Is it possible to forget why we have certain traditions?

Question

Should we normalize every tradition, as if it something that we all just do on a certain day of the year? What ever happened to the cultural meaning and the significance of traditions? Should we set aside why we have traditions, just for the sake of doing something every year that is fun for everyone?

Should we forget why we have traditions?

Answer 1

Traditions were started by our ancestors several hundred years back and they taught their progeny to observe them in future generations. Traditions were established for benefit of those who followed them.If we modify,alter,normalize or any way change them now, we have to consider the exact circumstances or knowledge our ancestors had in that period of time when they introduced them to the society.Else there appears no harm in continuing them as they are.

Answer 2

We forget our reasons all the time, and doing so can have some negative effects.

To demonstrate, here is an example.

-Consider women changing their names. Why do we do this?
The Sociologically Examined Life, by Michael Schwalbe explains this pretty well. Here is a quote from it.

"In the past, women gave up their family names upon getting married and took the last name of their new husband. This practice served to indicate that a woman as a piece of property, had been transferred from one male(the father) to another(the husband). Men did not change their names. Men were owners, not property.
Today we reject the idea of women as property, yet this name changing practice persists why?"

ask yourself, "Who benefits from this practice?"

Using this thinking, you can see how forgetting these things can be harmful.

Also, whereas we are in R&S, consider the titling of God by christians as He.

God, as defined by many, is more of an energy, than a physical thing. Someone asked why we give this energy a gender. The reason is, is so we could have this kind of logic.

"The strongest and most powerful being in the universe is my gender, therefore, we are the more powerful group."

It is just a way for one group to gain power over another.

It would probably be TERRIFYING to see why all of our traditions started. Sometimes i wonder what i world would be like without any of these traditions.

Answer 3

Absolutely -- and it happens all the time. The tradition becomes the sacred thing instead of the sacred thing that the tradition was based upon. That is one reason why I joined a non-denominational church where there aren't the expectation of traditions.

A pastor told me a story about his father's ministry -- every time he served communion he had to walk down one step, and he always touched the communion rail to go down the step--this went on for many weeks.

But one time he stepped down the stair to serve communion without touching the communion rail, and he actually received several letters from people that were mad at him for not sticking with the tradition of touching the communion rail before serving communion! LOL

Answer 4

Tradition--pagan. In an strive to transform pagans the medieval church followed the various pagan vacations and converted them including a Christian subject. Easter corresponds with the equinox rather of passover hence. The Easter bunny and Easters eggs are vestiges of the historic pagan excursion that we nonetheless rejoice in these days. The Day of the Dead and Halloween had been to begin with Christianized models of a pagan excursion as good. In the case of Halloween, it used to be at one factor intended to make a laugh of the pagan excursion. I consider that the date selected to rejoice Christmas additionally corrisponds to a pagan excursion however am no longer certain approximately that one. By distinction, Christians don't rejoice any Jewish vacations, nor do Christians worship at the Sabbath, nor do Christians comply with so much of the regulation or different commandments and traditions of the Jews. Almost all Christian traditions are both (like baptism) new with Christianity or a mirrored image of the dominant tradition on the time the culture started that has been tailored and been given a brand new value (like Communion). Communion is involving Passover, a wedding culture of the time interval, and a pagan social gathering. Jesus turns out to have deliberately drew which means from those for the period of the passover in order that it greater resinated along with his viewers (It used to be his system of instructing; simply seem on the parables). Even the conventional view that Christian have of heaven (harps and clouds and spirits) is extra centered at the accredited phylosphy of the time than it's at the teachings of the Bible (which painting heaven as a lot more tactile). These had been the suggestions believed within the pantheon and the parthenon, no longer always the lessons of Jesus or of Judaism (which have been in contract with each and every different--kind of; one primary sect of Judaism, the Saducese, had stopped believing or instructing the the existance of the after lifestyles; by means of today's occasions, there interpretations have turn out to be the dominent ones, however they were not but in Jesus' time). So to reply your query, Christian traditions are extra carefully associated with the pagan religions considering that they had been the dominent tradition while the traditions began to be centered. However, those traditions probably have little or not anything to do with the Bible and the exact teachings of Jesus which have been very so much centered in Judaism (inspiration they in many instances alluded to ideals of the Romans as good).

Answer 5

No it is important to remember where the tradition came from but better not to have tradition at all to always seek what is right to do.