Revenge Fantasy

The Left Behind Books Part I

The Background – Hating America

First Book of the Left Behind series

Almost 20 years ago Tim LaHaye and his writer Jerry B. Jenkins started putting out one of the most successful publishing successes of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This was of course the Left Behind series of books which sold in the millions upon millions and helped to make Tim LaHaye a major player in the Evangelical movement in America. What is of interest in this series of books is that they are a revenge fantasy of murderous wish fulfilment.1

Dumb for God

Creationism

Creationism is without a doubt the most common pseudoscience in the world today and the one that has had and continues to have the most pernicious influence on public education worldwide.

Moral Cretinism Part IX

The ban passages, Genocide and Himmler.



William Lane Craig



The following is, in full, a blog posting by the so-called Theologian William Lane Craig in response to two questions concerning the infamous ban passages from the Old-Testament. The terrible passages that talk about how God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone and in some cases “all that breathed” in the towns they took and that they exterminated the Canaanites from the land with fire and sword.

Ender

Meets Hamlet

Book Cover

This is one of those WTF!1 discoveries that make life interesting and annoying at the same time. In this case the WTF moment was brought to us by Orson Scott Card (1951- ),2 Science Fiction and Fantasy writer.

Moral Cretinism Part V

God Bless Genocide

Cultural areas in North America in 1492

On February 9, 2011 a column appeared by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association in which Bryan Fischer stated his opinion that the dispossession of the American Indians from the great majority of the U.S.A. was moral and ethical;1 the piece is an excellent example of moral idiocy. Below I will give the article in italics with my comments plain characters.

Diffusionistic Fantasies III
The Mormon Story

Moroni giving Joseph Smith the Golden plates

And I did teach my people that they should build buildings, and that they should work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass,and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.
(The Book of Mormon, Second Book of Nephi, ch. 4. v.21)

Thus does the Book of Mormon describe the use of metals by the Nephities settling in the Americas. Now the Nephities were supposed to have settled in North America. The problem is that use of any of those metals is not evident in Mesoamerica at the time of the alleged Israelite migration to the New World. Although the use of copper eventually developed in South America and eventually spread to Mesoamerica, the use of steel and iron never did develop anywhere in the pre-Columbian Americas.1

The Book of Mormon is the sacred text of the Mormon faith, supposedly revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith in the 1830s when he allegedly translated the golden plates of the prophet Moroni, which were subsequently, allegedly, taken into heaven. The document allegedly describes the settlement and tribulations of various peoples who settled the Americas before Christ. The main story describes the history of the sons of Lehi in the Americas. Supposedly c. 600 B.C.E., Lehi and his sons immigrated to the New World. There they settled down and flourished. They did swiftly divide into two groups named after different sons of Lehi, Nephites and Lamanites, who were often at war with each other. The basic position is that the Nephites are the good guys and the Lamanites the bad guys. Both groups were preceded in the Americas by the Jaredites who had arrived shortly after the scattering at the tower of Babel, (c. 2800 B.C.E.). Shortly before the Lehi and his son arrived the Jaredites were whipped out in a massive war. Other groups also crossed into the Americas according to the Book of Mormon from the Old World.2

There is not surprisingly a massive literature about the “authenticity” of the document and in the end it seems to be a very dubious document. The Book of Mormon’s spiritual value aside it seems to tell us nothing useful or real about the pre-Columbian past of the Americas and so is disregarded by the overwhelming majority of modern day researchers with the exception of Mormons, (Latter Day Saints or L.D.S.).3

Now in many respects the Book of Mormon is a hyper-diffusionistic tale. It postulates fairly recent and dramatic migrations from the Old World to the New World, and in fact in visions massive significant recent demographic diffusion of Old World populations in fairly recent pre-Columbian times. Further the Book of Mormon gives fairly detailed descriptions of the life and ways of these people in the New World. How well does the descriptions in The Book of Mormon compare to the current state of Archaeological knowledge? The short answer is that they do not stand up at all. The Archaeological evidence conflicts in so many ways with The Book of Mormon as to effectively preclude it as a source for the pre-Columbian Americas.4

Let us examine several components of the descriptions given by the Book of Mormon about life in the Ancient Americas. I gave at the beginnings of this post a quote which describes the Nephites using and making brass, steel, copper and gold and silver. That would allegedly be c. 600-500 B.C.E. Well for the time period in question those metals were NOT being used in Mesoamerica. Certainly the references to metal swords do not help the veracity of the Book of Mormon account, neither does the references to plows. In fact it appears that metal use and the technology to make and cast such objects spread from South America to Mesoamerica c. 600-1000 C.E., more than 1000 years later.5

