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An Atheist Questions the Practice of Halloween...
The Sir Francis Dashwood Journal | 10-1-02 | Sir Francis Dashwood

Posted on 10/01/2002 10:15:38 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood

It never ceases to amaze me that most Christians would criticize me for being an atheist, yet they will "celebrate" a macabre pagan holiday. They inculcate their children into the practice of it and feed them the most unhealthful things you could give a child to eat.

Likewise, many atheists criticize me for being a "right-winger." Most atheists are so caught up in their polemics, they have become nothing more than anti-Christians - or what I call the Religious Left (a collaboration of the Marxist religion, neo-pagan animal/tree/earth worshipper eco-fascists and general technophobes).

Why do you "celebrate" on certain "holidays," what are you celebrating, do you really know? Or have you been so lost in the conformity of it all to really take a look at what you partake in?

As you ponder this, two noted Christian philosophers support my secular argument...

Søren Kierkegaard from The Sickness Unto Death:

The fantastic is, of course, most closely related to the imagination [Phantasien], but the imagination is related in it’s turn to feeling, understanding, and will, so that a person’s feelings, understanding and will may be fantastic. Fantasy is, in general the medium of infinitization…

The fantastic is generally speaking what carries a person into the infinite in such a way that it only leads him away from himself and thus prevents him from coming back to himself.

Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan:

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness

Chap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.

[14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.

[15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.

[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature.

As you think further, exactly what is Halloween?

Originally, All Hallows' Eve was one of the great fire festivals of Britain at the time of the Druids. In Scotland it was associated with the time when the spirits of the dead, the demons, witches, and sorcerers were usually active and propitious. Paradoxically, All Hallows' Eve was also a night when young people performed magical rituals to determine their future marriage partners. The youth of the villages carried on with much merry-making and sensual revelry, but the older people took great care to safeguard their homes from the evil spirits, witches, and demons who had exceptional power that night...

Can you guess my source here???


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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
 Most atheists are so caught up in their polemics, they have become
nothing more than anti-Christians - or what I call the Religious Left
(a collaboration of the Marxist religion, neo-pagan
animal/tree/earth worshipper eco-fascists and general technophobes).

I am an atheist.  I know a lot of atheists.  We are not Marxist,
take no offense in being called pagan, yet are not econuts
or fascists.  We are often of the engineering type, the
creators of technology, not 'phobes.'

As I said earlier, atheism predates Marxism by centuries,
so Marxism is not a necessary precondition for atheism
in the least.  You seem to be smearing antireligionists
with political (Marx, fascist) terms that have no place
in the discussion.  Then you complain about someone
else's polemics.  Physician, heal thyself.

21 posted on 10/02/2002 6:47:56 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: FormerLurker
PING....
22 posted on 10/02/2002 6:49:56 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
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To: gcruse
You are introducing red herrings and other informal fallacies.

Consider this. For an atheist to claim that I am immoral is no different than a preacher or rabbi saying I am a sinner.

"Morals" are a deceptive replacement for the "avoidance of sin." This is an attempt to establish ecclesiastical dominion over the sovereignty of an individual.

See Hobbes above concerning ecclesiastical dominion. It applies to the Papacy as much as it does many others (including many atheists), especially concerning phantastical images or apparitions...

In case you have not noted, I am an atheist. We are not like the vast majority of atheists...

23 posted on 10/02/2002 7:13:07 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
We are not like the vast majority of atheists...

Totallly subjective.

24 posted on 10/02/2002 7:50:38 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
You post a long rant from a medieval philosopher named Hobbes.

Hobbes might be a classic philosopher, but as most upper class brits of his day, he was an anti papist. He also was lacking in much of the knowledge of history now known to modern scholars but not known in his time.

So what does the anti papest bigot lacking in historical knowledge have to do with the history of Haloween, a celtic festival that was "baptized" because of it's positive aspects into a Christian feast?

Or do you (a proclaimed athiest) still believe in leprechauns? Or Devils? Or are you posting because you are trying to provoke people?

From a sociological and psychological point of view, Halloween can be very positive for children, if they are encouraged to dress up like heroes (to emulate) or as villans and ghosts (as a way of learning to control the subconscious fear of the unknown. Like laughing in the dark when you are scared.

