Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Saturday, March 3, 2012
FactCheck.org Does Santorum's JFK Speech Screw Ups; and So Does Jon Stewart
Kennedy's speech made Santorum sick, not because there is anything wrong with the sentiments of the speech, but because Santorum is one extremely sick and corrupt individual. Santorum was seeking to find a way to disrespect an historic figure, and to pander to a narrow and evil segment of the conservative base that has tragically warped ideas on religion, an ugly and intolerant segment of conservatives. There was a time when moderates were the majority and in control of conservative politics, there was a time when the conservative side of politics was led by genuinely principled people. Now it has been hijacked by extremists, liars, delusional conspiracy theory lunatics, and fanatics eager to coerce and compel the broad spectrum of our nation to their narrow and ugly views using government as their whip, because they cannot persuade the minds of most of us to their wicked positions. The hallmark of such people is their aversion to fact, their appeal to emotion, and that they will so very willingly lie, and lie and lie to grasp power.
I am ashamed of Santorum's expectation that people are unfamiliar with the original, or that we are now so lazy that despite the easy access through the internet of the original material, we won't look at it for ourselves, and think for ourselves, and see for ourselves what an ugly liar he really is. While the clips are a bit long - watch them. This is one of the seminal speeches in our history; we should know it, we should revisit it when one side tries to make religion the issue. It is the same side making religion an issue this election that made it an issue in the Kennedy election. Know your history, or you are doomed to repeat it; to know your history, make it a habit to go to the primary sources. I'm angry that Santorum believes a lot of people don't know or care about history; and I'm even more angry that he might be right. Santorum and his supporters demonize those who follow a different conclusion of conscience or religious practice than he does; these are the same people who fear Muslims, or even Protestants, and demean them as inferior, or to be feared.
The person who is inferior, and perhaps to be feared if he is successful as a liar because of what he intends to do with power if he gets it, is Santorum.
I was going to seek out the whole JFK speech, and fisk it with Santorum's ignoble rant, but factcheck.org did it first. Please watch the speech before reading the factcheck.org analysis; doing so will give it more depth if you know the whole, not just the excerpts and sound bytes.
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The person who is inferior, and perhaps to be feared if he is successful as a liar because of what he intends to do with power if he gets it, is Santorum.
Santorum’s Twisted Take on JFK & ReligionAnd then we have the equally astute, shorter, and more entertaining satiric take on Santorum from Jon Stewart, as counterpoint to the serious.
Posted on February 27, 2012
Rick Santorum misrepresented what John F. Kennedy said in 1960 about church-state separation. According to Santorum, Kennedy said that religious people could “have no role in the public square” and “should not be permitted . . . to influence public policy.” But Kennedy didn’t say those things. He said he wouldn’t take orders from the Vatican if elected president.
On ABC’s “This Week,” the former Pennsylvania senator said Feb. 26 that Kennedy’s embrace of an “absolute” separation of church and state made him sick.
Santorum, ABC’s “This Week”: I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.And on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the same day, Santorum said Kennedy’s “absolute” separation means “people of faith should not be permitted in the public square to influence public policy.”
. . . Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate. Go on and read the speech. I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith. . . . [T]o say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up.
Santorum, NBC’s “Meet the Press”: That is not the founders’ vision. That’s not the America that was made the greatest country in the history of the world. The idea that people of faith should not be permitted in the public square to influence public policy is antithetical to the First Amendment, which says the free exercise of religion — James Madison called people of faith, and by the way no faith and different faith — the ability to come in the public square with diverse opinions, motivated by a variety of different ideas and passions, the perfect remedy. Why — because everybody is allowed in.It’s true that in his famous address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on Sept. 12, 1960, Kennedy stated his belief in an “absolute” separation. But Santorum reads into that speech things that Kennedy did not actually say.
Kennedy, who was then the Democratic nominee for president, was assuring Protestant ministers that he would not be taking orders from the Vatican should he become the first Catholic to be elected to the White House.
Kennedy, Sept. 12, 1960: I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.But in his speech — and in his answers to several questions and answers that followed — he referred to the church “hierarchy” and the Pope, and church doctrine. He never said that religious people could not voice their opinions. We find nothing in Kennedy’s words that could be reasonably construed to say that Kennedy would not “consult with people of faith,” as Santorum claimed.
To the contrary, Kennedy made clear his support for “religious liberty” and said he wanted the president to be “responsible to all.”
