The Archbishop of Canterbury accuses fashion of hijacking the crucifix

[Guest]

Cabala or Kabbalah pre-dates Judaism

Cabala is not about Judaism nor coincides with it

As much as it isn't about Christianity

I think that's part of your preconceived notion of what Cabala actually is

Cabala is not a religion therefore by following it Madonna cannot be considered a follower of a religion

Or religious person

exactly, thank you. k came before jews and is not a religion.

[IsaacHarris]

A lot of fashion's use of the Cross is deliberately transgressive and disrespectful. Because fashion is part of mass media, and many of the power bases of mass media are fundamentally anti-Christian. Because they're run by people who are Satanists. I'm not saying that's the only reason it's used so frequently, there are a lot of others. But it is one.

Define Anti-Christian. Is that synonymous with Satan worship by default? I don't believe in or worship either.

[jacket]

Anyone else find it strange that the Christian God decided to only give revelations to a bunch of illiterate desert dwellers and not, lets say, the thriving and literate Chinese civilisation?

[Guest]

Cabala or Kabbalah pre-dates Judaism

Cabala is not about Judaism nor coincides with it

As much as it isn't about Christianity

I think that's part of your preconceived notion of what Cabala actually is

Cabala is not a religion therefore by following it Madonna cannot be considered a follower of a religion

Or religious person

Actually JEWISH MYSTICISM historically existed before Kabbalah. Judaism may not have but obviously that's a reappropriation of the same original beliefs! Kabbalah may not have originated as a Jewish specific philosophy but it has been most definitely appropriated and considered with a Jewish mindset. If you think there is no Jewish involvment in Kabbalah then you need to ask yourself some questions.

Why does Madonna eat Kosher foods?

Why does Madonna encourage her kids to participate in Jewish traditions?

Why does Madonna consider Israel a holy place?

Why was she so interested in visiting holy Jewish memorials?

HELLO?!

Religion is really complex and everybody is trying to simplify and define everything all the time. It doesn't work and that's why the world is constantly changing.

[Guest SecretGarden]

GU and XXL, both of you bring up interesting points, I may as well add mine to the mix.

The strain of Kabbalah that Madonna studies is deeply rooted in Judaism, it basically is new age Judaism, the Kabbalah Centre teaches that an adherence to the Torah (as well as Judeo-Kabbalistic texts such as the Zohar) is a must. Yes, they have a somewhat different interpretation in comparison to Orthodox Jews and so on, but for the most part I would classify what the Centre teaches as 'religious' rather than esoteric (The Centre has rules regarding food, days of rest and so on).

Now, Kabbalah does indeed predate Judaism, and, on it's own, it has very little to do with organized religion. Kabbalah is, to describe it in very basic and simple terms, a method of studying the nature of God using the mathematical method of gematria and other tools such as The Tree of Life; while these became more sophisticated with the advent of Judaism, they existed, in principle, for quite some time before the Abrahamic religions.

Jewish Kabbalah is what you get when these tools are applied to the study of the Old Testament/Tanakh, but they can and have been applied to other schools of thoughts. Christian Kabbalah (Cabbalah) thrived for quite some time, and by far the most interesting of them all is the Hermetic Kabbalah (Qabalah) which is a merging of Kabbalistic methods with occult and esoteric schools of magick.

I would say that Madonna is a devoted religious person as she seems to strictly adhere to the Kabbalah Centre's rules.

[Guest]

[Guest SecretGarden]

A lot of fashion's use of the Cross is deliberately transgressive and disrespectful. Because fashion is part of mass media, and many of the power bases of mass media are fundamentally anti-Christian. Because they're run by people who are Satanists. I'm not saying that's the only reason it's used so frequently, there are a lot of others. But it is one.

It is sometimes deliberately transgressive and 'disrespectful', but is that necessarily a bad thing? Religious iconography shouldn't be excluded from being used in other ways than their intended purpose.

Anti-Christian? I actually get the complete opposite impression, the media can be excessively pro Christian, especially in the western world.

