The Great Wall of China was built two thousand years ago to keep out various nomadic groups. It's about 5,500 miles long.
A wall across the Mexican border would be about 2000 miles in length -- less than half the length of the GW of C, & using modern technology. About 1 million illegals slip across the border each year, of which about 150,000 are not Mexican.
Invasions have always been a concern. In Ephesus during Heraclitus' lifetime, a good lifestyle caused massive immigration. The immigrants wanted to change the laws. Heraclitus argued, "We must fight for the laws of the city as if they were its walls."
In Athens during the reign of Pericles, people flocked to the city to take advantage of its better lifestyle. They tried to knock down its walls and laws and largely succeeded, turning Athens into a backwater, which it remains today.
In World War II, America rose to prominence. The arts and the sciences were suddenly the best in the world. We beat the communists, but their refugees poured into the country. Most of these were fully integrated. Since the 1960s a dramatic schism has developed in American voters. Democrats want individual license or multi-culturalism to prevail, while Republicans increasingly want norms that have arisen out of the Judeo-Christian tradition to prevail. People from around the world move in, and they don't want to assimilate. They want us to tolerate their mosques, their practice of clitorectomy, multiple marriages, and arranged marriages, they want to practice Wicca, which means the abduction and slaughter of babies, and they want to export Hindu practices here, while sending money home to India. Buddhists come and turn our youth away from the Protestant Work Ethic toward a couch potato ethos of "being here now."
The eccentricities of individuals have increasingly arisen to a new position of importance among the left. Strange characters like Lady Gaga hold rallies to push the president toward pushing the military to accept gay soldiers. (Why she should have something to say about the military is beyond me.) But since the 60s and the "Sexual Revolution" it has been a paramilitary within the Democratic party that has pushed various sexual ideas outside of Judeo-christian discourse to a new prominence, and to legal status. A few things remain illegal: statutory rape (although in Amsterdam which was the epicenter of the hippie revolt the age of consent was lowered to 11), and sex with animals. Animal brothels pop up around the country like the religious sanctuaries of a strange new sect.
Michel Foucault, one of the intellectual leaders of the new left, has argued that no sexual behavior should ever be illegal. Even child prostitution, for him, should not have been a concern for the law. Sexual desire is the new sacred impulse, and nothing must tamper with it, because it is against the law to tamper with religion.
The sexual whim of the individual citizen should allow her to give birth to an ear of corn if she can arrange for the genetic engineering.
Norms of any kind are contested. The walls of the city taken down, as are the laws. Any attempt to put walls or laws up are hotly contested.
The left would have a nude Jerusalem replace the New Jerusalem. In it, everyone will have sexual diseases. But, it's ok, because everyone will have medical insurance, paid for by the remaining citizens with a work ethic.
Against this Sodomy and Gonnorhea viewpoint, a new Tea Party has arisen to take back the country, and to rebuild its walls and laws. I'm with them.
47 comments:
The use of the name "Tea Party" I find a little troubling.
The Tea Party was a name used to describe a civil event which was expressed as a refusal to pay a tariff on imported tea from abroad. It was an organized demonstration, conducted by a radical element of colonists unhappy with the treatment they had been receiving from the Mother country.
Today, it's inapplicable to conceive of (or imply) any American political disagreement, as a dispute between "colonists" and an imperial domination. This is an internecine political difference, occurring with the context of a united nation, not involving foreign countries or interests.
Tea Party is a stupid use of a name of a symbolic event in American history, which took place before we were ever a nation, and had an identity, with the rights and privileges of a democracy. It's just a Republican splinter focus group dedicated to fostering an agenda that represents only a tiny majority of the nation's populace. And it's received, and continues to receive, publicity and attention far beyond its actual significance. Sarah Palin may believe it's an important movement, but she represents only a tiny segment of the electorate.
Sensible people can consider political alternatives without requiring a "movement" designed to divide voters into distinct, warring opposites. People should vote their consciences, and their pocket-books. That's true conservatism.
According to the NYT April 15, 2010 article on the tea Party Constituency about 8 iout of ten of its members are primarily concerned about economic issues, and about the government socialist policies of deciding how to spend individual tax payers' money. No taxation without representation is a pretty perfect thing. It's also not a tiny segment. They are at least 18% and that was in April. they are winning elections, and will go on doing so. It's America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?_r=1&hp
It's people like me. On every test, I'm exactly in the middle of all American voters on all American questions.
"they want to practice Wicca, which means the abduction and slaughter of babies."
I know you like to be inflammatory for the sake of it, but it undercuts your authority...
blahblahblah
Brett, some time I will write out for you a true story about a Wiccan who -- I can't say it in public because it's too spooky.
Wiccans do practice sacrifice.
It is certainly not all of them, any more than it is all Islamicians who practice terror attacks on innocent civilians.
But it's a significant minority. I'll have to tell you some time, but not now. I need an hour to write out the story effectively.
I really meant to say "tiny minority" in paragraph four of my first post.
Boy, was I asleep on my feet, or what?
Brett's right--that inflammatory stuff doesn't help your case.
I know a story of a Mormon girl whose grandfather molested her and he was protected by the church and they were part of a crazy underground ritual that involved burnt cat fetuses.
You need some sort of verification that a 'significant minority' of Wiccans abduct and slaughter babies...
Wicca is similar to voodoo, both of them depend on the devil and openly accept the devil.
Voodoo is heavily dependent on sacrifice. Chickens, sure. No problem. But it also depends on killing people close to you. Read Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse.
It ends with the human sacrifice of a teenaged boy.
Wicca is similar. Not always babies. Sometimes it's a spouse, or a child.
This is obviously kept secret, since it's illegal and is considered murder in the Christian tradition. In Wicca and in Voodoo, which both openly praise the devil, and have the devil as the center of their faith, it's business as usual.
I'm not extremely bigoted. That would be the left.
You have to look at the actual structure of a religion, and read up on it, and then ask around how it works on the ground. Lots of people disappear in this country. Wiccans at work.
It's the fastest growing religion in America.
