Do you believe that encouraging children to celebrate the high holy day of modern occultism, a feast whose origins lie in Druidism, spirit worship and animal sacrifice, is a matter for humour?
Isn't it strange that one of our resident atheists can see the incongruity of Christians celebrating an occult holiday, but a soi-disant champion of Catholic orthodoxy can't?
Consider this, from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, in 1668:
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of DarknessChap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness
[21] ...For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succsession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy (or kingdom of darkness) may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies (that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits and the feats they play in the night). And if a man consider the original of this ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start out of the ruins of that heathen power.
[22] The language also which they use (both in the churches and in their public acts) being Latin, which is not commonly used by any nation now in the world, what is it but the ghost of the old Roman language?
[23] The fairies, in what nation soever they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.
[24] The ecclesiastics are spiritual men and ghostly fathers. The fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves. The ecclesiastics walk in obscurity of doctrine...
If it is any consolation to my Catholic friends (yes, I do have Catholic friends), Hobbes levels the same criticisms against Presbyterians and other denominations.
In the original post of this thread, I use Hobbes and Kierkegaard (which I am told is out of context) to illustrate a point concerning fantasy. Children are so bombarded by it, they can't tell the difference anymore.
The Satanic family altar of television, movies, video games, Harry Potter, etc., are all a dangerous fantasy world. They have manifestations in the real world and in human behavior.
I dare say, I think Hobbes was the most knowledgeable student of the Bible since it's writing. I can also understand why many denominational Christians don't like him - - he was fluent in both Greek and Latin by the age of nine. Many Catholics despise him, yet they conviniently forget it was the Jesuits who attempted to assasinate King James I for his efforts to translate the Bible into the common language...