It could be objected that Joseph Smith’s account does not take place in Mesoamerica. And this would be apparently correct. After all Smith found the Book of Mormon at the hill Cumorah in New York State. And on and near the hill Cumorah was supposed to have taken place the last battle between the Nephites and Lamanites. The problem is that there is little to nothing in the area of the modern day United States to show any sign of the high cultures described in the Book of Mormon so it appears that the place for these events has to be moved south in order for them to have any semblance of reality. It appears likely that Joseph Smith was heavily influence by various writers about the then mysterious Mound builders and may have constructed a religious fantasy around them.6

A quick go through of the Book of Mormon reveals why it cannot be taken seriously as a account of actual history, although its spiritual value is another matter.

Let us take for example the plant life recorded in the Book of Mormon. In the Book Of Mormon we find mentions of barley, figs, grapes and wheat:

And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land.
(The Book of Mormon, Book of Mosiah, ch. 6. v.12)

Of course pre-Columbian wheat has never been found in the Americas, and barley, grapes and figs never seem to have been domesticated in Mesoamerica. There is some indication that a type of barley may have been domesticated in the area of the lower 48 states and of course there were wild grapes in parts of North America. However these crops seem not to have been used at all in Mesoamerica. In fact it appears that Joseph Smith’s account seems to be remarkably clueless about the agricultural richness of the New World. The agriculture described seems to be nothing more than the agriculture of the Old Testament. It is interesting that tomatoes and chili peppers are absent from agriculture in the Book of Mormon. Neas and sheum are largely inexplicable although some characterize sheum as a barley like grain, which doesn’t help matters. As for the mention of corn the fact is the Bible uses the term corn to refer to wheat, barley and oats and given the obvious Old Testament attributes of the Book of Mormon it is more than likely Joseph Smith’s account is NOT referring to maize.7

Since actual pre-Columbian agricultural plants is largely absent from the Book of Mormon, what about animal life? Here we have perhaps the most glaring examples of contradiction with the facts.

The Book of Mormon, refers to donkeys, or asses, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, oxen and horses. What all those creatures have in common is that they were either never in the pre-Columbian New World or they had been gone from the New World for more than 8,000 years before the alleged events of the Book of Mormon.8

And it came to pass in the seventeenth year, in the latter end of the year, the proclamation of Lachoneus had gone forth throughout all the face of the land, and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance,

…

And the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses, and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years,
(The Book of Mormon, Third Book of Nephi, ch. 2. v. 29-30, 44)

Well all of the above does not describe the pre-Columbian Americas at all. The peoples of the Americas did NOT have cattle, horses and chariots, in fact aside from toys did not use the wheel at all. Of course the total absence of horses, cattle etc, from pre-Columbian sites is quite conclusive. Joseph Smith is once again creating his image of the ancient New World as a copy of the Old Testament.9

The above isn’t helped by the occasional mention of Elephants in the Book of Mormon.

And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms.
(The Book of Mormon, Book of Ether, ch. 4. v.21)

The above is supposedly from the period c. 2300 B.C.E., from a record that predates the arrival of Lehi and his sons. The problem is that although Mammoths and Mastodons had existed in the New World by 7,000 B.C.E., they were long extinct and therefore not available to be used by the Jaredites when they allegedly arrived c. 2800 B.C.E.10

According to the Book of Mormon when the Nephites and Lamanites arrived:

And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse, and the goat, and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men.
(the Book of Mormon, First Book of Nephi, ch. 5. v.216)

As mentioned before there were cows, Oxen, asses (donkeys), horses to be found in the Americas at the time of the alleged arrival of Lehi’s sons. Certainly one would think that such an abundance of these animals would show up in archaeological digs. They do not, so it appears that as an historical source the Book of Mormon is dubious.11

Finally the reformed Egyptian that the Book of Mormon was allegedly written in has never turned up in the Americas.12

With the above problems does it even have to be mentioned that both genetic studies and linguistic studies provide no evidence for the Book of Mormon has an historical document.13

The Book of Mormon remains an example of man’s perennial search for spiritual truth but there is no basis for considering it an historical document and plenty of evidence indicating it is not. Of course the Book of Mormon is a powerful indicator of what we would expect to find in the New World had moderate to extreme diffusion actually happened from the Old to the New World. Since those effects as outlined in the Book of Mormon are not evidenced we can conclude that such a level of diffusion did not happen.

All quotes from the Book of Mormon come from 1990 Independence Edition, Independence MO, which can be found at Here.

