Tag: devil

America is in Crisis? The Devil You Say.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

Satan StatueWithin the last week, two stories about the Lightbearer have been in the public eye.

No, I’m not talking about President Obama, I am talking about the original Lightbearer, the fallen angel Lucifer, better known as Satan, or, in colloquial terms, the Devil.

Here is story #1, as reported by foxnews.com:

A satanic group commissioned a statue of the devil, raising money to pay a sculptor who it won’t identify, as a way of protesting the Sooner State’s placement of a Ten Commandments monument on the Statehouse lawn in Oklahoma City. The statue, being sculpted in a New York studio, is nearly complete, according to Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the Satanic Temple.

“We’re really coming along fast,” said Greaves, whose group claims to have raised more than $20,000 for the project through an online crowd-funding site.

“There will never be a satanic monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol and the suggestion that there might be is absurd.”
– Alex Weintz, spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin
The statue of the Baphomet, or Sabbatic Goat, a figure that has been used to represent Satan for centuries, is to be made of bronze, poured over a clay mold. Images provided to FoxNews.com show the hideous figure on a throne, with smiling children at each knee. Greaves’ organization seeks to force Oklahoma to allow placement of their statue or demonstrate what it considers an unconstitutional double standard.

Oklahoma officials say there is no way in hell that a statue of Satan will ever assume a position at the Capitol.

“There will never be a satanic monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol and the suggestion that there might be is absurd,” Alex Weintz, spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin, said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

Pictures of the partially-completed monument were first posted on Vice.

The Satanic Temple hatched the plan last December after the Ten Commandments monument, presented as a gift from state Rep. Mike Ritze, was placed on the lawn. Because it was a donation, state officials declared that it was permissible to place it on state property. But that prompted Greaves and the Satanic Temple to say they could do the same with a monument of their own.

“When we reach out to them and told them of our intentions, the response we got was asking for the design sketches but we never heard back from them,” Greaves said. “As soon as we are ready, we will reach back out to them.”

And, here is story #2, also from foxnews.com:

A Harvard University student club set to host a satanic black mass reenactment to celebrate witchcraft and satanic worship announced on its website that it will not use a consecrated host during the event.

The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club has organized a May 12 black mass reenactment at the Queen’s Head Pub, which is on campus. The announcement has drawn criticism because these masses typically mock Catholic teachings, MyFoxBoston.com reported.

“Our purpose is not to denigrate any religion or faith, which would be repugnant to our educational purposes, but instead learn and experience the history of different cultural practices,” the club’s statement said. The statement went on to say that the mass will use a piece of bread but will “unequivocally” not use a consecrated host.

The performance will be conducted by The Satanic Temple, a group known to stir up controversy.

The Archdiocese of Boston fired back with this response, “The Catholic community in the Archdiocese of Boston expresses its deep sadness and strong opposition to the plan to stage a black mass on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge.”

“In a recent statement, Pope Francis warned of the danger of being naïve about or underestimating the power of Satan, whose evil is too often tragically present in our midst. We call upon all believers and people of good will to join us in prayer for those who are involved in this event, that they may come to appreciate the gravity of their actions, and in asking Harvard to disassociate itself from this activity,” the statement said.

The Harvard Extension School says the school “Does not endorse the views or activities of any independent student organization. But we do support the rights of our students and faculty to speak and assemble freely.”

 

So, why are these stories concerning Satan of so much national interest.

The fact of the matter is that 77 percent of Americans proclaim Christ as their personal Savior. So, therefore, if you believe in Christ you also believe that Satan, the living persona of evil in the world, also exists.

The problem we face, in this “Me First! Era”, is the fact that self-adulation narcissism, believing that you, yourself, are your own Creator, leaves an open doorway for “Ol’ Scratch” to move right on in to your life.

Consider this Op Ed by Noah Guirney, published today on BostonGlobe.com:

Since 2012, a statue of the Ten Commandments has graced the lawn outside the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City. Now, it’s time for Satan to take his place, there too.

A group from New York called the Satanic Temple has raised more than $28,000 on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo to commission a bronze statue of Lucifer, the design of which has recently been released to the public. While many of the project’s backers are Satanists — as in, they worship Satan — the piece is actually intended to make a broader point: That a statue of the Ten Commandments on public property seems to violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which separates church and state. (This view is also held by the ACLU, which is challenging the Oklahoma government’s right to display the Ten Commandments.)

Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple, told ABC News that the Satanic piece of art — complete with pentagram and goat head — will “celebrate our progress as a pluralistic nation founded on secular law.”

In truth, the line separating the majority religion of the United States and the government has long been blurred. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court found that the town of Greece, New York could open its town meetings with prayers from guest preachers — the vast majority of whom were Christian, and often directly invoked Jesus Christ.

That’s precisely why this is such a brilliant idea, perhaps even moreso than your standard-issue civil liberties lawsuit. A statue of Satan displayed on public property would no doubt offend Christians. But in a country without a state religion, that shouldn’t matter, and Greaves and his ilk are right to point that out.

If Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Committee – which issues permits for statues on the Capitol ground – feels that a statue of the Ten Commandments on public grounds is compatible with a Constitution that protects the rights of all Americans, then the group shouldn’t have any issue with a statue of Satan, either. But if, as I suspect, the horned deity gives Oklahoma officials the heebie-jeebees, they should think about how their current statue looks to Satanists. Or, for that matter, to Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, or Christians who see the separation of church and state as a deeply important tenet of American democracy.

People like this idiot, who take the existence Satan lightly, eventually wind up in some sort of trouble, and those who worship Satan wind up in even greater trouble.

Back in the 1960s, the late, beautiful actress Jayne Mansfield posed for a series of publicity pictures with the Head Priest of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey. The pictures showing her with LaVey, included several shots of taking their version of Communion, simulating drinking blood from a goblet, offered by the priest. She even wore a pink and black medallion of Satan and the goat-headed Baphomet, simular to the Oklahoma statue, to the 1966 San Francisco Film Festival. Later, the beautiful actress died in a freak car accident in which she was decapitated.

Now, far be it for me the link one to the other. That is up for you to decide for yourself.

Now, how can I claim that all this upheaval our nation is facing is due to some sort of Satanic Influence attempting to tip the scales in the in the fight between Good and Evil, across our land?

Noah Webster (EVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; LEGISLATOR; EDUCATOR; “SCHOOLMASTER TO AMERICA”), wrote

[T]he religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles… This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.129

The moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.

All the… evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.131

[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.

[T]he Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society – the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men.

[T]he Christian religion… is the basis, or rather the source, of all genuine freedom in government… I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling influence.

The reason that our nation is facing the difficulties we are is the belief by those who proclaim themselves to be the “smartest people in the room”, that they are above the old-fashioned, passe notions of morality and ethics, good and evil, and the Sovereignty of God.

They have made a grave mistake.

Evil exists and these fools opened the door to Satan in our society a long time ago.

When it all comes crashing down around them, what are they going to say?

The Devil made me do it?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Craigslist Killer Says The Devil Made Her Do It

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

Craigslist KillerThe “Craigslist Killer” has been arrested. A 18 year old Pennsylvania girl named Miranda Barbour is accused of joining her husband in the murder of  Troy LaFerrara.

However, she claims that she has also murdered 19 others. And, on top of that, she says “The Devil made her do it”!

According to dailyitem.com,

Miranda said when she was 4, she was sexually molested by a relative.

Elizabeth Dean, Miranda’s mother, confirmed Saturday that her sister’s husband was later arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

“It was bad,” Dean said. “I never let (her) stay anywhere except for my sister’s house, and I was devastated when I found out.”

Nine years later, Miranda joined a satanic cult in Alaska. Soon after, Miranda said, she had her first experience in murder.

Barbour said she went with the leader of the satanic cult to meet a man who owed the cult leader money.

“It was in an alley and he (the cult leader) shot him,” she said, declining to identify the cult leader.

“Then he said to me that it was my turn to shoot him. I hate guns. I don’t use guns. I couldn’t do it, so he came behind me and he took his hands and put them on top of mine and we pulled the trigger. And then from there I just continued to kill.”

While in the satanic cult, Miranda became pregnant. The cult did not want her to have the baby, so, she said, members tied her to a bed, gave her drugs and she had an “in-house abortion.”

However, her mother on Saturday said that when Miranda told her about the abortion, she took her daughter to a doctor who said there were no signs of an ended pregnancy.

Miranda said she spent the next three years in Alaska, continuing in the satanic cult and participating in several murders.

“I wasn’t always there (mentally),” she said, adding that she had begun to use drugs. “I knew something was bad inside me and the satanic beliefs brought it out. I embraced it.”

During those three years, Miranda said she became pregnant again.

“And I moved to North Carolina,” she said. “I wanted to start over and forget everything I did.”

