What do you consider to be sacred ground ? Do you think such places exist?

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Places(in or related to America) like Gettysburg, Arlington Nat'l Cemetery, Ground Zero, the Vietnam Memorial, Normandy, for the U.S.S. Arizona, or even Yosemite National Park.

The mechanics of how we consider a place to be sacred interest me; we attribute sacred ground to not just places where many people lost their lives, but also to memorials to those who lost their lives(and those who sacrificed themselves in doing so). I mean, a place like the Vietnam Memorial seems to force a hushed, reverent tone when in attendance, just due to its design; a black slab in the side of a hill inscribed with the names of lost American servicemen. We have sites that hold reverance and sacredness, if you will, without being central to a particular religion like Mecca or the Wailing Wall.

What do you consider to be a holy site? Why do all these places involve the mass loss of life? Is it more to do with an idea of sacrifice?

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/headers/transparentlogo.gif

― and what, Friday, 27 April 2007 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/headers/transparentlogo.gif

― and what, Friday, 27 April 2007 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

haa

― and what, Friday, 27 April 2007 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

mountaintops

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

I don't consider spots where a lot of people died particularly holy or sacred - that seems counter-intuitive to me. They're just depressing, not much else.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

duh, shake 'n' steak obviously

― darraghmac, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

Anywhere that makes me feel awe, really. Mountains are a good one, as are forests with trees older than Jesus, and the middle of the ocean (hopefully on a boat). But it doesn't have to be natural -- I am in awe of the Brooklyn Bridge, as well.

― kenan, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

yeah the age and scope of a place definitely informs how I feel about it, whether its a natural environment (The Avenue of the Giants springs to mind) or somewhere people have been going to for thousands of years (holy mountain of Pushkar, the "birthplace" of Brahma). A space that enshrines the presence of ancient, still-living things (be they people, traditions, or plants) = holy ground to me.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

I thought about this since we have sacred/holy ground in a culture and a country that's only a few hundred years old, vs the holy sites that have been around for a coupla thousand years.

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think I would consider modern installations like the Vietnam Memorial "holy" or "sacred". Maybe more a place for respectful introspection . .or something.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

I think most places have something akin to the Romans' Lares.

― Michael White, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think Americans have done anything cool enough in the last 400+ years to warrant any of our places being designated "sacred" or "holy" (Mormons and crackpot zealots may disagree) - leaving us with our "natural wonders" (the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Niagara, the Redwoods, etc.) as the most justifiable candidates.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.magazineusa.com/images_st2/mn/st_paul/mall_of_america.jpg

― Michael White, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

You're talking about like secular/civic "sacredness" here, though, not divine sacredness. And secular/civic sacredness is just a matter of tact, politeness, and respect, more than anything. E.g., I don't think there's anything "sacred" about memorials to the dead, but I do think they're an appropriate thing for a culture to do, and it's a worthwhile social norm to be respectful of them.

― nabisco, Friday, 27 April 2007 21:24 (nineteen years ago)

http://freelargephotos.com/000316_s.jpg

― PappaWheelie V, Friday, 27 April 2007 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

Whoa, this thread is strage. I was expecting it to be about stone circles and ley lines and church alignments and it's just about... memorials?

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 09:49 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.new-age.co.uk/images/glastonbury-2004-pyramid-l.jpg

everyone has their own idea of sacredosity (sic) - i'm not sure atheists have any claim to call anything sacred, though.

― CharlieNo4, Monday, 30 April 2007 10:10 (nineteen years ago)

Hippie.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

My idea of sacred ground@

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/209/460642501_1e6e4c8a27.jpg

It's more the idea of somewhere that has been associated with... sacredness for a very long time. The sense of history, the kind of feeling of generations of humans worshipping or celebrating or even maybe mourning in the same place for a very long time.

I don't get that from battlefields. They feel spooky, but in a different way. Mass loss of life does not create, for me, a sense of holiness or sacredness. Then again, maybe that's cause I'm a raving hippie that associates holiness with life and rebirth (death as a sense of continuity) - rather than atributing it to the fetishisation of death, and victimhood, and loss of life that occurs at these "memorial" type places.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

secular/civic "sacredness"

No, sorry, this is an oxymoron. Find another word, please. Something secular by its very definition, cannot be "sacred".

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 10:43 (nineteen years ago)

kate totally OTM

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

(I was gonna make that point about secular and "sacred" being mutually exclusive myself)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

What would be a secular designation the inovkes feelings similar to "Sacred". Honored? Revered?

