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I've read/listened to your various arguments with Satanists and

occultists, mainly on the FCOS board but in numerous places as well.

Your arguments are seemingly intelligent, but you've missed some

extremely important things. Or you haven't missed them, but just can't

say them.

1.Your former involvement in the occult tells me something of your state

of mind. It doesn't sound like you were self destructive, which is the

case with many ex-occultists, as well as many pretend ex-occultists like

Mike Warnke (By the way, are you one of those people who still takes

Warnke's ramblings seriously?) If you were self destructive, then your

arguments against the occult mean nothing, because it means your just

trying to justify your self destructive behaviour by "blaming the

devil". Were you still an occultist prior to the exact moment you

"found Jesus"? Were you having doubts about whether or not it actually

worked? Were your rituals failing? Were bad things happening to you

that had you scrambling to your cards, etc. trying to find out why your

karma or whatever had gone against you? Had you recently suffered some

sort of traumatic experience for which your magic offered no solace?

If this is the case, then your arguments against the occult at least

mean something: that such dabblings are dangerous because they can often

lead a person into Christianity when things go bad.

Did you have a Christian upbringing, prior to your occult involvment?

Did you see physical presences of demonic entities? Were you on drugs

at the time? Did you ever sit down with your "book of shadows" or other

magical journal (did you keep one?) and try figuring out if your

rituals actually worked, if your predictions came true, or if it was all

just wishful thinking?

Where am I going with this?

A guess: Magic was failing, things were going bad, a sermon "touched"

you because it brought about a subconscious memory of sermons heard as a

child.

Another guess: Your religious upbringing was tied in with your social

upbringing, your ethical upbringing, etc., which is almost always the

case in a Christian household. Black and white from head to toe,

everything from what school you attended to who your friends were to

what you watched on TV were tied into the religion of your family. When

you entered the standard "teen rebel" stage of mid to late adolescence,

or possibly in your twenties if you attended college, you dropped your

religion and looked for alternatives. Or even more likely, you made no

conscious decision to drop the family religion but just slowly became

interested in the various new age ideas of which you have spoken. The

thing is, you've described such a scattered belief system, wich

numerology and astrology and the like, which offer no ethical code, no

specific social grouping, no real solid philosophy. These are not

religions. You seem to have no doubt now that these things work, which

is also very telling. If you still believe that these things work, but

now consider them evil, it may mean that you never doubted the religion

of your childhood either, only rejected the specifics or stopped

thinking about it.

Possibly, your occultnik peers rejected you for some reason or another,

a petty argument, you hit your girlfriend, or possibly you rejected them

over something only kind of or not at all related to the occult. If

this occurred shortly before your conversion, you wouldn't think it was

connected. But, in need a new social grouping, angry at them and, as is

normal, looking for things not to like about your old friends, you had a

good conversation with a Christian, went to a church and felt accepted

by the group, found a new dogma by which to run your life. The new

social grouping would have seen you as a novelty, an ex-witch who was

saved at THEIR church, and given you more attention then when you were

just another occultist surrounded by other occultists. Some examples of

this include Linda Blood, author of The New Satanists. She was kicked

out of the Temple Of Set because she was mentally disturbed (Confusing

her fantasy for a genuine relationship with Micheal Aquino, etc.). Her

initial reaction, for many years, was a series of threatening phone

calls. Then she got the attention of a Satanic hysteria group and

started selling herself as a "survivor" who had "escaped" the Temple Of

Set and gone into hiding. This is an extreme example of a case where

rejection by occultnik peers led to a conversion.

If you've gone from religion to religion to religion, without doubting

whether or not any of them make sense, you should examine this fact.

This is very telling, because it may mean that you are incapable of

debating against athiests. It may mean that you can't prove beyond even

your own doubtsthat God or any spiritual beings exist, because there was

probably nevera time when you doubted it. You are incapable of doubting

it, and any arguments you do have would be shallow and recycled.

Again, this is just a guess.

I'll start with the occult, as you described your involvement, because

you are far enough removed from it now that you could bring yourself to

see why it's a load of crap.

Astrology, numerology, tarot and teacups work on vagueries. Various

studies have shown that if a group of people, with different names,

birthdates, etc. are given the same horoscope/numerology reading and

asked about it's accuracy in describing their personalities and recent

past, believers will find their own traits in the readings and agree

with the conclusions. These studies have been performed in dozens of

universities around the world.

Tarot cards, I-Ching, runes, etc. work the same way, only appearing to

be more random.

This is because the believer is looking for signs that it has worked.

In many cases, the believer can't see results, but is encouraged by his

peers, as featherbrains usually shit together, who often slightly

exagerate their successes a bit. When he has a few minor successes

himself, he will in turn exagerate them a bit himself, as he "knows"

that it worked but knows that the exact circumstances of the "success"

would appear far too coincidental compared to the mildly exagerated

coincidences of his peers, which he of course doesn't know were

exagerated as well. Of course, he doesn't really need to exagerate.

After all, should anyone attempt to cast doubt on his "magical"

achievements, his peers would back him up. When someone in a church

says that such and such a great thing happened to them and it's

suggested to be a "miracle" or "answered" prayer, attempting to point

out why it isn't will yield similar results. The two are connected, and

this is why an occultnik such as yourself is likely to become a

fundamentalist Christian rather than an atheist.