Kennedy: I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the first amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty; nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. . . .In the questions that followed Kennedy’s speech (which can be seen in a video of the entire event posted by C-Span) the ministers asked whether the Vatican would “direct” him or would be “guiding” him as president.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none, who can attend any ceremony, service, or dinner his office may appropriately require of him to fulfill; and whose fulfillment of his presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual, or obligation.
For example, in an exchange that starts at about 28:08 on the C-Span recording, Kennedy was asked whether the Catholic Church had a right and “privilege” to “direct” members in areas including “the political realm.”
Question: [W]hat we would like to know, if you are elected president, and your church elects to use that privilege and obligation, what your response will be under those circumstances.
Kennedy: If my church attempted to influence me in a way which was improper, or which affected adversely my responsibility as a public servant sworn to uphold the Constitution, then I would reply to them this was an improper action on their part; it was one to which I could not subscribe; that I was opposed to it. It would be an unfortunate breach of, an interference with the American political system.
At another point, Kennedy was asked (starting at about 33:40 on the C-Span recording) about a statement attributed to Pope John XXIII, that “the Catholic hierarchy has the right and duty of guiding” Catholics “to the common aid.”
Kennedy: Guiding them in what area? If you are talking about in the area of faith and morals, and the instructions of the Church, I would think any Baptist minister or Congregational minister has the right and duty to try to guide his flock. If you mean by that statement that the Pope or anyone else could bind me in the fulfillment, by a statement in the fulfillment of my public duties, I say no. … It all has to do with what you mean by ‘guide.’
But none of the ministers asked Kennedy if he meant that “faith is not allowed in the public square” or that he “won’t consult with people of faith,” the assertions that Santorum now puts in Kennedy’s mouth. Kennedy didn’t say those things, and if any of the ministers who were present in 1960 thought that’s what he meant, none of them said so at the time.
– Brooks Jackson
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Friday, August 12, 2011
That NOT so INERRANT Word of God
Coincidentally, the word of the day over at dictionary.com is mundify.
No, it has nothing to do with the particular difficulties of Mondays, the first work day of the week.
Mundify, pronounced \MUHN-duh-fahy\ , verb;
No, it has nothing to do with the particular difficulties of Mondays, the first work day of the week.
Mundify, pronounced \MUHN-duh-fahy\ , verb;
1.To purge or purify.
Origin: Mundify is built from two Latin roots, mundi-, "to clean," and ficare, "to do."
In that context, I offer a news article which seemed to dovetail very well with the word of the day. Both word and article seemed significant in view of the Republican candidate wannabe debates, and consideration of the role of the religious right in attempting to make the Bible the foundation for our civil law in the United States, and their efforts to rewrite our history to make it Christian rather than secular. Regular Penigma readers will be well aware of my particular aversion to the inaccuracies of revisionist history. I delight in the opposite, the correction of inaccurate knowledge of history through improved technology and primary resources.
I applaud a good, accuate, factual 'mundifying'.
Do not misunderstand me. I commend anyone who follows their faith, in order to pursue their own spirituality, a connection with God, and being a better human being, a better member of society. But I condemn those who would exalt their own religious belief, over others, inhibiting those other people to believe or not believe according to their own conscience, or those who seek to interject their beliefs into the lives of others or who seek to impose them on others. I would include political agendas that prohibit public health decisions such as access to reproductive health measures, including both contraception and abortion, or those who inflict ignorance instead of education in the form of abstinence only sex ed programs on the tax dollar. We are imperfect, any knowledge we believe to be about God is imperfect, and our attempts to impose those beliefs on others are flawed multiplied. Those who attempt to do so often use and abuse the word Freedom over and over again, while attempting to make us far less free.
I find this article a humbling reminder of our fallibility, of our humanity, and a lovely example of what a better focus on religion can accomplish, in view of the benefit this research brings not only to a better understanding of Judaism, but also the other Abrahamic religions, and by extension, to the world wide understanding of ourselves and each other. The global significance of this research should make us all more tolerant of each other and of our differences - and how and why we differ.