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:21 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.wlra.us/wl/wlotter.jpg

― ghost rider, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:24 (nineteen years ago)

Otter got back

― Mark C, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:25 (nineteen years ago)

is that a ferret?

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:26 (nineteen years ago)

WTF are you guys like metaphor dunces?

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:32 (nineteen years ago)

Or scare-quote disabled?

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:32 (nineteen years ago)

No, sorry, you cannot use a word that means the total *opposite* of another as a metaphor for it! You are being a definition dunce.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

Why do all these places involve the mass loss of life?

I don't think it is the people having died there that makes people think of the Kabaa or the Wailing Wall or the Al-Aqsa Mosque or whatever as sacred.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

Haha unfamiliar with the term "civic religion?"

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

Masonic Boom, where is that?

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

the passage grave type place above, I mean.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

I don't remember myself, but I recognize it from Julian Cope's book

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

(did anyone actually die at the Kabaa...? that was a sacred spot well before Muhammad claimed it for Islam)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry, I'm not up to date on the latest mediaspeak. But "secular" and "sacred" are, by the very definitions of the words, diametric opposites, mutually exclusive of one another.

It's like saying "white black" because you can't be bothered to think of the term for "grey".

The long barrow = Waylands Smithy, in Oxfordshire near the Uffington White Horse. A very otherworldly, *sacred* feeling space.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

Oh the arrogance of the English, Kate: "civic religion" goes back to Rousseau, and the metaphor in its use should make sense to pretty much anyone who thinks about it for half a second. Please note also that every contemporary definition of "sacred" includes at least one sense like Webster's 2b ("entitled to reverence or respect").

But mostly I just can't figure out why you're being a pedant -- worse, actually, a Pedant Who Is Wrong -- about a fairly straightforward metaphorical concept.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.headheritage.co.uk/merchandiser/packshots/TMEBK1.jpg

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

Especially given the clear use of scare quotes in the original to point up exactly the thing you think you're so brilliant for noticing?

You're talking about like secular/civic "sacredness" here, though, not divine sacredness.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

You must be new here. Get off Kate's thread!!!!! xpost

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

who's quote is it, about no matter where you stand, millions lie dead?

― gff, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

Because I'm sick of the way that words' actual meanings are bandied about and turned into oxymorons as playthings for other people's agendas, be they Christians or Christian-baters, when the word and concept themselves predate either. Some words are red flags. "Sacred" is especially one of them.

And I'm pretty sure that Rousseau, being Swiss, did not actually write in English, and therefore would not have used either the word "sacred" or "secular".

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/65/169793309_c5ed3274e2.jpg?v=0

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:49 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/acolvil/igneous/devils_tower_y.jpg

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

...and I'm surprised that you, Nabisco, of all people cannot recognise the uncomfortable symbolism/metaphorical content of American war memorials being declared the "secular sacred".

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:51 (nineteen years ago)

old shit

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:51 (nineteen years ago)

Kate, we understand that you don't want to be American even though you are. Now FUCKING CUT IT OUT.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

Rousseau was the first of many, many people to talk about how civic and political groups develop things that resemble religion in their practice, such as having national founding myths, venerating founders, or revering war dead. He -- and countless others -- refer to this sort of thing as a "civic religion," not as a plaything or to advance an agenda, but because it's a handy and evocative metaphor for describing the way people play out these beliefs.

If you have trouble following that turn of phrase, I suggest never reading a book, ever, because there will be some kind of line about flowers raising their arms to the sun, and you will be all like "I'M KATE, FLOWERS DON'T HAVE ARMS, I'M SICK OF THE WAY THAT THE ACTUAL MEANING OF THE WORD 'ARMS' GETS BANDIED ABOUT AND TURNED INTO A PLAYTHING, I'M KATE, I'M OUT OF HERE."

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

^^^ that was a pretty decent impression!

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

5. regarded with reverence: the sacred memory of a dead hero.

― Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

And I'm pretty sure that Rousseau, being Swiss, did not actually write in English, and therefore would not have used either the word "sacred" or "secular".

