1: Posted by: Lou Antonelli - East Texas, USA | May 12, 2003 11:01 PM

Hey, we Christians don't bash you when someone who's mentally ill says the Devil made them do it, so is it fair to jump us when someone who's obviously deranged says they heard the voice of God?

Didn't think so. Let's be fair, huh???

2: Posted by: Feòrag | May 12, 2003 11:21 PM

Nah, you Texans just execute the mentally ill instead.

A thorough read-through of the Prattle will reveal that I have exactly the same attitude towards those who claim that the God made 'em do it, or the Devil, or Kali, or any other imaginary friend or enemy. They're insane and in need of care, not punishment, and especially not being killed.

3: Posted by: Kathryn Cramer | May 12, 2003 11:45 PM

I have more relatives in Texan ground than most actual Texans and I take no offense.

It seems to me much more likely that hearing too much about the Andrea Yates case made her do it than that Gods real or otherwise had a hand in it.

4: Posted by: Feòrag | May 13, 2003 12:32 AM

Sorry - I was getting annoyed at someone who seems to think I treat Christians any differently than anyone else, when reading the archives will indicate that I don't. Maybe I should've made it clear that I think the woman in this case should be in the care of doctors, not a sheriff. The Yates case is promising, in that they merely jailed a clearly mentally-ill person for a very long time, but Texas' human rights record regarding mentally-ill people who kill is not the best in the world.

Of course, the statement we Christians don't bash you when someone who's mentally ill says the Devil made them do it is what we refer to as utter bollocks in these parts - many stories in the Prattle are examples of Christians doing just that and claiming that the Devil really did make the individual do whatever it was because that's what the occult's all about. And, of course, much of my material is about that class of individual who will make something up completely as an example of what their particular bogey group will do.

5: Posted by: Lou Antonelli - East Texas, USA | May 15, 2003 1:13 AM

Sorry, I should have said MOST Christians don't bash pagans. And I am totally against the death penalty. But that eye for an eye stuff is from the Old Testament, and those folks were pagan. Jesus said turn the other cheek. The brutal use of the death penalty in Texas just goes to show how much of pagan cruelty remains in modern society. The pope is against the death penalty, and so am I; God gives life, and no man should take it. If a sick person takes a life, who are to emulate; the sick and evil person or God?

Ball's back in your court on this topic; it was the pagans that committed human sacrifice as part of their religious rites. Many still do; it's called abortion.

6: Posted by: Feòrag | May 16, 2003 1:08 PM

The people responsible for the Old Testament were not Pagan - they were Jews. I think you ought to know that Starhawk is not typical of that tradition.

The evidence for ancient human sacrifice is shaky at best - all the documentary evidence we have comes from people who wanted to 'prove' that the other folk were evil and needed to be wiped out, so can I have an army please? (Cæsar is the best known example of that). If this kind of source is to be believed, then we have to accept that it is totally true what was said about early Christians having orgies and sacrificing the resulting children by burning them, and using their ashes in their ritual.

In both cases, the archæolgical evidence is completely absent (and the sacrifices described by Cæsar would have left lots; the sites would cause a magnetometer to go off the scale!). What we do have evidence of is special burial of the likes of people who died in inauspicious circumstances - stillborn children and those who died very young; people executed as criminals; people who died of creepy diseases - that kind of stuff. In most ancient societies, these people were treated differently than others. In Iron Age Britian, the only human remains we have come from this kind of context - we don't know what the normal way of disposing of the dead was because it left no evidence we can find yet. The money's on excarnation.

We know, for sure, about pre-Columban South American religion, but that's exceptional and there are, to my knowledge, no neopagans who want to revive that particular religion, though there is a strong interest in the astronomy and calendrical lore of those people. As killing so many people isn't conducive to the continued existence of the society, *why* they went so batshit is a fascinating subject of great interest to archæologists, anthropologists and others who study people and societies.

Now, as you seem to be one of that alleged minority of Christians who DO bash Pagans, could you please give me the details of the Pagan religious rituals which surround the performance of an abortion? In return, I will argue that execution is essentially religious human sacrifice as it is always carried out in a ritualised manner with clerics present. In the United States, those clerics are usually from a Christian denomination. In countries with Islamic law, the religious elements are inseparable. Muslims are monotheists by the way, and worship the same God you do, so if they're Pagans, then you are.

7: Posted by: Lou Antonelli | May 16, 2003 6:00 PM

I totally agree that executions as per the death penalty are a quasi-religious ceremony. Isn't it amazing that people who worship a man who was executed as a condemned criminal support the death penalty? I mean, of all the people who should oppose the death penalty! That's why I applaud and commend the Pope's stand on the issue.
As far as ancient pagan tradition, you bring up some good points as far as the historical record, and the unreliability thereof, so I guess there's nothing conclusive which can be said. I commend your not ignoring the Aztec religious rituals. Sometimes people in other parts of the world wonder why natives of the New World so quickly and thoroughly converted to Catholicism. Well, if your religion involved tearing your beating heart out with an obsidian knife, I 'd say that's a no-brainer.
As far as abortion goes, I say it just reflects the general cheapening of people's attitude towards the value of life. To what extent that is a "pagan" attitude, I may not be qualified to address. I am also pro-environment; I believe in the right to life of all God's creations - babies, trees, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately in the U.S., my views are in the minority. Man should not war against nature, but respect it as God's creation. I guess my attitude towards pagans is colored by the fact that in the U.S., most environmentalists worship nature itself. That's why they're nicknamed tree-huggers. When I see a great oak tree, it leaves me with a sense of awe and respect at God's handiwork. But I don't worship the tree. But if I were protesting chopping down a forest, I would have no problem with making common cause with a pagan whose goal was the same as mine. The WHY any individual wants to save the environment is to me not as important as the goal of not having the tree converted to toothpicks.
Oh, as far as the Moslems are concerned, there's a pretty good record to indicate that their religion is a rationalization of an ancient Arabian peninsula cult of worhship for the Moon Godess - hence the crescent as a symbol. But that is way too much detail to get into here.

8: Posted by: Lou Antonelli - East Texas, USA | May 16, 2003 6:08 PM

Heck, I forgot to mention that yesterday I had a chance to visit with the managing editor of the newspaper in Tyler, which is only 40 miles away from where I live. While I had the chance, I asked him what the deal was with the mom who killed her children - that's the whole thing that started this discussion. He said his best supposition and information is that she was on meds for post-partum depression, and when she went off them, she had an especially bad reaction. Unfortunately, her deranged mental state may have been influenced by some religious babblings of a fringe Christian denomination. There are loonies on all sides, I guess.

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