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May 12th, 2014
10:05 AM ET
Update: Harvard's satanic 'black Mass' cancelledBy Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor Follow @BurkeCNN(CNN) - A Harvard club's plans to stage a satanic "black Mass" were abruptly cancelled Monday after drawing fire from the Archdiocese of Boston and condemnation from the president of the Ivy League school. Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the New York-based Satanic Temple, told the Boston Globe late Monday that the event was called off because no venue was available. “Everyone involved, outside of the Satanic Temple, got really scared,” Greaves told the newspaper. “And I don’t necessarily blame them, because I understand that they were getting a lot of vitriolic hate mail, and I don’t think they expected it." Greaves was not immediately available for further comment. A petition to stop the black Mass had garnered 60,000 signatures, according to Aurora Griffin, president of the Harvard Student Catholic Association. The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club had planned host the two-hour ceremony at the Queens Head pub in Memorial Hall in on the school's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is unclear why the building was no longer available. The history of black Masses is murky, but Catholics say the intent of such ceremonies is obvious: to mock their rituals and beliefs. The Masses often parody Catholic sacraments, such as Communion, and liturgical vestments. “Our purpose is not to denigrate any religion or faith, which would be repugnant to our educational purposes," the Harvard student group had said in a statement, "but instead to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices.” The cultural club said it also plans to host a Shinto tea ceremony, a Shaker exhibit and a presentation on Buddhist meditation. But Harvard University President Drew Faust called the plans to reenact a black Mass "abhorrent."
"It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory," Faust continued. The Harvard president said she would allow the black Mass to continue, citing the value of free expression on campus, but planned attend a prayer ceremony Monday night at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge. The Boston archdiocese scheduled the event as a protest to the black Mass. The Satanic Temple, which announced the Harvard club's plans last week, is also behind an effort to place a satanic statue next to a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of Oklahoma's state Capitol. The temple does not believe in a real devil but advocates for religious tolerance and pluralism. Greaves said black Masses began as a protest by people who felt oppressed by their local religious cultures. But some Catholics say the "black Mass" is more sacrilegious than satirical. Faust, a noted historian, said: "The 'black Mass' had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and is highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond." A Harvard Divinity School professor who is also a Catholic priest said none of cultural club's other events include the "blaspheming of Catholic sacramental practice." "What’s next?" asked the Rev. Francis X. Clooney, in an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson. "The endeavor 'to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices' might in another year lead to historical re-enactments of anti-Semitic or racist ceremonies familiar from Western history or parodies that trivialize Native American heritage or other revivals of cultural and religious insult." The Archdiocese of Boston, in a statement, had expressed "deep sadness and strong opposition" to the ceremony. Satanic worship "is contrary to charity and goodness, and it places participants dangerously close to destructive works of evil," spokesman Terrence Donilon said. Donilon had also called on Harvard to disassociate itself from the event. Robert Neugeboren, dean of students and alumni affairs at the Harvard Extension School, said Harvard did not endorse the student group's decision to stage the black Mass. The school provides evening and online continuing education courses. "While we support the ability of all our students to explore difficult issues, we also encourage them to do so in ways that are sensitive to others," he aid. Neugeboren said the Harvard Extension School worked with students to defuse some of the controversy surrounding the ceremony. For instance, he said, a consecrated host - known by Catholics as the Eucharist and believed to be the actual body and blood of Christ - would not be used, he said. Some Catholic bloggers had expressed outrage at the initial plans to use a consecrated host, calling it "sacrilegious to the highest extent." Clooney had said the university's reaction is insufficient, adding that Harvard's "spiritual sensitivity" is at stake. "Since there is no empirical way to show that one host is consecrated while another is not—consecrated hosts do not glow in the dark—there is also no way for anyone but the organizers to know whether a host used in a black mass has been consecrated or not," Clooney said. "Catholics at Harvard should not have to be worrying about where Monday’s host comes from." Satanists unveil design for OK statehouse statue As the archdiocese notes, Pope Francis warned Catholics about the devil recently. "Maybe some of you might say, ‘But, Father, how old-fashioned you are to speak about the devil in the 21st century!’ " the Pope said during a Mass in April. "But look out, because the devil is present! The devil is here … even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naive, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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why the surprise? This is typical cult behavior.
