06 Nov 2016

Why You Can’t Really Keep Theological Views Confined to Sunday

Religious 28 Comments

Welp, in case you haven’t heard, one of the recent items to emerge from the rounds of WikiLeaks dumps is the claim that Hillary Clinton’s campaign people may be involved in Satanic rituals, such as “spirit cooking” and more sinister things involving children.

In the interest of objectivity, I’ll let a completely skeptical New York Mag writer explain the allegations, as he tries to contain his guffawing. This way you know I’m not leading the witness.

So the reaction to this particular subset of the WikiLeaks dumps doesn’t come down to “Hillary vs. Trump.” Rather, it’s closer to a division between “believer vs. agnostic.” Specifically, I have seen plenty of libertarians on social media–who can’t stand Hillary Clinton–nonetheless roll their eyes at the people claiming this is evidence of monstrosities within the Clinton circles.

Yet I think the problem here is that if you don’t actually believe the devil exists, then it’s going to be hard for you to get worked up about people doing really creepy, occultish things. After all, by stipulation (in your worldview), that’s the end of it. There is no more significance to some weird ritual, than the physical actions of the people involved.

On the other hand, if you think that there is a devil, and that there really are people who have sold their souls to achieve earthly power, then it very much might concern you to know that Clinton’s campaign chief was cordially invited to a “Spirit Cooking” dinner with this lady:

P.S. I will correct this if someone points me to a definitive refutation, but my understanding is that that gloppy red stuff is actual blood.

28 Responses to “Why You Can’t Really Keep Theological Views Confined to Sunday”

  1. Bob Murphy says:

    I originally had this as an update, but I looked at it some more and I wasn’t sure it was legit, so I moved it to the comments. Anyway, this article links to what is apparently Abramovic’s Twitter account, which ends in “666.” It seems that it’s been up and running for a few years, but is that easy to fake? Because it’s interspersed with promoted tweets, I’m concerned that the whole account might be fake, set up in light of the controversy. Can anyone tell me if it’s easy to make a new Twitter account that looks old?

    If it’s indeed her account, then it obviously makes the “I’m into Satanic stuff–ha ha, just kidding guys” routine even more pronounced, but I’m not sure it’s really her account.

    • Keshav Srinivasan says:

      Bob, you can’t make a new Twitter account seem old, but what you can do is take an existing old twitter account and completely change both the name and the Twitter handle to something else. But if the account has Tweets going back years and even the really old Tweets are related to Abramovic, then it wouldn’t be an instance of that.

      • Bob Murphy says:

        OK then it seems legit, in which case it’s relevant to mention that her Twitter handle ends in “666.”

  2. Adrian Gabriel says:

    As an anrcho-capitalist catholic, I find myself profoundly embracing libertarian theory which one can suggest is tantamount to the Gold Rule. Consequently, I feel that politics in general is itself antithetical to what I believe since one might suggest it is itself similar to a ritual based cult.

    All I can say to this type of manifestation is that it frightens me, and I sincerely hope those people involved in political positions of importance tread waters carefully when they communicate with those involved in these types of events, or even accept invitations to events like this.

  3. Andrew_FL says:

    People with certain sets of political beliefs don’t need to perform obscure rituals to be in league with the devil I believe in.

  4. Harold says:

    I do not believe the Devil exists, but I would get worked up at someone trying to use the devil to assist them -especially if it involved kidnapped children. I think it reveals quite a lot about them.

    That said, the evidence that the Clinton team actually did try to summon the devil seems to be laughably weak.

    • Mark says:

      I’m sure you’ve heard the quote, The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

      • Tel says:

        I dunno, suppose you knew for sure that there was ONLY the devil and regardless of what you did during your life you would be damned anyway, and no possible escape from that. Not sure exactly how you know this but just let’s presume somehow you do know. Well, what would you do with your life in that case?

        I guess, in that hypothetical scenario, you might as well enjoy yourself, do all the things you want to do, don’t get all hung up and waste your limited time trying to prove something or communicate with some mythical father figure. And then when you did die and go to meet the Devil (because that’s where everyone ends up) you can look the bastard in the eye and say, “Well I enjoyed my life, and you can’t take that away from me!”

        So the Devil invented the idea of God in order to convince people to live pious lives that they didn’t really enjoy, sitting in monasteries, praying all the time, trying to make sense of holy books, hoping for some heavenly future after death. And then the Devil says, “Sucker!! You wasted your life!”

        Now it’s all theory of course, and you know lots of possible theories might fit the available facts, but IF this were the case… then it would be one heck of a fiendish trick, yeah?

        • Giovanni T says:

          This theory doesn’t fit with the mystical experiences of a thousand catholic saints, not to mention analogue cases from people in other religions.

          • Tel says:

            You don’t think the Devil knows how to be somewhat convincing?

            Oh ye of little faith.

