See ya' next fall. ha ha
Posted on 03/08/2006 10:13:29 AM PST by NYer
Witches have returned to the German forests, dancing naked in groups under the full moon and calling to their gods.
The covens vary in size and in how seriously they take their calling, but the numbers are rising, particularly amongst the young.
Their religious ideas are described as "pagan" rather than Satanist, and many of the older practitioners have a history in the environmental movement, where they learnt a passionate love of nature.
In some cases this has led on to a belief in the natural powers of the forests. The women are convinced they can work magic.
"The witches' scene is experiencing a powerful revival," says Lutheran theologian Hansjoerg Hemminger. He says the covens range from "girlie witches" to the so-called "Wicca" covens. Wicca is an old Anglo-Saxon term for a group of witches.
Christian theologians are inclined to see the latter as a manifestation of a new heathen movement. The women tend to be members of associations like the Pagan Federation or the Stone Circle.
Maddalina, a 44-year-old witch, is high priestess of a witches' coven in Berlin, who became interested in Wicca about 15 years ago.
The former doctor's assistant, who declines to provide her real name, says she began looking around for women with similar interests.
"Today you are just a mouse-click away from making contact," she says, and she estimates that the number of witches has quadrupled in her time as a witch.
Conceding she is uncertain, she guesses there are several hundred Wiccans in Germany.
Maddalina is scornful of the teenagers interested in the witch cults. She gets e-mails daily from 13- and 14-year-olds, almost all of which she rebuffs.
Her own coven numbers just eight and the youngest trainee witch is 25 years old.
Most of the teenagers interested in witchcraft gain their information from the media, the internet or from books. Television series on witchcraft are currently popular in Germany.
These sources offer love potions aimed at curing shyness, or magical formulas spoken in the light of the moon to help with schoolwork.
Hemminger insists that these methods are never solutions to real problems.
But Maddalina is true to her beliefs. "We are heathens and believe in the power of magic," she says.
She and her coven go into the woods around Berlin several times a year to stand naked in a circle and call to Baldur, the god of light.
Their requests are of a banal sort; wishes for a better job, a new flat with a balcony, for good health.
By contrast with the teenage witches, the Wicca covens tend to be older women with a background in the women's movement.
Most commentators do not believe the groups have any links to Satanism and black magic. But Hemminger sounds a note of warning.
"Some of these circles operate in complete secrecy. We really don't know what they are up to," he says.
In general he regards the Wicca covens as a means to overcome personal crises that only cause concern once the cult begins to take over a person's life.
Maddalina insists her coven's activities are harmless. "We are not hurting anyone," she says.
And the Berlin forest authorities are taking a similar view, allowing the witches to dance under the moon.
> You can not claim the name is not Biblical when it is in the Bible.
So... no matter how badly translated a Bible might be, it's all perfectly valid, then?
"Thou shalt commit adultery" 1631 Cambridge edition
> An argument over Saint Jerome's intentions is pretty useless 1700 years after he wrote it.
Ah. Then the rest of the Bible is even more useless, since it's even older. Good to know!
I'm not surprised at your experience. I wouldn't like to have any of them working for me, either. And I think most of them could be considered "losers" because they generally don't fit into any normal category.
But the fact remains that even though many of them are dummies and losers, they're not actively trying to do people harm or kill folks. Satanists are.
>>Baldur ain't Lucifer ain't Shiva ain't Xenu ain't Christ ain't Jehovah ain't Azathoth ain't Allah.
> All of which amounts to a statement of faith. Your faith not mine.
And what faith is that? Some form of Unitarian? I've never met someone who thought that Baldur is Lucifer is Shiva is Xenu is Christ is Jehovah is Azathoth is Allah.
"...the Bible is even more useless,...
That was pretty much Thomas Paine's opinion too.
Revelation 22:16
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Lu·ci·fer
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, the morning star, a fallen rebel archangel, the Devil, from Old English, from Latin, the morning star, from lucifer light-bearing, from luc-, lux light + -fer -ferous -- more at LIGHT
1 -- used as a name of the devil
2 : the planet Venus when appearing as the morning star
3 not capitalized : a friction match having as active substances antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate
Be careful what you ask for.
Shortly before the ceremony....
Oooops. Christ = Lucifer. That'll go over well.
Your post is a good example of limited logic, or maybe I should be more clear, reading into it what you want to see.
Eyes that will not see. Ears that will not hear.
> Your post is a good example of limited logic, or maybe I should be more clear, reading into it what you want to see.
All of which amounts to a statement of faith. Your faith not mine. I will give your statement the weighty consideration it merits.
Yeah, I thought the same thing the first time I saw it. In fact, the KJV bible I own has Morning Star capitalized in Revelation 22:16. I cut and pasted the post you saw from an online version. I found this out one day after attending a "contemporary" service at a Methodist church, during which we sang a hym titled "Daystar Shine Down On Me" or some such title. At the end of the service, a member of the congregation asked the minister what Daystar meant, and he answered that it was another name for Jesus. I went home and looked up "daystar" and the definition came up Morning Star. I looked up Morning Star, and the def came up Venus, as seen in the morning, and also Lucifer. Then I remembered the verse from Revelation wherein Jesus declared himself to be the Morning Star. Blew my mind. I've never been back to church.