No matter how much religions try to fancy themselves up, they are ALL just cults.
And with a lot of these cult members in positions of high authority their bullying power is used a lot of times to put down any dissent.
Just like atheism!!! The more you fancy your pathetic atheism, the more you show it's a religion and a death-cult.
PLEASE....nobody reply to this worthless azzhole!
Daniel.....will you please look into banning finisher. He has nothing intelligent to add to any conversation. Thank you
Shut up Meg...
Finisher, are you capable of even TRYING to provide coherent thoughts? If you think atheism is a bad thing, you should explain why you think that rather than just stating it's a bad thing with zero supporting reason / logic / thought. It just makes you look like a complete idiot.
Seavik....he is a complete idiot.
SeaVik,
He's a pathetic attempt at trolling and apparently has a pathetic need for attention. If you find him to be an idiot, he's best ignored. Most people do.
What a shame... religion continues to propagate hate and stupidity... what a shock
christians love to censor any beliefs outside their own.
the church can't stand criticism of any kind.
That is how religion survives. Knowledge in itself is criticism of faith. Religion requires ignorance to perpetuate.
I don't know about that, lew. There are lots of scientists and academics who are believers in the Christian faith. You may disagree with them, but there is no good argument that they are ignorant or stupid.
Nc....I wouldn't say they were necessarily stupid, but anybody, including any world renowned scientists, that ignore the physical and scientific fossil evidence showing the age of the earth is well over 6000 years old can be classified as willfully ignorant.
Some people, no matter how well educated, just can't seem to muster the intestinal fortitude to break their religious programming.
Religious brainwashing can last a lifetime.
The RCC's official list of banned books, The "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", was only abolished in the 1960s.
For 400 years, Popes were censoring heretical writing from the likes of Locke, Milton, Galileo, Copernicus, Voltaire and Spinoza.
In the end, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith simply couldn't keep up with the volume of literature being published, so they threw in the towel.
Christianity, especially the RCC, are bullies and are more threatening to those who criticize them than Scientologists. At least they are no longer allowed to burn and kill those of us who dare to speak out against them and their bullying tactics.
I am not RC, but please explain what threats the RCC uses against those who don't agree with them?
claw
You missed the phrase "vitriolic hate mail" as one of the reasons that they had to cancel, shake your head.
Check out the Catholic League and Bill Donohue. There are many examples if you care to look.
Vitriolic hate mail from the likes of Salero21 and thefinisher1, a fine christian tradition since they can no longer burn heretics at the stake. The golden rule only applies to those that are in the club, it seems.
While perhaps not as wacko as the Scientologists or Mormons, the Catholics sure take the cake among Christians as nutjobs. Some of the childish, supernatural rubbish they believe would be considered too infantile for a Harry Potter novel.
Really? You think Catholic dogma is wackier than the Southern Baptists or the Latter Day Saints?
At least the RCC accepts evolution and the true age of the universe....
Actually, they are all nuts to me. They all seem to be based on stories that were selected by charlatans to either pacify the masses or make lots of money. They are all equally as harmful.
In North America at least, I think the average Catholic is much more rational than most other sects – especially the weird American ones like the Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, etc.
My whole family is catholic....they are still nuts, too. But you are right, I think a little less nuts. But, that is like saying that Moe was the smartest stooge.
I get that you think they are nuts, but how are they harmful?
Nc....they are harmful because they attempt to enact laws based on their silly faith....like preventing gays from having equal rights. That is scary to me.
@NClaw
I think Robert Heinlein sums it up nicely from both the individual and societal perspectives:
"A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion – any religion – is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both."
"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics."