Your line about Satanists is surely a joke, right?

[VogueMusic]

The cross existed as a bronze age torture and execution device, as well as a symbol for pagans and other cultural groups, long before the Christians appropriated it. Much like their holidays, etc... It never was actually exclusive to them.

[VogueMusic]

A lot of fashion's use of the Cross is deliberately transgressive and disrespectful. Because fashion is part of mass media, and many of the power bases of mass media are fundamentally anti-Christian. Because they're run by people who are Satanists. I'm not saying that's the only reason it's used so frequently, there are a lot of others. But it is one.

[Lucky guy]

Define Anti-Christian. Is that synonymous with Satan worship by default? I don't believe in or worship either.

Not at all; you can have any number of reasons for being anti-Christian or anti-anything. But to make it your mission to undermine, denigrate, attack and mock a belief system, I would suggest there's something more than 'not believing'. For example, Humanism is considered just a very benign non-religious belief system by the majority of people. But I know people who have left The Humanist Society, and they left because of its leader's 'campaign against God'. It's the same with prominent media atheists like Richard Dawkins who attack Christianity like wild-eyed maniacs -what is with these people? Not just not believing.

[Lucky guy]

It is sometimes deliberately transgressive and 'disrespectful', but is that necessarily a bad thing? Religious iconography shouldn't be excluded from being used in other ways than their intended purpose.

Anti-Christian? I actually get the complete opposite impression, the media can be excessively pro Christian, especially in the western world.

Your line about Satanists is surely a joke, right?

I agree that people should be free to express themselves, and I would never suggest otherwise. But I do question people's motives for consistently and aggressively attacking a minority belief system, defacing its sacred symbols etc. When Sinead O'Connor ripped a picture of the Pope in half, that was real rebellion -it was against a very powerful organisation and lobby at that time, and it essentially wrecked her career. 20 years on, today's pop tart idiots sporting inverted crosses is not rebellion. If you look at today's statistics, Christianity is an incredibly persecuted religion -far more persecuted in the world than homosexuality. What are Christians these days going to do -pray about it?

I really can't think where you get your ideas about portrayals of Christians in the MSM, but they don't reflect anything I see. Anyone in a TV show who is in any way Christian that I've seen is about two episodes away from being revealed as a psychotic murderer. I find the portrayal of Christians in films like Easy A to be pretty much an outright attack.

[Guest]

Kabbalah is not a religion. it pre dates religion. m is not religious. end of story.

[Guest]

Very true LG but not everybody who wears it does so for the reasons you are suggesting. That's the only thing I disagree with you on.

[Guest]

Kabbalah is not a religion. it pre dates religion. m is not religious. end of story.

I suggest you do some research on those subjects because you're very ill informed. It's interesting how religious people are said to be open minded when those who oppose religion are often a shame to the terms 'freedom' and 'compassion'.

[Guest SecretGarden]

I agree that people should be free to express themselves, and I would never suggest otherwise. But I do question people's motives for consistently and aggressively attacking a minority belief system, defacing its sacred symbols etc. When Sinead O'Connor ripped a picture of the Pope in half, that was real rebellion -it was against a very powerful organisation and lobby at that time, and it essentially wrecked her career. 20 years on, today's pop tart idiots sporting inverted crosses is not rebellion. If you look at today's statistics, Christianity is an incredibly persecuted religion -far more persecuted in the world than homosexuality. What are Christians these days going to do -pray about it?

I really can't think where you get your ideas about portrayals of Christians in the MSM, but they don't reflect anything I see. Anyone in a TV show who is in any way Christian that I've seen is about two episodes away from being revealed as a psychotic murderer. I find the portrayal of Christians in films like Easy A to be pretty much an outright attack.

Oh, yes, there is a growing intolerance of overt religious thought and opinion in the general public society; and that permeates itself through Hollywood films and TV shows. I particularly disliked Easy A for it's stereotyping too, and don't get me started on this internet brand of cult mentality that followers of people like Dawkins have. I fully agree with you on those points.

