Isn't there a lot more in this vein in Christianist circles about yoga?
When did upside down crosses become off-limit to Christians? It must just be a Protestant thing.
1: There is. In some of the more rustic parishes, you hear sermons about it.
I hadn't heard about yoga but it does seem like a good way for demons to get inside you and make you contort yourself into silly positions.
I searched the comments and nobody mentioned the Cross of St. Peter (which is upside down). I'd leave one, but I found a notice that there are 2,000 comments awaiting moderation.
I have trouble telling the difference between an upside down cross and a rightside up one with a sagging crossbar.
When did upside down crosses become off-limit to Christians? It must just be a Protestant thing.
It's more a "believe that witches are devil worshipers" thing.
It think it's more of "getting your religious education from popular movies" thing.
Like the devil scene in Winnie the Pooh.
10: it does make one view horror films in a different light when you consider that a lot of people have been brought up to think of them as, more or less, literally true - in the same way that you might be alarmed by a film in which someone gets shot dead, because you know that guns are real and do kill people - rather than seeing horror films as a branch of the fantasy genre, with the demons and curses and ghosts and so on no more real than orcs or Rodents Of Unusual Size.
That reminds me. I saw a huge raccoon amble across the driveway this morning. I have to be more careful with the trash.
I guess raccoons aren't rodents. My apologies.
It makes me happy that the author chose to use so many illustrations.
Apparently, because of anime, Japan now has raccoons everywhere.
15: I almost expected them to be blurred out for safety reasons, in case people looked at them too closely and fell victim to the Christian equivalent of the Langford Basilisk.
I'm in sympathy with the general agreement that adults shouldn't use coloring books. But I always hated coloring books.
Once, when my mom was at the height of a manic period, she joined a conservative Catholic group at our church.* I found out later that they had encouraged her to throw out all her guided meditation CDs, yoga material, etc.
*They were genuinely good people, though. My confirmation sponsor and music director of the folk mass was one of them.
They have their own mediation guides.
At least these westerners don't trivialize eastern religious practices.
The church I grew up in had some members who were of the variety linked in the OP. There was some bullshit about the Procter and Gamble logo being satanic, too.
I heard that was deliberately spread by Amway people to hurt their less scammy competitor.
|| Our culture wars are different from your culture wars: gay activists are complaining that the British armed forces are planning to participate in the Pride parade. ">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/pride-parade-london-raf-red-arrows-flypast|>
Apparently, because of anime, Japan now has raccoons everywhere.
Tanuki, surely. Or I'm missing the joke.
Fear not. If you have inadvertently been invaded by a demonic presence (whether via carryover, backsliding, family, word curse, witchcraft curse, atholicism, false protestant churches, Mormonism, Amish, Christian Science, Advent-ism, JW's, Hindu, Islam, Buddhism, Masons, Shriner's, KKK, cults, adultery, fornication, escorts, group sex, divorce, bestiality, sexual abuse, homosexuality, pornography, palm readers, horoscopes, readings, channeling, talking to the dead, astrology, religious rituals, new age, christian new age, tarot cards, sexual intercourse [hetero or homosexual] with someone who was also infected with spirits, sin, iniquity, child abuse, disability, illness trends, wickedness trends, witchcraft or poverty curses passed down to you from your sinful family tree, or any generational sin or curses, going back 10 generations), you can find a handy guide to self-deliverance here!.
Mandalas are pretty. I saw some Tibetan monks making one once.
And then they're supposed to just throw them away after to demonstrate the futility of human effort right? Well yes, of course the effort will be futile if you throw it away. I really want to be vicious about Buddhists but don't know enough to do so with confidence.
A high school friend does yoga but calls it Praise Moves or something like that. I can't get too worked up about weird non-legislated beliefs.
31: This could be big bucks, no? A Christ-centered relaxing healthful exercise program that brings you closer to God, unlike those pagan yoga exercises that bring you closer to Satan?
I'd be willing to bet that's how some mega church guy thought it up.
Like how some religious guy thought up Calculus to get around all the pagan parts of algebra.
34: That's uncanny. It's like you read my mind!
I guess you are known for making things explicit.
I can't get too worked up about weird non-legislated beliefs.