Fair comment. Just when one thinks one has the wackiest, a wackier crowd of Christians comes along.......
It is sad that people worship Satan. People often misunderstand who the devil is and who has what kingdom. The devil's kingdom is on earth and is not in hell. Heaven, hell and the universe all belong completely to God. Satan owns nothing and only temporarily has authority on earth. Satan's only power is over men. As it says in the book of Revelation about those who go to hell. Revalation 14:10-11 "He will be tormented with burning sulfer in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever." Those who burn in hell burn in the presence of Jesus and the holy angels forever and ever. Satan's only kingdom is earth for even hell belongs to God.
The problem with Satan began when Satan could never accept that Jesus was his God even though he was made by Jesus. He would not accept that the Son was part of the Father even though the Father said he was. Satan considered himself to be more beautiful than Jesus and therefore superior to Jesus and that he should be worshipped instead of Jesus. He wanted to murder Jesus but he could not because he was part of the Father. Because he could not murder Jesus, Satan instead took it out on what Jesus and the Father loved the most. He took it out on the men that God had created in his own image for God loved men the most because they were created in his image. In Proverbs 8 it says Jesus delighted in mankind. We were the happiness of God. Satan lied to men and attempted to murder mankind through temptation. Man believed the lie and fell. We were apparently condemned but Jesus offered his life for the lives of men for God loved men more than his own life. The Father always knew the Son would do this for the Father is beyond time. Not only would this happen and men would be saved but the Son would be their God again. First, though, God for all fairness had to find a man who was willing to give up their only son for him. God found that man in Abraham. Because of Abraham’s love and willingness to sacrifice his only son, the Father was willing to send his Son to take Isaac’s place. Jesus gave his life for the lives of men and because it was the Father’s will he rose again so that we could live through him, thus defeating the Devil for those who believe in him. You have to put Christ into the Old Testament story too because the New Testament and the Old Testament says he was there. "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, He was with God in the beginning." Satan's fate is sealed to be tormented in hell forever.
it's funny the way you talk about your mythological boogieman as if were actually real
Funny that anyone believes in those stories and fail to see that Satan isn't mentioned once in Gullibles Travels (thanks Doris, it is the perfect description of the bible). 1st century thinking like the OP's is what holds society back.
Satan is mentioned in the Bible in a thoroughly disgusting story about how totally cold and heartless God can be.
(Job 1:8-19) To prove to Satan how loyal Job was to him, God told Satan to do whatever he wanted to anything that belonged to Job. God watched while: 3,000 camels and 500 oxen and 500 donkeys were stolen; 7,000 sheep were burned to death; all but one of Job’s many servants were killed and his 7 sons and 3 daughters were crushed to death
All of that so God could win a bet. One of the lowest points in the Bible. Barbaric. Horrendous.
Observer....you're correct. I think this story is telling on so many levels. Why would god need to prove anything to satan? And for an all powerful being, couldn't he have just vaporized satan? This whole myth is so full of holes it isn't even funny.
What is amazing is that some Christians are actually proud of this story rather than face the truth that God couldn't look much worse than this.
Satan is a much more interesting fictional character than God. Paradise Lost > Paradise Found
of course neither Satan nor God are real and shouldn't be taken seriously.
John 3:19-21 – This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
Quoting the bible is like an 8 year old stabbing at you with their pretend Star Wars light saber............. cute and ineffective.
I don't really understand why these bible thumpers continue to throw out passages from their holy grail every time they get backed into a corner. We already think their book is a fantasy tale. They really don't need to expound on it.
lewcypher
Phileoidiotism at its finest.
Bible Verse Blah Blah,
"Blah blah bliggity blah blah. Blah blah blah, bligity bligity blah. Blah blah blah."
See I am right! How can anyone argue with that?
LET's Religiosity Law #4 – If you habitually spout off verses from your "holy" book to make whatever inane point you're trying to make, with total disregard to the recipients' beliefs or disbeliefs, and not once does it occur to you to question whether your book is accurate in the first place, then you are intellectually destitute.