1. Larson, Stan, Quest for the Gold Plates, Freethinker Press, Herriman UT, 2004, pp. 195-204, See also in same book Ferguson, Thomas Stuart, Thomas Stuart Ferguson on Book of Mormon Archaeology, pp. 235-268, at pp. 246-257. For further references to metallurgy in the New World see my two postings about Thor Heyerdahl.

2. Williams, Stephen, Fantastic Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991, pp. 158-167, Davies, Nigel, Voyageurs to the New World, William morrow and Co. Inc, New York, 1979, pp. 141-144, Wauchope, Robert, Lost Tribes & Sunken Continents, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962, pp. 59-61, The Book of Mormon, Wikipedia, Here.

3. IBID, and Larson, pp. 175-234.

4. IBID.

5. Footnote 1. Larson and Ferguson also give lists of metal references in the Book of Mormon.

6. Larson, pp. 175-178, Williams, 158-167, Davies, pp. 141-144, Wauchope, pp. 59-61, Criticism of the Book of Mormon, Wikipedia Here, Williams pp. 165-166. An example of Modern Mormons placing the events of the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica is Sorenson, John L., An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City UT, 1985.

7. Larson, pp. 179-181, Ferguson, pp. 238-239.

8. Larson, pp. 182-194, Ferguson, pp. 240-246, Ferguson also gives an extensive list of references to those animals in the Book of Mormon.

9. IBID, Ferguson, pp. 264-266, Williams, pp. 158-167, Wauchope, pp. 74-77, 87, 91. Davies between pp. 178-179 has a picture of a Mexican wheeled toy.

10. Larson, pp. 184-188, Ferguson, p. 245. For an overview of the ice age extinction of animals in the New World, which includes the horse and elephant, see Meltzer, David J., First Peoples in a New World, University of California Press, Los Angles, 2009, pp. 239-280.

11. Larson, pp. 182-194, Ferguson, pp. 240-246.

12. Larson, pp. 204-210, Ferguson, pp. 257-264. See overview volumes like Katz, Friedrich, Ancient American Civilizations, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1969, and Leonard, Jonathan Norton, Ancient America, Time Incorporated, New York, 1967, for the failure to find any of the alleged Reformed Egyptian that was allegedly used in the New World see Reformed Egyptian Wikipedia, Here.

13. See Criticism of the Book of Mormon, and Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, Wikipedia Here, for an analysis that although it tries very hard to be neutral does convoy just how doubtful the Book of Mormon is, and Genetics and the Book of Mormon Wikipedia Here, this article also strives very hard for neutrality but once again it is clear that Genetic studies provide little to no support for the Book of Mormon. Both essays bend over backwards to be ‘fair” to the Book of Mormon it is sometimes more than a little silly. See also Meltzer, pp. 183-207.

Pierre Cloutier

Out The Window I  

Defenestration is one of those words that describe something you wouldn’t think as a word for it. Like for example anglet.1 In this case it means to throw someone out a window. Not surprisingly there is little cause for use of this word. After all if you mean to say “throw someone out the window” why not just say “throw someone out the window”, rather than defenestration. After all the usual response to the use of the word would likely be “What?”, or “what the #$%^& does that mean?”

In fact defenestration in my experience, with one exception,2 I’ve only seen it used to describe two separate events and no others. In fact it is like this word was only invented to describe those events and not to describe any other event involving throwing someone out a window. The two examples occurred in the same city and in both cases marked the start of some rather brutal, long wars. I am referring to the First, (1419 C.E.) and Second (1618 C.E.) Defenestrations of Prague.

The Second Defenestration of Prague was in deliberate imitation of the First Defenestration of Prague and was the event that marked the start of the interminable and quite horrible Thirty Years War. I may discuss it at another time.3 The First Defenestration marked the start of another long war that is not well known in the English speaking world; the Hussite Wars. A long, very bloody, precursor to both the Protestant Reformation and the ghastly religious wars that followed.4

Some other time I will discuss the Hussite Wars. Here I will go into a bit of the background and the actual events of First Defenestration of Prague.

