Friday, March 12, 2010

Church of Azazel - statement against violent crime and vandalism

The Church of Azazel proto-congregation, a theistic Satanist group based in New York City, has recently issued a statement condemning violent crime and vandalism. The statement includes the following: "We do not want to live in a lawless society, nor do we consider ourselves to be above the law. Not only would a lawless society be a very unpleasant place to live, but the world's more lawless societies -- and the more lawless neighborhoods within our own society -- are also fertile soil for the theocratic/fundamentalist religions that we oppose."

The Church of Azazel statement also warns against Satanic panics, noting that "There have been periodic panics about alleged widespread 'Satanic crime,' such as the 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' scare of the 1980's and early 1990's, in which many probably-innocent people were sent to prison. ... Satanic panics are extremely dangerous not only to Satanists but also to adherents of other minority religions (who are often regarded by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims as 'Satanic') and to atheists. They are also dangerous to ordinary mainstream Christian folks. Most of the best-publicized accusations in the 'Satanic ritual abuse' scare involved ordinary mainstream people."

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

"About Demons" -- publication date?

I've been asked about the publication date and the last-modified date of my page About Demons.

Unfortunately, I did not keep track of the date that I first uploaded it. So the publication date will just have to be 2003. The earliest version in the Internet Archives is dated Febrary 10, 2004.

The last-modified date is much easier for me to ascertain -- April 22, 2009.