Theo Phileo
And I suppose that people like you get to decide what lies in the "Light" and what lies in the "Darkness"? Personally, I see all the negative reaction to Michael Sam's kissing his partner as part of the Darkness that still stains humanity, but you might disagree, right?
If you don't believe, why does it bother you so much? I don't believe in the Horoscopes, but I don't spend any time criticizing those who do. How come no tolerance?
Because horoscope believers are not trying to open govt meetings with a horoscope reading.
That was excellently written. Those who are mocking you have no choice, as they are still enslaved.
normwnonn
"Because of Abraham’s love and willingness to sacrifice his only son"
So, that would mean that Abraham believed that God would accept child sacrifice, like most of the other gods worshipped in the area? All this proves is that Abraham had the exact same faith in God that these "evil" pagans had in theirs, right?
Once again, a Catholic over-reaction, arising from their misplaced faith in rituals and appearances, and fueled by their failure to see that such foolishness like a black mass is less dangerous against them than their own doctrines and torn gospel (and other things within their control). Satan doesn't care about a silly black mass; most of his work is not so obvious. Satan's goal is to prevent as many people as he can from enjoying eternal unity with our Creator. For Satan, man is an easy mark, so eager to believe in self over Almighty God, so deception is simple and needs little more than a gentle tap and wink, pointing to an open door toward an alternative to the truth of man's hopelessness and God's sovereignty, judgment, and grace. Satan is the father of lies, so Satan prefers to hide behind disguises, because he knows if people saw his doomed true nature of being eternally enslaved by death, they would be repelled. Instead, most of Satan's desires and goals are carried out by those who don't even know they are his children, bound in the same chains of pride and sin.
One set of fairy tales for another set...not much difference between their beliefs and your beliefs-both are based on fallacies and both are foolish. Stop bashing Catholics, they worship the same bible you do and neither of you can figure out what is the correct interpretation of it.
MadeFromDirt
And I suppose that Satan does care about evolution being taught in classrooms and Michael Sam kissing his partner?
"I don’t necessarily blame them, because I understand that they were getting a lot of vitriolic hate mail"
Yup, "vitriolic hate mail" from the supposed peace loving Christians. I'm sure they were all non-violent threats that barely bordered on criminal, right?
But we still can still mock RCC and Christianity's rituals right now, right here.
As noted previously in the comments about Christian humor movies:
An illiterate, trouble- making magic man from Nazareth is summarily crucified (the Good Friday fiascos), descends into hell or was it limbo, rises again in three days (the Easter Sunrisers and once a year Easter "bunnies" going to Mass), travels about the country side for forty days visiting old friends and then ascends to some Disney-like wonder-world called heaven (and Ascending we shall go). And god created Frebrez to make it so.
A few centuries later he brings (Assuming we shall go) along his mother after she lay a-mouldering in the grave for all those centuries. Poor Joseph still gets no respect but Frebrez gets another marketing boost.
Then there is all that funny, consuming magic of taking cheap wine and stale bread and turning them into blood and flesh. Yummy in hilarity indeed!!! Maybe YUM Brands should buy the licensing rights?
Of course, Christianity is not alone in the world of humor. The Taoists believe that Lao-tzu was immaculately conceived by a shooting star; carried in his mother's womb for eighty-two years; and born a full grown wise old man.
And then there was Buddha who was walking, talking, teaching and preaching when he exited the womb.
SNL really needs to pick up on the hilarious aspects of all religions.
Yep the RCC and it's followers get mad when their symbolic ritual cannibalism is mocked....
but when children are abused se.xually and otherwise, the perpetrators are hidden and defended. Why anyone has respect for this organization defies reason and common sense.