The setting for these events is what today we call the Czech Republic. In those days it was a Kingdom with 5 parts. The kingdom of Bohemia, the Margravate of Moravia, Silesia and Upper and Lower Lusatia.5 All of those lands were considered the Lands of the Bohemian crown. Furthermore they were ruled in 1419 by the family of the House of Luxembourg in this case by King Wenceslas IV. Now Wenceslas IV was a son of Charles IV who was not just King of Bohemia but also King of Germany and hence Emperor. (Reign 1346-1378 C.E.) He was also a strong monarch and an incredibly successful one. Unfortunately he decided upon his death that his various holdings would be divided among his various sons and relatives the result was disaster.6

 

Lands of the Bohemian Crown  

By dividing his possessions in Charles insured that his eldest son Wenceslas IV (King / Emperor of Germany 1378-1400 C.E., King of Bohemia 1378-1419 C.E.) lacked the resources to be an effective ruler of Germany and further that Charles IV’s various sons would be constantly intriguing for position and power against each other. The results were speedily apparent. It also did not help that Wenceslas although amiable and well liked was not a very effective ruler. The result was a serious breakdown in law and order in Bohemia and in much of Germany.7

 

Wenceslas IV  

It wasn’t helped by the fact that Wenceslas’ brother Sigismund was actively intriguing against him and involved in various efforts to depose him. The breakdown in order, combined with intrigues and Wenceslas IV’s lack of political skill got him imprisoned twice, (1394 and 1402). On the second occasion he was deposed and his brother Sigismund, by this time king of Hungary (1486-1437 C.E.) was heavily involved. Wenceslas IV was rescued and resumed his position has king of Bohemia. In the meantime he was deposed has King / Emperor of Germany in 1400 C.E. Eventually his brother Sigismund was able to become Emperor / King of Germany in 1410 C.E.8

Sigismund King of Hungary &
German Emperor  

During this time there was a breakdown of law and order in Bohemia and Moravia and small scale guerrilla like warfare became endemic. This created a large number of semi-professional / professional soldiers who needed conflict and disorder to earn a living. In 1409-1410 C.E., some sort of order was restored to Moravia and Bohemia, by a series of peace agreements, and truces. However conflict was never far bellow the surface.9

The reason that conflict was simmering was an escalating religious crisis. Bohemia was probably the area in Western Europe that had the biggest and most intense concentration of land in the hands of the Church. In 1410 this amounted to c. ½ of the land.10 Much of it in the hands of various orders like the Dominicans and Franciscans, who also commanded immense wealth in coin, jewellery, bullion and were heavily involved in trade and commerce. This wealth was deeply resented by large sections of the population that felt pressured by Church wealth and power and felt that Church possession of so much wealth curtailed their own economic opportunities. Of course there was also the desire to seize Church property, by a resentful Nobility and Peasantry who felt the market for buying agricultural land much reduced by the Church owning so much of it.11

If greed for Church property along with resentment of Clerical power and wealth was one part of the reason for resentment, the other was a long standing religious revival.

Beginning in the mid 14th century Bohemia had been the center of a movement of religious reform and revival centering on the reformation of the Church, by clearing away corruption and incompetence and a reformation of manners of the laity. As the 14th century went on attacks on the corruption and incompetence and greed of the institutional Church increased in frequency and vitriol. Added to this were such events as the Great Schism (1378-1420 C.E.) which divided Western Christianity over who was Pope. Some countries recognizing the Pope in Avignon as Pope and others the Pope in Rome. The resulting struggle was characterized by much brutality and corruption which reduced the prestige of the papacy to a very low level, and served to massively highlight the corruption and worldliness of the Church. The result was a renewed emphasis that the Church needed to be reformed and cleansed of corruption and purified by returning to the standards of the earliest Church. This meant in practical terms divesting the Church of its wealth, getting rid of debauched, corrupt and ignorant clergy and a re-dedication to the strict standards of early Christianity.12

Thus during this time the works of the great English theologian John Wycliffe, (c. 1325-1384 C.E.) with their call for Church reform and the stripping of the Church of its wealth, which was deemed a corrupting influence, was heard in Bohemia. Beginning in the 1390’s Wycliffe’s works were being read and considered in Bohemia.13

Added to this religious stew was the very real, proto-nationalist, resentment by the Czech people against German influence in Bohemia. The longstanding fear that the Germans would eventually destroy the Czech people. The fact that the various religious orders were dominated by Germans along with the much of the state and Church bureaucracy did not help matters. The reform movement was considered both deliberately and incidentally a way of reasserting Czech identity. The fact that the reform movement preached largely in Czech played a role also.14

The great Czech reformer Jan Hus, (c. 1372-1415 C.E.) heavily influenced by Wycliffe, as indicated by his own writings preached in Prague at the Bethlehem chapel, starting in 1402 C.E.) where deliberately the preaching was in Czech. Although he enjoyed the protection of Wenceslas IV and his wife Queen Zofie, Jan Hus was in constant trouble with other church officials and accused of heresy. His sermons, and those of his followers, attacking the Church and calling for both Church and moral reform were however popular along with his call for the Church to be stripped of its wealth. Eventually Hus was forced into exile in southern Bohemia where he passed the time giving popular outdoor sermons and writing his main theological and institutional works.15

Meanwhile the Great Schism was giving rise to in Bohemia and other places to the feeling that the last days were about to come and that the return of Jesus was imminent. This millennial expectations were both strong and popular and were shared to lesser or greater degree by Jan Hus and some of his followers.16

Hus had by this time a lot of enemies in the Church who wanted his voice to be silenced, he also had achieved for himself and his followers a formidable list of Clerical / Noble supporters in Bohemia and Moravia who were on his side.