I don't know where you got the notion that I don't think women should be citizens, Brett. That's libelous.
Please cite.
Hey there!
This is relevant to your interests.
Hm. An interesting quote:
What we can do if the press comes calling is to state that no modern Pagan faith teaches or condones premeditated or ritual murder, that we have no information as to what Sanford’s belief system was, and we aren’t willing to offer conjecture as to why she felt the need, if true, to “sacrifice” Joel Leyva.
I like especially "no modern Pagan faith."
The problem, of course, is that modern Pagan faiths are all based on syncretisms of old ones.
And unlike, say the LDS church, which has both renounced and actively prosecutes things such as child and multiple marriages, the "Pagan church" doesn't have a director who gets to speak with Papal-esque authoritay.
That is to say, a "Pagan" could easily read original Pagan texts and get the idea that human sacrifice was nifty-keen.
Another good reason to support Christianity as the world's best faith.
GM thanks for stepping in here. I know many people want to accept all the faiths as one (as the Unitarians do) but Wicca is especially troubling, since it depends on moon cycles. Sacrifice at full moons is part of the unwritten practice: it's a constant. Naturally, they don't speak about this stuff much. Wicca is essentially all about self, so it's the exact opposite of what Augustine counsels as getting beyond self, to serve God. How many Wiccan missions are there to the poor, or to Africa? Do they care what happens to the people of the southern Sudan, our brothers and sisters in Christ?
These are some of the things that Christianity has historically been up against. In Joshua 24:15, you see this:
"And if it seem evil unto to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
That's the Biblical text behind Bob Dylan's Gotta Serve Somebody. Here's a link to Aaron Neville singing this song. Dylan has a brief and useful relevance before returning to his capacity as Mr. Cool. I liked him a lot during his gospel phase, when he suddenly turned against the tide and wrote about a dozen masterpieces. I especially like the way Neville can float a note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVDaJZ1_Ymw&feature=related
Sorry, it should read "choose [you] this day who ye will serve" -- rapidity error.
I think I was Probably using your logic in another context as a way of revealing how silly your context is.
Knew a lot of Wiccans in college. Never done killed nobody...
Again, your worse and worse about distinctions. If you choose to be logically fallacious on principle, don't know what to tell you...
No argument from me that Christianity is better'n Wicca (the latter of which is mostly for people who are ostracized because of a lack of social skills, and then claim ownership of that ostracizedness by glomming onto a 'weird' religion.)
But the way y'all leap from 'Christianity is better' to Lots of Wiccans commit human sacrifice!!! Is...fallacious.
Brett, you fall easily for the "Islam is peace," type of argument, in which if a high official of some group denies any wrongdoing, you take it at face value.
But the guy who reinvented Wicca (Gardner, in England) did practice human sacrifice. It's in many books. It's their standard practice. Fresh blood creates power, or so they think. Now, I haven't been present as a coven stabbed someone to death, but others have.
You will wave it away because it isn't what you want to believe, but there certainly lots of cases:
http://usminc.org/humansacrifice.html
Those are excerpts from fairly standard books, and the accounts verify one another.
Babies make especially good victims because the energy is thought to be so powerful (you are taking an ENTIRE life).
But then, you also believe that Islam is peace, because they say so, overlooking all the evidence that might tend to mitigate that statement.
As for libel law, in general, if you believe something to be true (as I do, from various readings in the occult, and from books on Gardner, and from some personal experience with Wiccans), then it isn't libel.
Also, it is harder to prove group libel. In America, the first amendment allows us to criticize whole groups.
If, however, you malign an individual, as you did me, it's actionable, because you deliberately and knowingly lied about whether I think women should be citizens. Obviously, I do. It's part of the reason that I think international intervention in Afghanistan is justified.
But since I've known you a long time, I'm going to turn the other cheek.
But since you're going to be a screenwriter, you ought to get libel law down. It might help you avoid a scrape or two!
I never say that Islam is peace directly - They do, Bush might...
I say, over and over again, that Islam is not necessarily violent.
You see, I'm in the middle on this one, which is closer to reality - I recognize that certain cultures around the globe that are Islamic have horribly backwards worldviews, and I recognize that some Islamic cultures have modernized to a much greater degree.
You, however, only believe in the extreme - that all Islam is violent. That because the mosque at Ground Zero is a mosque, it must be a Victory mosque! Rather than what it claims to be, and what its leadership would prove (women in high places means it's not a part of a worldview that thinks women can't be in high places...Simple proof. Ask Stu for the numbers).
Wiccans don't have too much of a single leader...
Most of them don't kill babies, even if at some point they had a leader who believed in killing (see Mormons, God in the O.T., Judaism, etc.).
Is it possible that Wiccanism leads to baby-sacrifice?
Yes.
Is it possible that Wiccanism doesn't?
Yes.
You only believe the former.
Is it standard practice for Wiccans?
We can debate that - pretty sure it ain't, and that the extreme weirdright has created trumped-up, anti-semite-like propaganda. TBH, I have more research to do, and will do so...
I hate it when secularists create a laundry list of evils done by Christians, and then condemn Christianity on the base of that biased, one-sided laundry list.
I'm sure you do too.
But you seem perfectly happy to use this approach to your understanding of every other worldview.
It's fallacious and wrong.
You should change the name of this blog to 'confirmation bias,' because both Lutheranism and surrealism don't seem to inform your stances anymore
Just read the link I gave you. They offer direct chunks straight from the horse's mouth: Gardner.
If Gardner is the founder of the Wicca movement, then reading his work can give you a clue as to what they believe, I should think.
Not all of them do it. Not all of the Nazis actually killed Jews, I suppose. But if you wanted to find out what a Nazi was, I suppose you'd read Hitler.
Read Gardner.
And the crucifixion isn't human sacrifice?
