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Post by
Gone
Again, was looking for a Christian take on it.
As a Christian, my take is that I dont really believe in magic. I beleive in the power of God, and I do believe there are supernatural creatures, angels, demons, spirits, maybe others but Im not sure. If there are others I believe that they would be Gods creations as well.
Ive only met two Wiccans in my life, so I cant say for sure what kind of magic or miracles their religion incorporates or claims to posses. From much of what Ive read it seems to be a kind of earthy religion, very intuned with nature and that sort of thing.
I also believe that whatever peoples misinterpretations of it may be, the term "witch" originally used in the Bible meant devil worshiper, not Wiccan. And while I have never met one, I have read about the kinds of things those people do, its a religion that relishes in pain and hate and is practiced only by evil people on the fringe of society, that still believe in a higher power and willingly pick the side that leads to Hell. Most or all are mentally ill and wind up killing themselves or being institutionalized.
If I ever met one of these people I most likley would not kill them however. The Bible may say never suffer one to live, but it also says thou shalt not kill, and in todays society I think thats the one God would wish for me to follow. Maybe a few hundred years ago that would be different, where violence was often the only answer for some problems, but thats simply not the reality anymore.
EDIT: Actually for some clarity there, I used Satanist and Devil worshiper to describe the same thing, and their not. A Devil worshiper is somebody who literally believes in God and the Devil, and chooses to worship the devil. Where as a Satanist is somebody who dosnt worship the Devil per say, but they follow his ideals. Both are usually sick people that simply enjoy hurting others. Almost all are sadists or nihilists, and have some form of mental illness.
Post by
Adamsm
Almost all are sadists or nihilists, and have some form of mental illness.Um...
may want to brush up there before you go around painting every group as such Ryja
; not all of them are 'evil' by any stretch of the term.
Post by
MyTie
Adamsm, there is a tab above each verse you want to look up on that website titled "
Comment
". You can click on it to get various Christian commentary on each verse, or in some cases, groupings of verses. Not saying I endorse any of those views. Some of those commentaries run contrary to what I believe, but it's at least a good starting point for you if you are really interested in learning more.
Post by
Adamsm
And I was looking up things on that particular verse, which is why I asked the question I did here.
Post by
MyTie
And I was looking up things on that particular verse, which is why I asked the question I did here.
Yeah. I know, but if you want a "Christian take" on a particular verse, that site you were at has all the "Christian take" you could want. I use that site often. It would probably answer your questions a lot better than wowhead can. If you were looking for a particular wowhead user's input, that's another story.
Check it out:
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live - See the marginal references. and Leviticus 20:27. The witch is here named to represent the class. This is the earliest denunciation of witchcraft in the law. In every form of witchcraft there is an appeal to a power not acting in subordination to the divine law. From all such notions and tendencies true worship is designed to deliver us. The practice of witchcraft was therefore an act of rebellion against Yahweh, and, as such, was a capital crime. The passages bearing on the subject in the Prophets, as well as those in the law, carry a lesson for all ages. Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 19:3; Isaiah 44:25; Isaiah 47:12-13; Micah 5:12, etc.
Clarke's Commentary on the Bible
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live - If there had been no witches, such a law as this had never been made. The existence of the law, given under the direction of the Spirit of God, proves the existence of the thing. It has been doubted whether מכשפה mecash-shephah, which we translate witch, really means a person who practiced divination or sorcery by spiritual or infernal agency. Whether the persons thus denominated only pretended to have an art which had no existence, or whether they really possessed the power commonly attributed to them, are questions which it would be improper to discuss at length in a work of this kind; but that witches, wizards, those who dealt with familiar spirits, etc., are represented in the sacred writings as actually possessing a power to evoke the dead, to perform, supernatural operations, and to discover hidden or secret things by spells, charms, incantations, etc., is evident to every unprejudiced reader of the Bible. Of Manasseh it is said: He caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, , and dealt with a familiar spirit, , and with wizards, ; and he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord; 2 Chronicles 33:6. It is very likely that the Hebrew כשף cashaph, and the Arabic cashafa, had originally the same meaning, to uncover, to remove a veil, to manifest, reveal, make bare or naked; and mecashefat is used to signify commerce with God. See Wilmet and Giggeius. The mecashshephah or witch, therefore, was probably a person who professed to reveal hidden mysteries, by commerce with God, or the invisible world.
