Halloween is a counterfeit holy day dedicated to celebrating the demonic trinity of Lucifer, the Antichrist and the Spirit of Belial, whoever that is.

I read this and I think that I really missed out on a lot of fun when I was a pagan. Why, oh, why, did I have to turn atheist before finding these cult practitioners?

My wife and I slaughtered chickens today. Does that count? And we just thought we were thinning the flock, how could we know we were endangering the Flock?

I am an atheist myself, but I am often surprised by the amount of coverage blogs like yours (and Pharyngula) give to fundamentalist and fringe religious persons. Yes, we know that religion is irrational, but it seems useless to analyze the crackpots of society. My point is that your audience is not composed of the religious right, so why bother? You are preaching to the choir, so to say.

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/10/halloween-horrors.html

Itâs almost time for Trick Or Treat,
And now Iâm in a panicâ
Iâm doubting if my candy is
Sufficiently Satanic!
The needles, pins, and razor blades
(Which used to be tradition)
Are terribly old-fashioned now;
I need new ammunition!
The local Coven gave their curse
As every Coven should,
But will that really be enough
To drive away the Good?
The fundies warn us all about
The evil of this dayâ
How just by eating candy, we
Become the Devilâs prey!
But I wonder, as I always do,
As kids come to my door,
With all the curses I have cast,
Perhaps I should do more?
Iâve made a perfect pentagram
Of skittle, corn, and dud,
Then baptized all my candy in
A newborn infantâs blood.
While waiting for the mess to dry
I reveled with a goatâ
Now every childâs candy sends
Some evil down their throat.

The last Iâve ever had such fun
I donât remember whenâ
Too bad Iâm not as scary as
The folks from CBN.

Nathan: For the entertainment value.

Also as a stockpile of ammunition against those that claim religion is all goodness and light. Stories like this can be used to remind them that there are a lot of batshit crazies out there and pair it with stats like 2/3 of Americans believe angels and demons are active in the world. http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=885

Sex, orgies, etc. mentioned above...

I am an ungodly heathen but I did get all that fun. Where was mine?

(I already made my regular comments elsewhere.)

I am often surprised by the amount of coverage blogs like yours (and Pharyngula) give to fundamentalist and fringe religious persons. Yes, we know that religion is irrational, but it seems useless to analyze the crackpots of society. My point is that your audience is not composed of the religious right, so why bother? You are preaching to the choir, so to say.

1) How can you understand something if you don't observe and analyze it? How can you tackle the problem of crackpottery if you don't understand it?

2) These morons are fun to laugh at. And, sometimes, the only thing that will keep people from becoming crackpots, or free them from crackpottery, is to ridicule the ideas mercilessly.

3) You never know who will wander in here. Certainly enough godbots infest Pharyngula to justify PZ's making his position clear on every issue he chooses to cover. Why leave anyone in doubt?

4) Who the fuck are you to tell anyone what he can and cannot discuss? Don't like it, walk away from the discussion, rather than whinging like a titty-baby. Go to Mooney's blog if you want to snivel about outspoken people who don't take any shit. You'd be in good company there.

The reason for the season from the good folks at The Onion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0McggLIYmnE

"[...]curses are always loosed."
Okay, I'm calling shenanigans. It is a well known fact that correct use of the word "loose" as a verb is forbidden on the internet. This therefore could not possibly have been published.
(Or is the corruption of the spelling of the word "lose" just another Evil Demonic Conspiracy that Godly folk like the author are immune to?)

Nathan
Honey, this came from the Christian Broadcasting Network. My entire family considers this to be mainstream Christianity.
Besides...It's fucking hilarious!

The original source for this article was:

http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/prophetic-insight/23723-the-danger…

CBN referenced this version before they pulled it.

So, we're preaching to the choir? What's wrong with that? The choir can use a good preachin' to occasionally, Nathan.

There is no doubt in my heart that God is not calling us to replace fall festivals and Halloween activities; rather, He wants us to utterly destroy the deeds of this season.

This is the kind of phrasing that really scares me. "I have no doubt", "God", and "utterly destroy" all in one paragraph is minimally a warning sign of mental illness. If this person has any sort of power over any other person or any other entity (like a company, a classroom) she should be relieved from that responsibility.