I looked up Gardner, apparently he may have sacrificed one or more volunteer victims because he thought that would somehow repel a Nazi invasion of England. I don't think you can assume anything about the rituals of future generations of Wiccans from this. You can't look at the Hebrew Bible and say, oh the Jews today must surely kill disobedient sons [though I have an over-zealous Orthodox uncle who SPOKE about killing his son if he ever discovered the kid smoking pot], or stone adulterers. [One reason that even the very Orthodox amongst the Jews don't do everything that the Hebrew Bible prescribes is of course the transformations caused by Talmudic thinking. The Talmud says that to kill adulterers you need two credible witnesses to the adultery--that is to the adulterous sex acts themselves. Clearly the Talmudic rabbis--cll them Pharacees (sp.?) if you like--were looking for a merciful outcome in such cases.
1) The mere layout of the link you gave me should suggest to you to be a bit more skeptical.
2) Gardner doesn't support sacrifice - he points out that it's bad, but powerful.
3) The Parker book is full of conjecture...Possible someone died during a stupid mushroom-based ritual, but to say that pnemonia = sacrifice is presumptuous.
4) Yeah, Wicca's stupid - but it doesn't advocate human sacrifice, and hasn't led to a 'significant minority' abducting babies and killing them.
I repeat - Wicca is full of people ostracized from society who own their weirdness and make themselves feel better with silly rituals.
Not the same as kidnapping and killing babies as a matter of course.
Here's a video (it's ME!)...
Kirby is, more and more, starting to remind me of the guy doing the 'analysis.'
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=143008229073322
The issue of human sacrifice, witchcraft, and Wicca is current just now because Republican nominee Christine O'Donnell said she had briefly dabbled in magick as a high school teenager.
What Wicca is has been hotly debated. Gerald Gardner, who died in 1964, is generally thought to be its formulator. He was initiated into a witch cult in England in 1940, and did human sacrifice on at least one occasion. He himself wrote of this (I got this from his Wiki page):
"We were taken at night to a place in the Forest, where the Great Circle was erected; and that was done which may not be done except in great emergency. And the great cone of power was raised and slowly directed in the general direction of Hitler. The command was given: "you cannot cross the sea, you cannot cross the sea, you cannot come, you cannot come". Just as, we were told, was done to Napoleon, when he had his army ready to invade England and never came. And, as was done to the Spanish Armada, mighty forces were used, of which I may not speak."
Pagans have often used human sacrifice. In Homer, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia in exchange for a favorable wind that will carry his troops to Troy.
In the Canaanite regions, human sacrifice by witches and wizards (a wizard is a male witch).
In Exodus, it says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," 22:18, and this is because they dealt in child sacrifice. Some claim that aborted babies, today, are used for their blood (the blood is thought to contain the soul of a child).
Using evil spirits is what witches do. Gardner, who died less than fifty years ago, did not shrink from using such magic, or from using human sacrifice.
How long have babies been used in this way? The practice goes back to the Chaldeans at least. In France under the reign of Louis XIV, prostitutes sold unwanted children to magicians for use in sacrifice.
Did Nazi pagans use Jewish babies? In The Rise and fall of the Third Reich, Shirer discusses a pagan cultist named Alfred Rosenberg, whom Hitler deferred to, intellectually. Rosenberg wanted to destroy the Christian church, and turn Germany back toward its pagan roots. On p. 240, Shirer cites Rosenberg:
"The National Reich Church of Germany is determined to exterminate irrevocably ... the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800..."
Instead of the Bible, which would be destroyed and "The National Church will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of saints" so that there would be "nothing but Mein Kampf" (240.
"Rosenberg, an outspoken pagan," wanted to destroy not only the Jewish culture, but the entire Christian culture as well, and in effect he wished to erase Judeo-christian culture, and to replace it with pagan culture.
Meanwhile, Gardner, another pagan, sought to keep the Hitlerites from landing in England.
In France the surrealists and their splinter groups such as Acephale were also dabbling in Magic, and a human sacrifice was apparently practiced by Acephale. Bataille and Klossowski were present.
Gerald Gardner knew Aleister Crowley and was initiated by Crowley into a magic coven. Idries shah, a Sufi, wrote Gardner's biography. The mixes one creates show that New Age culture is a stew of many different ideas, and they have a broad appeal.
I don't think this sorcery business is something that a few maladjusted individuals have taken up. It has a long history, going back at least to the Canaanites, and has never thoroughly disappeared from western history. With the rise of multiculturalism, it has become a respectable ideology, and one which now has official state holidays (New Jersey recognizes seven Wiccan holidays). can you get a state holiday if you consist of twelve maladjusted individuals who went to school with Brett?
I had a friend who belonged to a group of hippies living in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest. One among their members was a witch. He sacrificed his wife one night during a full moon, and disappeared. the community dissolved, as no one else wanted to end up on the altar, and yet no one wished to come forward and give testimony. I think the pagan community doesn't have much respect for law and order.
human sacrifice may be uncommon, and perhaps I overdid it in the original blog post, and it may not be something that all Wiccans perform once a month. Even Gardner himself only did it once or twice.
On the other hand, since it's illegal, it's not discussed very often, and Gardner himself says that it is something of "which I must not speak."
Mayans practiced it. Incans practiced it. Christianity is probably a minority religion in that it doesn't practice it. Jews were forbidden to practice it, or to consult the sorcerers of other cults as to their fortunes.
In 2nd Kings, the King of Moab "took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall" (II Kings 3:26).
As we reawaken these cults, and these long-sleeping gods, of course the common practices of such peoples will also awaken with them.
Kirby,
You had me until you whipped out the Wiccans.
Ask me about Wicca and neo-paganism, you'll find I have lots to share. That is, if you're interested in hearing real answers from someone very familiar with the pagan community.
If not, that's cool, just go on as you are.
As far as human sacrifice goes, I think you'll find that SOME of the claims of human sacrifice in European paganism was concocted to make the Romans feel superior and vindicated in conquering such a vicious race as would murder their own in the name of the gods. I wouldn't doubt that some ancient European pagans did practice some form of human sacrifice, but I think some of the tales were exaggerated.
But thinking honestly, does not our own salvation depend on human sacrifice? Though you and I believe that Jesus was both God and man, it is simply a matter of doctrine. Most Christians would say that Jesus, though God, was also a human, and that he allowed himself to be sacrificed (murdered or suicide, depending on your view of Jesus's Godhood) for our sins.
