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seer comments on Psychological validity of the "Seven deadly sins"? - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: InquilineKea 17 March 2015 01:25AM

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Comment author: seer 18 March 2015 12:30:16AM 8 points [-]

As it manifests in my country, it seems closer to literalism and fundamentalism than to any sort of theological sophistication. People's religious practices around holidays and such, especially in rural areas, get heavily mixed with magical and superstitious practices; old and sickly people form huge queues for the better part of a day, in hostile weather conditions, to worship and kiss encased saint corpses which they believe have magical healing properties; nothing "sells" a saint's biography better than miracles performed and extreme acts of abstinence.

That's not literalism. If you look in the bible you will find nothing about the healing properties of saints' corpses or nearly all of the superstitions you observe. These traditions are in fact examples of a paganized legacy.

Comment author: Dahlen 18 March 2015 12:55:42AM 2 points [-]

I'll take your word for it, I have never read the entire Bible. It's typical of Eastern Orthodox Christianity to accept a much larger body of traditions than the Scriptures in what it considers "canon"; basically almost all the church activity during the Byzantine Empire (minus, majorly, the iconoclastic period), with a few pre-Schism Western influences. I get that Protestantism and its derivatives reject church tradition (?), while Catholicism has its own unique tradition, developed in parallel and on different lines than Orthodoxy. That's what paganization means, accepting non-Bible influences into a Christian religion? (Going by the name, I thought it meant including influences of polytheistic pre-Christian religions.)

Comment author: seer 18 March 2015 01:40:02AM 7 points [-]

Going by the name, I thought it meant including influences of polytheistic pre-Christian religions.

Yes, much veneration of Saints is the syncretized version of the worship of pre-Christian gods.

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