Steve Ralph wrote:

Petrus/BBPD wrote:

Steve Ralph wrote:

Do you consider a Hindu Deity to be a demon?
Yes or no, Petrus. simple question.

Watch this folks.

Yes it is my sincerely held Christian belief,
that Hindu deities are demonic.

Thank you Petrus. You finally managed to answer
a straightforeward question. Congratulations.

Well, geez, Steve - it's hardly as if
this revelation were a *surprise*.

It's the traditional, standard old Xian
view that the Gods of other religions
are evil demons. No news there at all.

It has always been part and parcel of
the christian conversion campaigns to
portray pagan Gods as evil spirits.

That's what anthropologist Margaret
Murray meant by saying that "The Gods
of the old religion become the devils
of the new religion."

It happened most blatantly with respect
to the ancient Horned God archetype
(especially Pan, the goat God) --
because the Xians decided to conflate
the pagan Horned God with their main
Bad-***** Dude -- namely, 'Satan.'

But it also happened with respect to
a number of other pagan deities.
The Xians co-opted what they could
from Paganism (Dionysian myths for
Jesus, the iconography of Isis for
the Virgin Mary), and turned a number
of pagan deities into Xian "saints."

But the ones they could not tame or
coopt, they demonized as evil.
That is by no means a new thing;
it is the traditional Xian view.

In fact, the very word "demon" is
from the Greek "daimon" -- and to
the pagan Greeks a "daimon" was a
minor god or goddess. (The term for
a major god or goddess was "Theos.")

When the christians came along, they
simultaneously demoted all the old
pagan Gods to "daimons" and also
declared them to be evil minions
of Satan Hisself. See, it's much easier
to wage war against somebody else's
religion if you portray it not only
as false, but also downright *evil*.

And that is still a very traditional
Xian view of pagan Gods to this day,
so their attitude towards Hindu deities
is no exception to the rule. Traditional
bible-thumping christians think they
are engaged in spiritual warfare against
the forces of Evil -- and that includes
pretty much everybody else's religion
and their evil demonic gods.

This is something that Wiccans are
well aware of, of course; because
the Christians have long sought to
erroneously equate our religion with
Satanism, the better to persecute us.

But it's a standard part of an intro
lecture on Wicca to point out that
the people making that charge
(namely, fundamentalist christians)
also think that every *other*
religion worships "demons" and is
the work of "Satan." (Except maybe
the Jews, who the fundies will
graciously acknowledge are perhaps
just badly misguided.) So anyway,
Wiccans are hardly alone in that
'satanic' boat, from the xian view.

I find it amazing that that is not
common knowledge; but I guess some
folks have either been raised on some
form of liberal christian theology,
or else that's all they're familiar
with. Liberal christians probably
don't share the insidiously bigoted
view that "other Gods are evil demons"
-- but among the fundy bible-thumper
crowd, it's the common view.

- Delia
~~~~~~~~~
(*Remove thermonuclear plasma spheroid to reply.)