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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
"We don't understand it, so it must be (drum roll) MAGIC". This saves so much time and talk.

But it doesn't explain much.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If a sacrament is where the physical meets the holy, where God touches what is physical so that God's presence becomes known through it, this is something God understands and we don't. All we know is that it happens, and that when we put certain conditions in place, by God's grace it does happen.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If a sacrament is where the physical meets the holy, where God touches what is physical so that God's presence becomes known through it,...

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
OK, then we should define magic for the discussion.

Magic as the suspension or supercession of natural law by ritual or mechanism?
Versus
Sacrament as the suspension or supercession of natural law by deity?
ISTM, the only difference is belief.

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Originally posted by Russ:
to pretend to your friends that you control the outcome

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the assumption is that with the right technique you can manipulate "forces" in creation to serve you

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
If they are similar in terms of modus operandi, what are these similarities?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm often told by high up the candle people that 'the sacraments aren't magic'.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

Ultimately, these are very different things (and one of them exists, the other doesn't...).

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So it's not necessarily a sacrament if a clergy person say so, Belle Ringer, but it is when you assess it to be so on the basis of your own subjective experience?

Hmmm ...

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
From an outside point of view, it might seem like magic: ie the performer acts out what is required, and the result is something extraordinary. The similarity ends there. A magician is in control and is duping the spectators. A priest by faith is asking of God what he or she has been called by God to ask for, so that God will be glorified as the request is granted.

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Belle, I'm with Gamaliel on this one. Whether God is present does not depend on whether we feel his presence. Nor can we make the moment more holy by concentrating our minds and feeling more pious. Nor is the moment more holy because of the way the celebrant does the Mass or because the music is lovely. God created all things. We are al, all the time,l just as near to him, whether we feel he is close or not.

That is both true, and in my experience, a great deal more comforting when things are rough and God feels remote, than an explanation that gives the impression that if we can't feel the right feelings, that means we are far from God's presence.

It's also why, without going too closely into arguments about how, I believe that the sacraments are objective not subjective.

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Originally posted by Enoch:
It's an alluring temptation, to which we are all prone, but the notion that we can bend God to our will, either by performing the right ceremonies or by any other means, is getting the nature of life, the universe, everything and 42 completely the wrong way round.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
How can God be felt or known?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What worries me in drawing those kind of parallels, though, is the sense that we can somehow 'manipulate' God or concoct/confect a particular result by mechanistic means.

I think that's what might be behind Fletcher's objection ... surely the sacraments (whatever else they might be 'about') are to do with grace and receiving that grace rather than pushing buttons or manipulating conditions and circumstances to ensure or obtain a pre-determined or preternatural result?

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Originally posted by IngoB:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What worries me in drawing those kind of parallels, though, is the sense that we can somehow 'manipulate' God or concoct/confect a particular result by mechanistic means.

I think that's what might be behind Fletcher's objection ... surely the sacraments (whatever else they might be 'about') are to do with grace and receiving that grace rather than pushing buttons or manipulating conditions and circumstances to ensure or obtain a pre-determined or preternatural result?

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Sacraments guarantee that grace is given, not that grace is received. The former concerns what God does, the latter what we do. We can "manipulate" God into giving us grace because God promised us these gifts. If I tell my son that he can play another hour of Minecraft if he does some additional maths exercises, and he does that, then he will have "manipulated" me into letting him play longer on the computer. In truth though, I have manipulated him towards the target of improving his maths skills. Likewise, in truth God is manipulating us towards our salvation with the sacramental system, precisely in our "manipulation" of him to give us grace.

Of course, the sacramental system is a slightly more adult affair than my manipulation of my nine year old son, insofar as at least theoretically our goals and God's should be aligned - we both wish for our salvation, whereas my son wishes to play on the computer, and sees the maths exercises as a means towards that. In practice though, this means 1) that the sacramental system is rather less effective than my manipulation with computer time, which works pretty much flawlessly, and 2) people are often enough childish and may well seek the sacraments for other reasons, like social acceptance. Still, in the end it is a typical educational measure that a Father may come up with... and if it makes the sons and daughters feel "in control" of the process, then that's OK. In a sense it is a good thing if children feel "in control" in such scenarios, because it teaches them to work towards a target while actually heading them in the right direction.