I just want you to think a little about the role that the sacrifice of a human life has played in the formation of our own religion. Christianity would not be the same without it.
Could ancient human sacrifice be an impotent attempt at salvation and the prefiguration of the sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus?
Please, you're welcome to ask me any questions you have about paganism. I'd be more than pleased to enlighten you!
Nice Bigfoot footage by the way! Is that your voice, or is that you in the gorilla suit?
Craig brought up Jesus and sacrifice in another thread. There is also Abraham and Isaac.
If you believe Jesus was God, then Pilate and Judas and company were puppets in a puppet play that Jesus himself had preordained.
If you think Pilate and Judas had free will, then it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a religious murder.
If it was a sacrifice, it was one that Jesus did to himself.
If you compare the Mayans, or the Canaanites, the sacrifices were against the will of the sacrificed.
We tend to see things according to what peer groups we belong to. Witches love to get going about witch deaths in witch hunts in Europe, and then segue to Salem, and squeak all day about that, and how bloody the Christians are.
Christians tend to focus on the Canaanites, and on the King of Moab, and how bloody the pagans were, citing Pilate as one of them, and don't forget Nero, and what he did.
When I'm writing about witches I'm writing in an eternal present. What is the general tendency? Where is this going?
In Christianity, there is no need to continue to sacrifice animals or people. In Voodoo, it's the key. In Wicca, which has no one central book but draws from an eclectic tradition, with the likes of Aleister Crowley, and Anton LaVey, as their avatars, you get a lot of kinky sex magick, and I think just behind that is the weird bloodletting that Gardner refers to, and that you see in films like Mad Max, in which a neo-pagan society reemerges and reconstitutes the historical Christian memory of the arenas.
But there is a kind of symmetry to this, and it depends on where you stand. Within Islam, the memory is of what Christians did to them. And what Jews did to them. Ahmadinejihad focuses on how the Jews got out of the towers on 9/11 and argues that this was a Jewish conspiracy with Bush to allow Americans to attack the Middle East.
Near here in the Catskills is a village called Islamberg. No outsiders can go in there. It's an Islamic village that purportedly does combat training. They had a special about it on Fox. If you open their web pages you read essay after essay about the villainous Jews, and how the Jews run Fox news, and how the Jews framed 9/11, and how the Jews have to go, and so on, and how Israel is a huge menace to the entire world.
I tend to see things from a Christocentric viewpoint, I suppose.
So go ahead and enlighten me about the Wiccans and give me their talking points, if you will, Emmy! I find it interesting that the Wiccans have planted their flags in your generation's head: Brett too wants to defend the Wiccans.
I tend to mix them up with the crazy people in Mad Max beyond the Thunderdome, and with pagans like Nero and Caligula, and to remember the dark tales of witches in the OT, and the weird stories of the flying sorcerer in ACTS.
I'm more concerned about the "everyday" stuff that Islam imposes on its followers.
Our nation should be tolerant, and our laws supporting freedom of religion are a model for the rest of the world. But Islam's a different cup of coffee.
Many of us are concerned about the effect of a rapidly growing Islamic presence in American communities. In Europe, where the spread of Islam has become a matter of public concern, clear conflicts between Western ideals of equality of the sexes, separation of church and state, and the freedoms of expression have already begun to be revealed. "Conservative" "peaceful" Islamic factions will plead that the "true" Islam is harmless, and tolerant. Apologists will point out the sometimes violent history of Christianity to defend the Islamic claim to equal time. But Christianity hasn't been zealously violent for a long time.
Can Islamic sects "co-exist" inside a pluralistic American culture where everyone is free to make choices and behave without fear of reprisal, where the political and religious realms are kept discretely separate? From what I've read and heard, I doubt it. Islam's goal is total control over the daily life, the erasing of the secular realm in preference to total obedience. This is a major threat to Western democratic institutions.
If someone applied for a permit to build a huge mosque in my neighborhood, I'd be sternly opposed to it. I don't like the idea of kids being sent to school in cloaks to blankly sit for hours reciting the Koran. That's a backward path to ignorance and prejudice.
I think what Republicans and Christians have that is lacking in Democrats and Wiccans is a work ethic. Wiccans want to cast a spell and have money and fame and a lover appear. It reminds me of Hermes Trismegestes flying about in Acts. I hate that kind of thing.
I'd rather that people keep their feet on the ground, and get their homework done, and not keep a slave who looks like Helen of Troy, and who is kept merely for the fornication.
Work ethic and dialogical relationships are what the Republicans have been about since Lincoln. Democrats didn't care about slaves. They thought it was just fine.
They think now it's just ducky that the women of Islam are kept as slaves. Why is that so bad, they ask? That's their culture!
But the Republicans are upset by it. Thanks to W., 9 million women in Afghanistan can read and write and vote. The left thinks this is negligible and nothing to blow their horns about.
So what does it do for ME? They ask.
Democrats are the party of me, myself and I, and have been since Lincoln's day when the Copperheads tried to argue that an intervention in the south wasn't necessary.
Democrats are still the same.
Democrats claim that Republicans are the party that eats lobster while watching Fox News. Personally, I don't know anybody who eats fancy dinners and is a Republican.
The idea of being a Republican is all about work ethic. We're Puritans, really, and that's why the Tea Party appeals so strongly.
Sobriety, hard work, not too much taxation.
The Democrat party is the party of the bearded Marxists. They are a plague that eats away at the work ethic, who claims that just because the Little Red Hen raised the wheat and baked the bread, she shouldn't get to eat it all by themselves. They want to legislate reparations.
The Democrats are the party of repulsive laziness, reparations, redistribution, and resentment.
The Republicans are the party of self-sacrifice, and hard work, and principles. That's what the Tea Party is about for those who don't know.
"Can Islamic sects "co-exist" inside a pluralistic American culture where everyone is free to make choices and behave without fear of reprisal, where the political and religious realms are kept discretely separate?"
yeah, they can - they have for a lot of years here in 'merica. The anti-Mosque crusades (both in NYC and beyond) are funny in that they are mosques being built by groups that have been in their communities for decades without causing problems.
