this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Read the book The Demon Haunted World, or at least the parts about satanic panic and charlatans. I really miss Carl Sagan.
I'm curious to hear what other media people recommend on this topic.
My favorite part of the satanic panic was when sometime in the eighties, our local preacher dropped by our house (we were not church goers) and saw a mangled, black candle on our kitchen table. We'd had a power outage recently, and Internet-less, kid-me loved to heat up paper clips over the flames and use them to etch the wax. Totally innocent of any dastardly doings aside from slightly mischievous me. He left in a bit of a hurry and sent along some hilarious VHS tapes decrying the evils of this and that. Particularly Dungeons and Dragons. Which was how I discovered Dungeons and Dragons and how awesome it is.
That's hilarious! I remember people saying that D&D led to kids stealing stoplights, and wondering how on earth that had anything to do with satan. I also remember Frank Peretti books (This Present Darkness), and Screwtape Letters.
Edit: also Hell's Bells https://youtu.be/Eu4UWhzwRiI
I did spend some of my childhood stealing traffic lights and street signs. It wasn't Satan that made me do it, it was the boy scouts.
If that's the worst thing that happened to you because of the boy scouts you got off pretty lucky
I can't quite remember, but there's always been this little vague memory in the back of my mind that I was taught to consider Carl Sagan as evil.
Oh seventies crazy religious upbringing. What nonsense won't you spew?
Same. When I finally read The Demon Haunted World 20 years after it came out I was so angry at my Focus On the Family "Carl Sagan is a passive satanist" parents for telling me not to read it when it came out.
What's the TLDR?
It's basically about using critical thinking, skepticism, and scientific methods to help make life decisions and not be taken in by false ideas. The full title is "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"
Before science and modern democracy the world was a terrible place, slowly the enlightenment spread and consumed the darkness, but we are on track to putting the flame out.