Evil Satanic Parking Violations!

In my travels I found another soul who sadly suffers from CPS (Christian Persecution Syndrome). I was looking for pages comparing the Puritans of Plymouth Rock fame to the Wiccans, for a school project. Yes that's right, I get to invoke both Purtians and Wiccans for a school project. This page I found did just that, but sadly it fell into fallacy, biased samples, ad hominems, equivocation, all to protect the author's notion that Christianity is somehow being undermined and given too much criticism. And then he started going off on witches and that's where it really started getting funny. =^.^= So mister Jay Rogers, please do not take this as a vicious attack, or an attempt to force your babies to worship pentacles, but as a token of respect for an essay that caught my eye long enough to blog a critique of certain salient points in it.

This is a critique of Puritans and Witches, written in 2002, and discovered in 2005 by one godless synx.

One of the great accusations levelled against Christians who oppose witchcraft is that we want to bring back "the burning times" (i.e., the Salem witch trials). Yet Salem is misunderstood. Most believe that it was the Christians of the Puritan colony who got together one day and decided to hang some witches. That is simply not true.

Oh yes, all those accusations you know. Good old CPS rearing its ugly head again. You have to understand that some of us, such as myself, received for the greater portion of our lives persistent messages about how great the Puritans were. They fled persecution totally innocently and the Grace of God delivered them to the holy Plymouth rock where they made a nice feast with their feathery Injun friends and did nice things forever and ever. To counter this is valuable, since it's obviously not the whole story. There are benefits to producing a Pro and Con argument, and there are benefits to trying to make a balanced analysis. To say the Salem witch trials were the Christians of a Puritan colony who got together one day and decided to hang some witches is unfortunately true. I wish I could say it was the only incident. It was an example of groupthink, where everybody assumed everyone else knew what they were doing, and so all joined in the condemnation of members of their community, none of them actually knowing anyone to be an actual witch.

It was, admittedly, a banally and pitifully bad way of hanging witches. The Spanish Inquisition, now they knew how to find witches! But you, you set up a straw man argument and then inform us "That is simply not true." I will agree that no witches were burned in Salem, only one Voodoo shaman converting unscathed. But I will not agree that it is "one of the great accusations" or that "most believe" such a simplistic description without evidence.

And... truly the burning times were during the period when Europe went from scattered feudal lordships, to unified nations. To unify, and Nationalize, to have everyone answer to a single power, a single flag, they did indeed have to kill everyone who didn't fit in. Spain was an extreme example of that, going from a predominantly Muslim region to the most rigid Catholic nation in history. They had to be rigid, to force people to obey, and kill those who would not. That is the true secret of Nationalism. Patriots, pride, it is all a scheme designed to make you feel like this imaginary concept called a "nation" has any meaning whatsoever. In fact, you are probably willing to die for your "nation" at the commands of its leaders, and people will consider you a hero.

The Salem witch trials? Pfft! Those were nothin' compared to the slaughter of Native Americans by the USA's "Manifest Destiny," and paled in comparison to the Paladins of Spain driving those heathen Muslims and everyone else out of their God Blessed Nation.

You want to talk witch trials, did you know China is proceeding with a campaign to exterminate all members of the Falun Gong belief? If only we could do the same to our Scientologists!

While I was an English teacher at a high school in Beverly, Massachusetts (the town just north of Salem), I noticed that many of the teachers did units right around Hallowe'en on witches. I thought it was more than a little unfair that Christian teachers were not allowed call their holiday "Christmas" and to teach units on the birth of the King of Kings. But those sympathetic to witches could present their pagan holiday.

A clever and subtle, but wrong argument I'm afraid. I have to point out that witches, unlike Jesus, have birth records, death certificates, drivers licenses. You can talk about witches on Halloween, though they call it Samhain if you really want to pay their religion tribute. You can talk about Christians on Christmas; you can talk about them in school, as a teacher. Of course the witches like to call Christmas Yule, or more rarely, Saturnalia. Yes, Christmas is a Wiccan holiday too. In fact it was a holiday for many pagan cultures long before Chrisitanity reared its thorn crowned head in Palestine.

The point of teaching about witches on Halloween is that there are many preconceived notions delivered by Christian pastors and English teachers that witches are something to be opposed, fought, stoned, whatever. Since Halloween is one of the rare rituals not retconned by Christianity, it's an ideal time to talk about any number of Pagan religions that refer to the last day of October. And you know something funny about that? The day after is a Christian holiday, in an attempt of Christian doctrine to take credit for the night before. So mention that to your students too. In fact I beg of you to tell them every single holiday celebrated by Christians, along with each of the religions Christianity took that holiday from. Did you know Jesus was born in September, 5 BCE? (that is, 5 years before Anno Domine.)