From the AP, author Matti Friedman, by way of MSNBC.com:
In that context, I offer a news article which seemed to dovetail very well with the word of the day. Both word and article seemed significant in view of the Republican candidate wannabe debates, and consideration of the role of the religious right in attempting to make the Bible the foundation for our civil law in the United States, and their efforts to rewrite our history to make it Christian rather than secular. Regular Penigma readers will be well aware of my particular aversion to the inaccuracies of revisionist history. I delight in the opposite, the correction of inaccurate knowledge of history through improved technology and primary resources.
I applaud a good, accuate, factual 'mundifying'.
Do not misunderstand me. I commend anyone who follows their faith, in order to pursue their own spirituality, a connection with God, and being a better human being, a better member of society. But I condemn those who would exalt their own religious belief, over others, inhibiting those other people to believe or not believe according to their own conscience, or those who seek to interject their beliefs into the lives of others or who seek to impose them on others. I would include political agendas that prohibit public health decisions such as access to reproductive health measures, including both contraception and abortion, or those who inflict ignorance instead of education in the form of abstinence only sex ed programs on the tax dollar. We are imperfect, any knowledge we believe to be about God is imperfect, and our attempts to impose those beliefs on others are flawed multiplied. Those who attempt to do so often use and abuse the word Freedom over and over again, while attempting to make us far less free.
I find this article a humbling reminder of our fallibility, of our humanity, and a lovely example of what a better focus on religion can accomplish, in view of the benefit this research brings not only to a better understanding of Judaism, but also the other Abrahamic religions, and by extension, to the world wide understanding of ourselves and each other. The global significance of this research should make us all more tolerant of each other and of our differences - and how and why we differ.
From the AP, author Matti Friedman, by way of MSNBC.com:
Scholars seek to correct 'mistakes' in Bible
Experts say they're looking to publish the authoritative edition of the Old Testament
JERUSALEM — A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: The sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.
An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.
Scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the Hebrew University campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies — publishing the authoritative edition of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and tracking every single evolution of the text over centuries and millennia.
And it has evolved, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary.
For many Jews and Christians, religion dictates that the words of the Bible in the original Hebrew are divine, unaltered and unalterable.
For Orthodox Jews, the accuracy is considered so inviolable that if a synagogue's Torah scroll is found to have a minute error in a single letter, the entire scroll is unusable.
But the ongoing work of the academic detectives of the Bible Project, as their undertaking is known, shows that this text at the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was somewhat fluid for long periods of its history, and that its transmission through the ages was messier and more human than most of us imagine.
'Must be of interest'
The project's scholars have been at work on their critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, a version intended mainly for the use of other scholars, since 1958.
"What we're doing here must be of interest for anyone interested in the Bible," said Michael Segal, the scholar who heads the project.
The sheer volume of information makes the Bible Project's version "the most comprehensive critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in existence at the present time," said David Marcus, a Bible scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, who is not involved with the project.
But Segal and his colleagues toil in relative anonymity. Their undertaking is nearly unknown outside a circle of Bible experts numbering several hundred people at most, and a visitor asking directions to the Bible Project's office on the university campus will find that many members of the university's own staff have never heard of it.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Condoms and AIDS/HIV, and the Papal position
A seminarian once posed to a group of which I was a part the provocative question, "When is religion good and when is religion bad?" The resulting discussion looked at both major and minor examples of how we human beings had done great harm, in the name of religion. In the course of the discussion, contemplating harm from our beliefs was the point. I believe this is a belief which does harm, tremendous harm. I had that question in mind as I wrote this post.
From a March 2009 article in the Guardian, referring to a meeting in 2005:
"Addressing bishops from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho who had travelled to the Vatican for papal audience, he[Pope Benedict] said: "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only fail safe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids.
He also warned them that African life was under threat from a number of factors, including condoms"
With all due respect, the traditional teaching of the church of abstinence and fidelity has not prevented the spread of any disease, including HIV and AIDS. It is not condom use that is the threat to the lives of people in Africa. Condoms can prevent the transmission of these and other sexually transmitted diseases.
It remains to be seen if the recent discussion about limited condom use will reflect a change in the Roman Catholic church. In the meantime, we still need to see a similar change in the policies of our government that have been dictated by the religious right.
From a March 2009 article in the Guardian, referring to a meeting in 2005:
"Addressing bishops from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho who had travelled to the Vatican for papal audience, he[Pope Benedict] said: "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only fail safe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids.