Whereas I am totally furious and angrily emailing this lady and starting something big.
I wish you would stop doing that, Heebie. Or at least stop including your address in the auto-signature. The picketers are starting to annoy me.
It's just so funny. They're all het up at you.
I do love the idea that Mindfulness is the Devil's Work.
That sure explains Pokey's explosive rages! Quick, take away all his coloring books.
37: Angry emails are so last decade. These days it's all about the twitter mobs.
10, 12: The Slacktivist has mentioned many times* that almost everything modern Christians think they know about Hell is based on pop culture, most ultimately derived from Dante, but they believe it to be (almost) entirely Biblical.
*I think originally based on some book
31-33: Thinking along these lines, how about a Lindisfarne Gospel coloring book? Coloring in these pictures will bring you closer to Jesus!
[Y]ou can find a handy guide to self-deliverance here!
That's ... I ... Jesus Christ.
Why are these people such paranoid wusses? Don't all those "Christ's Gym" and "Jesus Didn't Tap Out" T-shirts imply a certain "I'm not going to squeal and clutch my apron whenever I see a dashboard Buddha" outlook?
[A] Christ-centered relaxing healthful exercise program that brings you closer to God, unlike those pagan yoga exercises that bring you closer to Satan?
In related news, if anyone wants one of the many books on lectio divina and other monastic practices that the Flip-Pater has Amazon'd my way, just let me know. I'll probably be finished with the first one in a year or two.
In conclusion, America's nondenominational and/or evangelical Protestant churches have succeeded with enviable speed in making a thriving business out of the well-worn trick of transforming a religion from what one is supposed to do into, for millions of people, what they buy and vote for.
42: Thought experiment: What would present-day American Christianity be like if, instead of The Exorcist, it adopted, or had adopted around the time of the Hal Lindsey books' publication, the Europeans' post-WWII austere cold-and-isolated-alienation-from-God view of Hell and damnation?
45: An easy answer is that organized Christianity would be as moribund in the US as it is now in Europe. Upon slightly more reflection and overgeneralizing errr, broadly, most forms of U.S. Christianity (with some flamboyant exceptions) really don't seem to dwell on Hell anymore - the seven circles etc don't seem all that central to things. Much U.S. Christianity seems more about one's relationship with or alienation from Jesus/God/whomever. The alienation is the "Hell" part - which implies that the bleak European influence has been at work. There's at least a flavor of "Hell is other people" even with all this colorful prognostication about the Rapture, end times, Revelations, ad infinitum. Sorry, I'm late for All Levels Vinyasa.
46: Would the prosperity gospel be stronger or weaker?
26: I don't understand how believing in all these demons - and angels for that matter - is consistent with claiming to be monotheistic. Is it just that these other immortal beings don't have enough rank to be considered as deities in their own right? How are they different from, say, wood sprites? Because I don't think you can be a monotheist and also believe in wood sprites.
The demons and angels are, like people, created beings.
Supernatural beings don't have to be gods: as long as you don't attribute genuine divinity to them there's no more trouble believing in demons and angels as a monotheist than there is believing in tigers and poisonous frogs. And some foolish evil people (we are so better than them it's sweet and delicious let's talk about it forever) worship those demons or whatever, sure, and others worship the sun or animals or something. It's all the same.
I don't think "created" is really the line for what a deity is. Athena was created out of Zeus' forehead, that doesn't make her less of a deity.
But those people weren't monotheists. The monotheistic definition of God (at least the Christian one) is a being that has always existed, not one created by another.
Supernatural beings don't have to be gods: as long as you don't attribute genuine divinity
Ok, but beyond being immortal and having ridiculous power, what is there to being divine? If you are functionally indistinguishable from a god, why aren't you one?
Oh, that's easy. The thing that makes theology make sense is... no hold on... I've got it over here somewhere. Brb.
While were at it, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? A couple dozen?
Depends: if they're circling forever in the divine ecstasy of viewing the Presence then fifteen. If it's the lindy hop then only nine. Also Pahaliah counts for two angels because he's fatter than the rest of them.
But in Christianity (and I think the other monotheistic religions), they aren't functionally indistinguishable from a god. That is, the difference between the power of an angel/demon and that of God is basically the same as the difference between a man and God.
