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| Fox news |
Ohio homeowner told to take down his zombie nativity scene | Fox News: An Ohio homeowner was ordered by town officials to remove a Nativity scene in front of his house that featured zombies instead of wise men and a baby Jesus.Town officials will take "legal action" if owner doesn't take it down. Not sure what legal action that might be; freedom of speech and all that.
Beware the nasty and Satanic Easter Eggs:Are Your Children Playing With Lucifer's Testicles? The Truth About Easter Eggs: "It's not that difficult to understand," says Author/Creation Scientist, Dr. Daniel Cameroon. "In the old days, deluded pagans would gather round and hump like bunnies on Easter Sunday because they thought it would make their tomatoes grow faster."
Now, I had to know -- is this a joke, a hoax, a parody? From my little bit of exploring on the intranets I discovered that, bizarrely (as well as frighteningly) this appears to be a serious book by serious Christians about the serious evils of Easter Eggs. Oy.
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| Images from Doreen Virtue Mary Queen of Angles oracle |
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| The BVM Visits Holy Girl Scouts |
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| Jesus Feeds Himself to the Children |
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| Follow the Rules! |
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| Pink Angel Watches Over Spot and the Kids as Dad Backs Out |
Whats the difference between Hoodoo and Voodoo? - Yahoo! Answers
"Hoodoo and Voodoo are both practiced in Louisiana and have many things in common. However, there are differences between the two. Voodoo is a religion and Hoodoo is an African American system of folk magickal practice that has typically been handed down from generation to generation. Many Hoodoo practitioners in Louisiana are Roman Catholic and also practice some form Spiritualism or Spiritism. They do not typically invoke the loas (African deities) as in Voodoo, and instead use Catholic Saints that represent the loas. This Catholic shroud is the result of a historical atmosphere wherein the only legal religion permitted in the state of Louisiana from the 1600s to 1812 was Roman Catholicism. There is no conflict between those who practice Voodoo and those who practice Hoodoo in Louisiana and they are perfectly complementary. "
Underworld saint becoming more popular in US - Yahoo! News: Popular in Mexico, and sometimes linked to the illicit drug trade, the skeleton saint known as La Santa Muerte in recent years has found a robust and diverse following north of the border: immigrant small business owners, artists, gay activists and the poor, among others — many of them non-Latinos and not all involved with organized religion.
Clad in a black nun's robe and holding a scythe in one hand, Santa Muerte appeals to people seeking all manner of otherworldly help: from fending off wrongdoing and carrying out vengeance to stopping lovers from cheating and landing better jobs. And others seek her protection for their drug shipments and to ward off law enforcement.
It sounds like a mash-up of Indiana Jones' plots, but German researchers say a heavy Buddha statue brought to Europe by the Nazis was carved from a meteorite that likely fell 10,000 years ago along the Siberia-Mongolia border.Of course, as is pointed out in the above paragraph, the Buddha statue (if it was meant to be a Buddha) didn't really "come from outer space" but was made from material that came from space: the meteorite.
This space Buddha, also known as "iron man" to the researchers, is of unknown age, though the best estimates date the statue to sometime between the eighth and 10th centuries. The carving depicts a man, probably a Buddhist god, perched with his legs tucked in, holding something in his left hand. On his chest is a Buddhist swastika, a symbol of luck that was later co-opted by the Nazi party of Germany.
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| Ace of Wands, Deviant Moon Tarot, by Patrick Valenza |
"While tens of thousands of Mexicans have lost their lives in the ongoing drug war, millions more have become devoted to death. Saint Death (Santa Muerte) is a skeletal folk saint whose cult has proliferated on both sides of the border over the past decade. The Grim Reapress (she's a female figure) has rapidly become one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes. Although condemned as satanic by both Catholic and Protestant churches, she appeals to millions of Mexicans and Latin American immigrants in the U.S. on the basis of her reputedly awesome supernatural powers. ~ sources: Huffington Post
The current administration of Felipe Calderon has even declared her religious enemy number one of the Mexican state. In March 2009, the Mexican Army bulldozed dozens of her roadside shrines in the border cities of Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros. But providing protection to narcos is just one of Saint Death's multiple roles. She is also a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer and angel of death. ~ source: R. Andrew Chestnut,Huffington Post.