But, in my view, these attacks on religion through the entertainment world is a reaction of the Christian conservative right wing intolerance which is growing not only in politics but in the way the news is being reported. I'm from Australia, and the majority of our mainstream newspapers are conservative and so are many of the TV News channels; only a couple of major outlets are truly progressive and liberal. What has resulted is a bunch of anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-abortion views starting to be adhered to by a scarily large minority of the public. I sense the same thing is happening in places like the UK with groups such as the English Defense League, which is basically a neo nazi group that has gained a lot of support from Christian organizations and from people like Pat Robertson and his brand of crazy Christianity. Although the mass media encompasses both entertainment and journalism/news reporting, the latter seems to have more influence on the public than the former, from what I've seen.

Regarding your points about Satanism - it is a fairly new religion, popularized by Anton LaVey in the 60s, and it's basically dressed up atheism; I doubt many of the world elites practice it. Now, I'm not a believer in any of the new world order conspiracy theories, but I will say this, occult symbolism, especially symbols that groups such as the Freemasons and Golden Dawn used, are prominently evident in the entertainment world. These have nothing to do with Satanism however.

[VogueMusic]

Any religion - any set of beliefs or ideas - is not free from the criticism, analysis, or questioning by others. Too bad. That's free speech. That's freedom of thought.
So 'non-believers' can just "not believe...but have to shut up and go sit in a corner. Only believers get a say (in the global dialogue)".... No. Just no.

As said above, much of the opposition to religion is in most part directed to fundamentalist belief that has gained an incredible amount of power and money in violating the separation of church and state, in both mass media and politics, not just in America but abroad as well. Again, people have every right to stand up against that and criticize/question/call it out/etc.

[Guest]

Well we all know I believe in freedom of speech! You can't shut me up. However, there's a difference between people making informed decisions and people who make irrational decisions. There are negative results from religions in different parts of the world with absolutely no doubt. I can always TRUMP those claims with negative results from science however. The people who are so quick to point the finger at 'RELIGION' should really look at the wider issues in life. Religion is not the enemy. Neither is science. We are our own enemies.

[Lucky guy]

Oh, yes, there is a growing intolerance of overt religious thought and opinion in the general public society; and that permeates itself through Hollywood films and TV shows. I particularly disliked Easy A for it's stereotyping too, and don't get me started on this internet brand of cult mentality that followers of people like Dawkins have. I fully agree with you on those points.

But, in my view, these attacks on religion through the entertainment world is a reaction of the Christian conservative right wing intolerance which is growing not only in politics but in the way the news is being reported. I'm from Australia, and the majority of our mainstream newspapers are conservative and so are many of the TV News channels; only a couple of major outlets are truly progressive and liberal. What has resulted is a bunch of anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-abortion views starting to be adhered to by a scarily large minority of the public. I sense the same thing is happening in places like the UK with groups such as the English Defense League, which is basically a neo nazi group that has gained a lot of support from Christian organizations and from people like Pat Robertson and his brand of crazy Christianity. Although the mass media encompasses both entertainment and journalism/news reporting, the latter seems to have more influence on the public than the former, from what I've seen.

Regarding your points about Satanism - it is a fairly new religion, popularized by Anton LaVey in the 60s, and it's basically dressed up atheism; I doubt many of the world elites practice it. Now, I'm not a believer in any of the new world order conspiracy theories, but I will say this, occult symbolism, especially symbols that groups such as the Freemasons and Golden Dawn used, are prominently evident in the entertainment world. These have nothing to do with Satanism however.

Thank you for this very thought-provoking post. You are right, there is a growing intolerance of religion, but in my opinion the portrayal of Christians in the media is not led by this trend, but is leading it. It's marketing/propaganda at a very basic and dark level. Things the elite likes (police state imagery, the occult) are consistently portrayed in a flattering light and conflated with sex (one of Maslows basic human needs). Things they dislike (Christianity, people power) are consistently portrayed as ugly, hyppocritical, weak, self-righteous, even psychotic. It can be as simple as imagery like this:

This sort of thing is EXACTLY like the portrayal of Jews by the Nazis. To answer your point about the news media being more influential than entertainment -the former is influential to the conscious mind, the latter to emotions and the subconscious, which I would argue is more influential. The Nazi propaganda machine under Himmler quickly realised that entertainment was a far more effective means of propaganda than straight out yelling at people, and Hollywood has pretty much picked up where they left off.