The mechanical success of our civilization has led many to basic materialism. Are western men divided into those humanists who think that there is 'only this material world' and those who believe in a spiritual world? Humanists now proudly work for many praiseworthy goals, but also accept malthusiastic concepts such as overpopulation. So they declare some to be 'unter-menschen', killing babies before they become human and easing away the senile. In contrast, the laws given by spiritual decree forbid unprincipled behavior by believers. God made our world for successive generations and plans to shut it down when the number of saints is full.
A new book, 'Techie Worlds' (available from Amazon.com) looks at some teachings of the Galilean. They are ridiculous and cannot happen if there is 'only this world'. But viewed in the light of Flatland's contiguous dimensional worlds, they make simple mechanistic sense. This is the way of science: to look at phenomena to see if they are explained by a theory. If they are, that theory is accepted as true. So the Galilean logically based his statements on a spiritual world that truly exists and is superior to ours. 'Techie Worlds' discusses teachings about the Trinity, soul, resurrection, judgment, hell and Satan and others.
As Jews, Muslims, and pagans learn that the spiritual world of Christ is real, wars and terror will pass and the reign of Love will ennoble our world for the wellbeing of all.
GeorgeRic

You do realize, George, that spouting this babbling nonsense puts you in the same catagory as Kimberly Daniels, right? The slander, the distorted "logic", the outright lies...exactly from the same place that Daniels pulls her delusions.

Strange - 76% of U.S. is Christian. (sorry only a wiki statistic). Do you really think with the number of people celebrating Halloween in the U.S. that this is what Christian believe? That is what one unbalanced Christian believes. While I agree that it's fun and spooky to look at this (I particularly like the cuttlefish poem) It's not really realistic to paint all christian with this crazy brush.

Aquaria - Disssent is good. Comments would be boring if people only agreed with the poster - me too, me too, me too!

micheleinmichigan (and others): There is a meta purpose here. Think for a moment about Islamic religion and culture. Right now there are crazy dangerous Muslims out there doing very bad things like running planes into towers or blowing up embassies or whatever.

Among the Christian Right one often hears about how Islam is dangerous, and from this you hear that Muslims or people of Middle Eastern ethnicity (regardless) are dangerous, etc. etc.

The counter argument you often hear is that Islam is a religion of peace, and that one can't paint all Muslims or Middle Eastern people (or whatever) with a broad brush.

The counter argument to THAT is this: "I don't see any prominent Muslims disowning or disavowing the bad ones, so they are all bad"

I have reconstructed here, in this post, the same exact sequence of arguments only substituting Christianity for Islam.

For both arguments (the anti Islam and the anti Christian versions) every single step is bullshit. And, underlying the bullshit is this reality:

Each religion has well documented dogma that is very very anti-humane, violent, misogynist, anti-gay, etc. etc. It isn't just that people within these religions are sometimes nuts. The written and sacred dogma of the religions includes a great deal of material that is of the same status of other, more humane or more peaceful dogma, and there is no objective way within the dogma itself to separate it.

Within each religion most practitioners do not carry out acts of violence but many do practice acts that are in my view wrong. Much of this has to do with intolerance, patriarchal control of women, racism, or whatever, although often on a mild level (compared to, say lynchings or honor killings). There are very very few Christian or Muslim sects that do not violate what most atheists would consider basic principles at least to some degree on a regular basis. Just look at a Christian marriage ceremony among otherwise not so conservative Christians: The father gives away the bride, and the groom and bride may be required to kneel before a priest (or whatever) and promise god that they will raise their children in this particular sect. Owning the women and predetermining the belief system of the children are holdovers of a ancient time that many religions seem determined to hang on to. That isn't flying a plane into a building, but it is wrong nonetheless.

Both religions have large numbers of moderate or disinterested members who know that their fellow religious people are doing some very wrong things (like shooting abortion doctors or blowing shit up) and do not adequately condemn them or demand reform, and a smaller number that are compliant and involved. the number of deadly or highly offensive operatives (and I would put this essay in the highly offensive category and potentially deadly because it advocates suspension of law and ethics) is larger than is admitted by the moderates in each religion.

