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satanic sacrafice etc. - does it even exist

pounce

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wondered which forum this might belong in. current events, general skepticism, conspiracy theories?

read a news clip today about someone being convicted of satanic sacrifice.

my main point is simply this, i think that pretty much everything i've read about satanism is a bunch of bollocks aimed at scaring folks into being christian. groups like the church of satan have small followings and encourage the pursuit of any physical indulgences. so besides some drug taking and orgies, and the prescription of an eye for an eye, they don't seem to be going around killing folks. or worshipping anything per se. i am sure there are a number of darker small religious variations of this. none that i had initially found seemed to be overly wrapped up in any belief of the devil as the xtian church presents him.

moreso, some xtian groups in the past have claimed that tremendous amounts of folks were kidnapped and killed by satanic cults. i've seen claims that this happens in quantities that society would truly notice. but i don't think it's happening.

i suspect that the occasional nutcase does kill someone for "satan", and this person was most likely a xtian at some point who is rebelling in some unhealthy way. but i simply do not believe there is any organized network of people advocating any sort of sacrifice to satan. i believe this idea of "satanic sacrifice" is in effect the boogeyman. i'm just surprised that i keep hearing about it as recently as today. i think it only works if you are a xtian and are scared by such things and can be led to believe that there is some portion of society seriously worshipping the devil. other than the satanists i can think of who are nothing more than drug taking orgy loving indulgent folks who don't actually worship the devil, i can't even think of anyone i've come across ever who actually is a devil worshipper. hasn't this been dismissed by now? is "satanic sacrifice" largely a fundamental xtian propogated conspiracy theory of sorts?

any thoughts on this are welcome.
 
yup, i'd read an article like that years ago. it seems that there just isn't any evidence for that sort of stuff. i can't figure out why the media keeps reporting about satanic killings. what is the benefit to making people afraid of things that don't exist?
 
Convicted of satanic sacrifice, or convicted of murder?
Where was this crime committed?
 
sorry, here is the article that got me started on all this...

http://www.local10.com/news/13909541/detail.html

posted on cnn. former satanist convicted of ritual sacrifice. yes, he is a murderer. what he did is indefensable. but pushing the satanic scare made me think of the weird other claims of lots of satanic cults killing lots of people, and this seemed untrue and kind of sensationalist.
 
I had a relative one time who was "reborn". She was an ardent admirer of the East Coast frauds (Falwell and Baker) and anything that wasn't approved by those two was "satanic". It's very similar to the McCarthy's red scares and, as you put it, the boogeyman. It's no small secret that fear is an excellent method for controling people.

The more rational view would be to regard people who kill for any imaginary friend to be deranged and incapable of making an informed decision.
 
pounce said:
former satanist convicted of ritual sacrifice.
Click to expand...
No, not convicted of satanic sacrifice. There is no such crime. The conviction was on a charge of murder.
Where have you seen claims of lots of satanic cults killing lots of people?

I would suggest that not only is it a myth that such killings are more than vanishingly rare, but also a myth that there is any pushing of a satanic scare.
 
kerikiwi said:
No, not convicted of satanic sacrifice. There is no such crime. The conviction was on a charge of murder.
Where have you seen claims of lots of satanic cults killing lots of people?

I would suggest that not only is it a myth that such killings are more than vanishingly rare, but also a myth that there is any pushing of a satanic scare.
Click to expand...


dude, i was quoting from the original news article to make my point. i understand the charge was murder. it goes to my original point that the media is presenting "satanic ritual murder" (again from the article) instead of just murder.

i will have to disagree that there isn't anyone continuing to push the idea that there is a satanic scare, and i'll use a news clip on cnn yesterday as my first evidence that at the very least the sensationalist journalists report on such things. i also think we will all find many fundamentalists continue to put out that message. i'd stopped believing in the devil so long ago that i've lost track of who might be actually scaring folks about satan and satanic cults other than when those things are mentioned in the major news outlets.

i think pedophiles is the current "big scare", but no matter how "debunked" i think satanic cults are they still come up. perhaps partially because of the role that religion has been taking in the states recently i suspect i'll continue to hear about god and satan more than i need to (as an atheist and skeptic)
 
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the sensationalist press were attempting to revive the Satanic Panic of the 80s/early 90s. This bizarre mass hysteria was closely linked with the recovered memory movement, and recently there has been an attempt to resurrect what one might have hoped was an utterly discredited pseudo-science.
 