If there is a devil, he has no sense of humor. So dressing as a humerous fake devil by children is not going to harm them. And allowing little kids to dress up and "scare" their neighbors in exchange for food can be and has been a positive way of getting to know one's neighbors and letting the kids have a good time. (two more things that an evil being would not benefit from)

However, in areas where evil is glamourized as "fun", Haloween may indeed be separated from it's positive side and descend into a true night of evil....

25 posted on 10/03/2002 6:15:28 PM PDT by LadyDoc
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To: LadyDoc
You post a long rant from a medieval philosopher...

1668 - not medieval.

-

Hobbes might be a classic philosopher, but as most upper class brits of his day, he was an anti papist.

Jesuits attempted to assassinate King James I when he had the Bible translated into the common language. Hobbes was loyal to the monarchy and the Bible, not the ecclesiastical dominium of the Papacy.

-

From a sociological and psychological point of view,...

Søren Kierkegaard from The Sickness Unto Death:

The fantastic is, of course, most closely related to the imagination [Phantasien], but the imagination is related in it’s turn to feeling, understanding, and will, so that a person’s feelings, understanding and will may be fantastic. Fantasy is, in general the medium of infinitization…

The fantastic is generally speaking what carries a person into the infinite in such a way that it only leads him away from himself and thus prevents him from coming back to himself.

Problem: Children are so constantly bombarded with fantasy by the stupid adults, they can't tell the difference anymore between that and reality...

-

From the Satanic Bible, by Anton Szandor LaVey:

Originally, All Hallows' Eve was one of the great fire festivals of Britain at the time of the Druids. In Scotland it was associated with the time when the spirits of the dead, the demons, witches, and sorcerers were usually active and propitious. Paradoxically, All Hallows' Eve was also a night when young people performed magical rituals to determine their future marriage partners. The youth of the villages carried on with much merry-making and sensual revelry, but the older people took great care to safeguard their homes from the evil spirits, witches, and demons who had exceptional power that night...

-

And allowing little kids to dress up and "scare" their neighbors in exchange for food...

"Food," you say? Sugar? Tooth decay? Behavioral irregularities, abnormal blood sugar, obesity in children, and the host of other problems related to high concentrations of sugar in the modern diet???

This is positive?

26 posted on 10/03/2002 8:06:30 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
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To: LadyDoc
If there is a devil,...

There is most assuredly not...

Set, Satan, and Shaitan are the same. "Satan" is a Hebrew word for the pagan Egyptian Set. Satan, Shaitan, Set or Seth ("Set-hn" as spoken in the ancient Hebrew) is a pagan entity, the "adversary" of Judaic theology. (A "pagan" is anyone not Judaic, Christian or Muslim.)

The Greeks called Set "Typhon," who was the war god assigned to Upper Egypt. This also represents another contravention to the "accepted" etymologies of words like "typhoon" in English, which is erroneously listed as the Cantonese "tai fung" in many dictionaries. English has more commonalties with Greek and Latin.

The Egyptian priest Manetho associated the Jews with the Hyksos and Moses with the Egyptian priest Osarsiph. It was at this time that the belief the Jews worshipped an ass – an animal holy to the Egyptian god Set was established. Both the Jews and the pagan Egyptians used the labels (i.e., Satan, Set, Seth, or "Set-hn" as spoken in the ancient Hebrew) to defame each other. How fitting that amidst this epic struggle and bloody conflict, the entity known as Satan was born into the World. Such conflict continued through the Maccabean period (with Antiochus Epiphanes), and continues into modern times on several fronts.

There is a recurring theme that alludes to the hostility between the pagan Egyptians and the Judaic. Often it is claimed by the Neo-Pagans that Satan is only found in Christianity. How can this be if Satan is undeniably a Hebrew word adapted from the name of the pagan Egyptian god Set? The Jewish synod of rabbinical authority will deny that Satan even exists. This cannot be reconciled with the fact that it is a Hebrew word...

Again, Thomas Hobbes, having been fluent in both Greek and Latin by age 9, has this to support my assertions:

Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth.

Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.

[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.

[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Palestine, and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.