(The answer to the next question is usually theodicy.)
Except that's a difference in degree, not in kind. If a being is capable of performing supernatural magic shit, just not nearly to the degree that the big guy can manage, from mans point of view, why isn't that also considered divine - if perhaps less impressively so?
Then, to follow in with what I think was the point of 50.1, are we gods to mice?
As long as humans and mice are playing by the same laws of physics: no.
Who is to say* that angles aren't playing by the same physical laws as we are but we just don't understand all the laws?
* You, I guess, and probably bunches of scientists, but we do things every day that for 99% of human history would have been considered supernatural.
I suppose that would make angels not actually divine then, just in possession of some really nice tech. But, if that were the case, you could say the same thing about God.
Except for the whole always existing and omnipotence thing.
God is the OS, angels have admin logins.
If its all the same physics, then omnipotence and existing forever are just tech we haven't figured out yet.
That they do.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go read Star Wars.
You know they made a movie out if it too.
To save you from reading the comments, my favourite one:
I gave a coloring book to my teenage granddaughter for Christmas and wish I had known about this then. Thank you for informing me and I will resist these drawings in the future. I'm not sure about how to get this book back from her, but I will be praying about it.
The writing is terrible but the special effects and score are great.
Not the original. We're reading the prequels to the sequels.
Do they explain where Luke is and why? Because I don't care about being spoiled.
Also, do they say who Rey's parents are?
Honestly, the planets should all get together and genocide the Skywalker clan. They're really not even close to the point where the good ones make up for the evil ones.
No word about Luke.
Rey's parents are a Mr. and Mrs. James and Dorthy Peterson of Elgin, Illinois.
While were at it, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? A couple dozen?
Between one and thirty vigintillion.
62: Who needs a Decalogue? I got there in three laws.
Marginally on topic, how the hell do you explain a 23% rise in atheism in three years? Me, I favour a methodological problem with the survey, but I'm open to other ideas. Also note that the total of everybody who believes in anything and isn't a Christian (Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Rastafarians, adherents of traditional religions...) is 7.7%. This is what being swamped by Muslims looks like, apparently.
80: It's not a rise in atheism per se, is it? Just a sea change in the number of people who would previously have identified themselves as their birth/cultural religion (mainly CofE), but for whom this has now become culturally toxic, primarily because of perceptions of sexism/homophobia on the one hand and woolly liberalism/migrant-loving on the other. I don't suppose that actual beliefs have changed much.
Marginally on topic, how the hell do you explain a 23% rise in atheism in three years?
The news that there will be no sequel to Pacific Rim does tend to destroy one's faith in the existence of a just and loving deity.
82 What? There were some recent announcements about it moving forward. That's too had. I still believe in kaiju though.
80: Could be relevant that they're comparing census data with a newer survey - question / methodology inconsistencies?
There was a census in Pacific Rim? That must have been one bad motherpollster.
It used statistical sampling: simple headcount was found to fail because too many of the kaiju had non-standard numbers of heads.
81 seems right to me, and when something is driven by a general perception of social acceptability a moderate shift for a while and then a big sudden massive change seems like a pretty common pattern.
We're seeing a similar thing in the US right now, though at a slower pace and starting from a much, much smaller percentage of the population (though by now "none" is still the second largest choice if you break down the Christian groups (roughly) by sect - after 'evangelical protestant').
Didn't Ireland just go through a similar cataclysm? I'd have to google for numbers, but dropped from 95% self-identified as Catholic to half that over the last decade or two's revelations about child abuse in the Church?
42.
Was he referring to the Left Behind series, which is one of his hobby-horses? That's more about the apocalypse, IIRC. (Let me take this opportunity to recommend "The History of Hell," by Alice K. Turner, which covers the territory wonderfully. I doubt it sold well enough to be the book he's talking about, more's the pity.)
The modern folk view of Hell seems to me to be based on Dante with a side order of Cotton Mather, rather than pop culture. It was a long time ago that Bosch painted his idea of Hell, and it was said (by some church father) that one of the pleasures of Heaven was being able to watch the damned being tormented. I agree that the folk view is not textually supported in the Bible, but there's a lot more to it than recent pop culture.
