Conference thebay::joyoflex

See note 999.

    re. .0
    
    	Roses are red
    	Pumpkins are orange
    	Sugar is sweet
        Haloween is a pagan festival
    
    Who said it had to rhyme?  :*)
    
    Jon

    Re.2
    >>>Haloween is a pagan festival
    
    	Shouldn't that more accurately read:
    
    Haloween is a Satanic festival
    
                         ?Malcolm.

    Malcolm,
    
    No.
    
    							Ann B.

    
    	We Christians are taught that it is supposedly to celebrate Satan's
    birthday, though.  Are you saying that is wrong Ann?
    
    	Anyway, I thought that all pagan festivals had satanic origins -
    even Christmas was a pagan festival which the early Christians
    appropriated to try and "keep in with things at the time."  Smacks of
    compromise to me!  Putting the world into the Church.
    
    				Malcolm.

    Halloween is the eve of All Hallows Day, also known as All Saints Day. 
    So it's a Christian Festival.

    
    You might want to read John Covert's treatise on Halloween 
    in <<{{ shudder }}>> SOAPBOX. 
    
    Catholic/Christian in origin it is not. 
    jc

    
    re: .5
    
    Malcolm,
    
    I've never heard that Halloween was a celebration of Satan's birthday.
    How is that possible? Was Satan ever alleged to have been incarnated?
    
    JP

    Re .5
    
    > We Christians are taught...
    
    *We* Christians are not taught that.
    
    > all pagan festivals had satanic origins
    
    Pagans are people who believe in multiple gods, goddesses, or both. 
    Most pagan religions (those of Greece and Rome, for example) are more
    ancient than the concept of Satan, which is Jewish in origin.  Paganism
    has nothing to do with Satanism except in the mind of someone who has
    been taught lies.
    
    FWIW, "Satan" is a Hebrew word meaning "adversary," and many of its
    appearances in the Bible may well simply be references to a generic
    evil being or spirit, not to a specific one named Satan.
    
    -dick

    If you're interested, in turris::wommannotes-v5 there is a topic
    called Religion and Spirituality which highlights (and lowlights)
    perceptions and realities about Paganism, especially how it is
    viewed (and not viewed) by certain christians. 
    And Paganism is most definitely *not* Satanism.  And being raised
    strictly Roman Catholic, I was *never* taught to equate the two.
    
    --Angela
    

    Pagan is a city in Myanmar (Burma) where, along with the rest of the
    middle-eastern and eastern world, historically people were extremely
    religious and believed in many many gods.  Eventually a few groups
    of people decided that their own god(s) were also everyone else's
    god(s), so that there was only one god, or three thirds of one god,
    or whatever -- those ideas developed long after what we call paganism.
    
    Obviously there have always been adversaries as well, but I think that
    the idea of a single adversary was an invention of Christianity, and
    not even of early Christianity.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    Nice one, Norman, but really, you should put that in the Etymological
    Fictionary note, where it belongs.
    
    Just to avoid confusing the poor seekers for knowledge, the word
    "pagan" comes from the latin P�G�NVS, meaning a rustic villager.  The
    old polytheistic religion of Rome lived on in the villages and
    backwaters of Italy after Christianity came, hence the term.  I believe
    its first known recorded use is in the writings of Tertullian.

    To go along with the source of "pagan", "heathen" meant those who
    lived on the heath; e.g., "a rustic villager".
    
    							Ann B.

    RE last several:
    
    	Satan was not incarnated, he is a created being, like all the
    other angels and archangels, mankind and all creation.
    
    	He was the Archangel Lucifer and (I'm told) "in charge of
    co-ordinating the Worship of the living God.  I can't find that bit in
    my Bible though.
    
    	Lucifer gained pride and wanted the worship of God for himself and
    consequently "fell from Heaven," it says in my Bible.  Since which time
    he has been know as Satan or the Devil.  Also he has set the 1/3rd of
    the Angels he took with him (who became demons) as the various gods
    worshipped by ALL those who do not worship the one and only living God.
    
    	Hence, in that context, pagans do not worship the living God, so,
    because we all voluntarily or unknowingly worship something ....
    