Yes, no words in romance languages could possibly be directly equivalent!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

P.S., note that I also said "secular/civic sacredness is just a matter of tact, politeness, and respect, more than anything." Which is to say that people will not urinate on the Vietnam memorial like it's just any old wall, and while it's in a way that might resemble or function like religious taboo, it's built more on a social arrangment, where we've agreed to take something seriously on a cultural level, and so you wouldn't pee on it out of some basic respect for that cultural commonplace.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

For the love of God, Nabisco, why are you acting like I've just torched your flag?

Am I not allowed to disagree with the thread topic, or you, without being called an idiot? Name-calling is below you, and less than I expected.

The whole point of the thread is getting at what the concept of sacredness. To me, it is pretty much the opposite of the things described in the opening post. As I stated above.

But no, you just want to call me names over semantics instead of actually responding to any of my points.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

he's responding to your points, he called you a "metaphor dunce" ONCE and that's about all the name-calling I can see

― Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

In *MY* opinion, this "civic religion" is just about the opposite of my concept of what sacredness is. Now discuss that without behaving like a gang of shit-throwing howler monkeys because it's "OH NOES THE DEMON BRITISHES KATE" expressing this point.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

Name-calling is below you, and less than I expected.

Too bad no one could say the same about you, you old loon!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

You're not even British!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

But kate is right once you get into the idea of a civic religion you get beyond the the purely secular. The sacredness of war memorials cannot be secular, but it does not have to be of gods or religions. A third point on the triangle or a different axis, if you will.

Sacredness is by it's nature an subjective trait imposed upon places by people. It is a concept that, surprise surprise, I am uneasy with.

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

guys what do you think about use/traffic of spots that are only considered sacred by a small portion of the population? ie - Devil's Tower is considered sacred by some native americans, and they would prefer that ppl didn't climb on it, so it's closed for a short period every year in deference to that belief.

see also: the mountains of bhutan are illegal to climb because they are considered sacred.

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

http://pittsburghsigns.org/archives/DairyQueen.jpg

― ghost rider, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

did anyone actually die at the Kabaa...?

someone was probably trampled to death once when they were doing the circling of it, but its siginificance is not related to that.

What is its significance? It contains a meteorite which was already being venerated in pre-Islamic times as some kind of gift of the Gods, latterly a gift of God, is that it?

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

Exactly, thank you, Ed. This kind of triangulation makes me very uncomfortable, albeit for different reasons. There is Sacred, there is Secular, then there is this strange thing in the middle which is neither but claims to be both, when this is not possible.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

Woah, Nitsuh far from OTM - you're being far more of a pedant than Kate just because she's not comfortable using the phraseology you have decreed correct.

However, I am going to start saying "I believe Rousseau wrote..." every time I want to win an argument, especially if I assume they won't know who Rousseau was.

― Mark C, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.justsuppose.com/blog/DiAgnosticMusings_C503/InGodWeTrust_s3.jpg

But kate is right once you get into the idea of a civic religion you get beyond the the purely secular. The sacredness of war memorials cannot be secular, but it does not have to be of gods or religions.http://tempel.eris23.com/pics/pyramid_eye_2003_glow.gif A third point on the triangle or a different axis, if you will.

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/ami/lowres/amin55l.jpg

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

FUCK YOU CAPTAIN SAVE A HO

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, see, I thought it was about what the idea of "sacred ground" meant to individual ILXors. We can all read a dictionary and find out what it *really* means, but others extend the concept into their own personal spheres - as Nabisco has said, the definition has expanded (Please note also that every contemporary definition of "sacred" includes at least one sense like Webster's 2b ("entitled to reverence or respect"). ) to get beyond the original meaning.

Welcome to the world of discussing things.

― ailsa, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

ghost rider is on point throughout this thread.

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Monday, 30 April 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

well in Islam the claim (I think?) is that the Kabaa is the rock where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac - but it was venerated as a holy site pre-Muhammad, probably for the reasons similar to the ones you cite. I mean its a big black rock in the middle of the desert, it DOES look pretty freaky.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

you spent a lot of time on the post, Jon.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

the kaaba /= black stone

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sacred_rocks

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

You spend a lot of time on the pot, shithead.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

(million xposts)

Hahaha Kate YOU tried to correct me on a semantic point --

No, sorry, this is an oxymoron. Find another word, please.

-- and you're just, like, kinda wrong about it! And my response to your point is that you will never be able to restrict people from using the word "sacred" in a somewhat metaphorical non-religious sense to describe general respect and reverence ("reverence" = another religious term that's come to have a commonplace meaning as well). They're in the dictionary that way. And I'm not sure why you'd want to stop people from using these terms to compare civic pieties to religious ones (see what I did there with "civic pieties?"), any more than you'd want to stop poets from describing flowers as raising their "heads" or "arms."