I am worried that the current Islamophobia, however, will drive a wedge in what was up until recently an exemplary story of assimilation.
Note - as JADL has calmed down the hasty-generalizing, labeling rhetoric, Kirby has kicked it up a notch.
I don't think Kirby has principles - at least not in terms of discourse...
He just finds the approach that he feels is missing from a conversation and runs with it.
So now Democrats are lazy mother-earth worshippin' hippies.
Kirby,
Wicca is not Satanic because Wicca does not accept the idea of a Christian Satan. "Satanic" presumes the existence of 1) the Christian God, and 2) His adversary, Satan. Wiccans accept neither.
I was hoping for some specific questions or concerns, not an invitation to regurgitate "talking points."
Brett and I just have broader horizons, I think, as do many of our generation. This doesn't mean that we are any less faithful Christians than folks of your generation.
Christians are called to rationality, and skepticism. I learned about Wicca because it intrigued me. This doesn't mean that I'm a bought and paid for Wiccan apologist. There are some subjects that I feel free to approach without Christ informing my every opinion--just one example being evolution.
Since you want talking points, here are a few:
*In the words of Douglas Adams, like human beings, Wiccans are "mostly harmless."
*Most abide by a notion that Eastern philosophies would call Karma--whatever actions or energies you send out into the world will return to you, either positive or negative, by a factor of x3. This is the guiding light of the Wiccan moral code, along with "as you harm none, do what you will." The notion of "harm" can be very broad, and Wiccans are held accountable by Karma for even unintended harm caused by their spell making. This credo is VERY libertarian.
*Wicca is not by and large an "organized" religion. As I've said, it has a libertarian streak, "you do what suits you, and you leave me alone, and I'll do what suits me." As far as religions go, it is very tolerant.
*The majority of Wiccans are solitary practitioners, and do not join covens.
*Many Wiccans practice what you and I would call "magic" and many do not.
*A Wiccan may choose from any god or goddess to which to pray, or ask blessings. I know someone who often invokes Odin (Norse mythology) and Astarte (Phoenician) while calling the circle.
*The personal choice of which pantheon to call one's own is often informed by cultural affiliation, and the richness of that particular mythology. If I, for example, were pagan, I might choose the mythology-rich Celtic pantheon as opposed to the literature-poor Slavic variety. It is not uncommon for people to mix traditions to suit the needs of their petition, or their current circumstances, or even the day of the week. If I am praying on Thursday, I might choose Thor, as he has a special affinity for the day named after him.
I love reading pagan mythologies. I started reading Greek mythology when I was 5 or 6, and kept an interest for all sorts of folk tales. I love the Mabinogi, and I’m currently in the middle of Penguin’s Celtic Miscellany.
Brett,
Yes, we're very lucky that in the USA, as yet, we haven't had the same problems that Europe has had in terms of whole areas of cities being "no-go zones" filled with angry, alien people who've made no effort to become French, English, German, etc.
What do you think of the democratically-arrived at decision of the Swiss people to disallow the construction of minarets in their country? Surely this radical democracy in which every item is voted on by the whole population could not be wholly composed of racists!
It's fantastic that most American Muslims are assimilated well. I, for one, love Lebanese and Turkish food, enjoy the hookah, and enjoy belly dancing. All that's fun and cool and stuff. It doesn't mean that I'd be welcome to pass out pamphlets about Jesus at the Dearborn Islamic Heritage fair, though.
The problem is that Islam is by definition not pluralistic. It means Submission, as you know. Submission to what? To whom? Allah, and the Islamic code of Shari'a. Time and time again, the Koran exhorts believers to not even bother to pray for the infidel, because the believer's prayers will not be heard, even if he prays 70 times. Is that pluralistic?
I pray for Muslims around the world every night. Would a believing Muslim be able to return the favor in good conscience, if only to ask Allah to turn my heart to what she believes to be the truth? No.
Christians are called to forgive and pray for their enemies. Muslims are called to kill them in the name of Allah.
I mean, how much more blunt can you be than "Kill the infidel wherever you find them?" I'm reading the Koran for the second time, and I'm amazed at how quickly the passages of mercy and tolerance are overwhelmed by passages of savagery. Yes, there's savagery in the OT, but the point is that we are not meant to carry out those savage attacks NOW in the name of our God.
The Koran says that there will not be peace until the whole world has submitted to Islamic rule. I don't want to live in that world, whether in a state of forced-conversion, or dhimmitude. Perhaps you do?
Maybe I'm being unrealistic in assuming that Muslims know the content of their holy book and accept the words that they believe come directly from Allah, and wish to live by those words.
There may be googles of Muslims out there who don't know the Koran, don't believe in the literal message of the Koran, and do not wish to live by the commandments therein. I don't know where you'd look to find them, though.
It isn't Islamophobia, it's Islamist-phobia.
They're religion remains pre-Enlightenment. The ideas of free inquiry, critical thinking, and the free conscience of the individual believer have not, by and large, reached them. The sole virtue is unquestioning submission, as enshrined in the Koran, and this is a virtue Muslims will expect the infidels to abide by as they become majorities in European cities. It has already begun. In London, female police officers cannot enter parts of the city without being veiled. Is this pluralistic?
Let me as you a final question, Brett. Imagine you are a woman. Would you rather live in a Muslim majority city, or a Christian majority city?
Oh, a Christian city, you say? You Islamophobe!
Emmy, you make sense to me at least on Islam but not on Wiccan stuff. I admit I don't know any Wiccans, or if I do, I'd run screaming.
I used to watch Bewitched when I was a child. It was a bout a witch named Samantha who was married to an ad exec who was moving up in the ranks. Samantha was pretty nice, and tried not to use witchcraft except now and then she'd wiggle her nose and the house would be cleaned up.
That doesn't sound terrible, at first, but it's a denial of the Protestant Work Ethic, in which drudgery is a form of spiritual discipline. I believe in this.
