Sunday 27 March 2016

Deliver us from temptation


Cro has just put forward a suggestion that we ban all religion, especially that which is written down. This is Easter Sunday, of course, and as he also points out, the Christian Churches of the world are considering that Easter should fall on one specific date every year as does Christmas, rather than it being calculated according to the lunar calendar and moving between March and April as it has been since pagan times.

I was lying in bed this morning, listening to the 'news' program which has a distinctly ecclesiastical slant every Sunday, and I actually learned something quite interesting.

The way that Easter Sunday is calculated - world-wide - was decided upon 1400 years ago in a little monastery at Whitby, presided over by a woman who was later to become St Hilda. And I always thought that Whitby was famous for three things - fish, Jet and Dracula.

Whitby Abbey was - at that time - a series of wattle and daub, round huts with a larger hall which served as the abbey, but its influence extended as far as the very Church of Rome over the tomb of St Peter. There was only one form of Christianity in those early days, before all the methodists and Henry the Eighth's weddings.

The fixed position of Easter on the calendar has been suggested by the Copts - probably the oldest and most isolated Christians in, well, Christendom. These are the blokes who have monasteries in deserts where the mystics ended up spending their lives in temptation - also in the early days.

If we get rid of the devils and demons, then there would be no reason to go into the desert like St Anthony and be delivered from evil. We would turn into a bunch of Happy-Clappies who pretend that, although life has its little difficulties (marriage and mortgages, etc.), keeping the simple Faith is the most important thing you can possibly do with your life. Their understanding of 'temptation' is limited to a plateful of cream buns or their neighbour's wife.

We can blame Missionaries for all those homophobic African Anglicans. How arrogant to believe that ancient tribal customs can be overlaid with modern Western values, and be expected to change and adapt just because some bishop in England tells them they must.

But without evil, how do we explain ISIL to the children?

I am far from religious, but right now I think the good-old Anglican Church needs all the support they can get. Charles wants to be 'Defender of the FAITHS' if he ever gets crowned, but that is not in his job-description. I am told he leans toward Greek Orthodoxy, which we could, I suppose, just about tolerate, given his father's background.

My mother's name was Hilda. It means 'battle-axe' in the Germanic language.

21 comments:

  1. When I was at school we were taught by the nuns that the Crusaders were heroes and we drew pictures of them, dressed up as them, praised them and pretended we were them in the playground and the words military, barbarian and Muslim were never used as far as I can remember. The emphasis was on the Holy part of the Holy War and doing as the Pope said. There has been fighting since before the Crusades and forever after. I now feel like I was taught by a barbaric order of nuns.

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    1. Funnily, both sides called each other 'infidels'. The worst thing about any religion is the urge to spread it by evangelism or force - or both.

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    2. especially when politics and money are the real motives for regaining the Holy Land.

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    3. With the passive religions, you have to go looking for the holy men. With the aggressive ones, they come looking for you...

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    4. We had to get Jerusalem back and "our lands" is all I can remember being told and we all thought that was great, rescuing the temple and where Jesus taught. God we were brainwashed. It was all about land as far as you could see.

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    5. The Knights Templar crusaders became so rich, that the King of France had to borrow money from them. Unable or unwilling to pay them back, he had all - or most - of them killed in one night, right the way across France. The survivors went underground and have stayed there ever since.

      There is a Knights Templar chapel attached to the Bath Freemason's temple which I have visited. I asked about them and the Freemason said that he knew nothing about them at all, so couldn't answer any questions, even though the tiny chapel is decorated with Freemason's regalia, such as swords.

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    6. The Knights Templars were very active around here. Where do I join?

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  2. I thought Charlie favoured Buddhism. It certainly suits him better than Greek Orthodox.

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    1. Everyone dabbles in Buddhism at some point, but the trouble with it is that it doesn't sit very well with aggression/defence of British foreign policy. Only the Thais seem to have no moral problem with it.

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  3. I wonder how little old Hilda pulled that one off. He,he, but then again, the translation of her name might be the explanation

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    1. Women were more influential in those days, no matter what the Victorians may tell you.

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  4. Isn't it ' lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil' ?
    Not that it matters much - your post title was just niggling with my brain all day.
    Howdie Tom.

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    1. Oh yes, but I still think this works alright. I still cannot remember the Lord's Prayer without having to think really hard. I never said it at school. I refused.

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    2. Apropos Lord's Prayer. You pray to God to not to lead you into temptation. Why God would want to lead you into temptation is not stated. So basically what you are doing in the temptation bit of the Lord's prayer is you are telling God what he what he should be doing. This is a gross impertinence.

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    3. I got sixpence from Miss Jones the Sunday School teacher for being the first nipper to recite the Lord's Prayer all the way through. It was a valuable lesson in religious bribery and corruption.

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  5. My computer is going haywire again. I haven't had any emails for about a week.

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    1. The stupid person who tried to fix my email account asked me to delete all my history, and now I have deleted my entire blogging account. I am not sure I want to begin all over again. I might be gone forever - or at least until I can get the energy together to rebuild this one and I can send and receive emails again.

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    2. I have returned via a different browser - the one they didn't get me to completely obliterate the history of.

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    3. Glad your back, somewhat. Take care!

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