During this a Church Council (1414-1418 C.E.) was put together, to a large extent by Sigismund, King of Hungary and German Emperor, to try to heal the Great Schism and it meet at Constance on Lake Constance next to modern day Switzerland. It did eventually succeed in healing the Great Schism by getting the 3 (yes three!) then Popes to resign and electing a new one. It also quite un-intently ignited a religious war. Sigismund was prevailed to give a safe conduct to Jan Hus so he could go there to defend his views and call for reform of the Church. There Jan Hus was arrested, tried and burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415. Sigismund’s refusal to carryout his promise of safe conduct and the farcical trial, along with the argument used that promises given to heretics do not have to be kept are all morally repellent to the highest degree.17

Jan Hus at the stake  

The result was disaster for the Church. Wenceslas IV and his Queen Zofie were enraged and hundreds of members of the Nobility signed a letter of protest to the council. The council’s response was to suggest that all those who had signed the letter present themselves to be tried for heresy at Constance. Not surprisingly no took up the offer.18

With the support of the King and Queen the Supporters of Jan Hus gained control of Church in Bohemia. The result was a continued struggle over the Church as the Council and Sigismund tried to regain control. Sigismund was by this time looking forward to succeeding his childless brother has King of Bohemia and  he felt he needed Church support.

The struggle of the reformers took the form of Utraquistism, from a Latin expression meaning in / under both species or kinds. It referred to the practice of giving to the laity communion in the form of both the bread and the wine. In the west this practice had almost completely disappeared by the early 15th century, replaced by simply giving the bread. However the new movement felt that the process of reform back to an earlier, purer form of Christianity required the return to giving wine to the laity. The fact that Eastern Orthodox Christianity had kept the practice also played a role in the adoption of the practice. The result was that the Chalice from which the laity received the wine became the symbol of the movement now called Hussitism from the name of its martyred founder.19

Rage against the council for the death, (actually judicial murder) of Jan Hus played a role and the rage was increased when Jerome of Prague, one of Jan Hus’ colleagues who had gone to Constance to defend Jan Hus was himself burned at the stake on May 30, 1416. C.E.20

The result was that by the end of 1416 C.E., the Hussite movement had captured the Church in Bohemia and there were already murmurs that a Crusade would have to be waged to crush the “Heretics” in Bohemia.21

The next couple of years were a long and rather tedious series of internal struggles and conflicts with the Church trying to by various means to suppress the Hussite movement and the nobility being divided and king Wenceslas IV and his wide Zofie although basically supporting the Hussite cause trying to reign in the radicals. For it was the radicals who began to define the movement.22

By early 1419 pressure from the Church, which included an economic blockade and threats to invade Bohemia in the guise of a Crusade had become very great. Inside Bohemia a wave of religious and revolutionary enthusiasm had spread through out much of the country. By this time radicals called Taborites had established themselves throughout much of southern Bohemia. There was the widespread belief that the last days had come and the second coming was approaching and that the Church of Rome was the Antichrist.23

Terrified by the forces unleashed Wenceslas IV and queen Zofie tried to reign in the Hussites. First Hussite services were restricted in Prague and regular Catholic services were allowed, (after being prohibited in reaction to Jan Hus’ murder). This increased unrest and significant opposition. On July 6th 1419 the king purged the government of the New Town, (part of Prague and a Hussite stronghold) of Hussite supporters and replaced them with anti-Hussites. Several Hussite supporters were arrested. The stage was set for a show down.24

Bust of Jan Zelivsky  

Jan Zelivsky, (c. 1380-1422 C.E.), a Hussite priest and by then an important political figure in Prague was a preacher at St. Mary’s in the Snow of the few Hussite churches left in Prague and he prepared to move against the new council. Among his friends at the time was Jan Zizka, the one eyed, (later blind) future general of the Hussite armies who helped to give his blow military muscle.25

Jan Zizka
On July 26th 1419 C.E. Jan Zelivsky gave a heated sermon at St Mary’s in the Snow part of which is as follows:

