Human sacrifice and Holloween Jack Chick style

[Cainkane1]

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0011/0011_01.asp

Kids get recruited by witches to serve Satan who burns them for all eternity anyway.

 

[Sabrina]

Good gravy, I know this one is old, but where did he get his information? Halloween wasn't ever, so far as I'm aware, a time when Druids went around knocking on doors demanding human sacrifices to Satan; they didn't even conceive of such a being as Satan to begin with! Druidic worship was Pagan worship; and while, yes, there may have been human sacrifices, typically they were willing ones, IIRC, that were sacrificed in order to ensure a good harvest the next year. Or at least that was one of the supposed reasons, I think. Regardless, Druids had nothing to do with Satanic worship in any way, shape, or form.

 

[KateHL]

One more reason why Chick Tracts don't even come close to comparing to Tijuana Bibles.

 

[Delvo]

The Druids' "symbolic hex" is a Star of David in a circle!

 

[Hellbound]

Good gravy, I know this one is old, but where did he get his information? Halloween wasn't ever, so far as I'm aware, a time when Druids went around knocking on doors demanding human sacrifices to Satan; they didn't even conceive of such a being as Satan to begin with! Druidic worship was Pagan worship; and while, yes, there may have been human sacrifices, typically they were willing ones, IIRC, that were sacrificed in order to ensure a good harvest the next year. Or at least that was one of the supposed reasons, I think. Regardless, Druids had nothing to do with Satanic worship in any way, shape, or form.

Heh.

Reminds me of the 80s, when the Satanic scare was big.

They actually passed out print-outs at the high school of supposed "Satanic symbols", which included things like:

Numbers 3 and 6
The Egyptian "Ankh"
The Yin-Yang

Basically, any religious symbol that wasn't Christian. We generally laughed about it, and of course started drawing these symbols on everything

ETA: Delvo, That one was in there, too!

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think the most ridiculous thing in Chick's tracts is the extreme credulousness of all the characters. In Chick's world, all you have to do is say something and people instantly accept it. Whether you're claiming to be a former witch who's murdered children with devil magic, or Satan himself promising you something, or an extremely unpleasant little girl telling you what the afterlife is, the only response is belief. "I'm a witch!" "Heaven is real!" "The Catholic Church is run by Satanic communists!" They're all met with the same lack of scrutiny and critical thinking you'd give to statements like "I like ice cream" and "good morning".

No wonder Chick writes tracts. He thinks anyone who reads one instantly converts as he commands them to, because they were told. Chick's worldview simply doesn't include critical thought of any kind. It's not that skeptics are bad, it's that skepticism simply doesn't exist at all.

 

[Madalch]

Good gravy, I know this one is old, but where did he get his information? Halloween wasn't ever, so far as I'm aware, a time when Druids went around knocking on doors demanding human sacrifices to Satan; they didn't even conceive of such a being as Satan to begin with!

In the eyes of the Fundies, any religious service that is not aimed directly at God is accepted by Satan. Satan may have gone around telling the non-Christians that his name was Jack-in-the-Green, or Nature, or Zeus, or Mithra, or Apollo, or Marduk, or Allah, but they all worshiped Satan whether they knew it or not.

 

[bikerdruid]

fundy christians are sooo funny.

 

[brenn]

In the eyes of the Fundies, any religious service that is not aimed directly at God is accepted by Satan. Satan may have gone around telling the non-Christians that his name was Jack-in-the-Green, or Nature, or Zeus, or Mithra, or Apollo, or Marduk, or Allah, but they all worshiped Satan whether they knew it or not.

Doesn't that raise a pretty obvious question about their own religion?

 

[bookitty]

Ok, so if your kids are misbehaving right after Halloween, it's satanic influences caused by neighborhood witches (because, obviously, if you have satan-granted powers, you use them to move to suburbia). No way it's hyperactivity brought on by an all-you-can-eat sugar smorgasbord.

 

[bookitty]

Good gravy, I know this one is old, but where did he get his information? Halloween wasn't ever, so far as I'm aware, a time when Druids went around knocking on doors demanding human sacrifices to Satan; they didn't even conceive of such a being as Satan to begin with! Druidic worship was Pagan worship; and while, yes, there may have been human sacrifices, typically they were willing ones, IIRC, that were sacrificed in order to ensure a good harvest the next year. Or at least that was one of the supposed reasons, I think. Regardless, Druids had nothing to do with Satanic worship in any way, shape, or form.

Pretty much everything we know of Druids is second-hand info, gleaned from small bits of archeological evidence, or folklore. They have no written history.

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

I'm going to be compounding my Satanic worship this weekend by playing AD&D on Halloween! (Albeit its the bowlderdized 2nd Ed. that removed any references to "demons" along with any naked human breasts from the artwork. TSR really wussed out near the end.)

 

[Madalch]

Doesn't that raise a pretty obvious question about their own religion?

Not to them, it doesn't. Otherwise, they wouldn't be fundies.

