On demons...

"God is too big for one religion."
Of course. God created multiple, incompatible religions for his followers on Earth. What better way to recieve worship than to confuse and fragment your followers? Sorry, I don't buy it. There has to be one way God desires for us to know Him as. Everything else is a human construct.

"One can therefore formulate the general rule; in all activities of mind which favour our cause, encourage the patient to be unself-conscious and to concentrate on the object, but in all activities favourable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself. Let an insult or a woman's body so fix his attention outward that he does not reflect 'I am now entering into the state called Anger - or the state called Lust.' Contriwise let the reflection 'My feelings are now growing more devout, or more charitable' so fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbours." - The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis

How brilliant! We all do this so often, to fixate on the object so we do not realize our sin; or to feel so devout that we forget to devote ourselves to God! As Paul said:

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. -Romans 7:14-20

This sin inside of us is Satan's way of maintaining what little dominion over us that he can. He may not control our souls or minds, but he will fight tenaciously to keep our bodies. But, if we are mindful of this we can begin to fight back, since the first front in the spiritual battle is realizing there is a battle going on.

Then you have the Spiral Scouts, a wiccan-founded faux-boy/girl scout organization. I have nothing against them making an organization, but calling themselves Scouts angers me. They're attempting to gain legitimacy and respect that the BSA has already fought hard to gain. Why should some upstarts (with badges that are categorized by the 5 wiccan elements, but the list of badges is a secret. What are they afraid of?), be able to call themselves 'scouts' and bring down the reputation the BSA has built and maintained? More power to them for having their own group, but you're not scouts. You're posers.

And the oddest of the bunch, a full blown Satanist is running for Minnesota governor (by the way, his website sucks)! Just reading the story of his fall from 'grace' (he was always a bitter little boy) shows that he is fueled by hatred and believes that makes him fit to lead. He is even proud that he is full of hatred, comparing himself to Anakin Skywalker and feeling proud that he is evil because of "love for his wife". He denounced God because of the actions of his third wife (because, as we can plainly see, he was a model human), and though he states he has lost his humanity, he also claims his one desire is to protect innocents. What a sad, sad boy. He has spent his whole life running from his problems and blaming others, and now he has degenerated so far as to believe that hatred will give him power to overcome this.

Sorry for the downer post. Just a lot of things appeared this week. I'll be more upbeat next week.