If I could wiggle my nose and a book would appear of course I might do it, but half the real work of a book is the drudgery. I think drudgery is good.
I think it's because work makes us less selfish.
Or something.
Samantha has an aunt named Aunt Agatha and she was a real witch. Totally selfish and dastardly. She was a real witch.
When we say that someone is a real witch it means we are dealing with total depravity (we always are) but add to it magic, and you have a mess.
The witches, like feminists, and other progressives, have this bizarre notion that the world has changed and human nature is going to improve with new technology or with new spells.
Maybe they put a spell on you.
Kirby, please.
Many pagans are hard-working and driven in their field. I happen to know one who is a world-class ballet dancer, and another who is a noteable playwright!
Hard work is not merely the property of Protestant Americans. This is a little prejudice coming out in you and it isn't deeply attractive.
Witches aren't like "Bewitched." They don't twitch their noses and make their world suddenly convenient and trouble-free. That is impossible, even for the most "powerful" or "experienced" of Wiccans.
Many pagans do not even engage in magic and still consider themselves Wiccan, but not witches.
There are really three terms we're working with here--Witch (one who utilizes magic in worship and in improving their lives/outlook/ attitude), Pagan (simply, one who worships one or more gods/goddesses in a pantheon, not a monotheistic god), and Wiccan (a new-age religion that draws upon ancient mythologies and rites--practitioners are almost always pagan, but not always witches).
No one has put me under a spell, I assure you. I would know, as I've constructed a powerful protection spell around me using sacred herbs and incense at midnight, and have called upon the wee-folk to keep me safe, and wear a shamrock and charged crystals around my neck at all times--LOL!
I pray to Jesus. That's all the protection I need!
Emmy - somehow my defense of the rights and reasonableness of an Islamic community building a YMCA-like center in their own neighborhood seems to always get turned into a comparison of Islam vs. Christianity.
Of course I think the latter is better. I'd be a Muslim otherwise...
I think a while back I suggested a rule that quotes from the Koran should be cited, just so we can get some context/an idea of the actual words.
When you say NOW, without knowing the passage you're talking about, I have no response...
There was an anti-Muslim email going around a few years ago full of 'violent' quotes, yet when you actually read the context or understood the history, it was clear that they were talking about a very specific situation... (they are an 'open enemy unto you' because when it was written, they were...)
So maybe that's the kind of thing you're referring to, maybe it isn't, but the blanket 'the passage says to kill all the infidels forever and ever amen' thing... Give me the puddin', 'sall.
And I'm pretty sure a lot of Christians would be weirded out to think that the prayers of Muslims would be answered by the Christian God.
Huh.
Anyhooch, Christianity is better, I'd rather live in a Christian-majority city (of the past half-century, especially), but that doesn't change the fact that we should be supporting (as a country) the moderate versions of Islam.
Because in the battle against extremism, they should be our allies.
If you don't believe that there's a possibility of moderate Islam (which seems to be counter to reason, since that's mostly what we've had in America for decades now), then it follows that your anti-Islamist approach needs to be more active. How far you carry that is up to you, but there are lots of historical precedents for dealing with the savage/evil and uncivilizable.
And yes, I'm glad I live in a country that values freedom generally and religious freedom specifically, and the Swiss law ain't no good...But they're sissy Europeans who constantly trade a feeling of security for freedom.
As a redblooded 'merican, I know my country was founded on the exact opposite of that idea.
Liberty's more important than security (and especially the Feeling of security). If you don't believe it, gtfo of my country and move to a peaceful little pocket of meek pansies.
Oh, and this was the thread I thought it necessary to 'clarify' my use of 'you,' since its meaning shifted...
That being said, I've also been thinking that there's an interesting difference (perhaps) between mineself and the rest of y'all...
Which is that the majority of my experience in the Christian community has been among conservative Evangelicals - 'Bible churches' and that kind of thing.
So when somebody finds it weird that Islam believes the world won't be at peace until everyone's Islamic...
That rings very close to my fundie-Christian friends and upbringing... And they ain't scary a'tall!
I mean, the goal is to make everyone in the world a Christian, right? And if Muslims believe the same thing, so be it...If either groups use violence (and members of both have, though admittedly there's a more significant minority of Muslims who think violence is a valid tool for spreading religious ideology...at this time in history, that is! )...Then it's bad.
Same too with God not hearing prayers from Christians (in the Muslim view).
Well, duh, it's just the exact opposite in the Christian view! (I mean, god HEARS them the way he hears everything, but won't 'listen' to them! My word...)
Brett,
It is a good thing, then, that the Swiss don't live in your country! Youch, way to be harsh! I think if you lived in Europe where whole sections of cities are off limits for Caucasian Christians, where residents are ready to riot, burn, and loot at any provocation, real or imagined, where women are liable to be raped, and are told as much, if they enter such “communities” unveiled, I think you might have a slightly different view. Many cities in Europe feel that their way of life is being directly threatened by unemployed, uneducated, unassimilated, violent, gang-like thugs. This is a direct result of their extremely liberal immigration and asylum policies. One woman put it very well, “In America, we ask what the person can contribute to our society. In Europe, we ask what we can do for the immigrant.” For your edification, http://immigrationspolitik.blogspot.com/2009/09/muslim-rape-epidemic-puts-sweden-at-top.html
I wonder why it is that you want to call Ground Zero "their" neighborhood. I think a lot of radical Islamists would agree with you, that as conquered territory, it is indeed theirs and will remain so in perpetuity. In the real world, as far as I know, the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero isn't zoned for residences, but only commerce. The nearest Mosque to Ground Zero is five blocks (albeit city blocks) away, just shy of 5th avenue. Ground Zero is just off of 10th avenue. It works out to about a mile and a half away to the nearest full-service Mosque. If you're at Ground Zero and just want a place to pray, you've only to walk .4 mi to get to the nearest Masjid. There is not a dearth of places of worship for Muslims in Manhattan. You're probably never farther than a mile away from the nearest Masjid when you're on the island.