Indeed, dogs in our own time eat the consecrated bread and the holy charity which belong to the poor. It is given in tumblers to sorcerers, to their servants, and to their servants and to his dogs. All those who eat the bread of the sons act against the truth just like dogs who pounce on a bone.26

Thus does Jan Zelivsky pour his contempt on the official Church and its supporters and at the end of his sermon lists the miracles that God has performed for his followers:

…Tobias healed of blindness with the gall of a fish, Daniel saved from the den of lions and Jonah from the stomach of a whale. Christ was born of a virgin, water was changed into wine, three young people were raised: the daughter of Jairus, the widow’s son at the town gate and Lazarus from his tomb. Behold, what an abundance of wonders!27

Afterwards Jan Zelivsky led a mob of people including many armed men into the street. First they went to the Church of St. Stephen and held a Hussite service there even though the church was supposedly for Catholic services. Afterwards the mob stopped in front of the town hall and demanded the release of the Hussite prisoners taken earlier in the month. Members of council tried to talk to the mob, but allegedly a stone was thrown at a priest, (perhaps Jan Zelivsky), carrying a consecrated host. The mob went hysterical and stormed the building. Several members of the council managed to escape through the back. Others were not so fortunate and were thrown out the windows where those that survived were finished off by the mob with Jan Zelivsky urging them on. About 13 council members were killed over all.28

Prague in 1419 with the route of the crowd  

After this episode the coup went according to plan with armed forces of the Hussites, led by Jan Zizka among others, taking over the New Town of Prague and a new Hussite city council installed.29

The pro-Hussite council of the Old Town of Prague and various Hussite supporters of the royal court apparently went along with the coup or actively took part in it. Wenceslas IV was enraged and apparently had a stroke. It appears that he came around to accept the fait accompli but on August 16, 1419 he had another stoke and died.30

There was a problem Wenceslas IV’s heir was his brother Sigismund, who was, not surprisingly, considered responsible for the murders of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, who had made repeated statements about crushing heresy in Bohemia and whose entire political career indicated that he was not to be trusted given his continual intrigues, to say nothing about his broken promise to Jan Hus, against his brother Wenceslas IV. Unfortunately his undoubted legitimate claim to the Bohemian throne along with the fear of radical Hussitism gave Sigismund a firm foothold in Bohemia. The result was the truly terrible Hussite wars (1419-1434 C.E.) characterized by revolting brutality and no less than 5 Crusades against the Hussites all of which failed. It was a combination of civil war, Crusade, war of national independence on the part of the Czechs, social revolution, dynastic war and pillaging expeditions.31

Concerning some of the people mentioned in this posting; Jan Zelivsky was executed in 1422 in the midst of faction fighting for the control of Prague. Jan Ziska died in 1424 while besieging a fortress.32

During the war the Czech Hussites created a truly frightening and effective war machine, largely through the genius of the one eyed and later blind Czech general Jan Ziska. Eventually a combination of internal disorder among the Hussite and the failure to crush the Hussites militarily forced the acceptance of a compromise peace. Eventually Sigismund was accepted as king, (in 1436 C.E.), he did not enjoy his kingdom long and died in 1437 C.E., duplicitous to the end.33

Perhaps at another time I will post some more about the Hussite Wars which were in many respects a dress rehearsal for both the Reformation and the Religious wars that followed.

1. Those plastic things at the end of shoe laces.

2. A friend of mine out of the blue used the word in conversation, correctly I might add. Aside from that case I’ve never heard the word in conversation ever.

3. Wedgewoood, C.V., The Thirty Years War, Penguin Books, London, 1938, pp. 73-75. Parker, Geoffrey Editor, The Thirty Years War, Second Edition, Routledge, London, 1997, p. 43, Polisensky, J. V., The Thirty Years War, New English Library, London, 1971, pp. 103-105.

4. Polisensky, pp. 31-32, Parker, p. 7, Cohn, Norman, The Pursuit of the Millennium, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 205-213.

5. Heymann, Frederick G., John Zizka and the Hussite Revolution, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1955, map p. 2, see also Czech Lands in Wikipedia, Here.

6.Heymann, pp. 38-39, Kaminsky, Howard, The Hussite Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1967, pp. 7-9.