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Originally posted by Pomona:
We don't know that it was focusing on demons, and in any case surely the point about demons, zombies, vampires etc is that they're not real? In any case, demons have a religious aspect to them, vampires and the like don't (zombies, sort of - but not the modern Western interpretation).

If I had to guess, it's probably the demon of ignorance which Shiva dances on and destroys in Hinduism.

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Originally posted by Stejjie:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Whether God is present does not depend on whether we feel his presence.

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But saying someone "is present" is different from saying someone "makes themselves known" (or "becomes known")...

So, ISTM that you've got to be careful with the language that's used. If someone says "God becomes known to us through the Sacraments", then they either need to say how that happens even if [some] people don't experience it, or be ready for people saying "No God doesn't - or at least, he didn't for me".

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I keep mentioning the book Sacred Pathways which points out a variety of different activities/environments by which different personalities sense God presence. What works well as a sacrament for one person is a non-sacrament or anti-sacrament for another. That's the truth no matter what out of touch with reality (backed by social or political power) theology the church invented.

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I like that book very much, and appreciate the way you're using the word 'sacrament' here. It's just the word has a specific meaning, so maybe it's not helpful to use it in this broader sense - unless you're deliberately trying to redefine it, of course...

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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
...a variety of different activities/environments by which different personalities sense God presence. What works well as a sacrament for one person is a non-sacrament or anti-sacrament for another.

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I ... appreciate the way you're using the word 'sacrament' here. It's just the word has a specific meaning, so maybe it's not helpful to use it in this broader sense - unless you're deliberately trying to redefine it, of course...

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Depends on what you mean by redefine. Isn't it the church/clergy-centered people who did the redefining?

If a sacrament is a thing or activity or event that reveals God to a person, there are many sacraments. When discussion limits the word to seven or two, the discussion is distorted by several (usually unspoken) assumptions all of which I think are quite wrong: 1) that some activities are more fully or more importantly sacraments than anything else can be, 2) that these few things function as sacraments for all people, and 3) because clergy are the only ones who can provide these super important super universal sacraments, clergy are far more important to the spiritual health of the community than any other human being (or any thousand other human beings).

But then, I'm very protestant, can you tell?

I also worry that if we teach people about only a couple of sacraments dependent on the presence of clergy, we leave people thinking they are without sacramental aid when they are nowhere near a church building - in prison, in a hospital, shut in at home, lost in the woods, kidnapped by terrorists.

We do people more benefit if we teach them how to turn many things into having sacramental function, so they don't have to feel alone just because there's no official clergy nearby to depend on.

I think clergy can be useful (and some are kinda cute!) but their job should be empowering people to seek and know God, not training people to be dependents of clergy.

That which the formal churches do on Sunday morning instinctively communicates to me God is distant remote disinterested and boring. For me it's an anti-sacrament, so calling it a universal sacrament is deadly wrong. It works for some people but not for all. Never let theology blind you to reality! (One of my mottos).

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Depends on what you mean by redefine. Isn't it the church/clergy-centered people who did the redefining <of the word sacrament>?

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
That which the formal churches do on Sunday morning instinctively communicates to me God is distant remote disinterested and boring. For me it's an anti-sacrament, so calling it a universal sacrament is deadly wrong. It works for some people but not for all. Never let theology blind you to reality! (One of my mottos).

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Belle Ringer:

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Depends on what you mean by redefine. Isn't it the church/clergy-centered people who did the redefining <of the word sacrament>?

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I don't know the historical etymology of the word sacrament. Was the word coined by lay Christians independent of church involvement, and then later on the church/clergy-centered people laid claim to it for their own defined usage?

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Originally posted by itsarumdo:
There was a time when there was no church - only a bunch of friends of nominally jewish persuasion wondering what to do, and following instructions they had been left. It strikes me that they would probably not have been quite so heavy on ritual.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I s'pose the 'take' I'd adopt these days is that I'd agree with Belle Ringer that all of life is sacred and that some people derive as much benefit from a walk in the woods as others do from attending High Mass at the Brompton Oratory or St Spikey the Sharp-Elbowed of Nosebleed Altitude Street, Bells & Smellstown ...

.. there is at least some commonly agreement that there are a set of 'sanctioned' actions that convey or express divine grace.

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This isn't to say that they are the only ways by which grace is conveyed or expressed ...

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