Posts Tagged ‘tradition’

lyrics: Mark 7:7 (human traditions vs the rules of heaven)

March 22, 2012

 

Mark 7:7

 

 

English: Jesus ascending to heaven

English: Jesus ascending to heaven (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

You don’t even know

 

that you’re open

 

till you notice

 

someone close

 

In your heart

 

is the whole world

 

In your eyes
heaven shows

 

 

You have no issues of what should be

 

You have no problems with what is

 

You have no devils to save by shaming

 

You have no saviors to worship

 

You have no ill will to be healed

 

You have no idols to defend

 

with any arguments or old reasons

 

to agree with you about them

 

 

English: President George W. Bush and Presiden...

English: President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

Who only heard the words

 

and who got the message

 

who saw the light of heaven

 

shining from within

 

who talks a lot about it

 

and who demonstrates
who merely believes in it

 

and who walks in faith

 

 

I have no issues of what should be
I have no problems with what is
I have no devils to save by shaming
I have no saviors to worship
I have no ill will to be healed
I have no idols to defend
with any arguments or old reasons
to agree with me about them

 

 

There was a prophet named Isaiah

 

and Jesus quoted him

 

in the book of Mark (seven seven):

 

 

“in vain some worship
human traditions

 

instead of the rules

 

of heaven”

 

 

 

I don’t even know
that I’m open
till I notice
someone close
In my heart
is the whole world
In my eyes
heaven shows
We have no issues of what should be
We have no problems with what is
We have no devils to save by shaming
We have no saviors to worship
in vain

 

 

Ron Paul

Ron Paul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Published on: May 27, 2010

 

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Who can we trust?

December 14, 2011

Who can we REALLY trust?

Our elders?    Mine taught me to believe in Santa Claus
Churches?      Besides Santa, one church taught us that the sun goes around the earth
Doctors?        They taught us that scurvy was incurable (and that smoking was safe)
The Media?   They did not warn us about economic instabilities
Politicians?   Right, as if our politicians are more trustworthy than politicians in general!


Beware of trusting tradition. Traditions come and go. Respect them, but do not worship them.

Copernicus and Galileo both noted that the earth revolves around the sun, but only Galileo attracted the wrath of the ruling Empire of organized coercion by proudly challenging tradition. Nearly two thousand years before them, Aristarchus, Seleucus, and even Archimedes had also publicly referenced the idea that the earth revolved around the sun, though Archimedes simply acknowledged the model while rejecting it as false.

English: Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition,...

Galileo facing the Holy Roman Inquisition- Image via Wikipedia

So, it is one thing to merely reference something like Archimedes did, another to confirm it, and yet another to openly disrespect tradition by advocating a model contrary to popular superstition and even publicizing the error of egomaniacal dictators. Galileo was emphatically warned that aggressively publicizing his model (of an earth that revolves around the sun) would result in personal punishment and then he openly risked that punishment, resulting in his conviction as a heretic by the Inquisition. He was spared the typical death sentence of ritual human sacrifice of the Holy Roman Empire‘s Inquisition and was even spared imprisonment or torture, instead only being placed under “house arrest” for the rest of his life (9 years).

Two priests demand a heretic to repent as he i...

"Two priests torture a heretic and demand that he repent." Image via Wikipedia

Now, there are many popular beliefs which may be myths, from Santa Claus to geocentric models of astronomy to political intolerance, like the theatrical anti-communist purges headed by US Senator Joe McCarthy. Ironically, that anti-communist purge was rather similar to any other purge, including communist purges. The McCarthy purge was rather like it would be to organize a counter-Inquisition to purge all Catholics as punishment for the historic Inquisition by a few Catholics centuries before: a replication of the thing it is alleged to oppose or prevent, a mere hijacking of the prior tradition, a clear hypocrisy.

