Comment by waprin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by waprin | Hacker News Reader

The author talks about linking it to human sacrifice, which is definitely an angle worth considering. But there are some others-

1. Immediacy is one of the ten principles of burning man, and burning the art when finished forces people to appreciate it in the moment while it still exists. It’s worth noting a lot of art is burned, not just the man.

2. Fire is aesthetically pleasing . A huge percentage of the burning man crowd is into fire dancing and fire arts

3. They burn the Man because that’s what they do - similar to abstract art you can just accept how that makes you feel rather than needing to cognitively analyze it.

4. It connects to both eastern and western religion. Impermanence is a pillar of Buddhism and a man publicly dying is a pillar of Christianity

Of course I don’t think drawing a connection to human sacrifice is outlandish as a ritualistic burning of a symbolic man during a large semi-spiritual gathering is easy to connect to human sacrifice. But it’s worth considering a few other ideas.

Native Americans of the Pacific coast who saw bountiful years more often than not also engaged in rituals of conspicuous consumption, typically by burning the excess.

This is something that would have been taught to anyone taking an anthropology class in college from at least the 1960s, and if you've seen these displays in person, they're fairly impactful.

That's what I've always associated Burning Man with. It's an effigy and totem of our ephemeral human-ness, enabled in a harsh and hostile environment by the excesses we've accumulated over the whole of human history. We pause briefly to remember that how we live now is not the only way and reflect on the loss of our common pasts, and that one day this too will not exist.

The human sacrifice angle feels like the kind of contrived pop-culture interpretation someone who's watched Temple of Doom too many times and hasn't read enough local history would convince themself of.

> Native Americans of the Pacific coast who saw bountiful years more often than not also engaged in rituals of conspicuous consumption, typically by burning the excess.

Burning Man definitely feels like white people 'discovering' potlatch. The actual burning of the man is mostly a hood ornament for the event. The festival itself and its culture revolve around creating a community and your rank in that community mainly comes from how much you give away. That's really the thing that keeps people coming back, not the fancy bonfire.

> and your rank in that community mainly comes from how much you give away

really it's how much perceived value and social power you have, which is not necessarily related to gifting. you can have elevated rank if you run a theme camp, if you organize big art, if you're the head of a department, if you can get a lot of tickets, if you run a turn-key camp, or if people just really really like you. technically none of that implies gifting.

I once read (I believe it was in [1]) that the indigenous tribes of the PNW especially along the coast had one of the highest standards of living on earth at the time Lewis & Clark arrived. Food (salmon, berries, shellfish) was exceedingly abundant as was wood for building and fuel.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18085481-astoria

This is a little outside your point, but the arrival of Lewis and Clark was kind of an irrelevant point for the PNW nations. Russia had been trading with the northwest since 1740, numerous other expeditions had been out there, and there had already been massive changes caused by contact.

There was also pretty widespread trade between tribes up and down the West coast from what is now BC all the way down through the what is now the Baja.

Yeah I hang with a fair amount of burners and have always understood the burning of the man to be about impermanence

> The author talks about linking it to human sacrifice, which is definitely an angle worth considering. But there are some others-

But some of the others are also connected to human sacrifice, such as...

> It connects to both eastern and western religion. Impermanence is a pillar of Buddhism and a man publicly dying is a pillar of Christianity

The “man publicly dying” that is a pillar of Christianity is a human sacrifice, though.

> a man publicly dying is a pillar of Christianity

OT, I am not deeply familiar with any particular religion, but do you have more information on this, or perhaps why it is a pillar? Do other religions not have something similar in their [historical/current] practices?

He's talking about Jesus being crucified. The whole religion is named after the guy.

But why is it not a pillar of ancient Celtic religion, for example? They were literally burning people in wicker cages for religious reasons. When you say "burning man", I certainly imagine druids much more readily than Christianity.

I expect most Americans are much more familiar with Christianity than with ancient Celtic religion.

Which religion do you think of when I say “burning woman?”

Hinduism, obviously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)

The Lord of Light, probably.

The Celtic practices are apparently in some doubt these days, since "fake news" had already been invented in Roman times. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_man for more details)

In any cases, burning some poor bloke as a sacrifice to the gods seems of a different order than building the main thrust of your symbolism (ie, crosses everywhere) around the death of your main prophet figure. Many religions did the former, very few seem to have done the latter.

It probably is the pillar of christianity just because it is what happened. It is rather shocking if the founder is executed in such a brutal way so you need to make a story around that. It is in fact so shocking that the story pretty much turned out to need to redefine reality or god or something like that. Nobody understands this trinity stuff anyway.... And then you can choose to believe it of or not believe it...