7. Heymann, pp. 23-29.

8. IBID, pp. 36-38, See Wenceslaus, King of the Romans in Wikipedia Here.

9. Heymann, pp. 28-29, 36-38.

10. IBID, p. 39, Cohn p. 205.

11. IBID, pp. 39-43, Kaminsky, pp. 33-34.

12. Kaminsky, pp. 5-55.

13. Kaminsky, pp. 23-35.

14. Kaminsky, pp. 7-22, 35-55, Heymann, pp. 51-60.

15. IBID, Cohn, pp. 205-212. See also Hus, Jan, Letters of Jan Hus, William Whyte and Co. Edinburgh, 1996.

16. IBID, Kaminsky, pp.161-179, 310-360.

17. Heymann, pp. 56-58, Jan Hus, in Wikipedia Here, Lutzow, Count, The Hussite Wars, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1914, pp. 1-4.

18. Heymann, pp. 50-51. The number of signatories was 452 and included practically all the higher Czech nobility.

19. Kaminsky, pp. 97-126.

20. Heymann, p. 58, Bernard, Paul P., Jerome of Prague, Austria and the Hussites, Church History, V. 27, No. 1, March, 1958, pp. 3-22.

21. Fudge, Thomas A., Editor, The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418-1437, Ashgate, Bodmin Cornwall, 2002, pp. 14-21, Lutzow, pp. 3-9.

22. Heymann, pp. 61-63, Kaminsky, pp. 265-278.

23. Cohn, pp. 205-215, Kaminsky, pp. 310-360.

24. See Footnote 22.

25. Heymann, pp. 62-63, Kaminsky, pp. 271-278.

26. Fudge, p. 23.

27. Fudge, pp. 24-25.

28. Kaminsky, 289-297, Heymann, pp. 63-65.

29. IBID.

30. Heymann, p. 66.

31. See Lutzow, Fudge Introduction, pp. 1-13, and contents, Cohn pp. 221-222 and Heymann and Kaminsky.

33. Heymann, pp. 314-315, 438-440, Lutzow, pp. 127-128, 174-175, Kaminsky, p. 460.

33. Fudge, pp. 341-401, Lutzow, pp. 337-363.

Pierre Cloutier

Satan Worship

Evangelical Meeting
One of the most interesting phenomena is the world wide worship of Satan, also known as the Lord of this World, Lord of the Flies, King of Demons, Father of Lies etc. An interesting feature of this worship is that most of the worshipers do not know that they worship the Prince of Darkness and Lord of Desolation.

This should not surprise us as Satan is indeed a cunning and ruthless enemy who will use any and all methods to corrupt and destroy the human race and lead us all to perdition. The techniques used by the Deceiver are indeed clever using the human desire for justice, truth and hope as a means to corrupt humanity.

The chief Satan worshippers today, numbering at least in the tens of millions if not hundreds of millions are many if not most of the vast horde of Evangelical / “Born Again” Christians. That they worship Satan is of course obvious, along with their hatred of Jesus. Of course here is where the trick comes in; the vast majority of these people truly believe that they are followers of Jesus and haters of Satan. Their sincerity is not in question. The chief fault they have is an over weaning arrogance that they know the truth and all others are damned and their blissful certainty of their “truth”. They are so committed to the sin of pride it isn’t funny. Further so many of them know in their hearts that their neighbours are damned and they feel superior while piously feeling utter condescension to those not similarly “saved”. They profess love while showing over and over again the most malign hatred of those who think differently from them and their obsession with the sins of others is positively creepy. Further they are obsessed with sex and such trivial things as people swearing and having pornography.

I can remember a broadcast of the TV show 60 Minutes, about Evangelicals that presented two very wealthy looking Evangelicals, who owned prosperous businesses, who intoned in their expensive suits that they were saved because they accepted Jesus as their “Personal Saviour”, whereas Mother Theresa of Calcutta, (who died in 1997) was not saved and her good works meaningless. It requires a very special awe inspiring arrogance for those two wealthy men to feel more virtuous / godly than Mother Theresa. Just exactly what works of a comparable indication of sheer virtue did they do? It is pretty obvious that Mother Theresa’s acts indicate a state of virtue that these men couldn’t achieve if their lives depended on it.1

Also their motivation for their faith is not love of God, Virtue, or their Neighbour, but sheer mindless fear and expectation of reward. It goes like this; if you don’t want to go to hell and suffer for all eternity then you must worship God and follow Jesus. If you do follow Jesus you will be rewarded with an eternity of utter bliss in heaven. From the Evangelical point of view works generally do not count; what counts is belief in Jesus as your “Personal Saviour”. In certain versions of this belief just genuinely saying and believing this before you die is an instant get out of jail free card.2 All your sins are washed away and no matter what perverse, sick, murderous things you’ve done are forgiven because Jesus rewards his grovellers with eternal bliss in heaven. Just utter the magic incantation and all is forgiven and you go to heaven. In other words getting in good with Jesus doesn’t require that you DO anything, just that you massage Jesus’ fragile, inflated ego. So you can be as vile as want so long as just before you die you utter the abracadabra.

