@ Harlequin
I'm not talking about myself, nor about yourself. I'm just making a point on something that anyone with basic knowledge on social sciences can reason if they try. That you believe I'm talking about the festival not being exactly the same tells me you weren't paying attention: I'm not talking about the external form of the festival but about the meanings, inherited of social and cultural contexts one way or another, that you will give the actions you are going through.
And that's important because we are talking both magick and religion, which by being an ordained priest on a witch cult you should pretty much know comes down, in the end, to nothing but meaning and intention, to
will. A ritual, any ritual, in a cultural or social void is naught but meaningless actions and empty words, without power nor soul. Isn't it the same, then, for a religious festival whose link with the origin, the soul of that festival is lost? Whose link to the very culture who experienced that
original something and put it into symbolic actions is broken?
Isn't it the same as little kids trying to act their understanding of what their parents' world is, only without actual parents to explain to them what are they misunderstanding?
And don't take this personally. I'm just discusing something I consider important given we are in a position where even not being of the same mind we can, I supose, understand the point the other one's trying to make without writing the long essays this usually requires.
And, in any case, yes, any religion, under those conditions, is bogus. Not because religion is inherently wrong, but because religion without the meanings and the spirit is nothing but empty posturing and vain ritual.
Oh, and,
4. Please don't quote the bible to make a point. It is a mistranslated, contradictory, man made/edited book put together during the first council of nicaea. IMO you might as well quote the great pumpkin to 'prove' something. Remove the bible from you discussion, put in a real history book and then we can have a nice conversation. I don't debate fiction and pretend its fact.
Don't even try. The infernal court and all the little fairies know we tried, to no avail, already, more than once. It just enters through the one ear and leaves through the other one.
@ Kz3r0
Kz3r0 got serious. This is going to get bloody.
@ zahratustra
Yes, that very same kind of thingie. It happens everywhere in one way or another, and while it is understandable given the lack of meaning and, uhm, soul in many aspects of the modern world they should be trying to find their own link to whatever it is they are looking for, and trying to build their own spirituality around that link, instead of doing exactly the same stuffie they are trying to run away from: A world that absorvs thingies into itself and regurgitates it after drinking all meaning and spirit.