As suggested in earlier comments, even the hellfire and brimstone sects of yore seem to (from outside) be more about positive stuff and utterly minimizing the idea that anyone you might like could go to Hell. Mainline Protestants (not to mention Unitarians) barely mention it.
On the other hand, more people believe in the Devil than in the Christian God, according to surveys.
Well sure, have you seen how many movies that guy is in?
It'd be like not believing in Hugh Jackman or something.
I think one of the big factors over the past three years was gay marriage going through Parliament in 2013, in the teeth of opposition from the CofE bishops in the House of Lords. The church has put itself thoroughly on the wrong side of the single greatest shift in public morality of our generation, and that's now being reflected in the numbers of people who are happy to self-identify, even if they would only ever go to church for weddings and the occasional Christmas service. Of course it's not the only factor (see Nworb's forthcoming new book for a proper survey of what's gone wrong for the CofE since the 1980s), but it is an important one.
I thought I saw a regional US analysis that found that our rise in "nones" is most propelled by Catholics lapsing en masse in the Northeast, which, yes, almost certainly about the abuse.
93: After realizing they had taken the losing side in the civil rights movement, conservative churches in the US latched onto opposing abortion as their new thing. Which they managed to get quite a bit of mileage out of. I wonder if they'll successfully pull off a similar move once they realize that they've well and truly lost on gay marriage.
one of the pleasures of Heaven was being able to watch the damned being tormented.
Yes, it is.
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
I think one of the big factors over the past three years was gay marriage going through Parliament in 2013, in the teeth of opposition from the CofE bishops in the House of Lords.
That's a real achievement, losing the support of gay-haters over being in favor of gay rights, and also losing the support of gay-lovers over not being in favor of gay marriage. At least in the US we only have the former phenomenon.
96 only gets it sort of right. Luke 16:19-31 suggests that the inhabitants of Heaven and Hell are able to see each other and talk (shout?) to one another, but it doesn't suggest that the blessed regard watching the torments of the damned as a spectator sport.
There is no actual theological basis to this idea that True Christians wouldn't handle things that are sacred to other religions, right? I mean, this isn't Judaism.
98: no, but there was definitely one of the early fathers who thought that it would be among the pleasures of heaven. Origen? Tertullian? One of the really vicious ones, anyway. Probably Tertullian.
I think it was Aquinas.
Ume is right about the religion report. If anyone is seriously interested I can supply a pdf. It's simply an analysis of the British social attitudes survey so there's no methodological bump.
The other two non theological factors are Sunday shopping, which makes Sunday morning more fun for many people than going to church, and the loosening of the rules about where you could Mary which opened up a huge field of competition for a ceremony on which the church had had a relative monopoly
99: I think it grew out of the strong prohibition against idolatry in the stricter reformed churches, leading to the idea that objects that were the subject of non-Christian (i.e. idolatrous) worship could be demonic in themselves. In the sort of manifestation (ha) we're talking about it's a Pentecostal/Evangelical/Charismatic thing, and today I think stems from the fact that once you buy into the idea that spiritual warfare is real, you start actively looking for opportunities for demonic contamination everywhere. I've had a conversation with otherwise perfectly sensible Anglican friends who told me that demons jump off contaminated books as you read them and "stick to you like velcro," and knew a very pleasant Canadian Episcopal missionary in Japan who wouldn't even let his family walk through the grounds of a Shinto shrine in case they became polluted.
(BTW, if I've committed a major blog faux pas by by plugging the book in 93, many apologies, and please delete that bit.)
Book plugging for oneself or others is totally cool -- I have an Unfogged shelf at this point.
I for one didn't know that the book described in 93 was forthcoming and now it goes onto the buy and read inmediately list. If others don't know we have literally the best reporter in the world on COE issues as a commenter here.
97 is my impression. "We tried to warn you COE, signed liberal US Episcopalians." I'm no expert but the biggest problem ISTM is that the COE leaders got dazzled by statistics showing that like 30 gazillion Nigerians and Ugandans were Anglicans and so the thought was eh let's respect the views if insane bigots in Africa because our new business model having failed at home is that we can be the Church for the gazillion descendants of Africans in our former colonies. There were so many problems with this idea, including that, as commenter X has show, the statistics about Church membership/attendance were about as reliable as other Nigerian statistics. And also that if you are going to be the C of E and (thankfully and correctly) are going to be affirmatively anti-right-wing-bigot, you should probably not be in the business of doing things that people in E (correctly) perceive as bigoted and hateful.
