I was sitting in my non-western religions class tonight and my prof started talking about animism. Which in laymans terms basically is a belief system of beings and spirits who we as humans try to munipulate to do our bidding. So As my prof was expaining this belief system he brought up a pretty interesting point about both Christianity and animism.
They both can involve magic.
Now before you start freaking out and calling me a heretic hear me out.
Let's take a coke machine into consideration. You can go up to a coke machine and put money in and recieve a coke. Anyone can do this no matter what you have done before hand. Whether you have killed six men or just got done at a retreat and are landing from a spiritual high. Coke machines don't care what you have done or where you have been you get the same result every time(unless it's broken, or out of coke).
All you have to do is put your money in press a button and get the coke. So lets go back to Christianity. We have a guy named Larry who has been a Christian for 15 years. He goes to church every Sunday, reads his Bible, prays everyday, and serves in his church weekly. Suddenley his wife gets sick with cancer. He prays and continues to devote himself to scripture and to his church. He belives that God will help him because of his dedication. However, his wife dies and Larry gets angry becuase he has spent so much time in prayer and in scripture. He has used his routine for God as magic. He believes that since he has done certain things, aka put the quarters in the machine. That he can just press the button and ask God to heal his wife. Once catch-God doesn't owe us anything and we can't manipulate him. Now don't get me wrong every Christian isn't like this, it's just an interesting connection.
The story of Christianity and Animism.
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