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Author Topic: Is it just a religion?  (Read 3708 times)

Materialist

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Is it just a religion?
« on: August 01, 2014, 09:16:40 am »
What I mean by that is, is adopting Egyptian culture along with the religion important? I was browsing Asatru blogs yesterday, and this one guy said he was happy hnefetafl sets were being made so he could play the games of "my culture." I was like whoa. So some people want to revive medieval Norwegian culture-do Kemetics have similar desires with Egyptian culture?

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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2014, 02:44:08 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;154425
What I mean by that is, is adopting Egyptian culture along with the religion important? I was browsing Asatru blogs yesterday, and this one guy said he was happy hnefetafl sets were being made so he could play the games of "my culture." I was like whoa. So some people want to revive medieval Norwegian culture-do Kemetics have similar desires with Egyptian culture?

 
Can you explain what you mean by "just" religion? I mean, it sounds pretty dismissive from where I'm sitting.

Adopting the trappings of an ancient culture is tricky. There's only so much we can really know, and that gets filtered through the cultural biases of archaeologists, translators, and historians, before reaching our own cultural lenses. Do Kemetics embrace ancient cultural values, like ma'at? Absolutely. Are Kemetics going to painstakingly brew their own gritty bread-beer for regular, primary consumption? Probably not. Culture is a multifaceted thing, and some of those things are strongly bound to their time and place, and have little role or value in our modern lives.
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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2014, 02:51:09 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;154425
I was browsing Asatru blogs yesterday, and this one guy said he was happy hnefetafl sets were being made so he could play the games of "my culture."

 
That sounds like someone with rather indiosyncratic definitions of words like "culture" and also "my".
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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2014, 06:26:09 pm »
Quote from: Juni;154428
Can you explain what you mean by "just" religion? I mean, it sounds pretty dismissive from where I'm sitting.

Adopting the trappings of an ancient culture is tricky. There's only so much we can really know, and that gets filtered through the cultural biases of archaeologists, translators, and historians, before reaching our own cultural lenses. Do Kemetics embrace ancient cultural values, like ma'at? Absolutely. Are Kemetics going to painstakingly brew their own gritty bread-beer for regular, primary consumption? Probably not. Culture is a multifaceted thing, and some of those things are strongly bound to their time and place, and have little role or value in our modern lives.

 Completely agree. A kemetic isn't a kemetic if they aren't practicing ma'at. At that point, I tend to view them more as egyptian pagans and/or tameran wiccans.
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Materialist

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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2014, 11:01:10 am »
Quote from: Juni;154428
Can you explain what you mean by "just" religion? I mean, it sounds pretty dismissive from where I'm sitting.

 
I see my quest for the one perfect adverb has failed again. Some reconstructionists define their religion as also a cultural movement, involving adopting customs not inherently religious, which got me wondering if Egyptian-based religions also had this facet.

Ubenma'at

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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2014, 03:12:44 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;154470
I see my quest for the one perfect adverb has failed again. Some reconstructionists define their religion as also a cultural movement, involving adopting customs not inherently religious, which got me wondering if Egyptian-based religions also had this facet.

 
I'm sure for some people it's really important to adopt as much of the culture as possible. I'd love to play a game of Senet, for example, but don't have any interest in behaving as if I'm Ancient Egyptian, aside from upholding Ma'at.

The immersion of Kemetics into their faith, and therefore AE culture, varies widely.
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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2014, 11:54:09 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;154470
I see my quest for the one perfect adverb has failed again. Some reconstructionists define their religion as also a cultural movement, involving adopting customs not inherently religious, which got me wondering if Egyptian-based religions also had this facet.

 
I think the closest you'll get to this with Kemeticism is some of the afrocentrist groups, which make it more cultural than simply religious. I'd also argue that in some respects, that each group and temple (there are only, like, two) has it's own sort of 'culture' going, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the culture of AE.

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Re: Is it just a religion?
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2015, 06:52:03 pm »
Quote from: Materialist;154425
What I mean by that is, is adopting Egyptian culture along with the religion important? I was browsing Asatru blogs yesterday, and this one guy said he was happy hnefetafl sets were being made so he could play the games of "my culture." I was like whoa. So some people want to revive medieval Norwegian culture-do Kemetics have similar desires with Egyptian culture?

 
There is a tremendous amount of variance between the different Kemetic faiths, even among reconstructionists, as different people will view different aspects of the religion and culture as important to modern practice.  Reconstructionists do tend to study the cultural history of ancient Egypt in order to understand what the religious practices meant in the context of the time, so that they can be more meaningfully translated to modern times.  In the course of that study, sometimes we find neat little objects or activities in which we find some pleasure.  We might be inclined to pick them up, if they strike a chord with us.  These are personal things, and not requirements of the faith.  

I agree with the above views that the main requirements of Kemetic faith are 1.) the Kemetic gods and goddesses, obviously, and 2.) the concept of ma'at.

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