Some people shout and scream and rage each time that a politician is exposed as a hypocrite. Eventually, one may notice a pattern: a high proportion of the politicians in world history have condemned behavior patterns that they were practicing themselves at the time, especially deception (but also coercion).
But why condemn spies for practicing deception? Why condemn assassins for practicing violence and terrorism? Why condemn commercial advertising propagandists for cultivating distraction, disinformation, and confusion?

That is the clear function of mainstream media and education, and what would actually be really odd would be frequent disclaimers warning the masses that commercials are designed to influence perception and behavior. So, have we been trained to condemn certain practices primarily in order to discourage us from practicing them- or at least openly practicing them?
Historically, there have been many social institutions that have cultivated antagonism against their own institution and then punished the rebellion. Courts need crimes (and criminals). Armies need enemies, like in the US Civil War in which the Union Army invaded and occupied the people living in territories that wished to basically get a divorce from the USA.

However, could any individual or group in the governments of those states legitimately speak for all of the people of those territories? While several leaders of the Rebel Confederacy may have favored secession, which sectors of the population favored or opposed secession? How about Native Americans? (Oddly enough, various groups of Native Americans and even slaves may have fought on both sides of the Civil War.)

Some people may say that the sacred principles of property rights were being defended by the Confederate soldiers: the legal right to own another human being as property. Many of the “moral justification ideologies” of politicians that are popular within a particular group at some time are later relaxed or even reversed. Even the Roman Catholic Church officially reversed it’s position on Galileo’s heliocentrism in 1992 (which was 359 years after his trial, conviction and sentencing for the crime of heresy).

The government of the US has famously reversed it’s position on such issues as slavery, the right of women to vote, and the criminalization of alcohol. In fact, what was once a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment, speaking the Navajo language, was later a famous “secret weapon” of US Military in World War 2. Also, about two hundred years after the religious freedom at least of certain white males was protected in the US, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 was passed (yes, even protecting religious practices that included the use of the Navajo language).

Traditions come and go. Respect them, but do not worship them. Beware of trusting them.

Jesus apparently taught “cease condemnation and forgive.” Obviously, not everyone who may appreciate something about the story of Jesus is aware of that specific teaching, and further not all who are aware of it are equally developed in the practice of forgiveness or humble repentance from condemnation.

Shall we condemn them for even only a recent history of condemning? Shall we add to the already long history of religious hypocrisy? We could. We could even simply condemn all people who condemn people, or at least condemn some of the people who condemn people.

We could also condemn the media for doing what they have always done, or condemn the politicians for doing what they have always done, or condemn any of the traditionalists for resisting alternative theoretical models, like by condemning those models. So we could condemn some or all traditions and traditionalism.

We could even condemn being respectful of traditions and traditionalism rather than contemptuous. We could make contempt in to a new tradition to champion.

“Contempt is next to Godliness,” we could shout. We could write it on signs: “What we need is more contempt! Okay, maybe I don’t need more contempt, but obviously you do!”

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Prophets and Traditionalists

September 18, 2010

Dignified prophets and argumentative Traditionalists


note: the free hosting service of this video may begin with an ad and the audio volume may be loud.

Prophets discover principles of how life works. More specifically, prophets communicate principles which may be crystallized or canonized into distinct traditions.

In other words, prophets do not require a prior tradition. Prophets originate traditions.

Cultural traditions of reverence and sanctity and ritual are diverse. For instance, some rituals that have been popular throughout human history are birth rituals, death rituals, and marriage rituals, as well as rituals like coronations and court proceedings.

Many traditions that begin as oral traditions may eventually be recorded or transcribed into particular codes of written languages. Many traditions (whether written or only oral) include parables. Parables are often used by prophets for telling several different stories to distinguish a single principle.

Even if focusing on a single principle, prophets tend to give several teachings. They tend not to focus on the specific form of a particular message.

For instance, prophets are not focused on particular parables as more sacred than all other parables. Further, prophets are not focused on assessing particular translations of ancient teachings in foreign languages because prophets rely on direct understanding rather than on the words of other prior traditions. Prophets give new forms of teaching, even if they are teaching the same principles as prior prophets… and even if they are giving oral teaching in the same languages used by prior prophets.

