middle eastern culture? dunno if thats true lol. people were murdered in africa and europe for being witches. i dont think anyone was killed in the middle east back in the day for being a witch in regards to the question, like god and ghosts and blah blah blah, its just out human imagination
I remember two different cases from last year. One happened in Saudi Arabia and the other in Pakistan.
oh as in currently like nowadays?? haha oh okay. i knew it happened in africa, i didnt have any idea that it happened in the middle east let alone pakistan as well! that is pretty sad then i have to agree thirdwind. we have some crazy people out there
I live in england and there is a story in the news at the moment about a child that was brutally tortured and then drowened because he was thought to be a witch. Telepathy, like i said earlier i was talking to a lady that said she can move small objects by just willing it to happen, the sceptic in me tried not to laugh out loud but maybe there are people out there that can do these things. They do say we only use a quarter of out brain so i wonder what the rest is for??
Honestly, what haven't people been killed for in the middle east. Steal a potato and you get decapitated
I believe in vampires and witches as elaborate creations of the human mind, which is a pretty magical thing. If you listen to Richard Dawkins, there is lots of magic in the world- it just doesn't have any green sparks. There are inexplicably amazing things happening around us all the time, which we rely on science to explain for us. People hundreds of years ago were the same, if an 'expert' told you that the reason your cattle were dying was because an undead witch was drinking their mojo, you wouldn't have much room to argue. Because the idea that millions of tiny animals, so small you couldn't see them, were living inside your cow and killing it from the inside out, would have been just as preposterous. Vampires especially enjoyed popularity after now common signs of decay were mistaken for undead-ness in exhumed corpses a couple hundred years ago. Receding skin made it appear that skin and nails had grown since the deceased had been buried and blood from rupturing, rotting organs flowed up to the mouth and out the lips, making it look as though the corpse had recently fed on blood/ flesh. Again, in a society where autopsies and the study of dead bodies was forbidden, it must have been a semi-reasonable conclusion to come to. The persecution of witches on the other hand is, I think, closely linked to the religious and gender based persecution that characterized the Middle Ages (and most modern, religiously fundamental states). If you look at what happened to the Waldensians after they were declared 'heretics' for following a difference faction of Christianity, it makes Vlad the Impaler look like a clown at a kid's birthday party. Accusing a woman, or in the previous case, an entire village, of being in cahoots with the devil would have been a convenient way of getting rid of them. I'd say that the real monsters back then were the church and government sanctioned psychopaths who spent their days devising sick new ways to torture and murder men and (mostly) women under the guise of religion. The fact that this still exists in places in the world, I think, points to the developmental shortfalls in those regions where mob justice and superstition haven't been quelled by an effective government or sufficient education.
Oh, don't take me wrong, I completely agree with you, but since we have no actual evidence of it yet, it goes in the basket of "it would be great, but I just don't know whether it is true or not". I have trained as a scientist (sort of) and I just can't disregard this as in, I am personally convinced that it must be true, but I have to be faithful to the scientific method, so I need evidence to consider something to be the truth (whatever that might be, since "truth" is actually impossible to accurately define). I do believe that, ultimately, anything a human can think of is something that is not only possible but also definitely present in nature, somewhere, at some time. Even if it's other Universes on the same "membrane" as ours, or even different parts of the Universe (recently they suggested that the laws of physics may actually vary throughout the Universe due to changes in cosmological constant, so anything is possible).
My response was in reply to this "Yes I think there are such a thing as witches, aka devil worshipers." As far as I am aware, satanism is what is colloquially referred to as "devil worship" as satanism, in all it's variations, focuses on revering and celebrating (worshipping, if you wish) the Satan (if it's a judeo-christian satanism) or other mythical beings that Satan was based on. The dualistic concept of god and devil is a very old one, predating monotheistic religions, so in that sense, not all satanists worship the Christian devil, but they worship "the devil" nonetheless. In that sense, you are right, I think that satanists and devil worshippers are the same thing, but not the same as witches.
^What about Anton LaVey and his followers? I don't believe in Magic or Magik. To me, the idea of the supernatural is ridiculous.
^A thousand times this. Jazza, the most popular Satanist group "The Church of Satan" (an actual church) Doesn't worship Satan. Or a Devil....
I see that we have a case of diametrically opposing views and these kinds of conversations tend to get old very soon . In any case, LaVeyan Satanists worship Satan as a symbol which they tried to redefine but they still identified with it. So it still has lots to do with traditional satanism, in any case, a religion that has been established in 1966 and is unique to the USA is hardly representative of the whole concept. But in a way, they are perfectly representative of what satanism became in the 20th century - nothing is black and white, and there is a lot of pure rebellion in it. At least that's my opinion, and I am happy to agree to disagree.
Lavey used the term Satan as a representation of his rebellious views and selfish philosophy, he even stressed that he was using the Hebrew meaning for "Satan" which is "adversary". Although so called "traditional Satanists" may of helped shape his philosophy you can hardly call them the same thing, especially when one rejects all things supernatural. Laveyan Satanism was really just a by product of athiests not knowing whwat to do with their lives and disliking Christian dominance, so I guess we do agree that it is mostly rebellious.