He also warned them that African life was under threat from a number of factors, including condoms"
With all due respect, the traditional teaching of the church of abstinence and fidelity has not prevented the spread of any disease, including HIV and AIDS. It is not condom use that is the threat to the lives of people in Africa. Condoms can prevent the transmission of these and other sexually transmitted diseases.
It remains to be seen if the recent discussion about limited condom use will reflect a change in the Roman Catholic church. In the meantime, we still need to see a similar change in the policies of our government that have been dictated by the religious right.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition?
"people should fight against tyranny for their God-given rights."
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, CPAC
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, CPAC
(Conservative Political Action Convention)
The title of this post is from a piece of music dating back to the attack on Pearl Harbor and our last formal declaration of war. The music is from a song by Frank Loesser back in 1942, based on a perhaps apocryphal saying by chaplain Howell Forgy, on the U.S.S. New Orleans during the attack. The song describes a 'sky pilot', a fond slang term for clergy, putting down his Bible and manning a gun turret. I selected this title because it was a popular combination of religion and politics, and history.
This post is not about any one of those, exactly, but like the title, it intertwines religion, politics and government, and history together. Sometime back my most-of-the-time friend and frequent critic, KR, sadly banned from Penigma for failing to follow our rules (including not trying to post while banned) accused me of being an atheist, for not stipulating to the concept that our rights as citizens derive from God, a statement I have heard often from the more extremely religious factions on the political right.
The title of this post is from a piece of music dating back to the attack on Pearl Harbor and our last formal declaration of war. The music is from a song by Frank Loesser back in 1942, based on a perhaps apocryphal saying by chaplain Howell Forgy, on the U.S.S. New Orleans during the attack. The song describes a 'sky pilot', a fond slang term for clergy, putting down his Bible and manning a gun turret. I selected this title because it was a popular combination of religion and politics, and history.
This post is not about any one of those, exactly, but like the title, it intertwines religion, politics and government, and history together. Sometime back my most-of-the-time friend and frequent critic, KR, sadly banned from Penigma for failing to follow our rules (including not trying to post while banned) accused me of being an atheist, for not stipulating to the concept that our rights as citizens derive from God, a statement I have heard often from the more extremely religious factions on the political right.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
What Are They Thinking, What Are They Drinking?
Some things leave me at a relative loss for words.
For those who tease me about writing posts that are too long.......
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/saudi-clerics-advocate-adult-breast-feeding/19504280?sms_ss=email
I have always found it preferable to focus on the common ground, the similarities, between people who are from different cultures, different religions, different parts of the world.
This.......was one of those instances where the gap was too large to bridge.
The notion that fundamentalists Wahhabist clergy would be arguing over the relative merits of adult men drinking women's breast milk, quibbling over using a glass, versus drinking it directly from a woman's breast, where practice prohibits a man so much as shaking the hand of a woman, boggled my mind.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2519587/posts
That this controversy comes at a time when drinking raw, unpasteurized cow's milk has resulted in five illnesses from e. coli here in Minnesota, and the outburst from the believers in the dubious and unproven benefits of raw milk, along with comparisons between raw milk, processed milk, and breast milk adds a certain poignancy.
Truth really IS stranger than fiction.
For those who tease me about writing posts that are too long.......
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/saudi-clerics-advocate-adult-breast-feeding/19504280?sms_ss=email
I have always found it preferable to focus on the common ground, the similarities, between people who are from different cultures, different religions, different parts of the world.
This.......was one of those instances where the gap was too large to bridge.
The notion that fundamentalists Wahhabist clergy would be arguing over the relative merits of adult men drinking women's breast milk, quibbling over using a glass, versus drinking it directly from a woman's breast, where practice prohibits a man so much as shaking the hand of a woman, boggled my mind.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2519587/posts
That this controversy comes at a time when drinking raw, unpasteurized cow's milk has resulted in five illnesses from e. coli here in Minnesota, and the outburst from the believers in the dubious and unproven benefits of raw milk, along with comparisons between raw milk, processed milk, and breast milk adds a certain poignancy.
Truth really IS stranger than fiction.
Friday, October 30, 2009
A Creepy Trick, No Treats, for Halloween
"For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
MacBeth, act IV scene 1, 1623
William Shakespeare
Kimberly Daniels wrote about Halloween Candy for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network web site where it drew the attention and ridicule from sources across the Internet, including the Huffington Post and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Daniels personifies that brand of religion that amounts to Christian superstition. It links to the crazy that is epitomized by extreme fundamentalists. It holds little similarity to what most people think of as conventional religious faith or spirituality, and holds more in common with Grimm's Fairy Tales, seances by adolescents at slumber parties, and ghost stories told at camp in the dark in the woods around a camp fire before going to sleep in a tent, (shining a flashlight up your nose, optional).
