are you interested?

[lemon_and_mint]

While some of us were talking about different religions, i spoke of how i asked various people to explain their beliefs to me - i know i could go and look it up in a book, or online, but i wanted to know how their religion spoke to them personally.

Along the way I can into contact with satanists.
What one group told me really made me think.

I don't want to offend anyone because satanists are very misunderstood and some people don't like talking about them so i will only discuss this if anyone is interested in hearing about it, let me know.

There is nothing horrible in what i have to tell.

[lemon_and_mint]

ok rjw

i am sure you are familiar with satanists as depicted by the tate/manson events, which i will not discuss here, or as depicted in trash novels and late night b movies.

Which is why when I came acroass some people who claimed to be satanists I wanted to know more.

The first group I soon discounted as worshipping anything, they had painted all their walls black, black candles everywhere, goth makeup, symbols everywhere, adn professed to using ouji boards to conjure things, drunken parties etc.True or false I really had the impression they were "copying" and did this for effect on others and not for their own feelings.If I explain that in a way it can be understood.I also felt that I was uneasy as to how far these would go in their efforts to persuade other people that they believed.

A little later I came across a group of professionals who I did not even realise were satanists.It was a friend of theirs who told me, laughing as she said, you would never, guess and I hadn't.They were happy to talk.
In their house everything was normal apart from one room where they worshipped.They had a permanent circle with (pentagram?) diagram in chalk on the floor of this room.And WHITE not black candles.
They told me that they sincerely believed that there was an evil (? word?) which was the antithesis of good God.And they had seen that Good God cannot stop things happneing to even good people.So they had decided to pray to the Evil in order to stop bad things happenineg to them.
They were very respsectful to it and told me that the white cadles prevented it getting out of hand.

This made some sense to me.

And those are my experiences.

The second group really caused me to think for some time.

[RedGlitter]

That is curious, Lemon.
Usually when you want something you must give something in order to receive. It would seem to me that requesting the evil force to do anything would require some form of payback. This is where I wonder about serving satan. How far off am I?

[lemon_and_mint]

Originally Posted by RedGlitter

That is curious, Lemon.
Usually when you want something you must give something in order to receive. It would seem to me that requesting the evil force to do anything would require some form of payback. This is where I wonder about serving satan. How far off am I?

It is curious isnt it red?
I was so intrigued by it.

I think that they had done this for some years at the point I spoke to them.I do not know where they are now, this was years ago.

As far as I understood, the payoff was that the entity received respect and worship and they thought that nothing very bad would happen .(or whether it was psychological in that feelingthey were protected gave them some sort of confidence for good things to happen - but then i could say that about christians)
Certainly, they seemed very happy to me.Nice people , friendly, if I can say that.

Now about when you die if you worship evil, thats a whole other conversation, and i do not know how that would have worked.

[lemon_and_mint]

oh i dont beat my head against walls, but i am open to people showing me things and i ask questions, and i have learned an awful lot doing that.

[lemon_and_mint]

i would say though that the both these groups i thought misguided for various reasons.I wanted to say to the second group that the nature of evil is that it lies and deceives and for that reason alone i would not be happily worshipping it.

But it isn't really my business to go about disparaging people's beliefs like that.So I just thought it.And I thought even more about the nature of worship of any entity, good or bad and why humans do this.

[RedGlitter]

I think many of us do it because we know there's something more powerful than us. That can be either fearsome or it can be a source of comfort at any given time.

I personally would walk a big circle around anyone who worshipped evil. I don't want any part of that. As you said, evil deceives and to a degree that most of us would never recognize.

[lemon_and_mint]

thank you rj, i try to be, sometimes, and sometimes, i fail.....

[Lon]

Originally Posted by lemon_and_mint

While some of us were talking about different religions, i spoke of how i asked various people to explain their beliefs to me - i know i could go and look it up in a book, or online, but i wanted to know how their religion spoke to them personally.

Along the way I can into contact with satanists.
What one group told me really made me think.

I don't want to offend anyone because satanists are very misunderstood and some people don't like talking about them so i will only discuss this if anyone is interested in hearing about it, let me know.

There is nothing horrible in what i have to tell.

It might be interesting to explore people's non beliefs. They vary as much as those that believe.

[lemon_and_mint]

Originally Posted by Lon

It might be interesting to explore people's non beliefs. They vary as much as those that believe.

That is something which has not occurred to me.In any case I think everyone believes *something* even those who dont follow any of the major religions.But yes, interesting comment.