Why oh why do christians keep saying "jesus said this" or "jesus said that" when we have absolutely NO idea of anything your book character may or may not have said. In a time when stories were passed on verbally and people had no idea of how the world worked and so wanted their "god" to be bigger and better than the next man's god, the stories just got better and bigger and more far fetched. You couldn't trust a story written down a month after the supposed happening, much less something written down 50 years, 75 years, 100 years later by someone who wasn't even there when it was supposedly said!!!
It's all just so stupendously, mind numbingly asinine, I have trouble even knowing where to begin pointing out the myriad flaws in this belief. So christians, how do you justify saying these are jesus' words when you plainly know that they are not? Is it just a habit? Is it a little white lie every time for the 'greater good'? Cognitive dissonance? Wishful thinking? Denial?
Rigorous historic testing by some of the elite in NT scholarship has shown only about 30% of the gospels is actually true. Will the RCC and Christianity in general admit to that? Never, since events like the resurrection and ascension are in the 70% that are historically nil. Added details previously given.
Riiiight... that's why atheist intellectuals have been utterly defeated when trying to debate Dr. William Lane Kraig. Richard Dawkins even ran away, to the shame of atheists and the laughter and scorn of theists everywhere.
Acra...reference, please. Let me guess...you probably thought Ken Ham won his debate against Bill Nye, too. And sorry, facts are facts. The Bible Belt contains 8 of the top 10 most uneducated states in the union. And, there is absolutely no evidential proof in the existence of god, or we would all be believers.
"Dr" William Lane Kraig? LOL, ok sure. If you choose Kraig as your evangelical spokesman, then you declare yourself a moron.. and you are fair game for ridicule.
It is William Lane Craig so one wonders how much of the debate you really listened to.
acrabahyiouspe, when did the debate between Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig take place? Are you claiming victory for Craig because Dawkins wouldn't debate him in 2011? If so, it's very disingenous for you to post a claim here that "Richard Dawkins even ran away, to the shame of atheists and the laughter and scorn of theists everywhere." Craig challenged Dawkins to a debate at Oxford then and said he would put an empty chair on stage if he didn't debate him. Dawkins response was "This Christian 'philosopher' is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him." The genocide reference was in regards to William Lane Craig's well-known defense of the biblical god's exhortation to his followers to commit genocide in Deuteronomy 20. Craig says one should feel no pity for the men, women, and children slaughtered by the Israeites, but, instead feel sorrow for how awful it must have been for those Israelite soldiers to have to break into houses and kill the women and children therein. But when your god commands you to do so, well you have to do what the god wants, right? Craig provides a clear example of the evils of religion, which allows believers to rationalize any behavior, no matter how abhorrent, by claiming that's what their god wants them to do. As the Christian philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote in Pensées, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
For others unfamiliar with the 2011 incident, Dawkins position can be found in "Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig" at theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig
It appears that this was canceled.
http://time.com/96785/black-mass-harvard-campus-cancelled/?hpt=hp_t2
Score one for religious suppression.
It is sad that people actually worship Satan when he is the cause of all man's problems. People often misunderstand who the devil is and who has what kingdom. The devil's kingdom is on earth and is not in hell. Heaven, hell and the universe all belong completely to God. Satan owns nothing and only temporarily has authority on earth. Satan's only power is over men. As it says in the book of Revelation about those who go to hell. Revalation 14:10-11 "He will be tormented with burning sulfer in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever." Those who burn in hell burn in the presence of Jesus and the holy angels forever and ever. Satan's only kingdom is earth for even hell belongs to God.
