism but is it OK? and does it do what it purports to do?

I think it is truly psychopathic and disgusting to do this and a great evil 
to teach this belief and behaviour to children. I think it is a part of the 
"Catholic Church Mind Abuse" that catholic children are subjected to.  That 
is, a part of the guilt trip conditioning at the center of the RCC 
indoctrination process.

Not only are children taught that they killed Jesus but they are also taught 
that to overcome the guilt of this, they must eat him as well !!!

However I read that  after a plane crash some survivors have engaged in 
eating the meat from the bodies of their dead travelling companions as opposed 
to starving to death. In these circumstances I would agree with the decision 
taken by the authorities not prosecute these people. Though I understand that 
some of them had to have psychiatric treatment for the shame and self disgust 
that they felt about having to do this, even to survive.

What we have with Catholicism is people doing this thing every day in the 
belief that it is happening on some spiritual plain as opposed to in the 
material world.  They are taught that it somehow protects them from 
the eternal fire, (another part of the Catholic Church Mind Abuse).  This is 
fukked up metaphysics about dividing things into natural and supernatural 
categories with all the tortuous strangulated theological gymnastics that 
results from this.

The real truth as far as we have so far discovered it, is that there is a 
continuum between subtle phenomena and gross physical phenomena.
The universe is a whole, it is not split into such different categories and 
the more we see of it, the more truly interconnected and amazing it is.  To 
my mind this is more profound than all the human texts about religion put 
together( and I have some familiarity with most of them). The problem we have 
with many of our older religions like the RCC is that their paradigms no 
longer make even the limited sense that they once may have before they were 
corrupted by the usual political power games that humans play.  Indeed I would 
hold that they have been really harmful and have lead to untold suffering 
throughout history that is now being amplified by modern communications and 
technology.

It is time our species grew up.  FYI  I am not a Christian, an atheist, an 
agnostic or religious.  I am however spiritual and open minded.

We need to go in another direction, not back to mysticism or on to an new form 
of irrationality.  There are certain things that we do not know. We are asking 
the wrong questions.

Most of the people who post stuff on these groups including those who make 
nasty cross postings to groups that do not want these intrusions are ignorant 
of their own professed beliefs, never mind other branches of Christianity, who 
they hold in scorn.  They are not familiar mostly with even the basics of 
other traditions and other religions. They have not studied much comparative 
religion or anthropology and so are really not really well informed enough to 
expound their ideas, which mainly consist of ignorant bigotrys, in a public 
forum - but of course that does not stop them.  What I see is lots of spiteful 
opinionated ignorance pretending to be open debate and loads of spam.

Most of you don't even know that your Jesus is really the product of syncretic 
encounter between the faiths of monotheistic Mesopotamia and polytheistic 
Egypt and Greece, and that if he is anything he is the Piscean Avatar of this 
syncretic faith.   It has also happened elsewhere as in the Sikh faith founded in the 
Punjab in India. Sikhism is a syncretic blend of Hinduism and Islam.

What? you don't know what is meant by Piscean Avatar? Then get thee to a 
library or surf the net until you find out.

That however is only an explanation based on an understanding of world 
religious history and the fusions between adjacent belief systems. I have no 
answer to religious bigotry and ignorance other than suggesting that you read 
and read and discuss and think and ....then....think again.