Scarier than clowns: Chick tracts

[galateus]

And now, a holiday classic, showing the true face of that eeevil heathen holiday called Halloween, or as Chick tracts call it...

Satan's birthday!

Comments

[halialkers]

The ones who really did commit human sacrifice were the Germanics. If Caesar and Tacitus can be trusted both Odin and the Goddess Nerthus regularly received human sacrifices (which in a fine example of Graeco-Roman hypocrisy was deemed as evil even as the Graeco-Romans engaged in them in the Gladiator matches). The Druids were destroyed because as the Celtic analogue to the Brahmins they were probably seen by the Romans as potential revolutionaries.

OTOH people tend to blame the Christians for the destruction of the druids when that happened under the reigns of Emperors Claudius, Nero, and Vespasian, none of whom were remotely Christian.

[nezchan]

I would say the "If Caesar and Tacius can be trusted..." bit is rather critical here, particularly the former.

As I recall, the Christians were pretty nasty in Iceland, and despite my maternal heritage I have no love for the antics of St. Patrick.

[halialkers]

Well, at one point the idea of Carthaginian child-sacrifice was poo-pooed but it turns out that of all the things for the Romans to be right on........yeah.

Personally I think it's worth noting also that Christianity centers on a human sacrifice and its most sacred rite is theologically speaking cannibalism in the first place, so somehow the only difference is that bread and wine is supposed to substitute for it. Where 2,000 years later I end up thinking "LOL NO DO NOT WANT"

Christian conversion was always a nasty and bloody business, yes. Islam tended to convert by merchant trade, but Christianity pretty much always did so at either the tip of the sword or barrel of the gun.