To: alt.satanism
From: Bill Ellis
Subj: Christianity, History (0000.chrstty.be)
Date: unknown 

Some things to think about before sending Christians to the lions:

First, it's been tried: the Romans were convinced that the first Christians
were holding obscene orgies (i.e., were having more fun than they were) and
sacrificing and eating babies, so there was considerable support for the
persecutions.  Plus the early Christians, being exceptionally strong among
slaves, recent ethnic migrants to Rome, and women, had a decidedly anti-
authoritarian slant.  Their refusal to offer incense to the emperor was seen
as the first-century equivalent to burning the flag or refusing to say the
pledge of allegiance.

Consider that they took as their insignia a means of capital punishment
devised for the lowest sort of criminal: wearing it or bowing down before it
had the same shock value that worshipping an electric chair would today.
And consider that they, unlike most other criminals tortured and slowly
killed for public spectacle, got a reputation for going out with stoic
dignity, while most other victims cringed, screamed, and begged for mercy.
The early Christians gained support because they were tough dudes who gave
the finger to the caesars and their henchmen and took the consequences.

Second: take a look at the Judeo-Christian rituals.  They were based on some
pretty raw roots.  For instance, ritual genital mutilation of male infants
(I'm one victim--was that Christian ritual child abuse?).  For another, human
sacrifice and cannibalism, displaced first onto the ritual sacrifice,
mutilation, and blood-draining of animals, then onto the Holy Supper.  The
Body and the Blood: ever wonder what they are?  In primitive sexology,
babies were made up from two elements, the body provided by the male sperm
and the menstrual blood provided by the female.  Put them together, you have
the fetus, or new life.  What happens in the Holy Supper?  Body and blood
substitutes are put together, then immediately torn apart and consumed by
the celebrants.

The interpretation of a sick mind?  Well, I'm not the first: take a look
at the account of the "Love feasts" among the Phibionite Christian heretics,
ca.  375 AD:

For after they have consorted together in a passionate debauch.  . . the
woman and the man take the man's ejaculation into their hands, stand up,
throw back their heads in self-denial toward Heaven.  . . [and say]: "We
bring to Thee this oblation, which is the very Body of Christ." Whereupon,
without further ado, they consume it.  . . . And when the woman is in her
period, they do likewise with her menstruation.  The unclean flow of blood,
which they garner, they take up in the same way and eat together.  And that,
they say, is Christ's Blood.  . . . And if it should occur int he case of
any one of them that the implanting of the natural effusion should take
effect and the woman become pregnant . . . they tear out the embryo as soon
as it can be reached, take the misborn unborn fruit of the body and pound it
in a mortar with a pestle, after which they mix it with pepper, honey, and
certain other balsams and herbs, so that it should not nauseate them: and
then that entire congregation . . . gathers round, and each dips up with his
ginger a morsel of the immolated child.  . . . And they believe this to be
the perfect Mass.

[Cited in Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (NY:
Viking/Penguin,1970):160-161.]

Now whether any practicing Christian ever *did* this in earnest or not is a
valid question.  The point is that their ceremony *enacts* this in symbolic
form, and I suspect that if any modern pagan or satanic group tried anything
similar, they'd have every local police and vice squad breathing down their
backs.  And imagine if satanists really did slice off a piece of their male
infants' finger as a sacrifice to their god?  But Christians can get away
with an even crueler cut because it's recommended in the Good Book.

So *talk* about feeding Christians to lions, but don't kid yourself: they
come from pretty violent roots, and it's no surprise that most of the
documentable cases of ritual murder and child abuse come from fringe
Christian sects.  (I have some nasty instances in my files, thanks to my
membership in CHILD, Inc., an organization that publicizes religion-based
cases of child abuse and neglect, and lobbies against laws such as the one
signed by Gov.  Clinton in Arkansas exempting parents from capital murder
charges if their child died as a result of "spiritual treatment through
prayer in accordance with the tenets and practices of an established church
or religious denomination of which he [sic] is a member." Any satanist or
pagan want to take odds on whether you could claim exemption under this
law?)

Bill Ellis
FOAFtale News