"I will give your statement the weighty consideration it merits."
I suggest you do. At last something we agree upon.
You know, what you say is true.
In the Bible, specifically Revelation, the Son is referred to the the Morning Star. The Old Testament Morning Star is "Satan".
But here's the rub, the wrinkle, the fly in the ointment in what you are worrying about (which is that Jesus was Satan).
Let's assume for a minute that it is true, that Revelation is a "slip" that reveals something, that Jesus really WAS Satan. [I am addressing this to YOU, even though it will be alarmingly offensive to many others, because this sudden thought is what drove you from Church.]
Assume that Jesus was Satan.
What, then, did Satan preach and do?
Heal the sick. Love you enemies. Be kind to children, orphans. Be humble, meek and mild. Love your enemies. Love your neighbor as yourself, and love God over all.
Now, remember, Jesus gave his own summary of the Bible:
"Love your neighbor as yourself, and love God over all". This, Jesus said, was the sum total of the Law and the Prophets, which is a nice old fashioned way of referring to the Jewish Scriptures. So, what the Old Testament MEANS, according to Jesus, is loving each other and loving God.
But start in on the Old Testament (especially focus on Joshua), and there is a lot of horror and blood in there. So much of what is there seems to be just about the ANTITHESIS of what Jesus said. Jesus synopsized it all as "Love you neighbor as yourself, and love God above all", but you have to take it on faith that this is God's intent on all of that bloody horror in Joshua and the hard rules of Leviticus, etc. It's certainly not obvious.
Indeed, historically, this threw a lot of people. One of the earlier Christian Cults outright said that the God of the Old Testament was a demon, but the true God of the Gospels, Jesus, is the true God, etc. This did not become orthodoxy.
But let's take your "discovery", that Jesus is Satan is Lucifer, let on by Revelation, and that particular term.
Where does that leave you?
It leaves you with Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, with all of that bloodshed and horror that's in there.
And it leaves you with Satan, in the guise of Jesus, as the "God" of the New Testament, preaching love, peace, charity. Satan tries to wrestle the Old Testament to his service by the pretence that the Old Testament is about loving your neighbor and loving God. But of course, the Old Testament says that Amalek is cursed forever, and Canaan is cursed, and Ham is cursed, so there are some neighbors that God - the real God, Yahweh - of the Old Testament doesn't love. But Satan in the New Testament talks mildly to the Samaritan woman and seeks to bring them to the Gospel too.
If you are right, then two things become obvious:
Yahweh and Jesus are opposed parties, because Yahweh is the God of the Old Testament, and Jesus, the God of the New Testament, is the Morning Star, which is to say Satan. And so, Satan's efforts to incorporate the Old Testament into the New by saying that "love your neighbor as yourself, and love God above all" are not availing and untrue. Yahweh has an utterly different personality from Satan (Jesus).
Yahweh is hard, kills, condemns whole races to the fire, punishes with plagues, orders death and hate for those he hates. Yahweh orders some be put to the fire.
Satan preaches love, saves even the adulteress from stoning, preaches love of the enemy, healing of the sick, raises even the dead, and offers his "salvation" to all the Earth. The Jewish high council, true priests of the One True God, Yahweh, then CORRECTLY saw that Jesus was blaspheming, and holding himself (Satan) before God. And this is why, under Yahweh's Law, Satan (Jesus) was CORRECTLY executed for blasphemy.
And the second thing that becomes obvious, if your discovery is a true dichotomy, that Satan Jesus is Good, and One True God Yahweh is a horror.
And if what you saw is really true, and Jesus is really Satan, and is the enemy of the Yahweh of the Old Testament, and the two testaments are irreconcilable, then I choose to worship Satan, because Satan Jesus is good, but Yahweh God, though more powerful, is evil.
Now, as it happens, that is not REALLY the case, and your understanding of the imaged language of Revelation has caused you to see a false analogy. But the reason you stopped going to Church is because you saw that analogy, and it hit you light a lightning bolt that the Bible itself tells you, you think, in Revelation, that Jesus is Satan.
If that is the case, then instead of avoiding Church and going back to burning witches and stoning adulteresses and hating your neighbor, you should worship Satan Jesus, and love your neighbor (even though this is despicable to God) and forgive others their tresspasses.
If Jesus really is Satan, then worship Satan, because the opposite of Satan, any God that would be the opposite of Jesus, is powerful and contemptible.
Hillary's going to be in Bavaria?
>>"I will give your statement the weighty consideration it merits."
>I suggest you do.
Did so. Took about 150 milliseconds.
That's nice, but it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Baldur is not Lucifer.
> Lucifer could be the one or all.
Including Christ, it seems. Very New Age of you.
>You seem to be making sport out of the topic. Such people are just not to be taken seriously. Which I have pointed out several times. But then I take a guilty pleasure in pointing this out (maybe, you never know).
So you're admitting that you're not to be taken seriously.
we're at work so don't do that!
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