From the severity of this law against witches, etc., we may see in what light these were viewed by Divine justice. They were seducers of the people from their allegiance to God, on whose judgment alone they should depend; and by impiously prying into futurity, assumed an attribute of God, the foretelling of future events, which implied in itself the grossest blasphemy, and tended to corrupt the minds of the people, by leading them away from God and the revelation he had made of himself. Many of the Israelites had, no doubt, learned these curious arts from their long residence with the Egyptians; and so much were the Israelites attached to them, that we find such arts in repute among them, and various practices of this kind prevailed through the whole of the Jewish history, notwithstanding the offense was capital, and in all cases punished with death.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. Such that had familiar spirits, and conversed with them, and by means thereof got knowledge of many things relating to persons, at least pretending they did; and who did or seemed to do many strange and surprising feats, as even to raise the spirits of departed persons, to converse with them and gain knowledge by them, though in reality they did not, and could not do such things, but used some juggling tricks to deceive the people, and in which they might be assisted by evil spirits; as appears from the case of the witch of Endor, who was surprised at the appearance of Samuel, it being out of the ordinary course of her art and practice really to bring up the spirit of a man deceased, whatever pretensions might be made to it; however, such being deceivers of the people, and leading them into unwarrantable practices, and off of a dependence on God and his providence, and from seeking to him, and asking counsel of him, they are by this law condemned to death, such an one was not to be suffered to live; not that it was lawful for anybody to kill her, or that any private person might or must do it that knew her, or took her to be a witch; but she was to be had before a court of judicature and tried there, and, if found guilty, to be put to death by the civil magistrate: so Jarchi's note is,"but she shall die by the house of judgment;''or the sanhedrim; for these words are spoken to Moses the chief judge, and to those that were under him, and succeeded him and them; though the Targum of Jonathan prefaces them thus:"and my people, the children of Israel, thou shalt not, &c.''and though only a witch is mentioned, or this is only expressed in the feminine gender, because a multitude of this sort of people were found among women, as Ben Melech observes, and so Aben Ezra; yet wizards, or men that dealt with familiar spirits, are included; and it may be reasonably concluded from hence, that if women, who generally have more mercy and compassion shown them, yet were not suffered to live when found criminal in this way, then much less men: and this law is thought by some to follow upon the other, concerning enticing and lying with a virgin not betrothed; because such sort of persons were made use of to entice and decoy maids to gratify the lusts of men.
Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament
The laws which follow, from Exodus 22:18 onwards, differ both in form and subject-matter from the determinations of right which we have been studying hitherto: in form, through the omission of the כּי with which the others were almost invariably introduced; in subject-matter, inasmuch as they make demands upon Israel on the ground of its election to be the holy nation of Jehovah, which go beyond the sphere of natural right, not only prohibiting every inversion of the natural order of things, but requiring the manifestation of love to the infirm and needy out of regard to Jehovah. The transition from the former series to the present one is made by the command in Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;" witchcraft being, on the one hand, "the vilest way of injuring a neighbour in his property, or even in his body and life" (Ranke), whilst, on the other hand, employment of powers of darkness for the purpose of injuring a neighbour was a practical denial of the divine vocation of Israel, as well as of Jehovah the Holy One of Israel. The witch is mentioned instead of the wizard, "not because witchcraft was not to be punished in the case of men, but because the female sex was more addicted to this crime" (Calovius). תחיּה לא (shalt not suffer to live) is chosen instead of the ordinary יוּמת מות (shall surely die), which is used in Leviticus 20:27 of wizards also, not "because the lawgiver intended that the Hebrew witch should be put to death in any case, and the foreigner only if she would not go when she was banished" (Knobel), but because every Hebrew witch was not to be put to death, but regard was to be had to the fact that witchcraft is often nothing but jugglery, and only those witches were to be put to death who would not give up their witchcraft when it was forbidden. Witchcraft is followed in Exodus 22:19 by the unnatural crime of lying with a beast; and this is also threatened with the punishment of death (see Leviticus 18:23, and Leviticus 20:15-16).
