Re: Conciliatory moves over Easter

At 13:22 30.4.2000 +0900, Adrian Morgan wrote:

>In ancient times religion was a very nationalistic
>thing - people worshipped the gods so that their
>nation would be favoured over others, and the nature
>of worship was intimately tied to culture. Into this
>world Christianity came, and one of its basic
>tenents was and is that religion is _not_ a question
>of culture, that it _transcends_ culture, that no
>culture is favoured by God.
No offense, but that is true also of Buddhism -- the Buddha (died 544 BCE)
said that the true brahman, the true arya  (i.e. "noble") was to be defined
by the practice of Dharma, not by descent or race.  Indian monks have
wandered north and east spreading the Dharma to the non-Aryans of central
and east Asia?

This difference in orientation is essentially what I meant by "pagan" vs.
"revealed".  I'm sorry that I didn't make myself entirely clear on that.  I
also perceive that those calling themselves _pagans_ today share this
openness to people of all origins.  I apologize if I have offended anyone
by my parlance.  I shall make sure to refer to "ethnic" vs. "world"
religions in the future!  (Maybe there is some kind of n-ary opposition
here, just as there is a trinary opposition
"ethnic"--"constructed"--"natural" language, unlike what is implied by
traditional terminology of IALists.)




/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson
mailto:bpj@netg.se
mailto:melroch@my-deja.com
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