It is untrue to say that the Puritans or "born-again Christians" were responsible for the deaths of innocent people. In fact, the Salem witchcraft trials were stopped by a Puritan pastor from Beverly, Massachusetts. He charged that none of the evidence met biblical criteria.

Nope, sorry. To demonstrate why your argument is wrong I ask the following question, who brought an end to the terrible Adolph Hitler? The answer is Adolph Hitler himself! Just because you stopped the killing of innocent people by lying and saying the bible doesn't tell you to kill witches, doesn't excuse the Puritans, "born-again Christians" and other greedy townspeople who killed innocents in search of witchcraft.

I got news for you: if nobody had claimed that witchcraft, or any religion other than Christianity was evil. If nobody had instructed those people to kill others for unproveable crimes. If nobody in the world could feel justified by committing murder on the grounds that they were erasing evil from the world, then the Salem witch trials would never have happened. In fact, neither would the Holocaust (against the evil Jewry), nor the Inquisition, nor the Conquistadors, nor the Crusades. If nobody followed your sort of destructive creed, than all those Muslims who were attacked during the Crusades would not still be trying to kill us 1000 years hence. Usama bin Laden wouldn't have had a single supporter, had he not been able to invoke the fearsome image of USA as "The Satan."

It is the role of the Church to oppose witchcraft with all our might, even to the point of publicly condemning certain witches (if they refuse to repent) through imprecatory prayer proclamations. Sorcery is condemned throughout the Bible [see Ex. 7:11; 8:7,18; Isa. 47:9,12]. Sanctions are imposed on sorcerers who refuse to repent [see Acts 13:6,8; Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21;18:23]. As the Church, our correct response is to condemn the practice of witchcraft and to preach salvation to those who would repent.

See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Those bible passages are wrong. They are in error. They were tall tales told by 2000 year old ignorant sheep herders, written down by Hermetic scholars in Greece who inserted some playful additions such as the part where Jesus refers to himself as "the morning star." Isn't that just a kick? Those crazy Greeks. :) Then translated into Latin, and separated into "stories I like" and "stories I don't like" by Constantine, under advice from the sexually depraved St. Augustine. "Stories I like" became the Old and New Testament, and "stories I don't like" became the apocrypha. And then King James translated it into English, in such an intolerant and badly translated manner that for centuries anyone attempting to translate it better was censored and killed, on the grounds that an oppressive (if wrong) bible was more useful than one that actually translates without bias.

So that history lesson should hopefully convince you at least to look into the origin of the Christian bible. It's not the word of God, nor is it the word of any of its original philosophers. Who were ignorant sheep herders I might add. You can be Christian if you must; there are good teachings to be found in the bible, but there are also bad teachings, teachings that harm innocent people, and direct you to condemn those who do not deserve condemnation by any standards other than that of corrupt and greedy kings. You should never take the bible for granted, and instead use it as a guide, an artifact of your culture, a collection of what has past, but not something to carry as true into the future. We can learn from lies, really we can. It doesn't all have to be taken to heart and unquestioned.

A more controversial issue is whether or not witchcraft should be made illegal by our civil government. My view is that since the civil government in our country is not a church-state ecclesiocracy, the state should not try witches. Our local community governments would be correct, however, in enforcing ordinances against private house meetings of religious groups in order to stop the undesirable effects of wiccan rituals on the surrounding community (noise, parking violations, etc.).

Hahaha, yes, yes! I take it all back. Witchcraft is the vilest of evils. They cause parking violations! *rolls over laughing* Oh no, don't double park, that summons Satan!

In all seriousness, you are committing a terrible mistake in what you say. Our Constitution was written that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That was written because our founders knew the danger in doing that, the horrible trials and conflict when the status quo must change, but will kill those who try to change it. By preventing the killing, the oppression, the censorship and restriction, our government breaks that cycle in the most amazing way, and we can change our society when it needs to change, without killing each other.

If you deny people the right to meet at their houses for religous matters, where are they going to meet? At their church? So you must understand the hidden message in the teachings you speak. You are basically saying "It's okay for our county level government to ban all religion but the majority." You don't want to say that though, and your teachers want you to insinuate it more subtly. So instead they try to chip away at seemingly unimportant issues that are focused ultimately on banning anything besides Institutional religion. If Wiccans may not meet in private houses, where are they supposed to meet? If Bhuddists have no temple, where shall they convene? There is no place, because Christian churches are the only churches around. In denying people the right to practice religion in their private homes, you deny them the right to practice religion. You should say "I want to stop freedom of religion and make everybody Christian," not try to pussyfoot around it with lies and deception.

Witchcraft is sufficiently unpopular in our community that it won't flourish in public. It must begin in secret and then be given special legal protection in order to grow. And that is why the witches of Palm Bay are hysterical. They know that the only way they can survive is to portray themselves victims of intolerance and bigotry and then qualify for special privileges granted by the state.