If you count Mosques and Islamic community centers, Manhattan has 15 such places. That isn't a reason not to build another one, but I'm saying that--to steal a phrase from Michelle--it's not a Mosque desert.
To get to the nearest Catholic Church from my house, I have to travel about 4 miles, ten times farther than our hypothetical Muslim standing on Ground Zero, desperately searching for somewhere to pray. Is it a violation of my human rights that I might have to make a certain amount of effort to get to my place of worship? Should Catholic Churches be built on every street corner like Starbucks to cater to me?
Some Catholics travel hours every Sunday to hear the Mass in Latin. Is that a violation of their human rights?
I don't know, it just feels like something is a little off-kilter here.
And yes, when I make direct quotations from the Koran, I'll try to put them into context for you. How many times have you read the Koran? Would you be willing to give it another go for the sake of our discussion? Maybe others on this blog would join us, and we could all go chapter by chapter, that way neither of us can try to “get away with” anything? We’ll both have the context, though our interpretations will differ.
Anybody else wanna have a go at the Koran?
I think Luther felt that we shouldn't EVER throw our pearls before swine, and that if God wanted to reach someone, he would ring em up Himself, as He did Saul.
I could be wrong on this.
It IS important to maintain pluralism, even for the Wiccans, esp. if they don't actually mean anybody any harm, but are just casting spells left and right to no avail or something.
Watch out for Aunt Agatha.
Emmy - I called it 'their' neighborhood because the people who are building the community center have been in the neighborhood for years - I believe they have been 10 blocks away from the proposed site (I may be off by a block or two), which was simply the best option for what they were envisioning in their neighborhood...
I didn't mean 'their' to mean Ownership, the way gangs say that it's 'their' neighborhood. More like the way Lost Creek is 'my' neighborhood, since that's where I grew up!
It seems that your points about people having to travel distances for worship...I don't think that addresses any issue I brought up? you seem to be attacking a stance I don't hold or something...
It's a really weird line of argument, imho. Of course there's nothing guaranteeing citizens that their religion will be represented every X blocks...
It's just that there IS a guarantee that they will have the freedom to have houses of worship on their own property and whatnot.
I mean, this is an issue of religious freedom and property freedom - and it's an issue wherein we should support moderates to be on our side against the extremists. Of course, there are those who hold the view that All Muslims are by definition extremists and can't exist in a pluralistic society.
This seems at odds with decades of experience in America.
We've done a good job! But now we seem ready to blow it and turn into another Switzerland.
More's the pity.
An interesting note about all this is that there used to be Muslim prayer centers Inside of the Twin Towers...
If you mention the Twin Towers in Malaysia, a country that is more than 50% Muslim, the assumption is that you're referring to the Petronas Towers.
Brett,
It's so easy to pick on the Swiss, isn't it? The reason it's easy to pick on the Swiss is because they aren't liable to riot in the streets, burn cars, blow up buildings and chop off heads, bless their little clockwork hearts, even though adult gun ownership is 100%. A Swissman will not slash your throat for criticizing him, the Christian God, or his country.
They aren't being racist, bigoted, or alarmist. They're dealing with the reality of Muslim immigration and unassimilated Muslim enclaves in their own, extremely Democratic, way. Minarets aren't Swiss. Those big horns that mountain goatherds use to call to one another over long distances are Swiss. And, keep in mind that European nations, unlike the USA, were formed from various language groups that subdivided into pockets of various ethnicities, and settled into convenient geographic areas.
That's why the European idea of "culture" is so entwined with "Swissness" or "Frenchness." That's why some European countries have academies that define which words are "French" enough or "Italian" enough to be included in the prescriptive dictionaries they compile. Le blue jean was only just added to French recently, but it was a 1950's import to the language.
In the USA, obviously, it's different. We weren't placed together by an accident of geography, by an accident of language, or by an accident of ethnicity. We got to be who we are by being a diverse group of people who subscribe to the IDEA of America. We're the most absorbent nation on Earth, but we still expect a bare minimum of compliance with our laws, our traditions, and language.
Many European nations had no such requirements, and are trying to fix the problem now.
Far from being cowardly pansies, I'm sure the Swiss have earned a collective fatwa on all their heads issued from some Imam sitting in a cave somewhere in Crapistan. They knew that when they took the vote, and voted their conscience anyway. They're a peaceable (almost to a fault), Christian nation. I am sure they did not do this with the intent of giving Muslims worldwide the Spanish fig.
Seems to me that's the liberty of self-determination in the face of an enemy that would deny that very liberty to you.
There are probably a hand-full of practicing Muslims who have called for reform, or a more enlightened approach to the Koran and the Hadith, and have done so openly in public. Most of the folks calling for “Enlightenment" in Islamic culture are in fact ex-Muslims.
It's these dudes we need to be looking to help create an Enlightenment, Protestant (if you will) revolution in the face of orthodox Islam. These moderate Muslims we put on pedestals are at the best helpless, and the worst complicit by inaction.
You didn't answer my question. Would you like to read the Koran with me?
As is, I don't think I could honestly say that I'd be able to keep up with a Koran-reading mini book club...
I'd like to study it in my spare time, which with my current school schedule seems to vary from none at all to a lot for a few days then back to none at all again:-)
That being said, visitin' and revisitin' it would be a good idea... So somewhere in between 'reading the Koran' and 'not reading the Koran':-) If you yourself are the in process of doing so, you could be all like 'dude, read This section of the Koran in reference to what we's talkin' about...' And I could be all like 'yeah, could do...'
Or
'gimme a week.'
Jus' depending.
And wrt the Swiss, yeah, they have a completely different history than we do, and have dealt with immigration in a completely different way, and it hasn't worked as well - I am All for pushing immigrants to assimilate into our culture, for their good and for ours.
The stance that the right is leaning toward these days would not, to my mind, seem to be productive, in terms of maintaining that assimilation and promoting it for newer immigrants.
Moderate Islam is a reality, and the more we promote it the better...
The more we knee-jerk react to anything Islam as scary/extreme/incompatible with our culture, the more we put up a barrier that makes assimilation/moderation less likely.
