'Witchcraft' Murders Cast A Gruesome Spell

I am ashamed of my ignorance, now cured, of the very real practice of "witchcraft" in the world.

Point 1) this has nothing to do with magic "spells" althought the people doing it may think so

2) It is evil butchery based on ignorance and base drives of human individuals, which is where all Good and Evil reside

3)These people may tell themselves they do this do gain some kind of advantage in this world or whatever next world they believe in, but it really doesn't do anything of the sort, it is simply evil torture and butchery.

4)it seems to trivialize these atrocities, but to compare this with Harry Potter: Children need to be taught Good from Evil: if they are taught so, Harry Potter will be just a fun read with any difficulties discussed by whomever is doing the teaching, if they are not, these books might suggest some paths that otherwise might not have come to child's attention, but lacking good moral teaching that child was headed for grief anyway.

Leaves me with a pain in my guts for the Evil that does go on in the world, Thankfulness for the Good and renewed realization that Anything can be used as a tool for either by Humans which are capable of Both.

Reread what you just wrote. It is obvious that you are trying to control natural events/effects by invoking the supernatural through prayer if you are trying to change the outcome of the afterlife.

I do not accept your re-phrasing of my statement.

Rephrasing? Your statement didn't need rephrasing, moving the words a bit didn't change the content of your statement, and you don't want to admit that the definition of magic allows prayer to fall inside it.

That's cool by me.

1) Ignorant: Tell me if I'm wrong... but are there not rituals in Catholocism that involve the symbolic consumption of human flesh and drinking of human blood? I seem to have some vague recollectiuon of... "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him" (John 6:53-56). You can hardly knock Religion A for doing the same sort of thing that is prasieworthy in Religion B. And even while symbolic... it's still pretty damned creepy.

Creepy only for the ignorant. The Eucharist is not symbolic; it is in fact the Body and Blood of Christ. Catholics partake in communion or the Eucharistic celebration for a variety of reasons among which are: union with Christ by love, increase sanctifying grace, forgiveness of venial sins, and the pledge of resurrection.

The sacrament of the Eucharist has nothing to do with gaining dark or esoteric knowledge or power. It has every thing to do with love and obedience.

(Anyone who partakes in this but has a problem with Harry Potter, LotR, or any other fictional account of magic or witchcraft is certainly suffering from some world-class cognitive dissonance.)

Anyone who can’t see the difference between the sacrament of the Eucharist and drinking the blood of murdered children is suffering from world class psychoses.

Blasphemy: well, if it's true, it's hardly blasphemous.

Repent...

So, if I pray to have my son's illness taken away or for world peace, that is not attempting to harness supernatural powers to do my bidding?

It should not be. Any prayer requests should tacitly or explicitly express conformity with the will of God.

Ok, fine, your prayer acknowledges that any outcome of your request is up to God's will. If the outcome is in your favor, then your prayer has succeeded in harnessing supernatural power to do what you wanted. No?

The point I'm getting at here is that any religion or belief system that includes supernatural beings also include a method to apply for intercession, be it prayer or "magic".

You shoot your arguement in the foot. First you say it's not dark... then you say it's about "obedience." There is not such a thing as an honorable Creator who creates people so that they will be obedient to him. Any god whe demands or even *wants* my obedience hasn't sufficient honor for me to want to honor.

Obedience = Dark??? No wonder you can’t tell the difference between the sacrament of the Eucharist and using the blood of murdered children for witchcraft.

It's great how this has turned into a general religion bash mixed in with a typical HP thread and I really hate to spoil the fun. But anybody that spent anytime reading up on serial killers knows these killings aren't that "interesting". Genital mutilation, ritualistic posing and trophy gathering are pretty standard fare in serial killer land. The odd thing is that the victims are so you and male. I really hate to say it in this crowd but that would tend to indicate that the perpetrator is homosexual (serial killer victims are almost always the gender the killer is attracted to, and there have been very few female serial killers, and pedophilia does tend towards same sex; though it's important to note that homosexuality does NOT tend towards pedophilia).

As for hybrid religions being blames, much of the populace of London blamed Jews for Jack the Ripper (first documented serial killer) yet among ripperologists there are very few that take the Jew theory seriously. It's also important to note that most killers strike within their own group (for ease of movement generally, poor people don't tend to notice other poor people in their neighborhood) and in Brazil the impoverished are also the group most likely to be involved in one of these hybrids (when you have it as bad as these people do you'll pray to just about anything). So while I'd say there's a pretty solid chance the killer is a practioner, these acts are far to typical of the organized deviant killer to give any indication that the religion has anything to do with it. Though if he's similar to American serial killers when (here's praying it really is a when not if) he's caught he'll try to shunt blame to just about everything (once Son of Sam opened the door to the talking dog cop out the flood gates opened, some guys have even blamed the weather) the contents of his domicile will give us a lot more information than what comes out his mouth.

But, from what this article presents, the killing style is far too typical of the killing styles of American serial killers for me to seriously consider the possibility that a localized religion has any part of it. Read John Douglas' books (especially the first one, clearly his best) and you'll see what I mean. Basically this one reads like a cross between Ramirez, and the Atlanta child killer(s). A little bolder with the staging, but if this guy has been going for 10 to 13 years you'd expect that. Killers get bolder as the body count stacks up.

Satanists drive cars, pay their bills and go to church. Does that mean that everyone who drives, cars, pays their bills and goes to church is satanic?

Nope. Not even close. One wonders about the emotional stability and intellectual ability of people who think "Any opposition to Position A means that they are in direct opposition to all views held by people who hold Position A."

You made a statement about what satanist do. How would you know? From your post and veiws that I have seen you seem to be Anti-God, Anti-Christian and Anti-Christ so with the two things I don't think that was such an out of the line question. Oh dear now Ward Symithe will be condeming me again for saying such things. Oh well!
MCD

If your kid asks you for something, and you decide to give it to him, then you would say that he has harnessed you to do his will?

This has to do with supernatural power how? I notice you like to change the subject every time you get boxed into a corner. The subject at hand is the supernatural realm. Or do you consider yourself on the same level as God with respect to will.

You have a rather, ah, shall we say exotic, relationship with your kid.

That's your strawman.

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