govern point

The details of Santeria are known by few, but this will attempt to provide a reasonable overview on What is Santeria.  Santeria or La Regla Lucumi originates from Africa in what is now Nigeria & Benin. It is an Afro-Caribbean religion that combines animism, pantheism, ancestor worship, and Roman Catholicism. It is a syncretistic religion that combines its belief in the Orishas – the gods of the Yoruba and Bantu pantheons of southwest Nigerian. Santeria has one god known as Olorun or Olodumare. Olorun is the source of  the spiritual energy that makes up the universe, all life and all things.

Olorun interacts with the world and humankind through emissaries. These emissaries/gods are called orishas. The orishas rule over every force of nature and every aspect of human life. Because the Yoruba people were baptized by the Catholic Church some componants of Catholocism exist through the rituals and symbolism. To that end, Santerians equate each of their Orisha with a Catholic saint.

Followers of Santeria are largely secretive about their religious practices. Some of their beliefs and rituals involve: Worship of Deities, Ritualistic animal sacrifices, Possessions and the Veneration of the dead. Because of some of their beliefs and rituals Santeria is often thought to be another from of Voodoo. Santeria is not Vodoo, it is a meshing of spirituality, ritual and Catholocism in context of Orisha.

Similar things happened in other parts of the Caribbean and other Catholic countries where the new religions was blended with the old traditions. For example in Haiti, various African religious traditions merged with one another, adopted some Catholic symbols, and formed the religion called Voudun or Voodoo. Other islands have their own variants like on the island of Jamaica where Shango exists. Santeria, Vudun and Shango are sometimes collectively called Afro-Caribbean religions, since they originated in Africa and developed their unique traits in the Caribbean based on slavery movement/migrations.

Other variants of Afro-Caribbean religions exist like Candomble and Umbanda from Brazil. While these could be called the “sister religions” of Santeria, since they all blend African beliefs with Catholic symbols and rituals.

Satanism is not easily defined, just like Wicca there are multiple kinds and it is personal. How Satanism is defined depends on what “division” of Satanism you are referring to and how they view Satan.  In contrast to other religions, Satanists themselves disagree on their very fundamental principles.  Unlike, other religions which may differ in opinion or conviction about interpretation of certain passages, Satanists in different sects argue whether there even is a Satan and whether they are worshiping him or themselves.

Ultimately, Satanism is a religion and a philosophy based on man as he really is: a carnal being free from the fiction that is spirituality and one who champions total responsibility, pragmatism, and the here-and-now.

Satanism has been referred to as an “unreligion” in the sense that it does not subscribe to the notion of some being who must be worshiped, its most common misconception.  Others may even say that Satanism is challenging popular notions of how ‘religion’ is defined, not content with the dictates of Judeo-Christian realities.

The varying views on Satan aside, much like other religions Satanism has faith in a construct which Satan embodies. Satan may or may not be a real, living entity, conscious or a physical thing that can be interacted with. It is a symbol, something ethereal, something that basically doesn’t exist except as an emotional attachment and personal dream. Just like Buddhists do not worship Buddha, Satanists hold up Satan as an ultimate principal rather than an object of literal worship. Satan inspires and provokes people, like all many religions the ultimate point is self-help, doing good and finding meaning. God believers have a different opinion on what Satan is, but their opinion is a result of their own personal choices and religion.

Satanists use the symbol of Satan as a representative of various philosophical ideas, social instincts, intellectual ideals and theological statements. Here is an introduction to all of these aspects of Satan. The best way to get an understanding of Satan is to read The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey and “The Satanic Scriptures” by Peter Gilmore.  Below are the 9 Satanic Statements:

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!
2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams!
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!
5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!
9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!

Satanism is also held by its followers to not be like Devil Worship. Satanism and devil worship are two distinctly different philosophies. Devil worship is the worship of an external deity, the Devil, and can easily be seen and be labeled the polar opposite of Christianity

Proof of existence and trying to know if God is real is the center for many discussions. Is God real? Surprisingly, this fundamental question is simplistic in nature. It is solved by asking another question, “Where did everything come from?” Where did space, time, matter, energy and information come from?
Theists have always acknowledged an Intelligent Designer as being the source of all things.