    				Malcolm.

    Re .14
    
    This is really a discussion for one of the religious conferences or
    (horror) SOAPBOX, but we're here, so cope.  :-)
    
    There is precisely ONE reference to "Lucifer" in the KJV Bible; it's in
    Isaiah 14:12, and the word does not appear in most modern translations. 
    (The NIV, for example, uses "morning star," and the RSV uses "Day
    Star".)
    
    The name Lucifer is not of Hebrew etymology; it is in fact an English
    name derived ultimately from the ordinary Latin words lux/lucis and
    fero/ferre, and it means a bringer or carrier of light.  (Note that
    Latin has no articles, so the lack of an article does not indicate
    specificity or a name, as it would in English.)
    
    The original Hebrew word that "Lucifer" represents is heylel, meaning
    literally light-bearer.  The individual so designated in Isaiah is
    nowhere said to be an angel or any other supernatural kind of being;
    the prophecy could be taken to apply to anyone who exalts himself or
    herself before God.  Jesus deals with this attitude with the parable of
    the workers in the vineyard.
    
    There are exactly 50 instances of the name Satan in the Protestant
    canon of the KJV.  None of these instances is a description of who
    Satan was or where he came from.  Only in the book of Job is Satan
    presented as a living, "breathing" being; everywhere else Satan can be
    interpreted simply as generic evil or the sinful nature of humankind.
    
    -dick

    
    	OK, OK.
    
    	I'll close my part of the Rathole by simply saying -
    So much head knowledge with seemingly very little heart knowledge of
    Jesus, the Son of God, Saviour of all who believe in Him.
    
    				Malcolm.

    re. all pertaining to Christian teachings....
    
    I too am a practising Christian (Church of England) and certainly was
    never taught that paganism = satanism.  In fact, the CofE having a
    fairly hybrid theology, I was not _taught_ that Satan certainly exists
    as a single being.  But that's a whole other rathole....
    
    I'm almost sorry I started this whole thing off with .1  :-(
    
    Jon

    Re .16
    
    Ah, Malcolm, you are apparently dismissing the possibility that it was
    heart knowledge of Jesus, on a deeply personal level, that led me to
    acquire much of my head knowledge.
    
    Head knowledge is an adjunct to heart knowledge - for one thing, it
    helps to keep me following the REAL Lord instead of haring off on a
    wild chase of things that are not part of the Plan.  I don't waste time
    sorting out whether "paganism == satanism" is part of my faith - I know
    it's not, because I've learned the facts of the matter instead of
    buying wholesale all the unScriptural things that others may believe.
    
    -dick

    What's with this "head knowledge" and "heart knowledge" terminolgy
    specifically wrt Christianity?
    
    Obviously I understand the direct meaning, but it is very interesting
    that I was harangued just last weekend by a very sincere woman telling
    me that I was missing the point (of our discussion of Christian
    issues) by "18 inches".
    
    "Pardon me?"  I asked.
    
    "18 inches", she repeated, "the distance between your head and your
    heart".  
    
    Now seeing this terminology repeated in JOYOFLEX, I am interested to
    know the origin of this expression.
    
    /Chris.

    G'day,
    
    
    18" is about one cubit, is it not....
    
    djw

    Heart knowledge is what makes a dog love whoever's feeding him that
    month.  Pit bulls love their masters even if they're drug dealers.
    Head knowledge isn't such a bad thing.
    
    Or maybe it is.  Without head knowledge, we wouldn't have computers
    or a writing system with which to discuss knowledge, and no one would
    have had the ability to organize the Spanish Inquisition.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    Could we put paid to this incipient religious war before it starts,
    please?  This discussion is material for SOAPBOX or any of several
    religious fora, but it is out of place here, and I fear that it will
    bruise feelings inappropriately if continued.
    
    In pursuit of which redirection, I offer this:
    
    For a concise and complete elucidation of the difference between head
    knowledge and heart knowledge wrt Christianity, refer to John 20:24-29.

Thanks Dick - that is what I was looking for - a literary
reference.

/Chris.