Daniels' version of Halloween is as different from real Wicca and modern Paganism as the fictional highly commercialized figure of a red-suited, white bearded fat old man with flying reindeer we think of as Santa Clause differs from the Biblical account of the birth of Christ at Christmas.
Daniels has made a career out preaching a religion of fear at seminars. She prattles on about sex with Demons, time released curses oozing malice like cold tablets release medicine, and trick or treat candy prayed over by witches to curse it. When I was a child I toured a local Pearson's candy factory on an elementary school field trip, a place where they make salted nut rolls, nut goodies, mint patties. I sure don't remember any witches on the tour.
I feel qualified to address Ms. Daniels stupidity passing as faith, because I am a Minnesotan. I live in the fly-over land that is home to crazy fundamentalist Christian zealots like Michele Bachmann. Bachmann during her earliest forays into politics, served on a charter school board of directors position, where she tried to prevent the showing of the Disney movie Aladdin because it promoted magic and paganism, while trying to insert teaching Creationism and Christianity into the curriculum. Bachmann when she first ventured into state politics, is alleged to have brought in a group of other crazies to the chamber of the state legislature while her fellow legislators were away from their seats, to pray over the desks of those legislators who did not agree with her extreme views, in order to change their minds. Apparently that made more sense to her than using reason and critical thinking for persuasion.
Bachmann and her co-religionists represents that view of religion that sees prayer as manipulating God to take their side, viewing prayer as if it were equivalent of the witches scene from Shakespeare's play Mac Beth. "Double double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and Cauldron bubble," right through the Eye of Newt, and other creepy recipe ingredients.
It is one thing for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his poem Kubla Khan, to create with his words the mental image "A savage place! as holy and enchanted /As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/By woman wailing for her demon-lover!" but quite another to believe it is real. Religion peddlers like Ms. Daniels assert that having a jack-o-lantern at Halloween is a means of access for demons into your life. She asserts that Dracula and presumably other vampires, mummies and werewolves, and witches on brooms are real, that people on Halloween can be tricked into having sex with Demons instead of people, and that there is sacrificing of babies, followed by drinking their blood. I've actually attended a few pagan Samhain events; people drank Coke and Diet Coke, Mountain Dew and other soft drinks, a few drank beer. No one sacrificed babies or any other living thing, and no one drank blood. (And in case you are wondering, NO, it was not something done as research for this.)
When I read the article Ms. Daniels wrote, which is all over the Internet despite being taken down by the Robertson web site, I couldn't avoid the thought that the best explanation for this nonsense was that Daniels had wandered around a Hallmark store or maybe a costume shop while high out of her mind on some kind of hallucinogenic, like a bad trip on LSD, and this was the result. If so, she must trip a lot, because this is not a purely seasonal message from Daniels. She's bat crazy year round, and even crazier people pay good money to listen to her. It is perhaps not so surprising that Daniels embraced an extreme form of religion, as she came to her ideas about religion after having been a prostitute and a drug addict. What is surprising is that Daniels appears to have degrees in Criminal Justice studies, and more recently in Christian education. So apparently her ideas have been given validation by others; she is not unique in her odd notions, which explains how she came to have her words on Robertson's CBN web site.
I like to read things that are too obscure to interest other people. I read Congressional Bills, Court filings, Orders, and decisions, science papers, obscure literature and poetry, philosophy, and historic documents. I'm one of the few people I know who has actually read the Malleus Malificarum, more commonly known as the Hammer of Witches, the 15th century witch hunting manual. Daniels really should be looking to the classics; she just has no sense of the richness of tradition. Daniels is a light weight; you won't find any silliness about haunted candy corn in the classic old texts.
I can't help but wonder if Daniels gets her ideas from watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the spin off series, Angel, that are still showing in syndication; or maybe the Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi marathons on the movie channels; or perhaps from the panels at science fiction conventions. I'd bet some serious coin that someone with a wicked sense of mischief and a decent familiarity with H. P. Lovecraft could persuade Daniels to preach a sermon or two at one of her seminars against the evils of Cthulu. Fiction and fact are so nebulous to crazies like Daniels, the troublesome notion that Cthulu is fictional would likely be completely unimportant.