It's interesting that the headline in the news article calls him a "former satanist". I can't figure out why. The body of the article seems to say he is (still) a self-proclaimed Satanist.

Is the newspaper afraid of offending Satanists? :confused:
 
The only case of "organized" occultic human sacrifice in modern times that I'm aware of is Constanzo's cult in Matamoros in the 80's.
 
I fail to see how the report is 'pushing a satanic scare'. It is a report on one case. Do you think it should not have been reported?
The claim of satanism was put forward by the prosecution and denied by the defence.It should have been the other way around: in order to establish a defence of insanity, the defence should have been 'pushing' it and the prosecution refuting it.

As for his being a 'former satanist' perhaps he has now got (the right sort of) religion. It seems to happen fairly often when people are convicted, but usually not before. After all, you might just be acquitted without godzelp.
 
It's perhaps unfortunate that Scientology attracts so much in the way of "Satanism in disguise" criticism. Sure Hubbard ran in the same circles as Crowley, and lifted some ideas for his own little power-trip money-making scheme, but Scientology has so much bad going for it without looking for the old satanism chestnut, I just think it's un-necessary.
 
I do not know much speffic, but I am certain there are occasional killings of someone or another in the name of satan. As for in a ritual with multiple people? It probably happens with a couple of people once in a while.

There are some really really messed up people in the world and some serial killers are likely to be warped enough to think satan is talking to them.

I work at an animal shelter a lot as a volunteer and there is some really tight looking out, especially around Halloween. It's the semi-official policy that no black cats are to be adopted out around Halloween and that everyone is extra cautious about people. If a couple of rather quiet late-teens dressed entirely in black and and with that goth-white powdered makeup look and a pentagram sewn into their clothes...

They probably would not get approved for any animal adoption.

It's something that's looked out for which is why everyone is interviewed a lot and is watched with how they treat the animals they look at.

Stuff has happened before. Not necessarily where I am, but it happens. Some people are just really really sick.
 
Some years ago, during the height of this nonsense, the Satanic Ritual Abuse fans were claiming that many thousands of individuals were being ritually murdered, and that young women were being impregnated so that their newborn infants could be sacrificed.
I was subjected to a training film produced by an ex-police officer who'd gone into business hawking such information. Our chief at the time fell for it, and bought some videotapes.
Nearly everything this dolt listed as signs of possible involvement with Satanic Cults were normal teenage behavior....
Even the FBI chimed in with an extensive report indicating no evidence of "Satanic" activity.
 
I heard a bunch of the satanic ritual abuse accusers are suing hypnotists who helped them 'recover' memories of abuse(i read that quite awhile ago, sorry no source). I have to wonder if anything really did happen though, it would be much harder to figure out if any of the claims of abuse were credible during the time that it was popular to claim sra because there were just so many of them. its pretty clear though that the vast majority of cases were completely false though. its a lot of hype, and some preachers and other christian leaders never quite got over it.
 
Yeah, the whole hyped thing about it being some sort of epidemic a few years back was entirely bull. No doubt there are a few groups of weirdos here and there who worship satan and sacraftice the occasional cat or squirle.

And there are probably a few cases of killers who are driven by something relating to a belief they are commanded by satan or something.

But the parts about getting women pregnant for the newborns to be sacraficed? Puh-lease! This was actually one of the defenses of the scott peterson trial. That his wife may have been kidnapped by a satanic group.
 
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