You will probably want to continue arguing this point, but I think I'm prepared to let it go.

xposts: the term "civic religion" is not CLAIMING TO BE BOTH, it is a metaphorical description of a complex of these things -- if you want to provide a phrase you're more comfortable with than the one that's been in use since like 1762, be my guest! But if I try to clarify Kingfish's starting post by separating things out into "divine" sacredness and a sort of in-practice "secular/civic" sacredness, don't go jumping on my word usage as if I don't know what I'm saying.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

no wait I'm confusing the Kabaa with the Dome of the Rock there (the Dome of the Rock is where Jews claim Abraham was going to sacrifice his son). Muhammad claimed that Abraham and his son Ishmael BUILT the Kabaa.

x-x-x-xpost

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

You spend a lot of time on the pot, shithead.

I expected such a response to a merely observational statement but went ahead. Your extreme reactionism amuses me.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

LIBRARIES

― Abbott, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

and yes I understand that the Kabaa *houses* the black rock, it is not the rock itself - a minor distinction

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

except that the black rock itself is weensy

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

this is the threads for pedants

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

It is interesting, the idea of sacred places being re-used, reclaimed again and again by different religions. The reaction of the Saxons to Stonehenge, (or of Long barrows - Waylands Smithy is named after a Saxon god, though it was a pre-Celtic monument) and then hippies thousands of years later.

Are some places sacred by their very *Nature* (in both senses of the word) or is it simply the reinforcement that humans have declared it to be sacred at some point in history, and like reinforces like? It's interesting and fun to try and detangle.

"Sacred Places" entered the American mindset in a different, more sinister angle - the repeated meme of the ancient Indian burial ground in horror movies.

millions of x-posts now, and I'm going home soon.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Taliesin600.jpg

― chicago kevin, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Fat bitch Ms Misery TX in overestimating the time requirements of using GIS shocka!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Dude, you're going WAY over the dick line, rein it in.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

It is interesting, the idea of sacred places being re-used, reclaimed again and again by different religions.

Its not just places dude:

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/images/muslim.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/PandorasBazaar/Pagan/Pagan%20America/Christmas-tree.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon-Ra

"Sacred Places" entered the American mindset in a different, more sinister angle - the repeated meme of the ancient Indian burial ground in horror movies.

uh yea because there's no cultural continuity with the UK wtf. Sinister indian burial ground was not around until you were a plump little troll in the 70s

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

Whatever, if someone who I've never even talked to feels obligated to take pot shots at me, they can get fucked. I mean, FFS, Kate deserves to be a jerk to me, but I don't even know who this other person is!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

Jon, isn't it time you took your medication, or ate your lunch, or whatever it is that stops this kind of ADHD freakout? I'd really be interested in talking to you about this stuff, if you weren't just insulting everyone left right and centre. It makes it quite hard to take anything you say seriously.

― Masonic Boom, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE

― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

xxpost
It wasn't a pot shot, Jon. I'm not really into those, that's your territory.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

^ pot shot

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

in answer to the thread question, the Moderator Request Forum and the DC sandbox thread.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

Also /dev/kmem

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

or is that /proc/kmem?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

I can't follow this particular soap opera - what were we talking about again?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

hawkwind

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

sacred cows

― Ms Misery, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

A quick google reveals a wealth of incomer cultural references to Native American Burial grounds in the 19th Century. Perhaps representing a sub-concious unease about the destruction of the pre-existing culture. These sites seem to have a received sacredness. (there was a lot of pseudo-archaeological and just plain digging up of sites as well it seems). Naturally this was raided by horror literature and films in the 70s, again as a metaphor for being somewhere one shouldn't be.

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

lol at jon having a classic kenan moment

― kenan, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

My answer to the question: sure as hell not this thread.

My honest answer? Nothing really. I have little affinity with ground. But I do call this sacred:

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/tizdebz/images/cat%2520hug.jpg

― stevienixed, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

Haha Ah well. I can't even post images.

― stevienixed, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

the kaaba /= black stone

is the kabaa the big black cube, or is it the meteorite which is, I think, set into its side?

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

the kaaba is the big black cube, the black stone is one of its corner stones

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

Cool. Was that a giant otter way up there?