The problem with Satan began when Satan could never accept that Jesus was his God even though he was made by Jesus. He would not accept that the Son was part of the Father even though the Father said he was. Satan considered himself to be more beautiful than Jesus and therefore superior to Jesus and that he should be worshipped instead of Jesus. He wanted to murder Jesus but he could not because he was part of the Father. Because he could not murder Jesus, Satan instead took it out on what Jesus and the Father loved the most. He took it out on the men that God had created in his own image for God loved men the most because they were created in his image. In Proverbs 8 it says Jesus delighted in mankind. We were the happiness of God. Satan lied to men and attempted to murder mankind through temptation. Man believed the lie and fell. We were apparently condemned but Jesus offered his life for the lives of men for God loved men more than his own life. The Father always knew the Son would do this for the Father is beyond time. Not only would this happen and men would be saved but the Son would be their God again. First, though, God for all fairness had to find a man who was willing to give up their only son for him. God found that man in Abraham. Because of Abraham’s love and willingness to sacrifice his only son, the Father was willing to send his Son to take Isaac’s place. Jesus gave his life for the lives of men and because it was the Father’s will he rose again so that we could live through him, thus defeating the Devil for those who believe in him.
So go ahead and have your black mass and kiss the feet of the one who wants your head on a platter. Satan is destined to burn and be tormented forever in hell. Worship him and you too can be burned forever and ever.
Humans are the cause of human evil. It's sad that people like you don't or won't understand this, because as long as you blame something else, you never accept your own culpability and nothing will change. Grow up. Take responsibility for your actions and stop making excuses.
The problem with Satan began when humans invented the idea. Read Dr. Elaine Pagels (Princeton) "The Origiins of Satan". No educated adult in 2014 buys into invisible evil angels.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqjS5528KdU&w=640&h=360]
Now that's a really grim fairy tail (with apologies to the Brothers Grimm). Hopefully the poster is not an adult. No adult with any intelligence and even rudimentary education would actually believe such nonsense.
Most people, believers or not, are not highly educated. Of those who are highly educated, a majority, at least in this country, do believe in God.
Nc....completely disagree. Studies have shown that the more educated a person is, the less they believe in any religion. The Bible Belt contains the most ignorant states in the union according to studies.
To our believers here, I pose a question and it's logical follow-up:
Does God have power over Satan or not?
If no, you have just made an argument for a Church of Satan.
If yes, then why doesn't God just close up Satan's shop?
Or does Satan exist at God's pleasure, so God can punish (via his proxy Satan) those, whom he claims to love so much, but do not toe his line?
GOPer....I'm not a believer, but I think I can answer that. Neither one is real!
Doh! (That is my position as well.)
People who don't want their beliefs laughed at shouldn't believe such funny things.
I am always suspect of someone who calls ones self smart. The immediate response that conjures is the opposite. Let you words and actions prove your intelligence not some self serving made up name.
Like almost all of the symbols and rituals of Christianity, the Christian practice of theophagy, i.e., "eating of the god", has Pagan antecedents. The Christian version of the practice is discussed in "A Short History of Christian Theophagy" by Preserved Smith, PhD., an American historian of the Protestant Reformation who taught at Cornell University as a member of the Department of History from 1923 to 1941. The book was published in 1922 and, since it is long out of copyright, can be read online or downloaded in a variety of electronic formats from the Internet Archive at archive.org/details/shorthistoryofc00smit
* begin quote
On December 27, 1915, I read, by request, before the American Society of Church History, at its annual meeting in New York, a paper on "The Evolution of Luther's Doctrine of the Eucharist." In that paper originated the present study; for, with the understanding of the sacramentarian controversies of the Reformation, came the clear perception that the dogma of the sacrifice of the mass, repudiated by nearly all the Reformers, and the dogma of the Real Presence, repudiated by some of them, were in reality far more ancient than medieval scholasticism; that they were, in fact, the teachings of the primitive church, and that, pushing our inquiry ever further back, they had been derived by her from a pre-Christian, and from a very remote, antiquity. The idea of the god sacrificed to himself, that his flesh might be eaten by worshippers thus assured of partaking of his divinity, arose at the dawn of religion, was revived by the mystic cults of the Greeks, and from them was borrowed by Paul and implanted, along with the myth of the dying and rising Savior God, deep in the soil of the early church. Though foreign to Jesus, whose beautiful, ethical, and almost purely Jewish thought shines on us in its genuine form only in the docu_ment known to scholars as Q — the source of the sayings reported by Matthew and Luke but not found in the other gospels — these doctrines appealed so strongly to the mentality of the early Gentile Christians, that they were rapidly adopted and became fixed in the ritual and creed of the church.