"She's hysterical!" *slap*

Again with the ad hominems. Your paragraph would have done just as well if you had used the word 'concerned' instead of 'hysterical'. Thus the only purpose of that word is to emotionally incense yourself and others into hating witches for being just these hysterical screeching harpies who should be put in their place. Logical argument, it's not. Hurt people, it will.

And did you know that when Martin Luther tacked up his 75 theses on the church door, the founder of Protestantism had to go into hiding, then leave the country because the current church was trying to kill him. It led to a vicious and bloody conflict throughout all of Europe, where the decadent church fought with every sinister serpent tongued condemnation, putting even the Prince of Lies to shame, and at last the Protestants, who believed that worship is a personal matter, not one of a church, or an institution, achieved recognition. It is because of that internal war that the US and the French and the English constitution have measures protecting the freedom of religion. We don't want to do that again. If you deny minority religions special legal protection, and deny them the right to meet in secret, then you must also condemn Martin Luther, and Jesus.

Witches certainly can hold their beliefs and practices in private. There can be no civil law against that as long as it doesn't interfere with public sphere of life. Private faith is an issue of the conscience. The state of the human soul is something which only God himself can judge.

That's the downside of the freedom of religion coin, in that all beliefs and practices that are not common to all should be private. That means we should replace Christmas with Winter Solstice, we should put "E Pluribus Unum" back on our dollar bills and coins, and take "Under God" out of the pledge. That means no bumper stickers that say "Servant of the One and Only Lord" and no WWJD t-shirts. That means we shouldn't allow churches to display crosses at their highest steeple; we should ban the posting of the first of the 10 commandments (the other 9 are okay), we should remove all bibles from hotel rooms, and for God's sake, can we please stop helping Israel initiate Armageddon?

Truly though, I don't fully agree with you. I think some practices of religion should be allowed in public. This includes (grudgingly) bibles in hotel rooms, and crosses on steeples. So too should Wicca and Alchemists be allowed to display pentagrams on their personage and places of worship. People should be, in my opinion, allowed to talk about religion, and even to argue about it. You should be allowed to post criticisms of pop religion, and I should be allowed to criticize it for shallow libel, logical fallacies, and general not niceness. Teachers should be allowed to follow a religion. People who hire teachers should not be allowed to discriminate by religion though, which by my hope would end the horrible notion of religious indocrination schools. Get 'em while they're early, heh.

So there are indeed valid reasons to publically display and discuss your religion, and other religions. In fact, it is my most earnest hope that you will see beyond my scathing rhetoric, and receive my message that it's really not that bad. You're safe, Saved, and all your Wiccan friends are not going to Hell for worshipping something other than Jesus Christ.

Yet we should not neglect our duty as Christians in the civil sphere to enforce outward morality - to enact laws against anything immoral, i.e., abortion, child sacrifice, public nudity, which is being promoted through witchcraft. We must do everything within biblical and Constitutional law to stop the immoral influences of witchcraft from spreading in our community.

I disagree. You have a duty to protect the freedom of us each to decide our morality based on reason. Any "duty" you have been given to enforce morality on someone else is very likely a false teaching. Here's how it works. The "motto" or Rede of Wicca is a pretty wise statement, not unlike the Golden Rule. It goes like this: "An' it harm none, do as you will." You can enforce your morality on one and only one reason: that the people you oppose are hurting others. If they aren't hurting anyone, you can't justifiably prevent them from doing what they are doing, and if you do then I will try to stop you, and so will anyone who believes in liberty, justice, and freedom. This isn't an attack, it's a defense, saving ourselves from those who would control us irrationally to terrible ends.

I might note that no Wiccan, Pagan or other religion in practice in the USA today supports child sacrifice. Some Industrialists do though, since they want to sacrifice the children in cheap labor to make money for their factories. There's also the extremists mostly in Asia and the Middle East these days who want to sacrifice children by sending them running after the enemy strapped to the gizzard with high density explosives.

You should reject biblical and Constitutional law that instructs you to enforce unreasonable morals. And even once you have identified the harm that you oppose, you must, must keep an open mind in case you turn out to be wrong. It's okay to be wrong. If you don't consider exceptions, inconsistencies, if you try to ignore everything that throws a wrench in your Truth, then you are in grave danger. People can manipulate you and lead you to bringing them more power, and until you open your mind, they can do so with impunity. Only when you start questioning, when you look for exceptions and inconsistency, will you be free of their power. As an example, would you consider miscarriage murder? Is infant baptism a form of child sacrifice? (and what about Abraham?) And what exactly is so harmful about public nudity? If you can ask yourself these questions, and realize their answer isn't God Given, isn't even fully clear, then you should be on the road to recovery from CPS.

Evil Satanic Parking Violations!

Journal started Oct 20, 2005