There is no point in arguing the existence of God. Such an incredibly

complex universe such as this one, it is said, could not come about by

chance. Besides, where would the material come from?

Such an incredibly complex being, such as the one that allegedly created

this universe, could not come about by chance. Besides, where would the

material come from?

This dead end, which can never be surpassed, is connected to the other

eternal arguments. Does the universe have a boundry? What would that

boundry be made of and what would be beyond it? Again, the question of

eternity. The only intelligent thing Socrates ever said, which you

pretended not to understand when someone paraphrased it on the FCOS

board, was "All I know is that I know nothing.". Unless your occultnik

past involved heavy drug use, in which case I wouldn't expect you to

understand Dr. Suess, never mind Socrates.

Now, onto my relationship with God and your hatred of him.

God created this wonderful planet, this perfectly balanced universe,

with everything we could possibly need not only for survival but for

enjoyment, progress and self-enhancement.

He made us capable of understanding certain aspects of this universe,

the actions and reactions of natural forces, and even better he made us

capable of advancing our understanding over time. From hacked out

religious theories to explain the unexplained came more detailed

religions which were put in place to "unify" larger societies under the

dictatorship of a minority. Only by claiming divine inspiration could a

leader command the masses, because centuries of religious explanations

for natural phenomena had led the people to believe that a divine leader

was needed to control these phenomena. Things were not allowed to "just

happen", the gods had to be in the mood, good or bad, to cause these

things.

The religious theories of Moses were very similar to the ideas of

Ikhnaton, also known as Amenhotep IV, the Pharaoh of Egypt from

1375-1358 B.C. Ikhnaton attempted to convert the pagan Egypt to

monotheism by force. He censored art, banned many works of literature,

and had many people killed, all in the name of the Sun God. The

morality he promoted was also very similar to that of Moses. Luckily, he

was killed before his perversions could completely ruin Egypt. He did,

however, weaken it a great deal, allowing for the revolt and exodus of

the slave class not long later under an Egyptian named Moses. Moses

claimed to be a Hebrew by birth, and claimed that the slave class were a

seperate race from the Egyptians. Given that the only mention of the

Hebrews prior to Moses was in the works of Moses himself, credibility is

seriously lacking.

My Shakespearian literary charter gives the Devil the right to quote

scripture for his own purposes, and one need only see the views of Jesus

to see why religious thinking has to be phased out. A good tree bears

good fruit and an evil tree evil fruit. The evidence of a prophecy is

found in it's fulfillment. All of these and more, said in a time when

the people saying had no idea that someday humanity would be capable of

proving them wrong. Jesus was far from unique in his time, messiahs

were all over the Roman Empire, often with equal credibility with the

masses. Jesus just one the aeonic crapshoot and that's why you're a

Christian instead of something else. The fact that Jesus most likely

falsified his miracles can be seen in the works of his followers. If

modern faith healers and "psychics" like Uri Geller can get away with

defrauding mass audiences, often educated, in modern times, what makes

you think that a semi-primitive society like Judea was any better? Uri

Geller, the psychic wonder boy of the 1970's who even managed to fool

the scientists of Stanford Research Institute, used many of the same

methods of deception that Jesus did. For example, both refused to

perform in front of skeptics. Read "The Magic Of Uri Geller" by James

The Amazing Randi for more on this modern messiah. What's interesting

is that Uri Geller is able to sell new books today because the mass

media has forgotten about his career and subsequent public exposure.

Many media sources that followed his career never mentioned the fact

that he was exposed, they just simply stopped talking about Geller

because it wasn't a story anymore. Geller's official biography, Uri,

doesn't mention any of the exposures and gives a different version of

the testing at SRI than the scientists do. This is meaning to say that

even if Jesus was exposed as a fraud in some regions, his later

followers would be unlikely to hear about it. We have high speed

communication today, and there are still Uri Geller followers 20 years

after he was exposed. Jesus' time was still prior to the Pony express,

and people saw the works of Gods and godesses, spirtits etc. on a daily

basis, so it's obvious that a fraudulent messiah could have had a field

day.

Now I'll bring it all to a conclusion:

When God made the world he established his laws in our genetic code, in

the laws of magnetism and gravity, in balanced planetary orbits and

neural pathways programmed for both survival and enjoyment in life.

If God had intended for us to follow a more detailed social code, such

as that expressed in the bible, he would have tatooed it on the sky in a

language we all knew from birth. He would have made it very clear.

You, Christian, spit in the face of God by believing on faith the laws

to which humans have forged his signature. You, Christian, spit in the

face of God by ridiculing his gifts, worshipping a man who tells you to

despise the things of this world, in hopes of receiving better gifts

after your death or the destruction of this world.

You, Christian, spit in the face of God by progjecting your own

prejudices and fears upon him.

You, Christian, spit in the face of God by ignoring the logic of his

system and pretending you can surpass it by magical works and whining

prayers.

I love my God. My God understands me. I cannot disrespect my God by

calling him by the same name as he is called by those, like you, who

spit in his face. I call him Satan, after the mythological enemy of the

false idol you worship, because he is your enemy.

Daniel Johnson

-Satanist.