/christ/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

It doesn't seem complicated to handle: you just enlighten your fellow Christians about what's what.

To a degree, I don't think it's too much of a problem to have a local flavour of one's religion, as long as it doesn't change the substance of the rituals and such.

Santa Muerte and the rest is beyond that, though.

The interesting thing in these phenomena is that it shows us how most religions probably started monotheist and evolved into polytheism, contrary to popular belief. Imagine South American Catholics left alone for 500 years on an island without any contact with anybody else, and no texts. In 500 years, you'd probably have a whole pantheon of new gods to believe in; the saints would become gods very quickly, etc.

>>3987

The problem is that for many of these people. the heresy becomes a part of their cultural identity and so they feel that by turning their back on it they become less "real" in their race. The Indians are perfect examples of this: their culture is a dying, rotting husk of what it used to be, and they'll never get better.

I know two of these fellas and both are very scared to let go of these rituals; more so, they rarely see a problem with this stuff. No one's yet told them "look, these things that you do, these things that your people do, they are evil and wrong".

Well let's look at some more western holidays such as Halloween or Christmas.

Now Halloween isn't explicitly about Christianity at all and I've actually known some Christians who would refuse to celebrate it but is it really that harmful to a Christian? Yes at one point it was called Samhain and was dedicated to pagan gods but all of that has been gutted in its modern form.

If we are to reject Halloween because of its roots shouldn't we also reject Christmas? Although it is now a holiday about the birth of Jesus the pagan roots are well documented. Everything from the tree, to the gift giving, to the time of year it takes place dates back to winter solstice festivals before Christianity was present in old Europe.

I think this ties back to what you're talking about. Indians may have once upon a time taken peyote to commune with the great spirit or whatever but if they do so now as a Christian religious festival then what's the problem? As long as there's no one else being worshiped.

If we take Ortega y Gasset's thesis that all humans are tied with their sociocultural surroundings then such thing is rather common.

My country is not an exception, specially the whole saints without approval thing, almost all states have a different special saint that people pray to even in churches itself.

Its like in Argentina that there's people that literally prays to maradonna.

I don't pray to them but since its so tied with the christian belief in here sometimes I'm the weirdo.

>>3987

M8 it does change the rituals, not even that like "just change the name of the virgin in prayer for the saint and that's it" , but to the point that some of them you literally needs to be in a certain physical position to be able to pray to them. Like laying on your stomach for example.

>>3998

I agree with the fedora. Halloween here 10 years ago was null, 0. During my whole childhood never ever did I even heard of it.

Now due to the media, or as the socialist call it "cultural expropriation" or "cultural imperialism" it have started in some parts of the country. Last year there was a gathering to celebrate it near where I live which was really a wtf moment.

>>3972

>How do you handle individuals who misguidedly claim to be Christian but adopt pagan rituals, customs or religious practices in the name of culture and heritage?

Warn them and tell them the truth.

Not some "all is the same" or "as long as you feel it" garbage. No. It's evil, it's syncretism, it's heresy. We have to protect people from themselves.

>>3998

>Now Halloween isn't explicitly about Christianity at all

Mon, Halloween didn't start as being explicitly Christian either, same for Christmas. We just tacked them on previously holy days already. At first it was pagan gods, then it was Christian events, and now it's money events. It makes perfect sense. Catholics don't normally do Halloween, but that will depend on the countries. Here, nobody did Halloween 15 years ago. Nobody. We only saw it in American movies and series. Then they started marketing it to kids, and young kids starting doing Halloween about 15 years ago. Those kids have grown, and now more and more people do Halloween, though adults still don't.

>If we are to reject Halloween because of its roots shouldn't we also reject Christmas?

I wouldn't think so, first because you can't change anything now, secondly, because Christmas being where it is now in the calendar is a symbol for the rebirth of nature, the coming back of crops and all that stuff, so it works just fine and it doesn't matter that it isn't Christ's actual birthdate.

The difference is that we don't believe in demons when we do Halloween, it's purely cultural now. I doubt Santa Muerte is purely cultural.

>>4009

> literally prays to maradonna.

He does have the Hand of God after all.

>>4135

Santa Muerte really is just cultural. The indigenous of that region have long had a fixation on death which explains things like the day of the dead.

My entire point was that while these cultural traditions were once about other gods they aren't any longer. The fixation on death might have come from some pagan belief but it's now been christianized. Santa Muerte specifically seems more like a problem for catholics since they think only the Roman church has the right to recognize saints.

Unless you think she's a demon or something in which case I'm not sure how you determine something is devil worship unless it's obviously satanic. Seems purely speculative and fear based.

>>4188

>Unless you think she's a demon or something in which case I'm not sure how you determine something is devil worship unless it's obviously satanic. Seems purely speculative and fear based.

I made a post on this once and would link to it if the archive would work, so I can't find it.

Short version: I'm 100% sure it's a demon and that it does great damage to your soul to pray to her.

>>4206

>100% sure it's a demon

Wish I could see your archived thread.

>>4207

It's still somewhere in the Catalog, but without a proper search function I would have to check every single thread so far because I can't remember which one.

Hm. I might look through some, maybe Im lucky.

That was rather quick.

>>1376

>>1378