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| 'La Catrina' by Rodolfo Cartas |
No introduction to Saint Death would be complete without consideration of one of her most unique characteristics -- her gender identity. While folk saints abound in the Americas, and other supernatural skeletons work miracles in Guatemala and Argentina, Santa Muerte stands alone as the sole female saint of death from Chile to Canada. Her asexual skeletal form contains no hint of femaleness. Rather it is her attire and, to a lesser extent, her hair that define the saint as female. Devotees and manufacturers of mass produced images of the Bony Lady usually dress her as a nun, the Virgin, a bride or queen.(I wonder about Catrina, the famous Day of the Dead skeletal figure -- is she as common/popular? It's not quite the same meaning, from my limited understanding; Day of the Dead, while maybe morbid to some of us gringos, isn't a negative celebration, and it doesn't share the same context as Saint Death. While both are female images, both are of the people, and both are vilified by authorities, they aren't the same.)
The Virgin of Guadalupe’s indigenous antecedent is Tonatzin, the Moon Goddess, a milder aspect of Coaticue. Coaticue was the Lady of the Serpent Skirt, the creator-goddess who gave birth to all the deities and to earthly life as well. At death, she swallowed living things back into her body. She was also goddess of the moon and stars. She wore a necklace of skulls (like India’s Kali) and, as her name implies, a skirt of serpents. She is sometimes depicted as wearing a skirt made from the penises of her sacrificial victims.
In many parts of the world, St. Nicholas Day is far more important and more ardently observed than Christmas, although in some areas, both dates are enjoyed as holidays. Children will often set their shoes out by the fire or in a main living area, and on the eve of St. Nicholas day, their shoes will be filled with treats. St. Nick is usually depicted in his traditional Bishop’s garb, and while he is said to be kind and generous, he is also a firm believer in discipline. Kids might be given presents, or they may find that St. Nick has left his parents a rod or branch to spank the children who’ve been naughty.
While traditions vary from region to region, the gift giving elements stay relatively consistent. It’s the creative means of discipline that makes each Nation’s St. Nick story unique… and at times scary! And while Santa Claus doesn’t really have a sidekick, unless you count his reindeer or his elves, some Countries have given their versions of St. Nick a helper or two… and no example is more bizarre than that of the Netherlands’ Sinterklaas.
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| Image source here |
Homeowners in Hudsonville, Mich., have been singled out for displaying what an anonymous letter-writer calls "pagan" lights and decorations on their properties.The letters start out on a friendly note, with "Hi Neighbor, you have a nice display of lights." But the self-described "love note" quickly changes tone, explaining how the "pagan tradition" of putting up lights began.
Landscapers chopping down a pine tree at an Escondido church discovered the shape of a cross throughout the trunk.
"I was like wow we stumbled on something here," said owner of Star Landscaping Jim Rants. "It's God and mother nature working together."
Roman Catholic priests have been told to inject 'scandal' into their sermons by a senior official from the Vatican.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said priests needed to liven up their often 'dull' sermons with the scandalous parts from the Bible.
Cardinal Ravasi, the Vatican's most senior cultural officer, added that if priests did not change their ways sermons risked becoming 'irrelevant'.
"...congregations were 'the children of the television and the internet'. . . The advent of televised and computerised information requires us to be compelling and trenchant, to cut to the heart of the matter, resort to narratives and colour."
'We need to remember that communicating faith doesn't just take place through sermons. It can be achieved through the 140 characters of a Twitter message.'
The Cardinal added that the Bible was 'crowded with stories, symbols and images.'
