Okay, I love The Wicker Man, one of my fave films. The original, of course. I own the collector’s limited edition director’s cut, and re-watch it now and then. It’s wonderfully irreverent, and Poor Sgt. Howie is so darn uptight. That said, it’s just a movie. Historically, there’s not a lot of proof when it comes to ancient pagans stuffing people into effigies and burning them alive, although this was widely believed to be the case for a good number of years. Burning effigies though, is a time-honoured tradition among humans, and has been done for all manner of reasons. Sometimes, just because it’s fun, and y’know, big bonfire.
Kevin Swanson, pastor and professional nut, has now decided that Burning Man is all about human sacrifice. I’m not exactly sure why, because I am not going to listen to the broadcast. If someone else is brave enough (and with a better connection) to do so, please enlighten me as to any actual reason for this nonsense. Burning an effigy at Burning Man is a defining thing, that much is rather clear in the name of the festival, so I would have thought that was a no-brainer. It’s a tradition, been going on for a long time.
On his radio show last week, right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson argued that the annual Burning Man festival is trying to bring back human sacrifice, but has been unable to do so only “because of the influence of Christ” on our legislators who recognize that the practice is prohibited by Old Testament law.
There’s a helluva lot of sacrificing going on in the old testament, and if most of it wasn’t human, maybe that’s because Jehovah was busy directing this, that, and the other person to indulge in one genocidal slaughter after another. I tend to think that fits the rubric of human sacrifice. Jehovah got pissed at a whole bunch of people, and it was pretty much non-stop killing, with breaks for rape and stuff.
“The only way that we can defend a law, a civil law, against the worship of false gods by way of human sacrifice or animal sacrifice is by applying Old Testament law,” Swanson said. “We don’t serve our foreign gods by human sacrifice or animal sacrifice simply because the word of God doesn’t allow for it and, as Christians, as a Christian worldview, as a Christian legislator, or as a Christian governor, I could not allow it in any given city or state because the Christian worldview only allows for a single sacrifice, and that’s already been accomplished.”
Rats below, that’s quite the word salad you have there, Mr. Swanson. There is no law, civil or otherwise, against worshiping gods of any kind. You’re free to worship anyone or anything you like. As anyone is free to indulge in animal sacrifice when it comes to meals, I don’t see how you get to differentiate over just how someone sacrifices a chicken or such. By the way, Jehovah didn’t have anything against animal sacrifice, it just got up his nose when people sacrificed more to Baal. Then Jehovah would order all those people to be, um, sacrificed.
We don’t “serve our foreign gods”? Who might those be, Mr. Swanson? I thought you subscribed to monotheism. Ah, the christian worldview. You can stuff it, because that is not the worldview held by all people. It’s certainly not held by me.
Swanson said that Burning Man is all about “radical inclusion,” which he insisted is just another name for “radical polytheism [and] radical human sacrifice. This is what they’re headed for. They want to bring human sacrifice back.”
Ooooh, radical inclusion. Sounds good to me. No, it’s not another name for polytheism. Besides, you’re the one talking “foreign gods”. And no one is talking human sacrifice, for fuck’s sake, where do you come up with this shit? Either you’re drinking a right interesting type of Kool-aid, or someone’s slipping something in your coffee, dude.
Jesus was ‘human’ sacrifice.
Yabbut, that’s the only one that counts!
If anything, the influence of christ would make human sacrifice all the more likely.
If Britt Ekland’s dance doesn’t make you convert to paganism then nothing can.
Busterggi:
Word. The song is quite nice, too.
“…who recognize that the practice is prohibited by Old Testament law.”
Wait… Didn’t Jeezus abolish OT laws or something? Does this mean we can again start bringing stubborn and rebellious sons to the elders of the city to be stoned to death?
OH NO! Someone warn Red Lobster!
Tabby Lavalamp:
I’m afraid not. He said a few times, he was around to uphold the law. But then again, you can find anything to suit whatever position you like in the big book of psychopathy.
Are there people having fun and not consulting with Swanson’s ilk? Then it is obviously of the devil and must be prohibited.
I think this one is the fault of those foreign gods, whoever they may be. Lucifer didn’t even make an appearance this time.
According to Wikipedia, Mr Swanson thinks that devil purchased Disney in 1984 “to make movies that will indoctrinate small children into sin”.
Also, when it comes to Mosaic Law, Mr Swanson doesn’t seem to heed Leviticus 19:27:
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.”
Ice Swimmer, yes, Mr. Swanson went into a white hot rage over ‘Frozen’, claiming that any child who saw it would be “inducted” into homosexuality.
The word on the Intertubes is that stunt arse was a stand in for Britt Ekland’s dance. But those are her real boobies. Apparently.
Yeah, that’s covered on one of the disc extras, but I don’t remember exactly what they said about it, got kinda sleepy and dropped off. I’ll have to listen again one day. Not that it matters much, still a great scene.
I much prefer the song…
https://youtu.be/-sQ3Af3DpeM
I wasn’t aware right-wing Christians considered the sorts of people who’d be on hand for Burning Man to be human.
God in the Old Testament demanded frequent human sacrifice, in his many demands for genocide. In I Samuel 15, he demands the utter genocide of the Amalekites; Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges chronicles the genocide of the Canaanites with specific stories about the razing of Heshbon (Deut. 2), Bashan (Deut. 3), and Jericho (Joshua 6). Numbers 31 details how God demanded the murder of every Midianite, except for virgin women who could be kept as war prizes. There was the outright murder of every first born male in Egypt as the 12th Plague, the slaughter of 42 children for having the audacity to note that God’s Holy Prophet Elishia was bald (2 Kings 2).
And let us not forget the ritual murder and cannibalism reenacted in the Eucharist.
What chigau said at #1. It was the first thing that popped into my mind.
Azkyroth @ 15:
That’s an excellent point; I don’t think they do consider them fully human, but I do think they are oh so concerned about them infecting ‘good’ people. Or something.
There is no entry for Kevin Swanson in the Encyclopedia of American Loons, an acknowledged omission. However, the entry for his side-kick, Dave Buehner, makes several points with numerous references to Swanson (the Encyclopedia’s edits in {curly braces}):
As the entry concludes, “[… H]e’s vying for the title of most extreme, hatefully bigoted wingnut on the Internet. Even the Phelpses struggle to out-hate this guy, and probably falls short on hysterically incoherent mindrot as well. […]” And this is Swanson’s side-kick.
I suppose there are echoes of the cannibalism fetish in the bellowing noted in the OP.