― cli0019, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

yes

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

Haha apparently the stubborn-pedants me/Kate argument was BETTER footing for this thread to stay on, so I'll hop back to something about that:

Basically I'm not sure how effective it would be to try and use the word "sacred" in a strictly theological way, outside of a strictly theological context. Even in religions that have very clear-cut notions of holy/divine/sacred things -- like Catholicism -- it's not as if you have any uniformity of personal feeling about those things. The average Catholic probably doesn't have absolutely clear black-and-white feelings about the precise sacred status of a rosary or an image of Christ; the average protestant can call the pastor "Reverend So-and-So" without precise feelings on the holiness of the man in question. So it seems more effective to use the term "sacred" in a broader social way, to describe group behavior toward some object -- not a declaration that it is absolutely a divine thing, but a general feeling of respect and reverence toward it. And once you think of it that way, there isn't even a metaphor anymore in the idea that something like a war memorial is "sacred" -- not only because it's treated as sacred in that social sense, but because for some people there really will be spiritual or theological sentiment mixed in with that reverence. Equally good example = burial sites, yes. Are you going to call that strict religious "sacredness," or just a longstanding human reverence toward the dead, one that predates most every existing religion in the world? If it's strictly theological, then whose theology? (Must it have been consecrated by a priest?) So I dunno, in the end it seems more useful and WAY less in danger of personal agendas to use the word in a looser way, to describe a kind of "folk reverence" and not a theological declaration.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:53 (nineteen years ago)

WOT HAPPENED TO MY THREAD

I take the morning to fix a broken chiller unit and argue with a supplier and i come back to this.

At any rate, yes, plenty of people consider a variety of places to be sacred or holy, which includes Gettysburg, Stonehenge, Native American burial grounds(attitudes about which have perceptively changed), Ground Zero, etc.

Part of the reason why I posted this thread is b/c I'm interested in the mechanism of why such places are considered to be such. Why do some sites acquire this status, and others do not?

― kingfish, Monday, 30 April 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

why shouldn't i be allowed to climb a mountain in bhutan?

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

there's so many of them! no one would ever know!

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

answer to someone's question way upthread--the kaaba doesn't derive its religious status from being a site of battle/death/burial, no. there's a qur'anic story about an attempted attack on it, but part of the mythology is that it's a place that battle can't reach. of course, it seems extremely likely historically that people have died in it.

― horseshoe, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

Also, my use of the word "sacred" is not in the strict theological sense, of something that is literally sacred (Kaaba, Dome of the Rock, etc), but what is also treated as sacred, with the respect and reverence bit. More of a rough popular definition, I guess.

― kingfish, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

we've been over this

― river wolf, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

My gripe is not with using sacred in a strictly theological way but with using secular in as a qualifier for sacred, it just does not compute. Civic sacred sits much better and easier.

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

There can't be an atheist notion of sacred ground?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

let's ask Richard Dawkins

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

No I don't think there can be, but I do think anyone can attach significance to a piece of ground, but that is entirely a subjective thing. Just as with sacredness the significance is implied by the people finding it significant, get enough of these people and it becomes important to society rather than just individuals or groups.

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

I would wager that not many atheists at the Vietnam War memorial would tell you that their reverence was out of respect for the theists present!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

Significant but not scared. Meaning has been imparted by the people ho wish to use it as a focus for remembrance.

(Bear in mind I am deeply uncomfortable with a concept of sacred that goes beyond the concept of significant that I describe above)

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah Ed, part of my point here is that you're going to have a really hard time making black-and-white distinctions between strict theological sacredness ("the Pope SAYS this is divine"), regular religious sacredness ("I feel religious reverence"), civic/social "sacredness" (e.g. with war memorials), and general Websters-2b "sacredness" ("I feel respect for this symbol"). You can't always carve these up well; if you disrespected a revered site and asked people why they were appalled, you'd probably get responses all across that spectrum, and I'm not sure you'd get far pressing people on whether they believed the thing was absolutely officially holy or just deserving of respect.

But the part you CAN tell is that they're all united by a certain type of behavior and approach toward the thing, a social behavior we use religion-type words -- sometimes kinda metaphorically -- to describe.

xpost yeah exactly -- but as social behavior, people putting significance on a site based on "religious" beliefs is largely indistinguishable from people doing so for ... well, any other deeply felt reason! Even elephants are weird about the bones of their dead -- does that ritualistic practice constitute elephant religion, or elephant social behavior? Etc. etc.

