I like Martin Luther’s polemic about relics: “How many pieces of the true cross are there in the world? How many thorns from Christ’s crown of thorns? How many nails from the crucifixion? There are enough nails to shoe all the horses in Saxony. And if all the relics of the saints were gathered together, there would be enough bones to build a ship and enough wood to boil all the water in the sea.”
In that sense it’s one of Mary Magdalene’s many heads.
IDK their religion allows straight up substitution magic, they turn wine and crackers into pieces of their dead god. Why can’t thorns and pieces of wood turn into the implements that killed him?
Sure it is. Let’s just pretend there is no monetary incentive for a region to have a holy relic which brings them a bunch of tourism. Ain’t nothing holy under capitalism.
Every single consecrated Catholic altar contains a relic of a saint. Usually they’re pretty small, maybe a piece of a fingerbone or something. You’re right that a good one like this would bring in lots of pilgrims (tourist dollars,) but it’s a tradition that way predates capitalism.
I’m not in the business of defending the Catholic Church or capitalism, just wanted to clarify.
Socialists don’t see a fundamental difference between a king or church owning the means of production and a merchant/capitalist/whatever owning it, because there isn’t a significant difference. Adam Smith was observing truths on the nature of property ownership and how to increase the gains from such, not describing the idea of rich and powerful people owning property that would make them money by exploiting the value of labor. That idea is as old as agriculture.
Where it might get tricky is if the gains from owning the “relic” were funding welfare programs/charity more than they were funding the excessive lifestyle of the clergy, but that’s not something Catholics are particularly known for living up to, responsible usage of tithes and actually following the precepts of ascetism in the clergy.
I don’t know how Mormons drink water and still have the mental gymnastics to think “this is actually blood but I’m totally not in a fucking cannibal cult.”
It expresses the view that the current aeonic civilization is that of the Western world, but it claims that the evolution of this society is threatened by the “Magian/Nazarene” influence of the Judeo-Christian religion, which the Order seeks to combat in order to establish a militaristic new social order, which it calls the “Imperium”. According to Order teachings, this is necessary in order for a galactic civilization to form, in which “Aryan” society will colonise the Milky Way.
Well ok but this ONA has nothing to do with Christianity, they explicitly state it’s a militant Satanic left-hand path occultist network. I mean being Satanic kinda goes hand in hand with heresy.
As with many other occult organisations, the Order shrouds its history in “mystery and legend”, creating a “mythical narrative” for its origins and development. The ONA claims to be the descendant of pre-Christian pagan traditions which survived the Christianisation of Britain and were passed down from the Middle Ages onward in small groups or “temples”
For sure, I totally agree with what you’re saying. I was only using the word in the 40k version where nearly everything is hersasy, not the sensible version of the word youre using.