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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger



Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 13 days
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The Romanian Orthodox Church
#21760725 - 06/04/15 08:43 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Was at a baptism last weekend in a church decorated with gold, like in the backdrop of the picture above, featuring the church's leader, Preafericitul Daniel, whose honorific title roughly translates into "Too Happy". 
And obviously he's too happy (why just look at that mug! ) because of the way the church is consumed by a glorious gluttony for gold and riches. I could elaborate on the current situation regarding that but it'd be too much of a diversion from the main point. In the meantime, here's a picture of him, the smart rich monkey that he is, ingeniously utilizing tools to offer blessings in those previously too inaccessible, hard to reach places. 

Is your savior bleeding profusely, but too far up on a cross to be able to help wipe him dry? No problem!
So the tradition is for the godparents to take the baby into the church, taking it from the mother, that is to give it to these old, strange men. Before the godparents could be admitted into the church, of course, they had to take a repetitive and hypnotic, chant-like oath in which they devoted themselves to God and renounced Santana. NO oye como va! 
The hour ceremony consisted mostly of them singing and holding moralizing lectures about staying away from disco theaters and how the parents should ensure the kid grows up to get married no later than 20, because after that, it just doesn't work. 
But then later was the marriage ceremony, because they were both happening on the same day, and the bride and groom got to wear these extravagant, golden crowns and to kiss this gigantic Bible completely made out of gold. 
The old women around here love to go to the church and kiss the mummified bones of dead local saints and the like. It's like going to Graceland for them, or something. This satisfied customer was just on her way back from kissing such bones (notice how she also kisses the reporter's microphone? ):
See those crazy God gestures at the end? 
There was a recent controversy where a school decided to let the priests come to a kindergarten and hold a chilling lesson about heaven and hell and what have you. These are basically evil people which, although most people under 40 probably wish the church would just fuck off and stop taking all the state money it does for their precious golden showers, still lumber around like unevolved, death-kissed reptiles.
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If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
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If I may summate your post: you wish to take over his position one day.
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger



Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 13 days
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More like I wish a Transylvanian vampire would feed off him and release the gold amongst the throngs of mummy-kissing old peasant women.
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If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
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Isn't that what I wrote?
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger



Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 13 days
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Not really; I have no interest in a position of such a power in the country. I would like to spur economic development here, later on in life when I have investment money, but when it comes to adopting a role from which to manipulate people in such a way, it seems trivial and pointless. I'm a self-interested man who simply sees the practicalities of getting along together on this planet. I don't mind my own personal power reverberating out across the universe, but it would hold no value to me to attach myself to some construct with which I could control for control's sake.
I suppose ultimately I just prefer more satisfying ways to bask in the glory that is the power to be alive.
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If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 3 days
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I'm at least 50% Romanian. I might be German too, but I think my mom lied about her father (whom I never knew) because his name sounds very German. But it was uncool to advertise being German after WW I, even though my mom was born in 1924. At any rate, I once phoned a local Romanian Orthodox church and spoke to a priest about buying an icon. After I shared my history about being raised Jewish, receiving Catholic baptism, earning a Masters degree in a Protestant (Methodist) seminary, but being interested in Patristic theology, his true colors came out as a paranoid anti-Semite! He, like other Orthodox Christian bigots was concerned that I would purchase a holy icon only to mutilate it, because he believed that's what Jews did to Christian art, like radical Muslims blowing up huge stone Buddhas. That priest probably believed the hate propaganda about Jews seeking the blood of unbaptized infants to make matzoh!
I was best man at a Greek Orthodox wedding of a childhood friend, and saw the ritual crowns, but these things were symbolic objects. Symbols are spiritually numinous things, which a certain mind-set thinks has to be translated into materially precious substances (gold, silver, jewels) in order to reflect the preciousness of the numinosity of the symbol. The symbols themselves are psychospiritual realities, and they are precious insofar as they elicit exalted states of consciousness, strengthen faith, or impart gnosis. But personally, I would distribute the wealth of the objects for more useful ends. Like in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the protagonist picks the most humble of grail cups, carved from wood, not jewel-encrusted gold chalices. It seems appropriate to be humble and modest with regard to sacred objects.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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