That’s What It’s All About…
February 28, 2010 By 16 Comments
by VorJack
Here in Albany, the most famous of our odd Christian sects were the Shakers. Today the Shakers are most known for their furniture and their celibacy, but in 18th century they were known for their group dances.
The dances became a tourist attraction of a sort. The hall where the Shakers danced actually has benches in the back for observers. I think this says something about the lack of entertainment options in colonial New York.
One of the Shaker dances was called the “hinkumbooby,” more commonly known to everyone who went through kindergarten as the “hokey pokey,” (or the “hokey cokey” and other variants.)
Why would the Shakers be doing such an odd dance? Well, according to one legend, the “hokey pokey” is actually a derisive joke mocking the Catholic Mass, and in particular the Eucharist. The motions mock the “sit-stand-kneel” routine of the Mass itself, while the nonsense word that makes up the title supposedly mocks the magical nonsense of the Eucharist.
Maybe. The BS Historian grants it only a “plausible,” and I’d add “barely” to that. But maybe this knowledge will be useful.
Focus on that notion, that the “hokey pokey” is actually a joke about the magical nonsense of the Eucharist. Now see if that makes the following clip – featuring a church band playing the “Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey” and extolling its miracle working powers – less ridiculous.
I’m guessing probably not.
(via)
Baby “starved to death” because he did not say Amen
February 27, 2010 By 37 Comments
The case of the boy being starved to death for not saying Amen is now on trial. The mother thought the boy was going to be resurrected, and she still believes he is coming back. Score another one for “faith.”
For more than a week, Ria Ramkissoon watched passively as her one-year-old son wasted away, denied food and water because the older woman she lived with said it was God’s will.
Javon Thompson was possessed by an evil spirit, Ramkissoon was told, because he didn’t say “Amen” during a mealtime prayer. Javon didn’t talk much, given his age, but he had said “Amen” before, Ramkissoon testified in a US court in Baltimore.
On the day Javon died, Ramkissoon was told to “nurture him back to life”. She mashed up some carrots and tried to feed the boy, but he was no longer able to swallow. Ramkissoon put her hands on his chest to confirm that his heart had stopped beating.
Ramkissoon and several other people knelt down and prayed that he would rise from the dead. For weeks afterward, Ramkissoon spent much of her time in a room with her son’s emaciated body — talking to him, dancing, even giving him water. She thought she could bring him back.
Ramkissoon told the tale of her son’s excruciating death from the witness stand on Wednesday, at the trial of the woman she says told her not to feed the boy. Queen Antoinette was the leader of a small religious cult, according to police and prosecutors, and she faces murder charges alongside her daughter, Trevia Williams, and another follower, Marcus A. Cobbs. [...]
His body was hidden in a suitcase for more than a year and has since been buried. But even now, she maintains her faith in his resurrection.
“I still believe that my son is coming back,” Ramkissoon said. “I have no problem saying what really happened because I believe he’s coming back.
“Queen said God told her he would come back. I believe it. I choose to believe it,” she said. “Even now, despite everything, I choose to believe it for my reasons.”
Later, she acknowledged that her faith makes her sound crazy. “I don’t have a problem sounding crazy in court,” she said.
Welcome to Paradise, Here are your Raisins
February 27, 2010 By 13 Comments
by VorJack
The Tim Minchin clip from last week reminded me of a theory that was going around for a while.
The pseudonymous Christoph Luxenberg wrote a work titled A Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, in which he maintained that Muhammad and other early Muslims incorporated certain words and phrases from Aramaic into their Arabic. He also wrote that early Islam was influenced by Syrian Christianity.
So far, fairly plausible. He argued that these realizations allowed certain confusing parts of the Qur’an to be more clearly translated.
His most famous example deals with what the Muslim martyrs could expect in the afterlife. Luxenburg argues that the Arabic huri, or “virgins”, is actually a mistranslation of the Aramaic/Syriac word for “white grapes” or raisins, hur.
Can’t say whether it’s accurate or not. But if it is, then someone’s in for a disappointment.
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