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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (14057)	4/17/1998 3:56:00 AM
From: marcos	Respond to of 39621

Catholicism has been quite mixed with previous religions in a number of places, for instance just north of San Crist¢bal in Chiapas is a village named San Juan Chomula, whose very Catholic people believe that Christ rose from the cross to become the Sun (in English there's a pun in that, the 'Sun of God', but it doesn't work in Spanish or Tzotzil). Carnaval is an intensive festival of many days there, the pre-Lent celebrations of Christianity just happened to coincide with the five 'lost days' of the Mayan calendar, which had eighteen 'months' of twenty days each, with five left over as the biggest holiday of the year. The people have extremely strong feelings against photographs being taken in the church, it is a serious offence to take them. Actually, the whole Catholic church in M‚xico was made uniquely mexicana when, not long after Cort‚s arrived with his priests, the Virgen de Guadalupe 'appeared' before a peasant named Juan Diego. The resulting wave of belief among the people made the control by their Spanish rulers much easier. It's their own belief, though, and it changes from village to village, and much of previous belief is wrapped up in it. The names of dates and practices get changed, but the style and the basic structure lives on. There are counterparts everywhere. For example, the English word 'Easter' comes from the Babylonian goddess Astarte or Ishtar, who became Aphrodite among the Greeks; csun.edu - and our Easter just happens to happen about the same time that all Northern Hemisphere peoples have always had their festival of Spring. Likewise Christmas - it's hard to believe any other origin than a celebration of the winter solstice, predating Christ by many centuries. And 'Sunday' comes from 'Sonntag', the day devoted to the chief god of the Norse. Somebody once said that 'if God didn't exist, it would be necessary for Man to invent him'. Well ... I see this as unknowable, undebateable, the question of the existence of God .... but clearly if religion did not exist, it would be necessary for Man to invent it, as considerable numbers of individuals in any society seem to feel a strong need for a stable organized structure of beliefs. And of course, each people invents their religion, their concept of 'God' and what He wants from them, in their own image. Which would be fine, if they didn't fight about it -g- ........ cheers ....... marcos