Early Christian Debasement

[Kitsune]

From what I have read, once martyrdom became no longer an effective means of your devotion to the Christian religion, many people got more inventive

Some included long fasts, living on poles, eating grass, and likely even more crazy means of showing devotion.....

Bascially it sounded like many of them wanted to turn themselves into something less than human, into nothing more than drones. Why did this appear to anyone and what did they think was coming for them in an afterlife for this...to be Cows in heaven?

[Knife]

Some sense of 'if we have to suffer on earth for god to love us, I'm going to really fucking suffer to show him how much I love him back' or some such I guess.

[Oskuro]

House once said, while discussing the meaning of life, that it'd suck if all this was just a test.

[Kanastrous]

I think the idea was to display conspicuous indifference to any possibility of enjoyment in the material world - because shunning physical and material comfort advertised commitment to the heavenly life that was expected to follow.

Plus a perverse pride in suffering more conspicuously than the next wannabe Holy Man.

He's got open wounds? Fuck him, I've got maggots!

[Invictus ChiKen]

In the Catholic church it is believed the more you suffer the holier and closer to God you become and the better you glory will be in Heaven.

Which btw you are destined to take and give to God and grovel before him saying glory to you oh lord for all eternity.

In other words it's literally about wanting to give God the biggest gift.

[Oskuro]

Yeah, because nothing says love like a bribe, but then again, the bible's concept of love is treating your wife and children as possesions, so no suprises there.

[Themightytom]

In the Catholic church it is believed the more you suffer the holier and closer to God you become and the better you glory will be in Heaven.

Which btw you are destined to take and give to God and grovel before him saying glory to you oh lord for all eternity.

In other words it's literally about wanting to give God the biggest gift.

That sounds accurate only if you remove the spiritual components of faith and devotion. Thats probably why early Christians ate grass, and why some of them today still fast, Offering up a comfort or a convenience is a way of acknowledging how meaningless your earthly needs are, when compared with the larger principles to be considered with the acknowledgement of a supreme being.


I suppose it could appear that Catholics are "Giving" a gift to God, but really its more like USING a gift for what its worth, since the original gift comes from god, creation and our existence, and what we do in our life is what is being offered back.

A gift is jsut a box until someone accepts it, unwraps it, examines it, and understands its meaning. THEN its a gift. The same way our lives just are until we examine them and find meaning. Some people found odd meanings (Living on a pole? What the F?) but since thats not my gift its not my problem.

[Surlethe]

I think the idea was to display conspicuous indifference to any possibility of enjoyment in the material world - because shunning physical and material comfort advertised commitment to the heavenly life that was expected to follow.

This is pretty spot-on. Many of the early Church fathers were stoics, so as Christianity grew and absorbed ideas, it soaked up quite a bit of indifference -- even embrace of -- the hardships of life. Mind you, it does dovetail quite nice into modern Christian theology, but that begs the question: which came first? The stoicism, or the Christian theology?

[Master of Ossus]

It's not just limited to Christianity, actually. Even apart from groups like the Cathars, there are many groups that sort of pride themselves on their suffering--extreme Buddhist sects, for instance, as well as Islamic fringe groups and a LOT of tribal religions heavily emphasize ritual suffering for the heck of it. That's just off the top of my head. I think that, during and before the Cathar crusade, some of them literally starved themselves to death as a show of devotion.

[sketerpot]

If you fast long enough while praying, your brain chemistry gets fucked up to the point where you have religious experiences. All sorts of other weird actions have the same effect, such as chanting in a dark place for a while, or eating a messed-up diet where grass features prominently. Anthropologists believe that this sort of thing formed a cornerstone of many, many religious rituals. Take cave paintings, for example: one mainstream explanation is that people went into a cave through a long, narrow tunnel, then fasted and beat on drums or something for a long time, and then drew pictures of the resulting hallucinations. It's like a drug trip with stone-age technology.

I'm sure that's part of the reason. Other parts of the reason have already been pointed out, and I'm not arguing with them.

[Tiriol]

There has been, historically, the problem where the Church has had to walk the fine line between exaltation of poverty and of realization that earthly fame and glory are mere "dust and shadow" when compared to Heavenly glory, and the (almost) total abandonment of earthly concerns that is native to Gnostism and Cathar Heresy. Gnostic teachings were unacceptable because they truly believed the material world to be inherently corrupt and product of the insane demiurge (the God of the Old Testament) whereas only salvation could come about from total embrace of spiritual existence and the true God untouched by material corruption. I think that the point is to show humility before God Almighty, not to necessarily debase yourself - although the difference is mostly theoretic in many cases.

[Buddha]

It's not just limited to Christianity, actually. Even apart from groups like the Cathars, there are many groups that sort of pride themselves on their suffering--extreme Buddhist sects

In India there was a branch of Hinduism that would do torturous things to the body to achieve the goal of moshka or release. This was also part of the beliefs of the Jain religion. The more extreme one was in the tortures of the body (tapas) the greater the merit one would achieve. They thought that the merit would benefit them in future rebirths. This kind of explains why it would be part of Buddhist secretarian practice. Although the more orthadox would not look too favorably on such practice. Even though there were and are people in Tibet who do stuff like seal themselves up in caves and meditate to achieve powers called siddhis. Those who achieve such power are called mahasiddhis.