...
Those who have attended the celebration of a mass have witnessed the most ancient survival from a hoary antiquity. There, in the often beautiful church, in gorgeous vestments, with incense and chanted liturgy, the priest sacrifices a God to himself and distributes his flesh to be eaten by his worshippers. The Divine Son is offered to the Father as "a pure victim, a spotless victim, a holy victim," ' and his holy body and blood become the food of the faithful. The teaching of the church is explicit on this point. The body eaten is the same as that once born of a virgin and now seated at the right hand of the Father; the sacrifice of the mass is one and the same as that of the cross, and is so grateful and acceptable to God that it is a suitable return for all his benefits, will expiate sin, and turn the wrath of the offended Deity "from the severity of a just vengeance to the exercise of benignant clemency."
All this goes back to the time when man was just emerging from the animal; it is the most striking of the many instances of the conservatism of religion. ...
* end quote
Pagan antecedents, such as in the celebrations of the ancient Greeks, to the Christian practice of theophagy are discussed in the Wikipedia article on theophagy for those interested in its practice in other religions.
The govt just gave Christians the right to force me to listen to their prayers at govt meetings...
and they're upset at a Satanic mass at a private university?
Go screw yourself
AMEN!
If you attend a city/town meeting, chances are you will hear lots of things you disagree with, religious and otherwise. There is no right not to have speech one disagrees with silenced.
nclaw441,
There is a big difference between free comments during a meeting and a SCHEDULED religious activity.
Nc...,except that this country was formed with the idea of separation of church and state.
There is when an elected official shows preference to one religious view over those of others. That's kind of the point of separation of church and state.
How on earth could you mock the ritual of symbolically eating of flesh and drinking of blood Catholics reenact every Sunday?
Here's a problem with the Satanists who are looking to be placed on equal footing with Christians: their "religion" has no holy book or historically verifiable doctrine or rituals. It's made up in the here and now for one reason: to cause dissension and strife among others. And for that base attempt that fools no one, they should be prohibited from doing so.
smartlawyerloquitor,
The bible is loaded with discriminations and the beating of helpless people.
What was your point, if any?
observer
Loaded? really! 7 verses out of 31,000 verses is quite a load...........a load of bs on your part. There are no discriminations as ALL have fallen short not anyone or any group in particular
believerfred,
Do you ever read what you wrote?
Even you admitted God DISCRIMINATED against the HANDICAPPED.
Please pay attention.
believerfred
Speaking of "a load of bs on your part.", where did you ever FANTASIZE that only 7 verses show discrimination?
Cut out the "load of bs on your part".
only 7 were towards beating others as allowed there are many that give historic accounts of all sorts of beatings because that is what uncivilized people do.
believerfred,
I said "The bible is loaded with discriminations and the beating of helpless people"
I didn't say the Bible is loaded with discriminations and loaded with the beating of helpless people.
Learn to READ. But it is good that you recognized SEVEN cases of the Bible supporting the BEATING OF HELPLESS PEOPLE.
I think the funny part is smartlawyer says "Satanist"... "religion" has no holy book" when the fact is their origin is from the same holy book as Christians, that is the first known usage of the name "satan". So his entire point just goes to prove how dumb smartlawyer is.
So cooking up the Christian doctrine by Conciliar votes by old men in dresses somehow gives the Christian cult more validity ? Hahaha. Christians cannot "verify" that Jesus ever lived. The Black Mass is no more ridiculous than the cannibalism practiced in Catholic Churches every day. Drew is just afraid some donors will get mad.
So being founded in late Bronze Age and Greco-Roman Jewish mythology does it for you, does it ?
Give it a few thousand years. After all, the bible started out as made up stuff.
"It's made up in the here and now for one reason: to cause dissension and strife among others."