100: Nietzsche quotes Tertullian to that effect in the Genealogy.
Related to the OP, my husband's ultra-Catholic aunts and uncle recently accused M of being a "satanist," apparently because he supports Bernie Sanders. This accusation was then extended to include me. I think this is pretty unfair, since I support Hillary.
He called theories of possible foul play "very serious" and the circumstances of Foster's death "very fishy."
"He had intimate knowledge of what was going on," Trump said, speaking of Foster's relationship with the Clintons at the time. "He knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide."
He added, "I don't bring [Foster's death] up because I don't know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don't do that because I don't think it's fair."
101,107
St. Thomas Aquinas is pretty much on board with the idea of the elect enjoying or otherwise being smug about the damned. This is in the "Summa Theologica," question 94. He gives some pretty reasonable objections to the idea, then knocks them down, as is his wont.
Isn't there a name for that concept? Something derogatory - the vile hypothesis or something?
I thought that it was all based on the delight that the saved and the angels have in the rightness of it all, including the damnation of the damned. Not a mean thing but simply praise of God.
That seems more likely. Question 94 was too long for to read in detail.
I've had a conversation with otherwise perfectly sensible Anglican friends who told me that demons jump off contaminated books as you read them and "stick to you like velcro,"
This is fantastic. I picture tiny little Pixar animated demons bouncing out of the pages of The Origin of Species or something with little squeaky cries of excitement.
112: it is pretty much inevitable. Given that you believe God is all-knowing and righteous, and he's put these people in Hell, you have to be happy with the idea, just as you have to be happy with the general awesomeness of the rest of creation. You can't have people in Heaven feeling angry at God and thinking he's done the wrong thing.
I've had a conversation with otherwise perfectly sensible Anglican friends who told me that demons jump off contaminated books as you read them and "stick to you like velcro,"
Where they spend the rest of your life sitting in a box on your shoulder, occasionally opening a tiny frictionless door in the middle to allow energetic particles to pass from one side to the other. That can get really annoying.
The French ones just sit there chuckling smugly to themselves over their ability to predict the future motion of every particle in the universe.
and the loosening of the rules about where you could Mary
In my day, the pubs had signs saying "No dogs or Mary".
CoE has actually been kind of down on Mary for some centuries, so I don't see why loosened rules would affect them anyway.
I've had a conversation with otherwise perfectly sensible Anglican friends who told me that demons jump off contaminated books as you read them and "stick to you like velcro,"
So demons are Body Thetans. Got it.
OT: I keep seeing reports that Ken Starr was or has not yet been fired from Baylor for covering up sexual assaults by football players*. Is this the final piece of irony the Clinton 1.0 Impeachment will produce?
* Football coach will not be fired because priorities.
...kind of down on Mary...
That squishy sound you hear is...me, stepping on that fruit.
I read this thread as "Mandles are sacred to certain religions [hippies?] and thus off limit to Christians".
I think the view in Aquinas is that angels (and fallen angels, aka demons) are pure platonic form, not instantiated in flesh. They don't have the infinite aspects of God. They are as god-like as a triangle is.
They are as god-like as a triangle is.
So, not as god-like as a circle, but more god-like than a square.
I've never been able to read Aquinas, but I'm very certain he was a Trinitarian.
Was 126 to 125? Are you arguing that since Aquinas was a Trinitarian, he would have believed that triangles were the most god-like of shapes?
Christian math textbook (PDF):
The rules we follow when we multiply keep track of place value, thereby allowing us to break multi-digit multiplication problems we do not have memorized into a series of smaller problems we do have memorized. A multiplication method will only work if it accurately describes the way God causes objects to multiply. If God were not faithfully holding all things together, reducing multiplication to a method would be impossible!
Circles are Jewish.
Of course. Characteristic Jewish headgear: small circular hat. Characteristic Jewish dance: the hora.
Speer was lucky Adolf never noticed how circular the Olympic Stadium is.
If Man is five, then the Devil is six and God is seven.