The claim made by David Bay, of Cutting Edge Ministries, that the Washington Monument is "a filthy, phallic and satanic homage to the god Baal" is rightfully dismissed by Gwydion Tiamat, a self-professed Satanist. He wisely chose not to go by his given name because, as he says, friends' houses "have been firebombed." And anyway, as he says, "they're just pagans."[1]
Footnote [1] refers to "Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, May 10, 2008, "D.C.: The devil's City?" by Dan Morse. Originally published in the Washington Post" - an offline source, apparently. Anyhow, Hrafnkell goes on to say:
My jaw dropped. Satanists are Pagans?
Are they?
Did Gwydion Tiamat say his friends were Satanists? Or did he perhaps mean to say something like, "Look what happened to my friends who not even Satanists, but just Pagans. All the more so am I in similar danger, as a Satanist"?
Since the source is apparently offline, I can't easily look up the original context to see what was actually meant. Oh, well.
Next, Hrafnkell goes on for a while with the usual Pagan spiel about how Satanism is not Pagan.
Hrafnkell, please read my article What is Satanism? . Note especially the following:
There are many kinds of Satanists.
For most of the past forty years, the most public Satanist spokespeople have been atheistic symbolic Satanists, who do not believe in or worship Satan as a literal entity, but who regard Satan as a symbol of independence, pride, individual ambition, etc. The best-known symbolic Satanist organization is the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey.
There is now a growing movement of theistic Satanists, who do believe in and revere Satan as a deity.
There are many kinds of theistic Satanists. The vast majority do NOT simply accept Christian beliefs except for siding with the Other Guy. The beliefs of most theistic Satanists are based on sources other than just Christianity.
...
Many theistic Satanists are polytheistic and regard both Satan and the Christian "God" as just two of the many gods. Some believe that all the gods, including both Satan and the Christian “God,” are really just very advanced extraterrestrial humanoids. Others are polytheistic in a more traditional spiritual sense.
Hrafnkell, please see also the following articles of mine:
- A Critique of Wiccan and Other Neo-Pagan Disclaimers About Satanism
- Satan and "Evil" in Christianity (and Satanism)
- Is Satanism a "Christian heresy"? Is Satanism "Abrahamic"?
- Is Satanism "Pagan"?
- Isaac Bonewits and "dualism"
I would suggest that you also read other pages in the section To Wiccans and other Pagans and occultists on my Theistic Satanism site. Most of it is addressed to Wiccans, but much of it is relevant to Heathens and other hard-polytheists too.
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3 comments:
Thank you, and I'll certainly look at the articles you've linked. Very interesting stuff. The original article appeared in the Washington Post, as I mentioned. I had to hand only the reprint in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. So you could see my comments in context I went to the Washington Post website and did a search and came up with a link to the article as it appeared there (it looks identical and should be):
A Capital City With the Devil in the Details
Thanks for the link to the Washington Post article. I've replied here.
Im sure the term 'pagan' was used by followers of the 'white christ' around the 11th-12th centuaries (roughly)....the term pagan meaning a religiously conservative peasant (used sometimes as an insult for non christian believers who weren't peasants. So plainly the term pagan was a class destinctive term for a person who didn't believe in christ, it's really a term that should be out of use as fuedal systems no-longer exsist (well at least I hope not)
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