I had to look up who Pat Robertson is -he's American? Not sure what this has to do with the UK, where I can assure you that 'progressive' 'liberalism' is well and truly in the ascendancy, whether anyone wants it or not. The EDL is a tiny fringe group, hated by everyone (even fellow extreme parties -I believe they are suspected of being an intelligence agency plant), that make a lot of noise, and they have no affiliation whatsoever with Christian groups, or any support base amongst Christians.

[Lucky guy]

Any religion - any set of beliefs or ideas - is not free from the criticism, analysis, or questioning by others. Too bad. That's free speech. That's freedom of thought.

So 'non-believers' can just "not believe...but have to shut up and go sit in a corner. Only believers get a say (in the global dialogue)".... No. Just no.

As said above, much of the opposition to religion is in most part directed to fundamentalist belief that has gained an incredible amount of power and money in violating the separation of church and state, in both mass media and politics, not just in America but abroad as well. Again, people have every right to stand up against that and criticize/question/call it out/etc.

Belief in a benign and loving God is by definition something you would want to share. Absence of belief is just that. By its nature, absence of belief means that someone who lives their life as a Christian is no worse off in the grand scheme than a non-Christian. They both pop off into oblivion at the end, so why the need to prosletise and scream at people who do believe? It's the most pointless and absurd exercise that could be imagined.

[Guest]

More so than fake tanning and listening to Taylor Swift?

[Lucky guy]

More so than fake tanning and listening to Taylor Swift?

Ok, third most.

[Guest]

I do see what you mean though.

It is rather comical this faux rebellion thing.

'Oooh look at me. I'm all non religious and cool and I hate all religion because it's evil and not cool and liberal like science!'

Yeah, okay then. You carry on with that.

[Lucky guy]

The AMMOUNT of people who think it sounds intelligent to say 'Religion causes all wars', is genuinely scary. Such glib, faux intellectual nonsensical bullshit.

[Guest]

It's almost a bit weird.

[Skin]

If there is a God he can suck my hemorrhoid filled asshole and yeast infected pussy juices.

[Skin]

In America...

[Skin]

All this talk about fairytales and made up nonsense.

Cant we discuss the world of Harry Potter instead? It is far more interesting and entertaining.

The Bible doesn't have Quidditch in it does it? No. Your faves could never.

[Camacho]

[Rollap]

GU and XXL, both of you bring up interesting points, I may as well add mine to the mix.

The strain of Kabbalah that Madonna studies is deeply rooted in Judaism, it basically is new age Judaism, the Kabbalah Centre teaches that an adherence to the Torah (as well as Judeo-Kabbalistic texts such as the Zohar) is a must. Yes, they have a somewhat different interpretation in comparison to Orthodox Jews and so on, but for the most part I would classify what the Centre teaches as 'religious' rather than esoteric (The Centre has rules regarding food, days of rest and so on).

Now, Kabbalah does indeed predate Judaism, and, on it's own, it has very little to do with organized religion. Kabbalah is, to describe it in very basic and simple terms, a method of studying the nature of God using the mathematical method of gematria and other tools such as The Tree of Life; while these became more sophisticated with the advent of Judaism, they existed, in principle, for quite some time before the Abrahamic religions.

Jewish Kabbalah is what you get when these tools are applied to the study of the Old Testament/Tanakh, but they can and have been applied to other schools of thoughts. Christian Kabbalah (Cabbalah) thrived for quite some time, and by far the most interesting of them all is the Hermetic Kabbalah (Qabalah) which is a merging of Kabbalistic methods with occult and esoteric schools of magick.

I would say that Madonna is a devoted religious person as she seems to strictly adhere to the Kabbalah Centre's rules.