Traditionalists, as distinct from prophets, may focus on worshiping certain words or sequences as more sacred than other words or sequences. They may worship other symbols as well, in addition to certain sequences of sounds or shaped lettering.

Many traditionalists also worship a particular prophet who is specified as the primary founder of their favorite tradition. Ironically, prophets tend to openly acknowledge previous prophets, like Jesus saying that he is fulfilling, not rejecting, prior teachings.

Apparently, Jesus quoted from the Old Testament teachings of Isaiah:

 “…They worship with their lips, but their hearts are far from me and are ignorant of me. They worship in vain, teaching the traditions of humans and neglecting divine authority.”
Mark 7:6-7, Matthew 15:8-9

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” http://bible.cc/isaiah/29-13.htm

In contrast with prophets who clearly emphasize the spirit or heart or function of various messages rather than the specific form of a particular message, traditionalists tend to emphasize one prophet as more prophetic than all others. Traditionalists may also focus on particular words of a certain prophet and ignore other words of that prophet, such as ignoring the passages quoted above.

Traditionalists may focus on certain details of their favorite tradition and may neglect the spirit by which the tradition originates. The traditionalists may be adversarial, antagonistic, oppositional, argumentative, crusading, and militant.

So, traditionalists may also worship a particular tradition as better or “more traditional” than all other traditions. Such idolatry is distinct from simply studying or practicing a certain tradition. Traditionalists are focused on contrasting different traditions and finding the best one, the best translation, the best author, and the very best variation of the best tradition.

Traditionalists tend to associate with others who share the details of their own traditionalism as well as to magnetically focus on some other group of traditionalists as especially offensive. Pharisees and Sadducees may fiercely oppose each other. Protestants and Catholics may fiercely oppose each other. Sunnis and Shi’ites may fiercely oppose each other. Even Democrats and Republicans or Constitutionalists and Reformers may fiercely oppose each other.

By the way, most reformers are actually traditionalists. Reformers just promote certain traditional values over other traditional values.

One of the classic ironies of traditionalism is that all traditionalists not only worship their own tradition, but distinctively oppose all other forms of traditionalism, perhaps reserving special contempt for any tradition that they previously worshiped but later rejected. Traditionalists tend to ridicule and condemn other traditions and other traditionalists, again, often emphasizing certain targets of spite.

By the way, all prophets may be former traditionalists. Prophets alone do not condemn traditionalism or idolatry or vanity. Prophets alone honor all traditions equally, without being threatened by any of them. Prophets alone are so humble.

Prophets alone bless those who might accuse them, who might ridicule them, who might condemn them. Prophets alone are so grounded, so rooted, so radical. Prophets alone accept that traditions will form, reform, and dissolve. Prophets alone accept that other prophets will follow them, saying things like “another new messenger of divine authority in the future will come again.”

Prophets always predict later prophets. Traditionalists tend to interpret the references to a future prophet as “a second coming.” However, perhaps what the prophets have been referencing is that occasionally a traditionalist will develop or mature into a prophet. Perhaps prophets know that in the future a prophet will be born again, not in the way that traditionalists mean “born again,” but in the way that prophets mean.

The prophet’s rebirth is a spiritual rebirth, a rebirth of the heart. It is natural and thus common that traditionalists would ritualize the idea of spiritual rebirth into a ritualized rebirth. So, in addition to rituals for birth, death, and marriage, another form of ritual that is widespread throughout human cultures are initiation rituals that symbolize spiritual rebirth.

However, only authentic spiritual rebirth itself can produce a prophet from a traditionalist. Applying the label of butterfly to a caterpillar does not change the actual nature of the caterpillar. A prophet is not made into a prophet by being newly declared to be an officer of an existing institution, such as one who is ritually given a title, inducted and who swears an oath of office to conform to the traditions of the institution. A prophet is simply one who discovers directly- like alone for himself or herself- how life actually is working.

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