Hahahaha! I came across this great one-liner at National Review:
"There is no God but Allah;
And Imam Rauf is his slum-lord."
Brett, you misunderstood,
"And I'm pretty sure a lot of Christians would be weirded out to think that the prayers of Muslims would be answered by the Christian God."
I am talking about Muslims praying to Allah to change the hearts and minds of the people they call
"infidels." Allah tells them not to bother.
In the chapter "She Who is Tested," Mohammed tells us that Muslims are NOT to be like Abraham who said to his father, "I shall implore Allah to forgive you, although I have no power to save you from his punishment."
Instead, they are meant to "...disown you [the unbeliever] and the idols which you worship besides Allah. We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah only."
I thought it seemed to be the exact opposite of the ideal Christian behavior, though Brett forbids comparison.
Don't pray for the unbeliever--hate them!
This wasn't in reference to some ancient band of roving pagans. It was a command to Muslims in how they ought to behave, as you put it “forever and ever, Amen.”
For most practicing Muslims, the Koran remains the literal word of God. For an Islamic purist, the commands of Allah are in the eternal "now." There is no sense that any of his commands should be relegated to the status of a historical curiosity or treated as something "locked in time" and no longer appropriate to follow.
For example, if you're an ancient Israelite, and God told you "Open the door to the Canaanite temple and take the box inside the room for yourself," that action is sealed in history. Once you've opened the door, and taken the box, the command has been obeyed and no longer applies outside its historical context. God does not expect you to open every door to every Canaanite temple in search of boxes from now to the end of eternity.
But only very rarely do the commands of Allah in the Koran have this kind of historical context where we can fix them in relation to a specific historical (or sometimes mythical) event. Without specific historical context, it is hard to interpret the maxims as being anything less than “eternal.” It also confuses the issue that the Koran is not arranged chronologically, but rather in order of the length of the chapters, from long to short.
Aside from passages ripped off from the Old Testament about Noah and Abraham, and one ripped off from the New Testament about Jesus, the Koran is a series of maxims, followed by promises of food, alcohol, virgins, and slaves if you’re a good Muslim (and don’t forget the pleasure of mocking the unfaithful as you watch them burn in molten pits of fire!), and hellfire, punishment, impalement, etc. if you’re an infidel, or don’t manage to follow Allah’s command to the jot. For me, the Koran isn’t deeply interesting, except for the myriad and infinitely inventive ways to torture unbelievers in the hereafter. If only they could turn some of that creativity into civic development, rule of law, and the arts and sciences!
If a moderate Islam exists, it exists only in the west, and if Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be such a person, then please remember that she's under security 24/7.
Please wake up.
Even inside of America there are many Islamic enclaves. One of them is in the Catskills. Here's an example of how moderate their thought is. Just read the first two paragraphs, to get a sense of how moderate they are:
http://www.islamberg.org/
I grant that in the universities, you get people who aren't quite this anti-Jewish, but what you find in most Islamic countries is a virulent anti-Semitism, in which Hitler is celebrated as an ally, and so on. Call that moderate?
Even the Sufi in the 9/11 mosque in NYC believes that America is complicit with the attack on the Trade Centers. That's Ward Churchill all over again.
Call that moderate?
I for one have yet to see anything like a moderate Islam.
Perhaps it exists. If you look close, it seems to disappear.
The Koran is the entire ballgame in Islam. There is no separation of church and state anywhere in the Islamic world.
If moderation begins with that as the litmus test (freedom of inquiry, is what I mean) then I think the entire contemporary Islamic world fails that test.
Kirby, Ayaan Hirsi Ali no longer considers herself a Muslim, though Dr Zudhi Jasser is definitely a moderate and faithful Muslim. He narrates the description of the danger Islamic compounds like Islamberg present, here:
http://www.therightscoop.com/the-third-jihad-welcome-to-islamberg
That's a very fine video, Em. Thanks so much. Probably the leftists here won't watch it. It's easier to keep your head in the sand.
Still, it's a tremendous, very well-done video, and shows more of Islamberg.
This Jasser guy seems to be quite a good egg. Just went through his Wiki page. I love it.
I loved his video, too.
Emmy thanks so much for tuning me into this fellow. It's especially interesting that he's against the victory Mosque at Ground Zero. This is the first real Muslim I've come across who sounds like a real moderate.
Fascinating.
I will read more.
I don't know much about Wiccans, but I think their body of beliefs and tradition derives at least partly from pre-civilized, pre-Enlightenment practice. Rather than a supernatural unified godhead, they believe in a pluralistic "nature-based" system of powers and influences, which can be cherished and manipulated to further our needs. Gore Vidal's novel Julian is about the last important secular figure of importance to resist organized Xtianity. IN its place--a loosely organized system of natural deities based around pantheistic symbols celebrating growth, sustenance, health, beauty and love. Rather than obedience, guilt, loyalty, sacrifice, and death.
The problem isn't that the Koran may encourage violent defenses of its faith, but that the insistence to capitulate, to give up all "worldly" obligations and duties and freedoms, in favor of the ONE WAY, flies straight in the face of our democratic practices and institutions. Christian dogma led to the Crusades against the "infidels" but we don't ride off into the sunset any more. We still have the missionary zeal, but it isn't a violent process.
Islam is growing fast in America. I question whether Muslims can faithfully subscribe to two mutually exclusive, opposed dogmas. If Muslims can't allow their children to be educated in public schools, lest their little minds be "soiled" by notions of equality and freedom, what kind of a culture does this foster? If women "flaunt" their sexuality by wearing shorts and tank-tops, should they be beaten and stoned?
I think Kirby believes our wars of choice in the Middle East are religious wars, aimed at curtailing Islam. If that's true, then all the economic and strategic justifications are secondary.
I believe that we need to hold the line against rigid dogmas that deny individuals the rights and privileges which we as a nation insist on. If you want to live in America, you can't promulgate violence against your fellow-citizens. You must accept the documents, and the laws. And live by them. You can't be building "cells" of resistance inside the body politic.
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