Is God Real? The Evolution Paradigm

Is God real? Not if you ask British Naturalist Charles Darwin. In 1859, Darwin purposed a mechanism by which evolutionary descent from a common ancestor may be possible without resorting to a Creator God.

Kurt Cameron takes on the idea In March 2006 on “Nightline”.

The way of the master is a Christian ministry headed by Cameron and itinerant preacher Ray Comfort. Operating as a charitable trust, its intention is to educate and equip the church to preach the message of Christianity to nonbelievers. Cameron says he is motivated by a literal fear of hell.

“I believe the Scriptures teach that there’s a literal heaven and a literal hell, just like Jesus said,” he explained. “And without forgiveness of sins that, yeah, the place of punishment is called hell.”

The Way of the Master has a weekly television show for which Comfort and Cameron literally hit the streets in the name of Jesus, challenging nonbelievers that their sins against God will lead directly to hell.

“On the Day of Judgment,” Comfort tells one man on the streets of New York, “God will see you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. You have sinned against God. You need his forgiveness.”

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The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. It is perhaps best known for its celebrity members, among them Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Whether Scientology is a “religion” is a matter of debate, but for our purposes at govern point it is. Scientology presents itself as a “technology” that leads people to “true spiritual release and freedom.” It does not emphasize particular beliefs about God or other traditional religious topics.

Scientology focuses on psychological technologies that people can use to make their lives better.

As such, it has very little to say about God, the afterlife or other speculative religious ideas. Just as Scientology is focused on humanity, so are its beliefs.

Nevertheless, the Church of Scientology considers itself a religion because of its focus on the soul and spiritual awareness and does include some beliefs on other traditionally religious subjects.
God

Scientology includes belief in God, but offers no details or doctrine about God. In his explorations, Hubbard noted the prevalence and importance of belief in a Supreme Being to all peoples. God is therefore the Eighth Dynamic, which is also known as Infinity. Scientologists who progress to the Eighth Dynamic come to their own conclusions regarding the Supreme Being.
Scientology on Human Nature

Based on his personal research, L. Ron Hubbard concluded that a human is made up of three parts: the body, the mind and the thetan.

The body includes the brain, which is not to be confused with the mind. The purpose of the brain is to carry messages; it is likened to a switchboard.

The mind “consists essentially of pictures.” It is the accumulation of life experiences, memories, perceptions, decisions and conclusions.

The thetan is the soul, which is the true essence of a human being. Hubbard felt that “soul” had come to have too many meanings, so coined the term thetan based on the Greek letter theta.

A thetan is the person himself, not his body or his name or the physical universe, his mind or anything else. It is that which is aware of being aware; the identity which IS the individual. One does not have a thetan, something one keeps somewhere apart from oneself; he is a thetan.

The thetan can exist entirely independent of the body and the mind. Scientology teaches that, through a process called exteriorization, a thetan can leave the body but still control the body. This experience results in a person’s certainty that he is not identified with his body. A person who is able to practice exteriorization is called an Operating Thetan or OT.

The official Scientology website states:

Man is a spiritual being endowed with abilities well beyond those which he normally envisages. He is not only able to solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness, but also to achieve new states of awareness he may never have dreamed possible.

Afterlife

Scientology does not include an official belief about the afterlife. However, it reports that during auditing, a person often recalls memories of past lives and that Scientology ascribes to the idea of being born again into another body.

Xenu

In Scientology doctrine, Xenu is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. These events are known as “Incident II” or “The Wall of Fire,” and the traumatic memories associated with them are known as the “R6 implant.” The Xenu story prompted the use of the volcano as a Scientology symbol.

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan Level III in 1967, famously warning that R6 was “calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it.”

Much controversy between the Church of Scientology and its critics has focused on Xenu. The Church avoids making mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story’s confidentiality, including legal action on both copyright and trade secrecy grounds.

Critics claim that revealing the story is in the public interest, given the high prices charged for attaining the level of OT III.

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