Druids and Avebury Reburial

[Arddhu]

quote:Originally posted by RedEarth

Which does rather beg the question, why bother posting on this forum then?

Possibly just trying to stimulate some intelligent conversation on the subject RedEarth :face-thinks:


"Look outside and dream, Look inside and awaken!"

[Arddhu]

quote:Originally posted by Plautus

Arddhu, I am not attempting to stir the pot here as I feel some poster are becoming rather heated, but I have noticed that you (and others) tend to refer to these human remains as "our ancestors." I question the validity of this, as the vast majority of brits are geneticaly a soup of various invaders who turned up long after the avebury buriels were intured. Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans etc. really the list is endless. Now I am not saying that due to the extreme distance of our connection to these buriels that they should not be respected, just that refering to them as our ancestors is needlessly emotive. We are really linked to these bones by the landscape we inhabite not genetically.

It is knowing in ones mind body and soul that we are connected to the land and the people that once walked it and regard them as our kin, we as practicing pagans/Druids call upon them in our rituals (which are naturally led by intuition and not by some modern enactment of what we perceived the past rites to be) once invoked they make there presents known to us, and unless you have experienced this it is like telling someone in the middle ages that the earth is round! they simply will not believe you unless you show them the physical evidence (and possibly burn you at the stake in the proses) unfortunately it is not that simple at present, unlike some humans!

[Plautus]

quote from Arddu

quote:we as practicing pagans/Druids call upon them in our rituals (which are naturally led by intuition and not by some modern enactment of what we perceived the past rites to be)

??????????????
perception is rational, intuition is not.
intuition beats perception - is it like having an ace in poker?

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

quote by Redearth;

"Which does rather beg the question why bother posting on this forum then?"

How about for this reason:10 Dec 1948 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Article 18 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practise, worship and observance."

Article 19 "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

and for those of us who would like to see Science AND Religious Belief working together;

Article 27 "Everyone has the right to freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

Just a few ideas as to why people post their views.:face-approve:

[BAJR Host]

Good points DD and should also be remembered by Druids as well..

well put though

?When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.?
William Blake

[Arddhu]

quote:Originally posted by Plautus


??????????????
perception is rational, intuition is not.
intuition beats perception - is it like having an ace in poker?

Fair enough maybe I should have said 'Imagined the past rites to be' instead!

I do have the excuse of getting next to no sleep due to having baby twins keeping me up most of the night! [:0]

[BAJR Host]

"of getting next to no sleep due to having baby twins keeping me up most of the night"

Now that is real magic



?When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.?
William Blake

[RedEarth]

quote:Originally posted by Dirty Dave Lincoln

quote by Redearth;

"Which does rather beg the question why bother posting on this forum then?"

How about for this reason:10 Dec 1948 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Article 18 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practise, worship and observance."

Article 19 "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

and for those of us who would like to see Science AND Religious Belief working together;

Article 27 "Everyone has the right to freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

Just a few ideas as to why people post their views.:face-approve:

Woah, woah, woah! I wasn't denying someone their human right to express their opnion. That's a rather heavy interpretation of my post. I was just suggesting that it seemed a bit pointless posting on a forum where 95% of the responses are likely to be critical/mocking/opposed to yours. I wouldn't personally bother.


Speaking as an archaeologist, I'm not really that bothered what happens to human remains of unknown religious orientation after they are excavated. The arguments seem pretty spurious on both sides, although I would tend to favour that of semi-rational science (by which I mean archaeology, in case it's not obvious that that is what I am referring to). I'd feel a bit more upset about artefacts being reburied though, particularly prehistoric ones, if for no other reason than they are sometimes amazing works of art and deserve to be admired. I think I'd be quite chuffed if people were still impressed several thousand years later with an axe I had made.

[onlooker]

As a first timer on this forum i would like to make a couple of quick comments. I am a university lecturer/research scientist working on genome sequencing projects amongst other things. I am also having to adapt my work to the vagaries of the human tissue act.

Firstly i think its great that this debate has been opened. I am sure that there will be plenty of disagreements but at least there is some sort of grown up debate ongoing; dialogue is better than sullen silence.
I am know nothing of archaeology and im not a druid either but like to think of myself as an open minded scientist. I personally know Oddie and we have spent many hours chatting about aspects of science DNA genes etc. I have also attended a Druid ceremony at Avebury and these guys are not nutters or extremists. They have some ideas that may seem a bit strange to some but i dont beleive that science has all the answers; there are many practising muslims and christians who integrate their beliefs with their science. I think oddie et al are honestly trying to open up the debate on human remains; they are not anti-science per se.

My personal opinion is that there is a bit of a 'these are our bones' mentality amongst the scientific community and this debate should take place. On the other hand i see practical problems with requests for reburial.

One thought i had was that was that each generation of archaeologists is potentially ruining a site for the next generation. But of course that means that no one would ever be able to do any archaeology. Digging up artifacts and remains is essentially a destructive process even using today's 'advanced techniques'. Perhaps one day the scanning technologies will be so advanced that material can be examined in situ without excavating sites at all.

I personally don't like to see the mummified remains on display in the BM. In fact i have taken fellow Egyptian scientists around the displays in the BM and felt embarrassed. I dont see why you cant at least display replicas of human remains as they do for many dinosaur fossils for example.

[Digitaldigging]

Hi Onlooker - any chance of pointing us to some of your research projects?