Good God, to coin a phrase. Why can't some of you at least spend your time contemplating your navel or someone else's for that matter. This constant bickering about something that has never existed is ridiculous and wastes your time and everybody else's.

If you must believe this stuff, keep it private as it's supposed to be.

This sort of display shows one thing. Ignorance. Neanderthal thinking. I'm afraid of the dark, I'll wait for something to save me, hope it knows what it's doing.

George.
What we are faced with is a massive loss of culture to the extent that most people do not have any basis for a discussion about theology or church practice. It reminds me of the parable that Alistair Macintyre writes in the beginning of After Virtue in which he describes a culture that has undergone a catastrophe in which scientific language is destroyed. What is left is fragments of language that do not make sense and do not connect to the real world. But what can you expect when our educational institutions at all levels are virtually banned from teaching any serious theology, church history or biblical studies. While we mourn the loss of indigenous culture we miss that we have lost the most part of ours except for the technical

Sells,

What religion reminds me of is the TV adaption of William Golding's, "Lord of the Flies". As children the cult sing a hotch-potch song of a national anthem and hyms. The have no remember of what really happned when they where infants, so the confabulate from unrelated parts.

You have a habit of starting with Church and Jesus as god as a given. The assumption is too broad. A god may exist independent of human invention.

We appreciate your article writing efforts, but, you are the least likely contributor to this debate. You compliment the like minded and ignore contrary inteprenations of history. If everybody else was like you we still be in the Dark Ages.

George,

Greetings.

We have agreed to differ, so need for a reply. However, I know some whom knew JPII personally. There was discussed about children sitting around the priest during the service. John Paul said it was okay for Australia but would not operate in Italy: That reply, recognises culture, not liturgy in religion.

So what i get from this article is that the liturgy of the Church is kind of like a recipe for a cake. If you stick to the prescribed ingredients and the instructions you would expect to have a really good cake at the end of it, if you go altering the ingredients or changing the instructions or removing or replacing any component who knows what you'll end up baking? Not that i really know that the metaphorical cake symbolises, some sort of awakening perhaps?

RobbyH, i find it strange that you would take the time to read and post to this thread just to then say you think its a waste of time and should be kept private.
Sells articles usually elicit quite a bit of discussion and debate from a range of perspectives. His pieces always have a high post count and frequently appear in the most popular and most discussed article sections. Why would you want to silence this sort of talk when it's clear a majority of people are interested in it?

Oliver,
We agreed to disagree, but I do not think we disagree on the point you make. Of course, liturgy is culturally determined worship, and you are right, it does not make sense to those who do not recognise the Addressee of that worship (a point well illustrated also by RobbyH and Donnie). And it makes only limited sense to those who do not understand the culture it is built on. Like music does not make sense to those who are deaf, and e.g. classical music makes only limited sense to those who have not been educated to appreciate it.

Liturgy has an important psychological stimulant dependent on the cultural background of the worshippers. For instance, only Catholics of European/Western tradition regretted the demise of the Tridentine mass — albeit only a minority of them. One spoke of liturgical vandalism, not of liturgical heresy. And whatever bone of contention still exists between Rome and Constantinople (or Moscow), it is not the different liturgies. There were Catholics of Byzantine rite even in the pre-Vatican II Church.

George,

Thanks. Those of the Western tradition probably appreciate pews and the the right cum rite to sit. [Was it St. Augustine or earlier, wherein, one should stand during a service? I need to check.]

Cheers and best wishes,

O.