"Raven" <raven@solaria.sol.net> wrote in message
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"Tani Jantsang ©" <tjsrNO@SPAMpost.com> wrote in message

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"Raven" <raven@solaria.sol.net> wrote in message
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Tani Jantsang © wrote:

Super Wiccan talking to a Satanist? Goddess forbid!
Wait until the old ladies on ARWM hear about this!

--
Talesin- The Bad Boy of Witchcraft (tm)

Raven wrote:

Tani Jantsang wrote:

... brushing your teeth might be seen as a ritual....

It might indeed, and on some occasions more than others.

Preparing for a first date, as one example; "ritual cleanliness".

No one ever thinks of, or refers to such as "ritual cleanliness."

In a broad sence, "ritual" having a meaning other than the one
associated with religion, brushing your teeth IS a ritual - first
you do this, then that, then that, then that, etc.

Or airplane pilot and copilot going over the checklist before taking off.

That is a necessity - not religious.

Or guards changing shifts at the Tower of London.

Or the inauguration of a President of the United States.

But notice that brushing one's teeth can also be done in a slapdash and
haphazard way, in a hurry, when one remembers, and not necessarily as
thoroughly or in the same sequence each time; it can be simply an action,
just to get the gunk off, without having any symbolic meaning to it.

None of it is symbolic.

Say, a dentist tells you how to do it, step by step, to avoid problems,
first do this, then to that, etc. [...snip...]

While an inauguration is not needed to accomplish any physical goal;
it is another type of "rite of passage", marking a non-physical change.

It is a physical/material change. Definitely.

The inauguration is for the public.

Bush, before it, er, he was put up as the president, didn't have
the power to declare a war, eg.

When you are having a birthday party, graduation, marriage, etc -
the words spoken, ritual style or not (it varies) are literal words
having literal meaning.

Yet they likewise are not accomplishing a physical goal, but marking a
non-physical change. Physically you are the same person before and after
your party, graduation, or wedding

No, you now are in possession of presents, material things you didn't have
before.

The graduation signals a real change in what you are gonna do with
your life.

Physically, you are not the same person as you were yesterday, actually.

Materially, you are not in the same situation, hence not the same
person, you were in school when you go into the workplace after you
graduate - or go onto further education.

The circumstances, all material, surrounding you really do change.

Legal marriage carries a lot of things with it that living together
doesn't carry. It's a real difference - it's why gays want it.

-- unless things got really wild -- but the ritual marks or celebrates
a change in your social status.

And change in circumstances.

You are graduating. The next steps in your life are very real,
you are no longer in school. A real, literal change is going
to happen (whether you want this or not).

The same would be true if one simply dropped out, so why is there
a ritual for one and not the other, if all it marks is being no longer
in school?

Because that's the social tradition.

Some people just go get their grad certificate and that's that.

In fact, a graduate student may still *be* in school afterward, even
the *same* school, through one's bachelor's, master's, and doctor's
degrees -- yet the rituals for each are held anyway, despite one's
not leaving school.

Again, social tradition to emphasize via group strategy that the
individual is now going to embark on something "great."

So again the ritual seems to be marking something other than a physical
change -- perhaps "literal" (whatever that means here), but not
physical -- and yet, you're right, it's still "real" in a sense.
Worth considering?

It is physical - in that it is MATERIAL.

A high school student generally lives at home with parents supporting
him/her. Not so after graduation (or that used to be the case). It's
like the bird flying out of the nest.

Or, it's your party, your birthdate, it's a party (an excuse for one:).

As if an excuse were needed to simply get together and party.

Or, you and a mate are getting married and that's a legal thing with
legal rights attached to it (IRS, insurance, etc.).

But the only physical thing is that you're living together -- and
you might have been doing that for years already -- so maybe nothing
physical changed.

A lot materially DOES change when you have the certificate.

Material is what I mean by physical.

Yes, it's a "legal thing", just like the inauguration of a President.

There's a real passage of some sort, from one condition to another, and
yet nothing *physical*, nothing in the "outside world", may have changed.

Your material situation does change.

The ritual of brushing your teeth is wordless, but the actions have
literal real meaning. Teeth are real. Brushing them is a good idea.

Teeth are *physical*. So is periodontal disease, or the lack of it.

But the status of being a graduate, or married, or a President?

Material change. Gov Bush can't declare war. President Bush can.

HS grads didn't used to stay at home supported by parents.

They had to support themselves.

Material change.

Married already stated it - there IS a material difference.

If you ran people through X-rays and CT scanners and MRIs, what "real"
(physical) distinctions could you find to indicate who was which?

Different people could be identified.

You could be identified from year to year depending on WHO analyzed
those scans.

Btw, identical twins do not have identical thermograms, even tho
everything else IS identical.

(Note: people who aren't President can still wear bulletproof vests.)

However, Omine omine omine omini dooo waaaa has no literal or real
meaning - it's religious - it's faith.

I dunno. What religion is that?

Religion in general.

Birthdays, graduations, marriages, etc have nothing to do with faith.

You think not? There's no *physical* change involved -- even between
being 17 years, 11 months, and 30 days old, and being 18 years old --

Yes there is. You can drink.

You can be drafted.

You are legally an adult with certain priveleges and rights.

just your *social* role has changed. Recall that AEU definition of
"religion" as referring to one's relationship to one's community....

Social role is material. Hence - real. You are taking my use of the
word physical and real to mean something other than MATERIAL.

They are literally real.

Try putting anyone's age, educational status, or marital status under
a microscope. Weigh even the Presidency on a scale. For that matter,
point to a government, any government, in the "real" (physical) world.
I've never seen one; just people, buildings, equipment, and pieces of
paper with ink marks on them -- none of which are "governments". So
how could any governmental office or legal status be "real" (physical)?

It is material - it has material effects.

You're seeing phantoms, Tani. You're declaring "literally real"
things that don't exist anywhere in the physical world. They are
figments of our social imagination. They're "real" only in the sense
that we, our culture, have agreed to *behave as though* they exist.

Yes. Social culture, social laws, etc - material effects. In that sense,
they are REAL.

I thought that was understood? If you want, however, to get into the
samsaric nature of the entire cosmos - then that's another topic.

Try telling the boss that time is an illusion when yer late to work. Heh.

They're social constructs, roles and rules of our shared game, no less
than priesthood, or journeyman status, or initiation into a coven.

Such religious type of stuff has reality only IF someone, or a lot of
someones believe that a Priest or etc can somehow talk to god or goddess
or whatever.

It becomes more real when the Priest is in cahoots with the
president - who DOES have power to declare war on nations. In that
sense, I mean it. Time to get rid of that president :)

They're "real" enough in *that* sense, but it's a whole different
*kind* of "reality" than teeth (or cavities) have.

Well, you can't "not believe" in teeth.

You can't "not believe" in material things.

You can "not believe" in spirits.

Spiritual reality is real only for those that reall get in touch with it,
feel it. It is not real for atheists who obviously never could or did
get in tough with it or feel it.