VML-2/6/00

[Guest guest]

Next come the rituals. One sect has one particular form of ritual and

thinks that that is holy, while the rituals of another sect are

simply arrant superstition. If one sect worships a peculiar sort of

symbol, another sect says 'Oh. it is horrible! " Take, for instance,

a general form of symbol. The phallus symbol is certainly a sexual

symbol, but ,gradually that aspect of it has been forgotten, and it

stands now as a symbol of the Creator. Those nations which have this

as their symbol never think of it as the phallus; it is just a

symbol, and there it ends. But a man from another race or creed sees

in it nothing but the phallus, and begins to condemn it; yet at the

same time he may be doing something which to the so-called phallic

worshippers appears most horrible.

 

----------------

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness. Broad,

wholesome, charitable views of men & things cannot be acquired by

vegetating in one corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Mark

Twain-Innocents Abroad-1869