 

[Vortigern99]

Good gravy, I know this one is old, but where did he get his information? Halloween wasn't ever, so far as I'm aware, a time when Druids went around knocking on doors demanding human sacrifices to Satan; they didn't even conceive of such a being as Satan to begin with! Druidic worship was Pagan worship; and while, yes, there may have been human sacrifices, typically they were willing ones, IIRC, that were sacrificed in order to ensure a good harvest the next year. Or at least that was one of the supposed reasons, I think. Regardless, Druids had nothing to do with Satanic worship in any way, shape, or form.

Just to clarify here, Caesar and Strabo both report that in Druidic Gaul, criminals, the crippled and the terminally ill were placed into "wicker man" figures and burned alive. The victims were not "willing", according to these reports. Caesar's account claims to have been first-hand.

That said, both writers' accounts, which share certain details, might have derived from an earlier, now-lost writer named Posidonius.

The "wicker man" burnings might have been an actual event, and they might have been invented as part of a politically and/or ideologically motivated plan to denigrate the Gauls and their Druidic officiants as barbaric, murderous savages. It's hard to say one way or the other.

 

[Vortigern99]

I'm going to be compounding my Satanic worship this weekend by playing AD&D on Halloween! (Albeit its the bowlderdized 2nd Ed. that removed any references to "demons" along with any naked human breasts from the artwork. TSR really wussed out near the end.)

Hey, we're playing D&D on Halloween as well! It just so happens that Sunday is our gaming day; we didn't plan it to coincide with Samhain or anything like that.

But we're playing the (IMO) superior 3rd edition, which includes plenty of demons and devils (note to fundies: evil monsters which good-aligned parties are meant to defeat!) and at least a hint of breast here and there in the artwork.

 

[Ladewig]

I'm going to be compounding my Satanic worship this weekend by playing AD&D on Halloween! (Albeit its the bowlderdized 2nd Ed. that removed any references to "demons" along with any naked human breasts from the artwork. TSR really wussed out near the end.)

I suppose you could just add some naked breast artwork. I am not sure, but I heard that with some searching, one could find naked breast artwork on the internet. I'll have a look BRB.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Wow, that was an awesome and revealing booklet. I was going to say I was convinced, until I read this and realized I'd look stupid.

I think the most ridiculous thing in Chick's tracts is the extreme credulousness of all the characters. In Chick's world, all you have to do is say something and people instantly accept it. Whether you're claiming to be a former witch who's murdered children with devil magic, or Satan himself promising you something, or an extremely unpleasant little girl telling you what the afterlife is, the only response is belief. "I'm a witch!" "Heaven is real!" "The Catholic Church is run by Satanic communists!" They're all met with the same lack of scrutiny and critical thinking you'd give to statements like "I like ice cream" and "good morning".

No wonder Chick writes tracts. He thinks anyone who reads one instantly converts as he commands them to, because they were told. Chick's worldview simply doesn't include critical thought of any kind. It's not that skeptics are bad, it's that skepticism simply doesn't exist at all.

 

[brenn]

Not to them, it doesn't. Otherwise, they wouldn't be fundies.

I can only remember on notable quote from a fellow student in college: "I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching religion in schools, as long as they teach the real one and not all those made up ones." That may be deeper than he realized. (thinking was not his strongest point - I believe that was baseball)

 

[brenn]

I think the most ridiculous thing in Chick's tracts is the extreme credulousness of all the characters. In Chick's world, all you have to do is say something and people instantly accept it. Whether you're claiming to be a former witch who's murdered children with devil magic, or Satan himself promising you something, or an extremely unpleasant little girl telling you what the afterlife is, the only response is belief. "I'm a witch!" "Heaven is real!" "The Catholic Church is run by Satanic communists!" They're all met with the same lack of scrutiny and critical thinking you'd give to statements like "I like ice cream" and "good morning".

No wonder Chick writes tracts. He thinks anyone who reads one instantly converts as he commands them to, because they were told. Chick's worldview simply doesn't include critical thought of any kind. It's not that skeptics are bad, it's that skepticism simply doesn't exist at all.

His belief in extreme credulousness is not all that unrealistic - many a christian has lined his bank account with no more than that. One who lived near me (Mike _______?) was famous all over for being a former satanist turned fundamentalist preacher and was making a good living off of it. Several yeasr ago he was exposed by some skeptics (christians I believe) who researched his background and found out what he was really doing when he claimed to be a drug-addict satanic cult leader - I believe they discovered he was an average nerdy college student at the time. All he ahd to do to pull in a load of cash was say, "I used to be a satanic cult leader" and they bought it and started handing him cash.

Edit: Here's the story - Mike Warnke.

I'll point out that, like Arthur Ford and various other "Kentucky" psychics, faith healers, and nuts - Warnke was a "foreigner" from another state.

 

[Craig4]

For the record there has never been anyone poisoned by their candy on Halloween. There have been a very few instances of children injured when a sharp object was put into an apple (all this according the the NY Times and Snopes). As far as safety goes children are safer on Halloween than almost any other day.