Geneva Study Bible
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Wesley's Notes
22:18 Witchcraft not only gives that honour to the devil which is due to God alone, but bids defiance to the divine providence, wages war with God's government, puts his work into the devil's hand expecting him to do good and evil. By our law, consulting, covenanting with, invocating or employing any evil spirit to any intent whatever, and exercising any enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby hurt shall be done to any person, is made felony, without benefit of clergy; also pretending to tell where goods lost or stolen may be found, is an iniquity punishable by the judge, and the second offence with death. This was the case in former times. But we are wiser than our fore - fathers. We believe, no witch ever did live! At least, not for these thousand years.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
22; 1 - 31 Judicial laws. - The people of God should ever be ready to show mildness and mercy, according to the spirit of these laws. We must answer to God, not only for what we do maliciously, but for what we do heedlessly. Therefore, when we have done harm to our neighbour, we should make restitution, though not compelled by law. Let these scriptures lead our souls to remember, that if the grace of God has indeed appeared to us, then it has taught us, and enabled us so to conduct ourselves by its holy power, that denying ungodliness and wordly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, Titus 2:12. And the grace of God teaches us, that as the Lord is our portion, there is enough in him to satisfy all the desires of our souls.
Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 16-24
Here is, I. A law that he who debauched a young woman should be obliged to marry her, v. 16, 17. If she was betrothed to another, it was death to debauch her (Deu. 22:23, 24); but the law here mentioned respects her as single. But, if the father refused her to him, he was to give satisfaction in money for the injury and disgrace he had done her. This law puts an honour upon marriage and shows likewise how improper a thing it is that children should marry without their parents' consent: even here, where the divine law appointed the marriage, both as a punishment to him that had done wrong and a recompence to her that had suffered wrong, yet there was an express reservation for the father's power; if he denied his consent, it must be no marriage.
II. A law which makes witchcraft a capital crime, v. 18. Witchcraft not only gives that honour to the devil which is due to God alone, but bids defiance to the divine Providence, wages war with God's government, and puts his work into the devil's hand, expecting him to do good and evil, and so making him indeed the god of this world; justly therefore was it punished with death, especially among a people that were blessed with a divine revelation, and cared for by divine Providence above any people under the sun. By our law, consulting, covenanting with, invocating, or employing, any evil spirit, to any intent whatsoever, and exercising any enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby hurt shall be done to any person whatsoever, is made felony, without benefit of clergy; also pretending to tell where goods lost or stolen may be found, or the like, is an iniquity punishable by the judge, and the second offence with death. The justice of our law herein is supported by the law of God recorded here.
III. Unnatural abominations are here made capital; such beasts in the shape of men as are guilty of them are unfit to live (v. 19): Whosoever lies with a beast shall die.
IV. Idolatry is also made capital, v. 20. God having declared himself jealous in this matter, the civil powers must be jealous in it too, and utterly destroy those persons, families, and places of Israel, that worshipped any god, save the Lord: this law might have prevented the woeful apostasies of the Jewish nation in after times, if those that should have executed it had not been ringleaders in the breach of it.
V. A caution against oppression. Because those who were empowered to punish other crimes were themselves most in danger of this, God takes the punishing of it into his own hands.