27 posted on 10/03/2002 8:39:54 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
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To: HDMZ; Bud McDuell; Telit Likitis; Land of the Irish; Loyalist; ultima ratio; Unam Sanctam
Ping...
28 posted on 10/04/2002 5:50:08 AM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
How are things at the HELLFIRE CLUB? Did you have a happy Saint Hobbes day?
29 posted on 10/04/2002 8:47:57 AM PDT by Telit Likitis
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
fnord
30 posted on 10/04/2002 2:35:58 PM PDT by Dajjal
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
You are using an invalid argument form. Your two premises are false and therefore cannot have a true conclusion. Does not meet the test of propositional logic. There are also some informal fallacies involved (I won't load you up on the Latin). I will leave you with this... Søren Kierkegaard from The Sickness Unto Death: The fantastic is, of course, most closely related to the imagination [Phantasien], but the imagination is related in it’s turn to feeling, understanding, and will, so that a person’s feelings, understanding and will may be fantastic. Fantasy is, in general the medium of infinitization… This is also stated by Hobbes in other ways, phantasms or apparitions? Religion...

Sir Francis, I appreciate your reply. However, your logic escapes me. What exactly is the point you are making?

31 posted on 10/04/2002 4:09:40 PM PDT by PFKEY
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
Let me guess ... you are a college sophmore, fascinated by your first philosophy course. Your professor is the smartest man you've ever met, and he is an atheist.
Since you are, as yet, unable to argue your point effectively, you simply post the same quotations again and again, hoping they impress everyone else as much as they have impressed you.

You're not really looking for an honest discussion, but feel that the quotes you post are so persuasive that anyone who reads them will fall at your feet and acknowledge your superior intelligence.

You're not the run of the mill atheist, because you're smarter than everyone else. Most atheists don't have that advantage. Sheesh.

Tell you what: why don't you post your quotes one more time, but this time try bold text, or better yet UPPER CASE. We'll all throw in the towel and follow you.
32 posted on 10/05/2002 11:23:49 AM PDT by watchin
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood

I know this is a old post but I feel I just had to say something.

I enjoy your posts very much. You are very charming. Interesting user name as well, I wonder do you admire him and his Hellfire club? Are you also the same Francis Dashwood from here: http://www.iidb.org/

Haha! Anyway good show.

Also as to GoodieD's post I have to disagree. Harry Potter and vampires really have nothing to do with Christianity.


33 posted on 03/04/2006 11:05:27 PM PST by xHellFirex
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To: xHellFirex
Interesting user name as well, I wonder do you admire him and his Hellfire club?

Both yes and no. Dashwood was a good friend of Benjamin Franklin and a member of Parliament who tried to negotiate a favorable deal for the American colonists.

His personal antics were at best juvenile, despite his education, wealth, titles and exemplary service to England.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Are you also the same Francis Dashwood from here: http://www.iidb.org/

No, and I didn't see anyone there with that name. Maybe your link is a typo...

They seem like just a bunch of pathetic anti-Christians, cultural Marxists, Scientologists, etc., and not what I would consider atheists. Their whole world revolves around being against the Christians without any reason.

Anything a Christian does or says, no matter how true it might be logically, will keep them chattering for months...

Feel free to use some or all of the following there, perhaps that is what a poster posing as me has done...

It is no coincidence Islamic pagans hate Israel, Jews, Christians and Western Civilization. The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law, something both the Neo-Pagan Left and the pagan Islamic thugs cannot abide and wish to destroy.

The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of a monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.

Historically, this is proven over and over again with the successive conflicts between the forces of paganism and the Judaic culture. (This includes the idolatry of Marxist paganism.)

Today, "morals" are defined by a quasi-religious pagan philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins. A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a false Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."

Morality and all of its associated concepts are from the belief some higher power defines what is correct in human behavior. Today, "morals" are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.

Mosaic Law (of which the Ten Commandments is just a part) is the foundation of Western Civilization. Genesis is the primary focus of the Declaration of Independence, from where our Constitutional rights are derived. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our judicial system.

Moses wrote Genesis. This is why such people will jump up and down screaming when the Ten Commandments are displayed or the Creationist idea of monogamy from the Book of Genesis is introduced.

The latter (Genesis) also ruins the illogical and non-biological arguments of homosexual monogamy. In a secular sense, homosexuality is an idolatry of perversion. It is in no way an anatomical function of the human organism, but a phantasmagoric creation from within the mentally disturbed human mind, a social psychosis, naked and on full exhibitionist display.

This is the whole crux of their attack on creationism - - they are really frustrated by Genesis, but cannot destroy the axiomatic state of procreant human biology, it does not fit their religious agenda.