> It is rather shocking if the founder is executed in such a brutal way so you need to make a story around that.

Not sure what's shocking about it. Probably tens of thousands of people were executed in the same way; it was a commonplace method of execution at the time. Are you shocked by lethal injection, for example?

Except we no longer execute people for association and organising peaceful protests nowadays. Not in civilized countries anyway.

I think the key word here is "today". I'm not telling you to judge 2000 year old events from the POV of modern sensibilities.

Perhaps because Christianity was a better proponent of sadomasochistic tendencies than pagan rites ever were. It looks as if it was also a huge component of its success.

What is specifically Christian about the death of Christ is that he's the final sacrifice. He's also the highest ranking sacrifice - the son of God - and he is resurrected afterwards. He is the one-off payment to redeem humanity.

It's also a sacrifice that christians can participate in despite it happening twenty centuries ago by drinking his blood and eating his body.

(Lapsed church of England here; while I don't believe this myself I was thoroughly taught it. Interesting that it's no longer so dominant that everyone has a background awareness of what the doctrine is. Difficult to interpret much pre-1800 European art without it)

And their symbol is that of his means of death, with many churches prominently displaying that death (him dying on the cross).

I read that as "a man publicly dying" as in the sense of "public executions are a tenant of the religion", which did not make much sense to me.

Even specific to Jesus though, do other religions not have a prominent sacrifice in their history?

You might have come across the name Jesus.

I think you might've missed the second half of my question?

> Do other religions not have something similar in their [historical/current] practices?

Is the prominent sacrifice of a person unique to the background of Christianity? I do not really understand the snarky replies.

The snarky replies are because people are interpreting your questions as challenging and ignoring obvious context. So, they’re trying to shut you down.

A less snarky response:

> do you have more information on this, or perhaps why it is a pillar?

Christianity is referring to Jesus Christ (not his actual name). He was a religious figure and publicly executed. The story of his life, execution and what happens after (resurrection and ascension) are central to Christianity. This is what makes his death a “pillar”. The religions is built on it, like a building is supported with pillars.

> Do other religions not have something similar in their [historical/current] practices?

The “not” in your question implies that it this question is opposed to your last question. That a public death can’t be a pillar of Christianity if it’s in other religions. This is not the case. Something doesn’t have to be unique to be a pillar. Asceticism and isolation are pillars of monastic Zen. They are also pillars of Shipibo shamanism.

So, yes, lots of other public sacrifices. Point still holds.

Christ is more of a title. His name was Jesus of Nazareth. If you believe him to be Christ then you would call him Jesus Christ.

Eh, I say Jesus Christ even though I haven't accepted him as my lord and savior. "Jesus of Nazareth" wasn't exactly his name either as in "what people called him when he was alive". Yeshua seems to be the closest.

Right, but christos in Greek means “anointed one”, so like the other person said, it’s a title

(Thanks for taking the time and writing this.)

> The snarky replies are because people are interpreting your questions as challenging and ignoring obvious context.

I knew Jesus plays a notable (?) role in Islam, and other prophets / people are also notable in both religions, so I didn't know if the sacrifice was a critical component in both, but:

> what happens after (resurrection and ascension) are central to Christianity.

I think that helps a bit more with context.

> That a public death can’t be a pillar of Christianity if it’s in other religions.

That wasn't what I meant per se, it was more that OP specifically cited Christianity, so I was curious if that was unique component to Christianity, but you and other comments helped clarify.

There are similar stories in other religions. Krishna stands out, being killed while in human form, forgiving his killer, and then ascending to heaven. Although that was an accident, not intentional sacrifice.

Jesus’ death and resurrection is important because of why He died.

He died for us. We’re born as sinners. We live lives that are offensive to a righteous God.

Though we have the inbuilt desire to be justified, we fall so far below God’s standard there is nothing we can do to be right with God.

But He loved us so much, He decided to send His only Son - Jesus - to live the perfect sinless life that we could not.

Then He sacrificed Himself on our behalf. In believing in Jesus, His righteousness is accounted to us and we are made right with God. The implications of this are incredible but I won’t get into it.

Jesus came to the earth preaching this good news (the gospel). And this news is a good story, but the crux of what makes it true is that He was resurrected by God.

His resurrection validated His claims. Believing in Him has transformed millions of lives because God’s Spirit dwells inside of His people when they believe.

By His Spirit for millennia, starting with His own disciples, people have done tremendous feats and have been willing to die to share this news with the world.

AFAIK other religions requires their followers to sacrifice to their god(s). In Christianity, God sacrificed Himself for us - out of love.

TL:DR; Repent and believe in the name of Jesus.

Well said.

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