― nabisco, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

Are some places sacred by their very *Nature* (in both senses of the word) or is it simply the reinforcement that humans have declared it to be sacred at some point in history, and like reinforces like? It's interesting and fun to try and detangle.

Not in or connected to America, but when I visited Stonehenge a while ago, the audioguide claimed that that site had been used as a place of worship for thousands of years, long before even the stones that are there now were laid out, because humans had always found something inherently spiritual about that site. Not being a spiritual person, I'm rather skeptical of the idea that a place could be sacred by nature, though I can see that there are places which have an awe-inspiring aesthetic appeal. I suppose this is to do with the power of certain images (at Stonehenge I think it is something to do with seeing the sunset from on top of a hill), hard to explain scientifically (for me, anyway) but easy to admit without reference to anything supernatural. Perhaps when that visual impression mixes with something else (knowing that the place has some religious significance, or that many people died there, for example) it produces the feeling of "sacredness".

I felt a certain profound sense of something seeing the World War I memorials in Flanders. I think that was the visual impact of all those plain white graves mixed with the knowledge of what they represented.

― Cathy, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not disagreeing with that and, by and large, I'm not disagreeing with others finding things sacred for whatever reason. What I am saying is that the significance attached to a place is attached to it by the weight of humans finding it significant. The pope can pronounce all he like but it takes the massed ranks of Catholics to make something significant to Catholics. (the pope can be quite persuasive in this regard though, I'll grant you). there isn't really a need to make the distinction between the different kinds of significance because they all come from the same place, people attaching said significance.

But it still does not help to conflate the words secular and sacred when they are useful for qualifying the significance of a place.

― Ed, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

What do **you** know about the sacred secular rites of tipping a barkeep??

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Monday, 30 April 2007 18:49 (nineteen years ago)

OK, there's been a few posts since yesterday, which I don't really have the stamina to read right now. I am not a particularly articulate person, and even less so when under pressure. I prefer to take time, examine and think about things, then come back and answer. So this is what I have done, overnight, since my last post.

--

Secular and Sacred, as words, when used in conjunction, are binary opposites. Now the word "Sacred" may have evolved a secondary non-religious usage, but "Secular" as a word, still means non-Sacred. (Collins Dictionary on my desk – 1) worldly, not sacred 2) not connected with religion or the Church) It is wrong-headed doublespeak to use them together. It is not a question of my not getting a metaphor, or simple pedantery - it is illegitimate as a concept.

Civic Religion, fair enough - though Rousseau hardly invented the concept. It predates even the Romans, or the Egyptians and their Pharoahs. The Romans excelled at it, though, turning their religion of their state into a State Religion, making gods of their emperors, a seductive package of their culture, political, economic and religious, as a tool to spread their empire. But therein lies the rub.

America has created these State Cathedrals - the neo-Classical monuments of Washington DC (and you needn't try to tell me that vernacular architecture is an accident) and their shrines to their war-dead. And you want to call this their "Secular Sacred" and it just doesn't work that way. Once one utilises the symbolism and the mechanics of the Sacred, it is no longer purely Secular. The binary classification of secular/sacred *can* not apply.

Though, unlike the atheist bullboys of ILX searching for strawmen, I do not see Religion as inherently negative. Human beings have an inborn need or urge for the Sacred, and for shrines to that sacredness. I would go so far as to say that humans are hard-wired for pattern-making, and the creation of gods and heroes and shrines. Eliminate organised religion, and that part of the brain will latch onto something else - sport, celebrity, political ideology. Shea Stadium or Pearl Harbour or the Vietnam Memorial attain the same kind of "Take off your shoes, you are on holy ground" aura as Mecca or Jerusalem - while claiming some kind of intellectual high ground of being "not a religion" and therefore "Secular." This is hypocrisy!

Now for the controversial personal opinion bit: One of my biggest problems with American culture is its deeply held cultural belief in the redemptive or cathartic power of violence. Hence why so many of America's "Sacred Places" commemorate death, war and violence. (Kind of like the Romans, when you think about it.)

To that, I would say, be very careful what you worship.

Call me a hippie, but the places I find sacred speak of other qualities. The yearly rebirth cycles (symbolised by the womb entrances of long barrows) the astronomical alignments of stone circles, the fertility and life-giving properties of springs and wells. These are some of the oldest human expressions of the Sacred. What does this celebrate, to me? Mystery and Awe. History and Time. Nature.