Homosexual monogamy advocates seek ceremonious sanctification of their anatomical perversions and esoteric absolution for their guilt-ridden, impoverished egos.

Neither of those will satisfy their universal dissatisfaction with mortality or connect them to something eternal. With pantheons of fantasies as their medium of infinitization, they still have nothing in them of reality, any more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream.

Homosexual deviancy is really a pagan practice (and a self-induced social psychosis) at war with the Judaic culture over what is written in the book of Genesis (1:27, 2:18).

This is exactly what the National Socialists were at war with... so, when someone uses the term "Gaystapo," they might not realize how close to the truth they really are.

Many will seek ceremonious sanctification and esoteric absolution in some type of marriage rite, but that still fails to give them a connection to the eternal in both a religious and temporal, procreant sense - - the union does not produce offspring.

Dissatisfaction with inevitable mortality only feeds the impoverishment of the ego further. Homosexuals really hate human life; their whole desire is rooted in the destruction of it...

Abortion is akin to slavery... life to be bought and sold...

Contemplate the religious fervor associated with the pro-abortion advocacy. The societal practice of abortion is ritual mass murder upon the altars of conceit dedicated to idolatrous vanities, a collective human sacrifice before pagan idols.

It has a similitude to the Teutonic paganism of Adolph Hitler (whose idolatry was the idea of a "master race," among other things). In effect, these genocides are a mass human sacrifice to those pagan idols. The abortionists, like the National Socialists, incinerate the remains of their victims.

Aleister Crowley, who openly supported the National Socialists, was affiliated with Ordo Templi Orientis, A.A. (Order of the Silver Star) and other such occult lodges all across Germany. Crowley engaged in all manner of deviancy, homoeroticism, sadomasochism and murder. Much of the occultism in National Socialism is derived directly from there. Crowley envisioned himself as the Great Beast (To Mega Therion), just as der Fuhrer made himself in that image. Hitler's life as a struggling, inept artist was where that association blossomed.

Crowley's creed, "Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the Law," (which is actually from Francois Rabelais) and used by Neo-Pagan nutcases without attribution for obvious politically correct reasons, is with certainty no different than the National Socialist "will to power," or their ubermensch mentality.

It is also no accident Nietzsche's "over-man" and nihilist philosophy and resulting insanity from venereal disease closely mirrors the insanity of der Fuhrer.

These occult orders, sex and drug cults still survive today, as do the Neo-pagan, Neo-Nazi groups, black supremacist Rastafarian potheads, prison gangs and other related filth.

Crowley occultism is also from where L. Ron Hubbard emerges with Scientology. Note the NAZI symbolism of that kooky cult of weirdos and their deviant adherents who advocate homoeroticism and other perversions. Hollywood Cultural Marxists love Scientology.

It is by no accident the Cultural Marxists of Hollywood are flaming haters of America, Israel and Christendom, and who advocate the most bizarre and psychotic.

Germany cracked down hard on the Scientologists for that reason and because they are using similar mind control techniques as the NAZIs did...


34 posted on 03/05/2006 8:12:10 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood

Oh no, I believe he was banned, many times infact I hear. I just wondered because you two seemed so alike, shared the same alias and equally knowledgable. You seem so well read and I am honored that you answered my post.

I myself am not a atheist nor have counted myself as one. On the contrary I am open to many possibilities. I am accepting of the fact that the only thing we can be sure of is our own ignorance. Keep in mind, I am not meaning to enforce my opinion on any of you as fact, I am just stating my opinion on matters. I just recently joined that board, it was after research Sir Francis Dashwood that I came across you and that board. I found your posts as well as that board of interest. I especially enjoyed your views on morality. I myself have no real problem with christians personally though I did when I was a child. The only thing that really bothers me about most "christians" is their arrogance and ignorance. The fact that they have read little else except the king James bible, what their preists have told them, and their parents have conditioned in them as children. To demean another's religion and culture as they have through history and even today I find offensive and arrogant. They even take it as far as to infect harmless literature and media. Now I am not trying to say all christians are this way because I find generalizing ignorant. It is merely what I have observed and their religious texts and history hasn't exactly shown them as noble and understanding. Now a logical christian who is well-versed in their books and is open-minded I could have a very pleasant debate. After all what else could a eternal student do.


35 posted on 03/06/2006 8:48:20 PM PST by xHellFirex
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