1. Strangers must not be abused (v. 21), not wronged in judgment by the magistrates, not imposed upon in contracts, nor must any advantage be taken of their ignorance or necessity; no, nor must they be taunted, trampled upon, treated with contempt, or upbraided with being strangers; for all these were vexations, and would discourage strangers from coming to live among them, or would strengthen their prejudices against their religion, to which, by all kind and gentle methods, they should endeavour to proselyte them. The reason given why they should be kind to strangers is, "You were strangers in Egypt, and knew what it was to be vexed and oppressed there," Note, (1.) Humanity is one of the laws of religion, and obliges us particularly to be tender of those that lie most under disadvantages and discouragements, and to extend our compassionate concern to strangers, and those to whom we are not under the obligations of alliance or acquaintance. Those that are strangers to us are known to God, and he preserves them, Ps. 146:9. (2.) Those that profess religion should study to oblige strangers, that they may thereby recommend religion to their good opinion, and take heed of doing any thing that may tempt them to think ill of it or its professors, 1 Pt. 2:12. (3.) Those that have themselves been in poverty and distress, if Providence enrich and enlarge them, ought to show a particular tenderness towards those that are now in such circumstances as they were in formerly, doing now by them as they then wished to be done by.
2. Widows and fatherless must not be abused (v. 22): You shall not afflict them, that is, "You shall comfort and assist them, and be ready upon all occasions to show them kindness." In making just demands from them, their condition must be considered, who have lost those that should deal for them, and protect them; they are supposed to be unversed in business, destitute of advice, timorous, and of a tender spirit, and therefore must be treated with kindness and compassion; no advantage must be taken against them, nor any hardship put upon them, from which a husband or a father would have sheltered them. For, (1.) God takes particular cognizance of their case, v. 23. Having no one else to complain and appeal to, they will cry unto God, and he will be sure to hear them; for his law and his providence are guardians to the widows and fatherless, and if men do not pity them, and will not hear them, he will. Note, It is a great comfort to those who are injured and oppressed by men that they have a God to go to who will do more than give them the hearing; and it ought to be a terror to those who are oppressive that they have the cry of the poor against them, which God will hear. Nay, (2.) He will severely reckon with those that do oppress them. Though they escape punishments from men, God's righteous judgments will pursue and overtake them, v. 24. Men that have a sense of justice and honour will espouse the injured cause of the weak and helpless; and shall not the righteous God do it? Observe the equity of the sentence here passed upon those that oppress the widows and fatherless: their wives shall become widows, and their children fatherless; and the Lord is known by these judgments, which he sometimes executes still.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
That's the problem I have with people who take the Bible as the word of God, you take it as something God wants you to do, but then ignore parts of it and just do what suits you.
If I drink alcohol in the United States, which, if you read the historical law, was prohibited, am I only abiding by the parts of the law that suit me, and ignoring that written law?
Post by
Gone
Almost all are sadists or nihilists, and have some form of mental illness.Um...
may want to brush up there before you go around painting every group as such Ryja
; not all of them are 'evil' by any stretch of the term.
Dude reading one wiki article dosnt make you an expert. Most of those listed in that article arent really Satanists. Most were accusations made by the church, part of that whole era I told you about earlier where wiccans, druids, and other pagan practicioners were all branded satanists or witches.
Luciferism isnt really Satanism either, it says right there in the article that its more asscociated with Lucifer the angel, rather than the "devil" depicted in the Christian bible.
I meant what I said, most forms of satanism only attract people who are on the fringe of society. The mentally ill, people who enjoy causing pain, nihilists, etc. Im sure that there are some who are nice or misguided, just like Im sure there were kind Nazis (yea yea Goodwin).
If you would care to educate yourself on the subject you would know that most if not all forms of orginised, and especially theistic satanism are !@#$ing evil, however you wanna spin it.
That's the problem I have with people who take the Bible as the word of God, you take it as something God wants you to do, but then ignore parts of it and just do what suits you.
Or you can just use logic. I mean that was written in a different time, there are a lot of people in prison right now for crimes they would probably have been knighted for in the middle ages. Murders who would probably have been considered warriors hundreds of years ago.