In other words, the whole thing totally sucks and most people involved, even moderates and progressives, are in denial of it all.

I need to see a Christian politician running for office in the US come out and denounce the right wing and make the claim that saying "god bless america" at an event or after giving a speech is wrong. Because it is. When it becomes routine for Cristian politicians do denounce their right wings and to admit that invoking god as essential to the discourse on a regular basis is wrong, then I will see Christianity as relatively benign. Same with Islam.

Daniels wouldn't doubt it was a "holy day" if she'd had to spend half of the prime trick-or-treat hours in church like us Catholic kids.

Pat Robertson essentially endorses this insanity by publishing it. That simple fact cannot be escaped.

As Jews, Muslims, and pagans learn that the spiritual world of Christ is real, wars and terror will pass and the reign of Love will ennoble our world for the wellbeing of all.

Or else. Right George?

I could well be wrong nor am I aware of any statistics on the matter, but it seems that this sort of crazy is becoming more common rather than less. When young and powerless I was raised in a rather bat-shit crazy fundie sect and though I was aware of a few who believed that Halloween is a demonic un-holy day, the idea was uncommon and laughed at even in fundie circles. Now? Within a few miles of home there are dozens of churches which held their alternative witch-free festivities. Crazy notions about trick-or-treating may not be the majority view in American Christianity (yet) but they are far more common than even a few years ago.

uuummmm wwoowww, I think my IQ just dropped a few points. that hurt.

I'm confused -- the "Antichrist Spirit" isn't the satanic counterpart of Jesus, but the counterpart of the Holy Spirit? What the hell kind of sense does that make?

I guess it's too much to expect even such slight modicum of consistency from fundies.

Greg, we were in complete agreement up until paragraph six. Then we diverge. Maybe it was because I was raised by an "atheist" who was completely intolerant of anyone's else belief, (not just religious.) I could easily compare the hours that I was ranted at for some arbitrary observation such as "the sky was very blue today." to the hours that some fundmentalist kids were dragged to church. During that time it became very clear to me that it was not about religion at all, it was about control and respecting your fellow human being.

While I was in Kazakhstan I visited an Russian Orthodox Church and a Mosque. Both of which had honored leaders who were killed by the "atheist" Soviet Union for pursuing their religions. Now I'm not saying that atheist are bad because of this or that you as an atheist (you're an atheists right?) are engaging in tactic approval of these approaches. I believe human nature has a very bad side. I don't believe that taking away religion does anything to take away that bad side. Those charismatic controlling leaders so often find another method.

This is one reason why I am so supportive of our democracy. The fact that it has protections (I wish there were more) for minorities and separation of church and state (I wish there were more).

My personal approach is that I support any person's individual religious approach that helps them to be healthy and helps them support and show kindness to their fellow man. When I see anyone doing something unfair or unkind, I try to speak up, regardless of the religious context.

I guess the main way that we differ is that I view the violence or unfair treatment in the context of (and the responsibility of) the greater society, not the religion that the perpetrator claimed to follow. I believe that religions are an expression of societies good and bad traits, not the leaders. Want to change religion, work to change society.

I don't want to say that like it's fact, it's just the working premise that I've live by. I like to promote it when I can, cause it works for me.

Also, you know the crazies get alot of press. There are alot of really good smart people of all beliefs that do alot for the world and get very little press.

Ignore GeorgeRic. I've seen him post that exact comment in a couple of other places as well. I'd suggest he's a bot, but Captcha doesn't seem to stop him.

Pat Robertson vs. Larry Flynt debating about prostitution on radio show.
http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/10/30/pat-robertson-…-

Greg, you've missed the key difference between christians and muslims. In western "christian" civilisation, we have the product of many hundreds of years of bloody slaughter where the various brands of religious nutcases took turns at massacring each other. The result of that in "christian" societies is an emasculated religious authority which has no right to arrest us on the street for "immoral dress" or to make religious laws designed to impinge on our freedoms. (They keep trying, but they fail).
In islamic culture, however, there has not been that bloody upheaval marking the transition from theocracy to secular government, hence the global pandemic of islamic violence now taking place. To put it plainly - islamic culture is a relic of the dark ages and has a long road ahead of it in order to catch up with civilisation as we know it.