She left Alaska as a high-ranking official in the satanic world, leaving the father of her second pregnancy, a man named Forest, the No. 2 leader in their cult, who was murdered.

Back in 2009, examiner.com posted an article about Satanic Cults and their involvement in crime and murder,

“The adherents of this violent [quasi-]religion number over 300,000, ” claims Lieutenant Larry Jones of the Boise, ID Police Department.

“The kids become involved in sacrificial rituals, violent song lyrics, Satanic symbolism, suicide notes or recordings, all enhanced with illegal, mind-altering drugs, which play a major role [in the drama of a Black Mass]. And the added secrecy of the cult members makes estimating their numbers impossible.” says Detective Jerry Simandl, a veteran of the Chicago Police Department and assigned to the Gang Crime Task Force.

Are there any estimates based on other information or police intelligence? The San Francisco Police Department’s Sandi Gallant can only estimate that ” … at most 1% of Heavy-Metal music fans become seriously involved in the occult.”

It should be pointed out that when Det. Gallant talks about Heavy-Metal music, she isn’t referring to bands such as Guns & Roses, Metallica and other popular musicians, but to the sub-category of HM music known as Black Metal, played by bands that are truly underground with a limited audience.

The question is, how many Americans actually believe in Satan?

Per a story posted on patheos.com on 9/21/13,

Almost six in ten Americans believe the devil is real, and more than half think that people can be possessed by demons. 

Those results are from a recent YouGov poll of 1,000 respondents, though it’s not clear how reliable the numbers are — I couldn’t find an explanation of the methodology. YouGov says its poll has a margin of error of three percent.

When you drill down past the headline and summary, you can see which religious adherents are most likely to believe that Satan exists. To no one’s surprise, “born-again” Christians top the list at 86%. The Lord of Darkness is met with a lot more skepticism in non-Christian circles: only 17% of Jews and 25% of Muslims believe that he’s real, as do 20 percent of Nones.

One odd poll result is that education level appears to be a bad predictor for devil-belief. YouGov tells us that 39% of high school dropouts think that exorcism is an effective way to deal with demonic possession. That number climbs to 49% for respondents who have “some college, and it’s still a fairly staggering 44% among post-grads. I’m not sure that makes sense: almost every other study I’ve seen, foreign and domestic, indicates that more education drives down superstition.

There are internal anomalies, too. When asked Do you believe someone can be possessed by the devil?, only 11 percent of Jewish respondents answered “Yes”; but when the question was Do you believe in the power of exorcism?, 37% of Jews answered in the affirmative. I don’t think that computes.

One thing to keep in mind is that Jews form only about two percent of the U.S. population, and Muslims less than one percent. If YouGov managed to find a representative sample of 1,000 people living in the United States, only 20 respondents would have been Jewish, and only eight or nine would have been Muslim.

Indeed, in this survey, the 11% of Jews who believe someone can be possessed by the devil came from a sample with only 23 Jews. The 37% of Jews who believe in exorcism came from a sample size that’s in the single digits. Those sub-samples are way too small to accurately represent the larger Jewish or Muslim population. As always, the devil is in the details.

Several years ago, thanks to the CBS television show, “Touched By an Angel”, Americans became fascinated by angels.

Then, about ten years ago, people started becoming fascinated by “ghost hunting” reality programs such the silly “Most Haunted”, a British Import from the BBC and the American Programs “Paranormal State”, “Ghost Adventures”, and the popular “Ghost Hunter”.

Now, if Americans can believe in angels (which they should) and ghosts, is it such a stretch that Satan and his demons can affect our lives?

In fact, regarding those ghost hunting shows, a former Pastor of mine, told me, “As Christians, we know where we go when we die, right? What makes you think that these”ghosts” these programs encounter aren’t really imps and demons playing games?

Something to think about…

So, do I think that Miranda Barbour killed all of those people because she was involved in a Satanic Cult?

It is a very distinct possibility.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Miami Cannibal: The Devil Made Him Do It

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity4 Comments

This country has spent the last week lost in a horrible fascination of the actions of a naked cannibal killed by police in Miami.  Now, one person thinks that this face-muncher may have been under a spell.

The Devil, you say.

The local CBS affiliate in Miami reports that

The man at the center of one of Miami’s most horrific crimes, a cannibal attack on the MacArthur Causeway, has left his on-again, off-again girlfriend thinking that Rudy Eugene was drugged unknowingly, or cursed.

Eugene’s girlfriend, who requested CBS4 News not use her name or show her face, said the attacker on the causeway was nothing like the man she knew and loved.

