"I regard nothing as being above criticism"

Interesting, yet how would you criticise 'water' for instance?

> I regard nothing as being above criticism, sanctified or holy. If you do, that's fine.

Well I obviously don't see you as above criticism ;-)

I think the binding of the concept of "above criticism" to the concept of "holy" is an accident of history. At the very least, it's far from necessary, and certainly not something I subscribe to. An excellent discussion/example of this is Douglas Rushkoff's recent book, 'Nothing Sacred', where he argues that Judaism was originally intended to be an evolving system, embracing self-criticism. I don't think he's very kind to paganism in the book, but it's a cracking read.

TomBo posted a link on a thread on sacred landscapes that's interesting (if a little verbose):

http://haldjas.folklore.ee/folklore/vol14/sacred.htm

"The sacred as a religious concept is inseparably linked with the linguistic conventions of Western societies, the roots of which go far back into the history of both Indo-European and Semitic cultures. Long before its conventionalised use and meanings within the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious traditions, people have participated in sacred-making activities and processes of signification according to paradigms of thought created by their ethnic systems of belief within specific geographical limits. The sacred is not only a religious term, but also an anthropological constant, which has been used in various cultural contexts within various arenas of human discourse. Linguistically the sacred denotes that which has been set apart, but in religious vocabulary there is usually an ontological referent underlining its use and culture-specific semantics. ... Most religious scholars have relied on their knowledge of the history of the concept in Hebrew, Greek and Latin sources, but have forgotten that the concept has a long history as a linguistic term in the vernacular of ethnic cultures and their languages; its root universally denotes «to cut», «to set apart», «to mark off»."

So I guess it's not just its opposition to "profane" that connects it to this spatially-conceived root. Poses a problem, of course, for any claim that "all is sacred", but again I think this sort of thing can at least be seen in a context of trying to subvert the rigid divisions and dualisms we've inherited from most organised religions.

Plus, I think that even against the backdrop of a kind of all-embracing pantheism, the act or concept of "setting apart" still has value. Our temporal, relative world and the infinite absolute co-exist. Blake and Zen, of course, think they interpenetrate. There's a dance here, a back-and-forth, the best description of which I've seen is from the Kegon school of Japanese Buddhism. I read it first in Christmas Humphreys, but it's on this web page:

http://members.tripod.com/SpEd2work/AllThingsZen.html

"All things are one and have no life apart from it; the One is all things and is incomplete without the least of them. Yet the parts are parts within the whole, not merged in it; they are interfused with Reality while retaining the full identity of the part, and the One is no less One for the fact that it is a million-million parts."

Reality-unlocking wisdom or slippery gobbledegook, depending on your mindset and needs.