So yes going by todays standards I think that Gods law about not taking the lives of others, takes precedent over his law about killing satanists.
IF you subscribe to Le Vey's Satanism, you basically
just do what suits you
These people are by no means Sadistic or Nihilistic, Selfish perhaps, hedonistic maybe, but then again that can be said for many many people.
With a mantra like that (basically ammounting to moral anarchy) you can see why that particular philosphy would attract people on the fringe of society right? If your a sadist or somebody who likes doing evil things, are you going to subscribe to a religion that says youll be punished for the evil you do and not to indulge in your desires? Or the belief that says you can do whatever the Hell you want, to whoever the Hell you want, and its all part of the glorification of your deity?
Now thats theistic Satanism, which idc what anybody says is *!@#ing evil. Thats the one with the history of sexual abuse, child abuse, murder, torture, etc. Those are the sick %^&*s you read about drinking peoples blood and raping children and things like that.
Atheistic Satanism is more what you described, a sort of just do as you will philosophy. But that as well has been shown time and again to have an attraction to the mentally ill and the cruel.
Hedonism is the least harmful part of that view. At the best its moral anarchy, at the worst its destructive. It encourages people to go with their most base desires. Which in the average person as you said would be hedonistic. But in some of the other type of peopke it tends to attract, it can be much worse.
Post by
Gone
So Ive got this philosophy professor that is really starting to piss me off.
I wanna start out by saying that I really do like the guy, hes really funny and he leads us in some very interesting discussions. The thing is that he seems to use every occasion possible to bash religion of any kind, even when he kind of has to reach just to bring it into the conversation.
For example last week we read Albert Camus'
The Stranger
. And when we got to the part where the Chaplain and the Stranger are talking at the end, and he wound up using like half of the discussion going on about the religious aspect.
Saying that in 100 years people will be looking at Christianity and Islam just as crazy and silly as most people now look at the ancient Greek gods. And that its all just fairy tales and that rational people shouldn't believe in any of it.
Now again this is using probably a third of our discussion to talk about a theme in a book that took less than a single chapter. And he wasn't even really being objective about it. And he does this kind of often. The class is supposed to be Intro to Ethics, not Religion Sucks 101. He dosnt even attempt to make it into a discussion or be objective, hes basically preaching.
I feel like this is the worst kind of double standard. If there was a Christian or Islamic or Jewish professor preaching their religious views to the class then people would jump on that and tear into him like my dog on a Christmas ham. That would be considered 100% unacceptable, and yet we have to put up with this crap.
I cant even say anything because I don't want to tank my grade, I mean the grade is based on two papers and the rest our participation in class discussions. Not that I think he would purposely do anything like that, but it could even happen subconsciously, especially when as I said a big portion of the grade is based on class participation.
Its crap like this that used to cause me to have such a negative impression of atheists (that and a few personal experiences I had in high school).
I mean am I just being hyper sensitive here or would anybody else be annoyed by this in my position?
Post by
Monday
Have you considered speaking to the dean anonymously?
Post by
Gone
Maybe, but idk if that's an extreme reaction to what could be perceived as a minor annoyance. And like I said I really do like the guy, I don't wanna get him in any kind of trouble.
But its getting to the point where I'm honestly starting to dread the class that I used to look forward to. I mean this week we're going to be discussing
The Grand Inquisitor
, and I can only imagine what he's going to do with a story that actually has a religious theme :/
Post by
gamerunknown
If he has tenure, something like this wouldn't get him kicked out probably. An Economics professor somewhere actually agreed with
Rush Limbaugh's estimation of Sandra Fluke
, so yeah.
Edit: Though I can imagine such comments are annoying and unnecessary.
Post by
Gone
I guess maybe Ill email the dean about it. Tbh I feel a little bit better now that I got a chance to vent about it here, so I might not after all. Its still kind of getting on my nerves though, besides that I really like the class and its kind of ruining the experience for me, just turning it into more work that I have to get through, rather than enjoy.
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