      • Harold says:

        That is not such a great trick. Lots of supernatural beings have pulled that one off; Loki, Mara, Angra Mainyu, Melek Taus, Apep, Set and a whole host of others.

  5. skylien says:

    Bob, have you ever been genuinly agnostic, or did you go directly from atheist to theist?

    I am curious because in my view people who are atheists have one thing in common with theists. The urge/need to know. It is super hard for them to admit to just not know, not to be able to choose a side. Hence they either stay atheist or become theists basically straight away.

    • Capt. J Parker says:

      “in my view people who are atheists have one thing in common with theists. The urge/need to know. I think you have this exactly wrong skylien. Atheists and agnostics have one thing in common and that is that knowledge of God’s existence should come before faith. The atheist claims the evidence shows that we know there is no God. The agnostic clams God’s existence is unknowable. The believer continues to believe because he has faith or has found faith even in the face of all the knowledge that contradicts his faith.

      • Harold says:

        This indicates the difficulty of using terms colloquially. I am agnostic, in that I believe we have no evidence for God, not the we have evidence for the absence of God. However, if I say I am an atheist I think it conveys more accurately to more people that I don’t believe in God. If I say I am an agnostic I think many people believe I think the evidence is more balanced and I have not quite decided. Am I right in this?

        • skylien says:

          I agree with Harold. That is the point as an agnostic you don’t/can’t decide because the evidence on both sides is equally lacking/convincing. But an atheist/theist does decide, and either claims with conviction there is a god or there is no god.

        • skylien says:

          I agree with Harold. That is the point as an agnostic you don’t/can’t decide because the evidence on both sides is equally lacking/convincing. But an atheist/theist does decide, and either claims with conviction there is a god or there is no god.

          PS: Bob if you catch this you can delete my other (double) commet, since I entered the email wrongly so it waits for moderation..

          • Harold says:

            skylien, as an agnostic I have decided that there is no god but I cannot claim to know this for certain. If evidence were to manifest then I would believe there was a god. I think many people consider this to be an atheist position.

            I do not believe the evidence is balanced- I believe it is overwhelmingly in favor of the absence of god.

            • skylien says:

              Yep right well I guess you could be called a strongly atheist leaning agnostic, or a moderate atheist.

              To be honest the most important point why there could be a god is for me life/being itself. Why am I me? Why am I conscious of myself? Why do I think about thinking, looking through my eyes like playing an ego shooter. It appears so strange. Where in all those cells am I actually… etc.

              • Harold says:

                Those are indeed Hard Problems to answer..

      • Andrew Keen says:

        How could knowledge come before faith? That doesn’t make sense. Knowledge eliminates the possibility of faith. Faith must come first or not at all.

        • Patrick Szar says:

          Because as Twain put it, “faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

      • skylien says:

        If you have actual knowledge there cannot be faith anymore. I am not saying I can speak for all agnostics, but the main problem I have with both atheists and theists is that they want to claim something to be true they just cannot know. Yes atheists can use occams razor to claim that no god is the simpler theory so they “believe” in this.

        However I say, if there is something for which there is no need to actually decide then why pick a side because even occams razor finally is only a weak answer and usually rather a make shift solution to pick a side if you HAVE TO pick a side. But if I don’t have to in this case. No decision in my life depends on knowing if there is a god or not.

        • skylien says:

          *But I don’t have to in this case.*

        • Harold says:

          skylien, I agree that no decision necessarily depends on knowing if there is a god or not, but a great many depend on believing in a particular god or not.

          • skylien says:

            “but a great many depend on believing in a particular god or not.”

            Only if you believe in a god that would demand being worshipped.

            • Harold says:

              Yes, it does depend very much on the god, but those that most people believe in do indeed demand worship.

  6. Capt. J Parker says:

    Yet I think the problem here is that if you don’t actually believe the devil exists, then it’s going to be hard for you to get worked up about people doing really creepy, occultish things.”

    Regrettably true, unless perhaps the creepy occultish things are eating meat, wearing animal fur or practicing traditional judeo-christian religion.

  7. Tel says:

    I see two theories at work here. To start with, based on my experience of various atheist, pagan, wiccan, etc type groups is that a lot of their “ritual” stuff mainly serves the purpose of annoying Christians. Like the flying spaghetti monster and people wearing metal noodle bowls on their heads is basically signalling a message, “I think all religion is stupid.” Fringe groups tend to distinguish themselves by searching for something that is shocking to the mainstream.

    So personally, I’m not much of a believer, but I do support tolerance and that’s a two way street; so yes free speech is valuable and the occasional joke at someone’s expense is inevitable, but deliberately antagonism is a bad idea. There’s a balance happening there obviously.

    So the darker side of it is that criminal groups need to have their own initiation process, in order to command loyalty. For example, to get into a major Mexican gang you need to work as an assassin for a while in order to build up credibility and get “noticed” by someone important. There’s a lot of rumours around as to what methods various political groups might use to ensure they keep their members tight, but you can use your imagination I guess.

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