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

Which means, kate, it's where you find it?
I'm worshipping the trees right now, because they are springing forth and making me happy. ME.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

Call me a hippie

You're a hippie

― Tom D., Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

I have no problem with that.

And I like trees, I especially like that rising of the sap green colour that get, just before they spring forth, that to me is one of the most sacred/spiritual things ever - the return of spring and its promise.

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

America has created these State Cathedrals - the neo-Classical monuments of Washington DC (and you needn't try to tell me that vernacular architecture is an accident)

http://www.adventurist.net/trips/washington_dc_08-2004/cathedral/photos/side-of-whole-catheral.jpg

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

Ummm...?

http://www.senate.gov/visiting/resources/graphic/xlarge/Jefferson-Memorial.jpg

http://z.about.com/d/godc/1/0/E/1/Lincoln2.jpg

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

Also in DC

http://www.catholichistory.net/images/ShrineImmaculateConception.jpg

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

Two pretty big cathedrals. In DC.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:27 (nineteen years ago)

Not to mention...

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/washington-dc/images/s/washington-dc-us-capitol-s.jpg

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

Hence why so many of America's "Sacred Places" commemorate death, war and violence.

Sorry this is bullshit. WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial are the only two in DC that come to mind. And I don't see how they commemorate violence.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

To me I would definitely consider the Lincoln Memorial sacred in whatever non-pendatic meaning we've settled on. Standing on the steps, looking out over the reflection pool and imagining MLK speaking there is a deeply soulful experience.

See also the Grand Canyon.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

no one answered my question

― river wolf, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

ideology. Shea Stadium or Pearl Harbour or the Vietnam Memorial attain the same kind of "Take off your shoes, you are on holy ground" aura as Mecca or Jerusalem

Most of the Pearl Harbor memorial is underwater! You do get to step on a platform, but most of the experience is to look down into the water at The Arizona.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

List in the original question, Mr. Que:

Places(in or related to America) like Gettysburg, Arlington Nat'l Cemetery, Ground Zero, the Vietnam Memorial, Normandy, for the U.S.S. Arizona, or even Yosemite National Park

Only ONE of this list is not war/violence related.

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

Although Ground Zero led to a war I don't think that's why people revere it. The people who died there were not soliders.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

Well, Kate please don't accuse DC of not having holy sites!

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

Kate, I think your point's true for a lot of war memorials, but actually not for most of the ones mentioned on this thread -- for the Pearl Harbor and Vietnam memorials, or for Gettysburg, your criticism is a bit like saying gravestones "commemorate disease." Some sites legitimize violence by adding to a myth of heroic, patriotic sacrifice, but others just plain mourn death. They have a habit of starting out as the latter (mourning) and then aging into symbols for the former, but not always -- e.g., the Vietnam memorial would be a really shitty place for anyone to propose violent military action!

― nabisco, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.atpm.com/6.04/northwest/images/mount_rainier.jpg

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.sagarmatha.com/images/2003-WA-MtAdams.jpg

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

gabbneb otm

also, someone answer my fucking question

― river wolf, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:55 (nineteen years ago)

what was your question? (i'm too lazy to scan thread)

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:55 (nineteen years ago)

why shouldn't i be allowed to climb a mountain in bhutan?

-- river wolf, Monday, April 30, 2007 11:00 AM (Yesterday)

there's so many of them! no one would ever know!

-- river wolf, Monday, April 30, 2007 11:00 AM (Yesterday)

it is illegal to climb mountains in bhutan because they are considered sacred.

http://www.unf.edu/classes/freshmancore/core1images/discus.jpg

― river wolf, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

Perhaps you should ask someone from Bhutan

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

why shouldn't i be allowed to climb a mountain in bhutan?

because you and me and the bhutanese (?) regard the "sacred" as the un (or less) known?

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

srsly: it is germane to the discussion, i think! xp

― river wolf, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.prncomputers.com/images/peakspict/peaks-600pix.jpg

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

okay, so why shouldn't you be allowed to piss on the alamo?

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.americansouthwest.net/slot_canyons/photographs700/llewellyn10.jpg

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'm still pissed than they didn't allow me to check out the basement on our Alamo tour.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

I guess I see the Lincoln memorial as sacred

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.galleryone.com/images/cook/cook_-_winter_awakening_cook_forest_park_pennsylvania.jpg

http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/t/throughwoodss.jpg

― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

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