Catch up Ray Rappaport “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual”

Rappaport’s idea in this article is that the sacred is produced by ritual. In this sense a Christian’s cross isn’t holy till it was blessed in ceremony. This idea makes sense to me when considering the ritual of baptism. In this belief (as I understand it) a person’s soul can’t go to heaven unless he or she is baptized first. Here we can note that this act physically makes the person’s soul holy where it may have been unholy before. In this case the theory works; however, overall I found Rappaport’s argument flawed. Thinking of the religions of Native Americans many believed certain land such as mountains are holy and were that way long before people came into the world. There is also a flaw when considering prophets and messiahs. These people are to be the divine incarnate or something very similar. They are holy themselves. Under Rappaport’s thinking these people are considered holy until facilitated in a ritual.

This line of thinking makes sense to me, but I don’t agree with it at all. I personally believe in something spiritual (weather it’s God or spiritual energy) existing like Eliade does in his theories. I can’t see Rappaport’s views working unless one took an atheistic stance and said people only believe these objects or places to be holy once they start using them and seeing them in that light.

~ by bmill1 on April 30, 2008.