“Rudy Eugene was not no zombie or ‘Miami Zombie’ like they’re saying. He was a human being and that wasn’t him,” she said.

She described him as a “sweet loving gentleman” and a “hard working man” who worked at a car wash and dreamed of owning his own business.

Eugene, police said, ripped the face off 65-year-old Ronald Poppo, a homeless man who encountered Eugene on Saturday next to the Miami Herald building.

A witness described Eugene ripping at Poppo’s face with his mouth and growling at a Miami police officer who ordered him to get off the homeless man. The officer then shot and killed Eugene.

The head of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, Armando Aguilar, speculated that he may have been high on LSD or “bath salts,” which can cause psychosis as the body overheats.

Eugene did strip off all of his clothes as he walked from Miami Beach to the mainland over the MacArthur Causeway before encountering Poppo and beginning the unprovoked, savage attack.

Eugene’s girlfriend said she believes he was drugged unknowingly. The only other explanation, she said, was supernatural, that someone put a Vodou curse on him. The girlfriend, who unlike Eugene is not Haitian, said she has never believed in Vodou, until now. “I don’t know how else to explain this,” she told CBS4 News partner The Miami Herald.

Toxicology reports on Eugene’s body have not been completed. Results could take between two weeks and two months.

Eugene’s girlfriend said she has no idea what caused the vicious attack but she saw no signs of any violence in the nearly five years they lived together.

“That wasn’t him, that was his body but it wasn’t his spirit. Somebody did this to him,” she said. She described Eugene as religious.

“He loved God he always read the Bible he would give you knowledge on the Bible. Everywhere he went his Bible went. When he left he had his Bible in his hand.” She said Eugene left her home about 5:30 Saturday morning.

She said his last words to her were, “I love you and I’ll be back.”

She never saw him again.A friend of Eugene’s since they were teenagers told The Herald on Wednesday that Eugene had been troubled in recent years.

Joe Aurelus said Eugene told him he wanted to stop smoking pot, and that friends were texting Eugene Bible verses.

“I was just with him two weeks ago,”’ he said. They were at a friend’s house watching a movie and Eugene had a Bible in his hand.

“He was going through a lot with his family,” Aurelus said, and jumping from job to job.

“Rudy was battling the devil.”

A Gallup poll, taken one year ago, showed that 92% of Americans believe in God.

However, only around 7 in 10 believe in the Devil.

(They never met my ex-wife.  She’s his sister.  But, I digress…)

Why is it so difficult for folks to believe in absolute evil?  Time and time again, we’ve seen the works of the Devil right before our eyes:  the mass extermination of the Jews carried out at the World War II Death Camps, Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge, Charlie Manson and his psychotic “family”, the gassing of his own countrymen by Saddam Hussein, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Islamic Terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, and other historical atrocities too numerous to mention.

Is it so hard to believe that this cannibal was under some sort of evil influence, like Voodoo?

Voodoo is a religion that was brought to the Western coasts by slaves from Africa. It is believed to have started in Haiti in 1724 as a snake cult that worshipped many spirits pertaining to daily life experiences. The practices were intermingled with many Catholic rituals and saints. It was first brought to the Louisiana area in 1804 by Cuban plantation owners who were displaced by revolution and brought their slaves with them.

Voodoo is spelled several ways: vodun, vaudin, voudoun, vodou, and vaudoux. It is an ancient religion practiced by 80 million people worldwide and is growing in numbers. With voodoo’s countless deities, demonic possessions, animal sacrifices (human sacrifices in the Petro — black magic form of voodoo); voodoo practitioners cannot understand why their religion is so misunderstood.

[Gosh.  I can’t imagine why.]

Voodoo rituals are elaborate, steeped in secret languages, spirit possessed dancing, and special diets eaten by the voodoo priests and priestesses. The ancestral dead are thought to walk among the living during the hooded dances. Touching the dancer during this spirit possessed trance is believed to be dangerous enough to kill the offender.

Talismans are bought and sold as fetishes. These could be statues representing voodoo gods, dried animal heads, or other body parts. They are sold for medicine and for the spiritual powers that these fetishes are believed to hold. The dark side of voodoo is used by participants to summon evil spirits and cast hexing spells upon adversaries.

Perhaps, this animal was under some sort of spell.  Or, perhaps he was just plain evil.

In this time of situational ethics and relative morality, it does, at times, seem like the forces of darkness are closing in around us.

However, if, like me, you’ve read The Book, you know Who wins.