The Etymology of Ziontology

Ziontology is a neologism that is created from eliding the two root words Zion and ontology. Ontology comes from the Greek word "on" meaning being or existence, and "logia" meaning science or theory.
Zion represents the Promised Land in the Hebrew Bible, and is found in texts dating back almost three thousand years. As a place where God dwells, it is obvious that Zion is not meant to be a physical place on earth, such as the modern State of Israel. Rather it is a spiritual realm outside of space and time.
Thus, Ziontology, a word from both Greek and Hebrew origins, is a combination of the spiritual world view of the ancient Greek logicians and the ancient Hebrew mystics. Therefore, it is a combination of mind and spirit.
The Church of Ziontology is often referred to as the “post-modern science of integral health”. So what does that all mean? Well, lets look at each of those words one at a time. The word "postmodernism" is many things to many disciplines, including philosophy, architecture, art, film, drama, literature and music. But perhaps most significantly to Ziontology, it is a rather new direction in philosophy that questions virtually all traditional assumptions in human belief and thought. It is strongly influenced by structuralism, existentialism and phenomenology. It draws on the writings of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger for inspiration. It tends to involve radical reappraisal of many of the traditionally assumed concepts on culture, language and spirituality. Of course, much more will be written on the topic of postmodernism, and how it relates to Ziontology, in future blog entries. Ziontology is indeed thoroughly postmodern.
The word "science", from Latin “scientia” meaning knowledge, is the systematic approach to discovering how physical reality works using several powerful and effective methodologies. Science involves observation, data gathering, hypotheses formulation and experimentation along with several scientific principles, such as the scientific method, conceptual parsimony, logic, rationality, inductive and deductive reasoning and so forth, to further develop Knowledge of our universe and everything in it. Although Ziontology is not actually a science per se, it is indeed heavily oriented towards science, and uses science as a stepping stone towards spiritual enlightenment.
The word "integral" is defined as pertaining to or belonging as a part of the whole. A popular word these days with a similar meaning is holistic. Ziontology is indeed holistic in that in treats the body, mind and soul as an integral entity.
The word "health" is defined as the general condition and well being of the body or mind with regard to integrity, stability, strength, wholeness and vigor. Ziontology extends this concept of health to include spiritual well being as well. Ziontology is indeed focused on achieving the best possible health for body, mind and soul in an integral manner.
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