Ain't Freedom a b!tch!!??
"smartlaywer" is an oxymoron if it refers to you
"their "religion" has no holy book or historically verifiable doctrine or rituals."
So what? Is that the criteria before a religion can be considered "real"?
smartlawyerloquitor, you wrote "Here's a problem with the Satanists who are looking to be placed on equal footing with Christians: their "religion" has no holy book or historically verifiable doctrine or rituals. It's made up in the here and now for one reason: to cause dissension and strife among others. And for that base attempt that fools no one, they should be prohibited from doing so."
There are different sects of Satanism with diverse and sometimes conflicting views on particular theological matters, just as there are many versions of Christianity with diverse and conflicting views on theological matters. There is Luciferianism. There is LaVeyan Satanism. They have The Satanic Bible, which was published by Anton LaVey in 1969, though it isn't accorded the same status as Christians accord to their sacred text. It is composed of four books: The Book of Satan, The Book of Lucifer, The Book of Belial, and The Book of Leviathan. There was Ophite Cultus Satanas, which was founded in 1948, though I don't know if there are any members of the group today.
Many members of the Decadent movement, a late 19th-century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe, which flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States, identified themselves as Satanists or created Satanist artwork or literature. E.g., the French poet Charles Baudelaire published "Les Litanies de Satan" in 1857. Baudeliare empathized with Satan, who has also experienced injustice.
In 1865, the Italian poet, Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci, who was the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, published his poem Inno a Satana ("Hymn to Satan"), praising Satan as the god of reason.
Luciferianism may go back many centuries. The Gesta Treverorum (Deeds of the Treveri), a collection of histories, legends, wars, records of the Archbishops of Trier, writings of the Popes, and other records that were collected by the monks of the St. Matthias Abbey in Trier, goes back to the 12th century. The Gesta Treverorum notes that in 1231 the Church persecuted Luciferians in Germany in the Archdiocese of Trier and also in Mainz and Cologne, burning people at the stake. According to a papal letter from Gregory IX, Vox in Rama, dated from July 13, 1233, one of the claims made by the Luciferians was that Lucifer had been cast out of Heaven unjustly.
Satanism is an outgrowth of Christianity, just as Christianity was derived from Judaism, though Christians turned the Jewish god into a triune god. Christianity borrowed most of its material from Judaism, which borrowed much of the mythology of Genesis from earlier Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, but Christianity also incorporated elements from Greek mythology as well. Christian rituals, such as theophagy, the "eating of the god", i.e., the communion rite in Christian ritual, borrow from older Pagan rituals.
In regards to your comment about their religious beliefs causing dissension and strife, they certainly don't match Christianity in that regard. There is a long history of Christians declaring that the beliefs of others, often other Christians, are upsetting, so those others must be silenced. In the early years of Christianity's formation and development, there was a great deal of dissension and strife among the competing versions of Christianity. Force was often used to compel acceptance of a particular version of Christianity by others and bloodshed was often the result of the competi_tion for followers among the competing groups. Priscillian, bishop of Ávila, was the first Christian to be executed by other Christians for heresy. He was executed in 385 CE along with several of his followers. Executions for heresy continued for many centuries thereafter. The last known heretic executed by sentence of the Roman Catholic Church was Spanish schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll in 1826.
Christianity has a long history of Christians killing other Christians for differences of opinion on theological matters. E.g., in the 15th century the Catholic Church launched an attack against the Waldensians, aka the Vaudois, a Christian movement that started in the late 12th century, with Pope Innocent VIII issuing a bull for the extermination of the Vaudois in 1487. Of course, when reformers split from the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation, that led to bloody conflicts over subsequent centuries between Catholics and Protestants, e.g, the French Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598. Christianity has a bloody heritage of suppression of competing religions, but also of internecine conflicts between various Christian groups.
I guess Catholics believe in freedom of religion only when it applies to their own religion.
Catholics should never condemned or say anything negative about other religions.
Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black.