I believe in the saints but not the Catholic church. God is fake but the saints could actually do all that stuff for real by...
I believe in the saints but not the Catholic church. God is fake but the saints could actually do all that stuff for real by coincidence.
Loving the amount of people responding to this with “god is dead but St. Anthony helps me find my keys”
Santería, also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Spiritism. There is no central authority in control of Santería and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as creyentes (“believers”).
Santería is polytheistic and revolves around deities called oricha. Deriving their names and attributes from traditional Yoruba divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints…
Although in Santería the term santo is regarded as a synonym of oricha and is not a literal reference to Christian saints, the oricha are often conflated with one or more Roman Catholic saints based on similar attributes. For instance, the Holy Infant of Atocha, a depiction of Christ as a child, is conflated with Eleguá, who is seen as having a childlike nature. Babalú Ayé, who is associated with disease, is often identified with the Catholic Saint Lazarus, who rose from the dead, while Changó is conflated with Santa Barbara because they both wear red. Cuba’s patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, is equated with Ochún. It has been argued that Yoruba slaves initially linked their traditional deities with Christian saints as a means of concealing their continued worship of the former from the Spanish authorities, or as a means of facilitating social mobility by assimilating into Roman Catholic social norms.
Yeah, “the saints were often pre-Christian divinities syncretized in” is a pretty basic take