The GU vs XXL argument is amusingly circular because one is giving his personal view of what religion is (XXL) and the other is pointing out the variable meanings of the word religion even in the dictionary (GU). So it's less a debate, more both stating different things both of which are true. Yes XXL that is your opinion of the word and yes GU those are the dictionary definitions of the word.

Personally I don't think the word 'religious' is of any use these days because it means totally different things to different people. Even the word 'spiritual' is very open to interpretation. These days 'religious' often conjures up images of inflexible and humourless devotees who profess to being devoid of sin (which is a joke of course because we are all human and therefore flawed). From my experience, most people who believe in a God do no dress in a 'look at me, I'm religious' way. Maybe we should just call people Theists or Atheists. Both groups have their share of inflexible and illogical show offs.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Rollap

[Guest SecretGarden]

Thank you for this very thought-provoking post. You are right, there is a growing intolerance of religion, but in my opinion the portrayal of Christians in the media is not led by this trend, but is leading it. It's marketing/propaganda at a very basic and dark level. Things the elite likes (police state imagery, the occult) are consistently portrayed in a flattering light and conflated with sex (one of Maslows basic human needs). Things they dislike (Christianity, people power) are consistently portrayed as ugly, hyppocritical, weak, self-righteous, even psychotic. It can be as simple as imagery like this:

This sort of thing is EXACTLY like the portrayal of Jews by the Nazis. To answer your point about the news media being more influential than entertainment -the former is influential to the conscious mind, the latter to emotions and the subconscious, which I would argue is more influential. The Nazi propaganda machine under Himmler quickly realised that entertainment was a far more effective means of propaganda than straight out yelling at people, and Hollywood has pretty much picked up where they left off.

I had to look up who Pat Robertson is -he's American? Not sure what this has to do with the UK, where I can assure you that 'progressive' 'liberalism' is well and truly in the ascendancy, whether anyone wants it or not. The EDL is a tiny fringe group, hated by everyone (even fellow extreme parties -I believe they are suspected of being an intelligence agency plant), that make a lot of noise, and they have no affiliation whatsoever with Christian groups, or any support base amongst Christians.

While I agree with you that Christianity as a whole is being portrayed in a negative light in the entertainment world, I do contend your point about Christianity leading this trend of religious intolerance. These things happen in cycles, native Indians, Jews and other groups were once hugely unfairly maligned in the media, especially entertainment, for quite some time, and if any group is leading the trend today then it has to be Arab Muslims.

Which leads me to my next point, we can't excuse the bigotry that comes out of the Christian world and it's media, Pat Robertson may be American but there are countless groups who think like he does; who claim to be Christian organizations and who show overwhelming support for groups who have anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-Atheist and anti-abortion views. The stuff said about Muslims by the right wing, on television and the internet, is disgusting. I, personally, have my own issues with modern Islam (as I do with most religions) and am very critical of the way it's being practiced by many Muslims today but bigotry is wrong, and we can't deny that a lot of it is coming from the Christian right wing world.

I do concede that my point about news media being more influential than entertainment was a weak one, your example of of Himmler is spot on, but not all portrayals are bad, when understood in the right context. I've read that quite a few people on the internet thought that Madonna's use of Christian symbols during her MDNA tour was offensive and insulting to Christianity, but really it was the opposite; her tour was a celebration of religion, faith and redemption. I feel some Christians jump the gun a little too soon when it comes to imagery like that.

I will reiterate that the negative portrayals of Christianity in the entertainment industry seem to have more to do with fighting the right wing and the Church than insulting Christianity as an actual religion. When it comes down to it, the UK, Australia, USA and even places like Japan (with it's growing nationalist parties) are more conservative and more right wing than they are liberal and progressive, laws take too long to change, police are given more power, the separation of church and state is becoming more blurred and the support of war by the media is overwhelming - an example would be Syria and how almost all major media outlets in the USA supported military strike while almost all of the people didn't, these are right wing (sometimes rooted in the Church) ideals.