Of course, the serious side to this silliness is that people like Daniels and the right wing extremists to whom she appeals like to pander to fear and ignorance. They want to create paranoia about people who might find their spirituality in pagan nature worship, or ethnicity based practices, or alternative traditions by equating it to the the most hateful ideas possible.
You know what is really scary? That people like Daniels, and those who pay to listen to her, and those who feature her on their web sites --------they take her and people like her absolutely seriously. They are convinced that they, and only they, have the right idea, and that they have to either persuade us or force the rest of us to do and to see things their way. They have to save the rest of the world from being different from them and the one true, right way.
The RIGHT way, not in the sense of right that means correct; RIGHT in the sense of the political and religious spectrum. Now THAT'S SCARY!
Happy Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's, Feast of the Departed, whatever name you give to the date.
the Text that Daniels' briefly had posted on CBN:
During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed. A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure ... During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.
I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store.The demons cannot tell the difference.
Even the colors of Halloween (orange, brown and dark red) are dedicated. These colors are connected to the fall equinox, which is around the 20th or 21st of September each year and is sometimes called"Mabon." During this season witches are celebrating the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. They give praise to the gods for the demonic harvest. They pray to the gods of the elements (air, fire, water and earth).
Mother earth is highly celebrated during the fall demonic harvest. Witches praise mother earth by bringing her fruits, nuts and herbs. Demons are loosed during these acts of worship. When nice church folk lay out their pumpkins on the church lawn, fill their baskets with nuts and herbs, and fire up their bonfires, the demons get busy. They have no respect for the church grounds. They respect only the sacrifice and do not care if it comes from believers or non-believers.
Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.
While the lukewarm and ignorant think of these customs as "just harmless fun," the vortexes of hell are releasing new assignments against souls. Witches take pride in laughing at the ignorance of natural men (those who ignore the spirit realm).
Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.
The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes.
These activities include:
Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
MacBeth, act IV scene 1, 1623
William Shakespeare
Kimberly Daniels wrote about Halloween Candy for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network web site where it drew the attention and ridicule from sources across the Internet, including the Huffington Post and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Daniels personifies that brand of religion that amounts to Christian superstition. It links to the crazy that is epitomized by extreme fundamentalists. It holds little similarity to what most people think of as conventional religious faith or spirituality, and holds more in common with Grimm's Fairy Tales, seances by adolescents at slumber parties, and ghost stories told at camp in the dark in the woods around a camp fire before going to sleep in a tent, (shining a flashlight up your nose, optional).
Daniels' version of Halloween is as different from real Wicca and modern Paganism as the fictional highly commercialized figure of a red-suited, white bearded fat old man with flying reindeer we think of as Santa Clause differs from the Biblical account of the birth of Christ at Christmas.
Daniels has made a career out preaching a religion of fear at seminars. She prattles on about sex with Demons, time released curses oozing malice like cold tablets release medicine, and trick or treat candy prayed over by witches to curse it. When I was a child I toured a local Pearson's candy factory on an elementary school field trip, a place where they make salted nut rolls, nut goodies, mint patties. I sure don't remember any witches on the tour.
I feel qualified to address Ms. Daniels stupidity passing as faith, because I am a Minnesotan. I live in the fly-over land that is home to crazy fundamentalist Christian zealots like Michele Bachmann. Bachmann during her earliest forays into politics, served on a charter school board of directors position, where she tried to prevent the showing of the Disney movie Aladdin because it promoted magic and paganism, while trying to insert teaching Creationism and Christianity into the curriculum. Bachmann when she first ventured into state politics, is alleged to have brought in a group of other crazies to the chamber of the state legislature while her fellow legislators were away from their seats, to pray over the desks of those legislators who did not agree with her extreme views, in order to change their minds. Apparently that made more sense to her than using reason and critical thinking for persuasion.
Bachmann and her co-religionists represents that view of religion that sees prayer as manipulating God to take their side, viewing prayer as if it were equivalent of the witches scene from Shakespeare's play Mac Beth. "Double double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and Cauldron bubble," right through the Eye of Newt, and other creepy recipe ingredients.