Yup sucking up to Jesus pays well and all this love and devotion is prudent. After all for a tiny investment you get an infinity of pleasure and wealth. Talk about a huge return on a really paltry amount of work. After all the only investment is a mouthing of accepting Jesus as your “Personal Saviour”.

Of course not all the Evangelicals are so crass about what their about and many do in fact try to meet rigorous personal demands often about what amounts to moral trivialities. But in the end it all doesn’t matter because nothing pleases their puffed up dictator of a God like grovelling idolatry and adoration. If you don’t grovellingly adore Jesus he might throw a hissy fit and cast you out and punish you because he as a huge ego and really thin skin, and he punishes any personal slight with terrible natural disasters or by giving you a loathsome disease. God as a control freak asshole.

Also if you suck up successfully you will avoid the horrors of the final days before the second coming, (No it isn’t about good sex with repeat performances), by being raptured into heaven where you can watch the Antichrist battle with God for dominion of the Earth, while God along with the Antichrist kills by all sorts of means billions of people. Then at the end you can watch all the unsaved being dragged down to burn in hell forever. For one of the joys of heaven will be that you don’t have to care about the torments of the damned and according to some Evangelical Satanists you will positively enjoy the torments of the damned. Yep kissing the big one’s ass will really pay off.

Given this concept of God the only reasonable conclusion is that this God is Satan, the Deceiver. Certainly this God seems to be a massive, thin-skinned, adulation demanding tyrant and thoroughly Satanic. Of course when combined with how little he/she really demands of humans, aside from ass kissing, it is even more obvious that this God is Satan.

Aside from the followers who are mainly deceived there are the shepherds of this flock who are indeed a nest of vipers and swine. I truly find it very hard to believe that most of this crew of Satanic High Priests don’t know what they are really doing. It seems quite apparent that they are indeed, deliberately out to lead astray and find souls for the Lord of Darkness - Satan.

If the pride and arrogance of their followers is annoying so is the even greater pride of their leaders. Not so much the pride of arrogant belief, but the pride of believing that humans are there to be fleeced and that they, the leaders, have an absolute right to enjoy the fruits of their lies and deceptions. Of course for many of them their contempt for their followers is immense.

The love of power by these people is sometimes a horror to behold. They enjoy sitting at the right hand of earthy power, but not for the purpose of admonishing and correcting, but for the purpose of exercising power and getting more. Especially what they long for and desire, with great desperation is power over others so that they can coerce and oppress with Satanic joy others who think differently.

Also there is their monumental, earth encompassing greed. These are the most devout worshipers of Satan in the guise of Mammon Lord of Wealth. They will resort to virtually any trick to extort money from the desperate, pathetic and lonely and of course the sincere believer. There was the outrageous case of Peter Popoff who scammed millions from desperate people through fake faith healings which were nothing but tricks. One of which included people radioing messages to him to received in his ear, by means of a radio receiver disguised as a hearng aid so that he could fake learning about people’s illnesses through the “power of the Lord”. Shockingly Peter Popoff is still in the faith healing business, presumably with a better bag of tricks. Sadly he is only one of many such fakes.3

To all this, alone with their view of God as a petty small minded tyrant is a powerful indication that they do in fact worship Satan.

One sort of wonders if upon dying all these Satan worshipers will be so in tune with the Satanic mindset that they will think Hell Heaven and Heaven Hell.

1. I can’t remember the name of the 60 Minutes show but it aired in the 1980’s.

2. Jack Chick, who manufactures huge numbers of mind numbing comics, had a comic that makes this point, involving a murderous criminal who murders his victims without remorse and is tracked down by a very virtuous Police Officer and eventually executed for his deeds. Our killer accepts Jesus as his “Personal Saviour” and goes to heaven. (He expresses NO remorse) The Police Officer who caught him and lived a virtuous life does not accept Jesus as his “Personal Saviour” and goes to spend an eternity burning in hell. The particular tract mentioned above does not seem to be in print anymore. Jack Chicks publications can be found at Chick Publications Here.

3. See Randi, James, The Faith Healers, Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1987. The legions of fraud and humbug in the Evangelical world looked at in this book includes, Jimmy Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, W. V. Grant and many more. For a take from an Evangelical who is sick to death about the overt and subtle cons in involved in much Evangelicalism see Slacktivist Here.

Other Book Consulted.

Standaert, Michael, Skipping Towards Armageddon, Soft Skull Press, Brooklyn NY, 2006.

Pierre Cloutier