View Single Post
Old 01-07-2005, 10:48 AM   #14
Paul D. Smith
 
Paul D. Smith's Avatar
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 26
United_States
Offline
Re: Struggles with Bowing

It seems to me that it is all within the mind and heart of the person doing the bowing - if you bow to call the kami gods awake, so be it; if you bow to not look like a fool when others do, so be it; if you bow out of respect, so be it; ad infinitum. Bottom line, at least insofar as Christian theology is concerned (at least as much as I know of it), the concern is more with the inner heart of man, as the essence of sin; provided it is not proscribed by "Law," the desire embedded in the ritual seems the germane issue. Why the concern about the ritual itself? If you are a Christian and find this a pagan practice (or a problem therein), then don't bow with the desire to call the kami awake; it seems that if one otherwise has a problem, he or she is concerned more with appearances than any real transgression re: one's religion. I am an atheist, more or less, but wonder if God, or the Triune Godhead, or whatever you deem it, would be truly threatened by "appearances" one way or the other.

Just my $.02.
  Reply With Quote