It is one thing for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his poem Kubla Khan, to create with his words the mental image "A savage place! as holy and enchanted /As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/By woman wailing for her demon-lover!" but quite another to believe it is real. Religion peddlers like Ms. Daniels assert that having a jack-o-lantern at Halloween is a means of access for demons into your life. She asserts that Dracula and presumably other vampires, mummies and werewolves, and witches on brooms are real, that people on Halloween can be tricked into having sex with Demons instead of people, and that there is sacrificing of babies, followed by drinking their blood. I've actually attended a few pagan Samhain events; people drank Coke and Diet Coke, Mountain Dew and other soft drinks, a few drank beer. No one sacrificed babies or any other living thing, and no one drank blood. (And in case you are wondering, NO, it was not something done as research for this.)
When I read the article Ms. Daniels wrote, which is all over the Internet despite being taken down by the Robertson web site, I couldn't avoid the thought that the best explanation for this nonsense was that Daniels had wandered around a Hallmark store or maybe a costume shop while high out of her mind on some kind of hallucinogenic, like a bad trip on LSD, and this was the result. If so, she must trip a lot, because this is not a purely seasonal message from Daniels. She's bat crazy year round, and even crazier people pay good money to listen to her. It is perhaps not so surprising that Daniels embraced an extreme form of religion, as she came to her ideas about religion after having been a prostitute and a drug addict. What is surprising is that Daniels appears to have degrees in Criminal Justice studies, and more recently in Christian education. So apparently her ideas have been given validation by others; she is not unique in her odd notions, which explains how she came to have her words on Robertson's CBN web site.
I like to read things that are too obscure to interest other people. I read Congressional Bills, Court filings, Orders, and decisions, science papers, obscure literature and poetry, philosophy, and historic documents. I'm one of the few people I know who has actually read the Malleus Malificarum, more commonly known as the Hammer of Witches, the 15th century witch hunting manual. Daniels really should be looking to the classics; she just has no sense of the richness of tradition. Daniels is a light weight; you won't find any silliness about haunted candy corn in the classic old texts.
I can't help but wonder if Daniels gets her ideas from watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the spin off series, Angel, that are still showing in syndication; or maybe the Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi marathons on the movie channels; or perhaps from the panels at science fiction conventions. I'd bet some serious coin that someone with a wicked sense of mischief and a decent familiarity with H. P. Lovecraft could persuade Daniels to preach a sermon or two at one of her seminars against the evils of Cthulu. Fiction and fact are so nebulous to crazies like Daniels, the troublesome notion that Cthulu is fictional would likely be completely unimportant.
Of course, the serious side to this silliness is that people like Daniels and the right wing extremists to whom she appeals like to pander to fear and ignorance. They want to create paranoia about people who might find their spirituality in pagan nature worship, or ethnicity based practices, or alternative traditions by equating it to the the most hateful ideas possible.
You know what is really scary? That people like Daniels, and those who pay to listen to her, and those who feature her on their web sites --------they take her and people like her absolutely seriously. They are convinced that they, and only they, have the right idea, and that they have to either persuade us or force the rest of us to do and to see things their way. They have to save the rest of the world from being different from them and the one true, right way.
The RIGHT way, not in the sense of right that means correct; RIGHT in the sense of the political and religious spectrum. Now THAT'S SCARY!
Happy Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's, Feast of the Departed, whatever name you give to the date.
the Text that Daniels' briefly had posted on CBN:
During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed. A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure ... During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.
I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store.The demons cannot tell the difference.
Even the colors of Halloween (orange, brown and dark red) are dedicated. These colors are connected to the fall equinox, which is around the 20th or 21st of September each year and is sometimes called"Mabon." During this season witches are celebrating the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. They give praise to the gods for the demonic harvest. They pray to the gods of the elements (air, fire, water and earth).
Mother earth is highly celebrated during the fall demonic harvest. Witches praise mother earth by bringing her fruits, nuts and herbs. Demons are loosed during these acts of worship. When nice church folk lay out their pumpkins on the church lawn, fill their baskets with nuts and herbs, and fire up their bonfires, the demons get busy. They have no respect for the church grounds. They respect only the sacrifice and do not care if it comes from believers or non-believers.
Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.
While the lukewarm and ignorant think of these customs as "just harmless fun," the vortexes of hell are releasing new assignments against souls. Witches take pride in laughing at the ignorance of natural men (those who ignore the spirit realm).
Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.
The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes.
These activities include:
Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.
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