As I sit down today to write my daily post I can't help but feel deeply sorry for all those on the receiving end of the supernatural blaming game. There are some here on Hive too, I discovered today; more on that later. Blaming Satan or God, or any other supernatural force, for our real-world suffering is something that's always been kind of creepy in my book: that way you can blame anyone for anything without a shred of evidence.
source: YouTube
How scary must it have been for those women and men in the Dark Ages who were accused of being a witch, of having made a pact with the Devil? They were usually, as we know now, simply naturalists and secularists who trusted the healing powers of medicinal herbs over the power of God. You see, if you're ill you must have done something wrong in the eyes of the Lord Almighty, and you should repent, surrender to the authority of the Church immediately. One would think that we, in the 21st century, would have grown past such silly beliefs; and luck has it that we have, for the most part.
But not completely; we see this in the many QAnon conspiracy theories where Satanic rituals and possession play a central role, as well as in the still very much alive Jewish conspiracy theories for world-domination based in the the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; that hearkens back to birth of Christianity and the life of Christ himself. I don't think the ones who believe these silly things see it this way, but for me this is the ultimate shifting of blame and shunning all responsibility. Even most Christians, Muslims or Buddhists know better than to shift blame for things that have perfectly reasonable worldly explanations to some unseen and unprovable force working behind the curtain or from the spirit-realm.
First let me briefly address Satan. No, not the old Goat-face himself, but how Satan doesn't exist and shouldn't even exist in the Bible. Satan, my friends, is not a fallen angel or anything like that. Satan is descriptor, meaning "accuser", "adversary", "enemy" or, in the context of the Book of Job, "prosecutor". There's no singular character called Satan, it's not a name. But what about the serpent in the Garden of Eden? Well:
Introduced as “the most clever of all of the beasts of the field that YHWH God had made,” the serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. Satan does not make an appearance in Genesis 2–3, for the simple reason that when the story was written, the concept of the devil had not yet been invented. Explaining the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan would have been as foreign a concept to the ancient authors of the text as referring to Ezekiel’s vision as a UFO (but Google “Ezekiel’s vision” now, and you’ll see that plenty of people today have made that connection!).
[...]
The noun satan, Hebrew for “adversary” or “accuser,” occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible: five times to describe a human military, political or legal opponent, and four times with reference to a divine being.
source: Biblical Archaeology Society
Look, the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is just a collection of allegories explaining the rules to live by at the time of writing, and written by many authors over a long period of time, and then redacted as well as canonized through multiple conventions of Church leaders. And all the scary stuff about Satan was introduced in the New Testament to serve as a contrast to Christ's goodness. So, all the conspiracy theories about Satanic orders, or the Democrats and Hollywood actors drinking baby blood, they're all fictions based on a fiction. The below linked video will dive deeper into the subject of the supernatural blaming game if you're interested, but let me briefly share my inspiration for today's post and thank a couple of fellow bloggers.
Yesterday I got tagged on PeakD for a post titled Hive Sabotage by @pfunk & @hivewatchers; I read it and dismissed it, mainly because I don't want to get dragged into this kind of in-fighting on my favorite blogging site, but also because I simply don't recognize the complaints therein. I wish the poster no ill will, even if I don't understand his beef with "lefties". But that post wasn't what was so inspiring to me, it was in the many responses where I found my inspiration, and I have to say thank you to a couple of people for making reading all those responses so much fun: @deeanndmathews for the best response, @nonameslefttouse for making many sensible comments and The Spanish Flea, @antisocialist for the same, and for always being supportive, and last but not least @adamada for pointing me to an older post that became this post's real inspiration (and for reminding me of the existence of the hive.vote dapp in another post).
It's an older post titled RED ALERT! WEALTHY SATANIC PEDOPHILE NETWORK IN FULL CONTROL OF HIVE BLOCKCHAIN #FBI that inspired me to look up some info on this silly subject of Satanic conspiracies. I don't recommend that post for its content, unless you want to dive into a feverishly conspiratorial mind; for me, I had equal amount of laughs and cringe. Reading the accusations made my eyebrows rise to the back of my head. The poster perfectly shows how the "Do Your Own Research"-principle can go horribly wrong and lead someone to wildly erroneous conclusions. Just look at the opening sentence:
This post signifies the end of my duty exposing what looks to be a wealthy, highly organized network of Satanic pedophiles in full control of the Hive Blockchain.
Wow. Just wow. You'd think that such a severe accusation would come with copious amounts of solid evidence, right? Wrong. I've read the entire thing, and all the comments, many of which were posted by those directly accused, and there's not a single iota of evidence provided. All the old conspiratorial methods are used here, loose connections (between "dark imagery", "dark humor", alleged human trafficking and so on) are being jammed together with the glue of imagination to reach a preconceived conclusion; lacking anything else, this post is a perfect example of fallacious inductive reasoning as opposed to sound deductive reasoning. As much fun I had reading it all, it's scary to me how easy some people apparently arrive at these wild theories. I mean the poster accuses some people I've "known" in the days when @helpie and @steem-ua were still active on Steemit, like @tarazkp and @themarkymark...
If you're a regular on my blog you know that this is something I normally don't do; I write about left-right issues from a leftist perspective, or about science, history, anything that tickles my curiosity on any given day really, and I never comment on other Hive bloggers, but this post shook me and I couldn't stay quiet about it. I apologize for that, but I did manage to make it a somewhat general post about this whole Satanic conspiracy deal. And just a short mention about this blockchain in general: no platform is perfect, and you know I'm a socialist so I don't like to see large concentrations of wealth anywhere or anytime, I'm a true idealist and I know it. But at the same time we have to be realistic and see that without a fundamental change in the sociopolitical and economic paradigm, which will take decades if not centuries, we have to do as best we can. And Hive, although not perfect, is a step forward compared to Steemit (although I still post there too). My experience on both platforms is one of great freedom; even as a radical leftist I'm allowed to speak my mind here. And I'm grateful for that. So stop the Satanic bull-crap, please. Thank you.
Satan and the Supernatural Blame Game | Renegade Cut
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