    .one_of_Dick's
    
    `Light-bearer' eh? Some dictionaries still show LSD to be an ancient
    gild or work group of some kind - Lightermen, Stevedores and Dockers.
    So, to misquote, LSD is the root of all evil [that's two misquotes,
    actually; the original - Aquinas, wasn't it Dick, or was he quoting
    someone older still? - was Radix malorum est cupiditas; so money's
    OK, it's just wanting it that's the trouble.]
    
    Re .21 A meta rathole: the Black Legend about the Spanish Inquisition
    was a load of hooey. In the 350 years of the SI's operations, they put
    between 3000 and 5000 people to death as heretics (about 1 a month, I
    make it). In the same period, in the rest of Europe, about 30 times
    that many people were put to death as witches (people who were reported
    to the SI for _witchcraft_ were unusually fortunate - they always
    survived).
    
    Of course, 1 killing a month is 1 too many. But at a time when it was
    dangerous to believe, or to be thought or alleged to believe, anything
    remotely unorthodox, the Spanish Inquisition was one of the less
    dangerous institutions. Its bad press was just that - rumours
    promulgated in Holland and spread via printing presses.
    
    b

    A bit of reference for .-1 (which owes quite a lot to a recent TV
    programme): the earliest source for the Black Legend the programme
    could find was a pamphlet witten by someone with the monicker
    Montanus. It was published in Antwerp (as I remember), early in the
    sixteenth century.
    
    b

    You can't deny the existence of witches in early American history --
    that would be contempt of court.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    Re .25: Is that Montanus, or Pontanus (a Low Countries well known early
    historian)? Just curious.
    		Denis.

    The programme showed the title page, and it looked like an M to me.
    I wondered when I saw it whether it was a oblique reference to the Alps
    (resentment at the Latinocentric view of Northern Europe as Transalpina
    - he was saying `Hey, looks like _this_ side from where I am'). But in
    the end I thought it more probable that the writer was really called
    Berg or Borg or whatever they call mountains in the Low Countries.
    I hadn't thought that it might be a sixteenth century typo.
    
    b 

    Re .24
    
    The original is this:
    
        For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some
        coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced
        themselves through with many sorrows.
    
    					- 1 Timothy 6:10, KJV
    
    In the Vulgate, the first clause is rendered thus:
    
        Radix enim �mnium mal�rum est cup�ditas...
    

    Bob,
    
    "In the 350 years of the SI's operations, they put between 3000 and
    5000 people to death as heretics (about 1 a month, I make it)."
    
    Does this include the people turned over to the secular authorities
    for burning?  I don't think it does.
    
    Also, although you wrote "(people who were reported to the SI for
    _witchcraft_ were unusually fortunate - they always survived).", did
    you perhaps mean "sorcery"?
    
    							Ann B.

    Ann 
    
    �Does this include the people turned over to the secular authorities
    �for burning?  I don't think it does.
    
    Dunno.
    
    re the `sorcery' point: the word the programme used was `witchcraft'.
    I'm not sure what the difference is, unless sorcery is something really
    black (like conjuring up evil spirits) and witchcraft is rather more
    homely (mixing a potion and making a wish so that the woman in the next
    street comes out in a rash). I suppose some people might hold that one
    (sorcery, in that sense) has an effect while the other (witchcraft, in
    that sense) has an effect only on people's sense of well-being - not on
    the real world. I think the Spanish Inquisition probably believed that
    sorcerers (in that sense) were evil. But the point the programme made
    (in this matter) was that allegations of witchcraft didn't stand up to
    the SI's scrutiny because the SI were sticklers for nit-picking accuracy
    and documented fact.
    
    Incidentally, I don't hold a particular candle (�) for the Spanish
    Inquisition, or for the programme makers. As documentaries go, it
    wasn't very good. It took an hour making a point that it'd made in
    the first five minutes. It was thought-provoking though.
    
    b
    
    ps re .-2: thanks, Dick. I should have known it was from the Bible.
    I picked up the (partial) Latin quote from Chaucer, and of course
    the Pardoner (for it was he) would have used a biblical quotation.