One thing that strikes me about this article is how incoherent it really is. It skips from one disconnected thought to the next, sentence by sentence: "But we cannot be ignorant of the devices of the enemy. When we pray, we bind the powers of the strong men that people involved in the occult worship."

Each paragraph doesn't have a single theme or coherent thought; it's more or less arbitrary. Often, the sentences and phrases are practically meaningless: "...the vortexes of hell are releasing new assignments against souls."

It makes me think of the "word salads" that psychotics sometimes produce. I wouldn't be surprised if the author was really a borderline schizophrenic who has never been diagnosed.

Maureen - my brother is a schizophrenic and it made me think the same thing as you did. Just from my reading, my guess would be - bipolar going into a maniac phase. Someone with bipolar can be very successful and charismatic (because of their high energy levels) and drawn to religion (like schizophrenics, because of the sensations of the disease).

I've read some mania does bring on psychotic episodes. That's why it can be difficult to tell the difference between bipolar and schizophrenia in initial exams. I'm not by any means an expert though.

Typical biased reporting by the Christian media. They didn't even mention ANYTHING about me and my boyz burning down christian churches and spreading ebola amongst the faithful.

Vince - "In islamic culture, however, there has not been that bloody upheaval marking the transition from theocracy to secular government, hence the global pandemic of islamic violence now taking place. To put it plainly - islamic culture is a relic of the dark ages and has a long road ahead of it in order to catch up with civilisation as we know it."

Wow, it's all so simple when you don't have to consider that Islam is comprised of many sub-sects, some clergy based, some tribally based with a variety of histories and customs. Also the huge poverty, unemployment and illiteracy rates in some middle-eastern countries where the incredibly wealthy monarchy's are supported by the U.S.. This is not to mention the tons of money that we (the U.S. and other "civilized" nations) send to countries that do things like drag people off in the middle of the night and submerge their body parts in boiling water (Uzbekistan), because we wanted to use their airspace, to go to war with Afghanistan. Also the fact that secular "civilized" leaders in the Middle East (Saddam Hussein)somehow managed to do a fine job of subjugating and torturing their people.

It's all so simple, though. We're civilized and they're backward. It's great because you can insert any religion, ethnic group or nationality into the slots.

I am amazed at how we ignorantly participate in pagan, occult rituals.

I wonder how she celebrates Christmas. Or Easter.

Easter is celebrated by killing a lamb by staring at it, yes?

Thanks for publishing the article, Greg, it was well written and I learnt a few things I didn't know already.

The "yes we all know the emperor has nice clothes" brigade's comments before and afterwards would be quite funny if they weren't so tragic.

My Dad was an architect, and he taught me to look for hints of other architect's personality in the design of their buildings.

Try to imagine a building with no architect and no builder.

Here's my challenge: Try and guess what the Creator is like by observing His Creation.

thinking, it was nothing like well-written. Comment 28 is dead on. As for buildings without creators, we're perfectly capable of living in caves made by nothing more supernatural than the effects of water and wind.

Try to imagine a building with no architect and no builder.

I wasn't aware buildings were biological or reproduced. "Look at this man-made thing! It is designed! Therefore everything NOT man-made is also designed!" Sorry, that has never worked as an argument. Never.

(And per your Quiche Moraine mention, Greg, yeah... I'm sorry I've been remiss in fighting with the more ridiculous of your posters lately. I'll try to pick up the slack.)

So whats the difference between a religion and a cult? The amount of people in the group. So, even a religion with millions of 'followers' is just a large cult.
Does this woman forget that most of christianities practices and rituals stem from paganism. of course she does. Except for when the bunny rabbit opened the door to jesuses tomb, let him loose and then laid eggs so everybody could have brunch.

I would suggest you google sights that talk about sukkot for christians. The feast of Tablernacles represents the ingathering of G-d's people. This is an excellent biblical alternative to halloween for a fall harvest celebration. Although you have some rabbincal traditions mixed in Sukkot is mention in the Hebrew scriptures with the booths and the elements of Etrog, palm, willow and myrtle branches that can be G-d and Christ centered. Please reseach and check out this positive alternative!