Re: [DL] Sure it's Evil, but what's it Do?

["Tabb, David" <david.tabb@msfc.nasa.gov>]

I wrote on the subject of pentagrams:
> > protecting those inside from evil things outside.  I don't think the
> third
> > one seems appropriate, since killing priests to make a Satanic symbol
> 
	Then zacharin@pluto.dsu.edu wrote:
> Actually, the pentagram isn't Satanic. It's been used in mysticism for
> centuries.  It's just modern Fundamentalist persecution that's led people
> to
> BELIEVE that the pentagram is Satanic, whatever direction the points are
> facing in- they think it's inherently evil pointing in any direction.
> 
I, and I'm pretty sure I picked this up somewhere because I never would have
come up with it on my own, differentiate between the pentagram with the star
having a vertex at its northern extreme and the type with a vertex at the
southern extreme.  The way I understand it, the north (or up)-pointing
pentagram is a happy jolly pagan symbol with no taint of evil, while the
south (or down)-pointing pentagram is an evil symbol, being the stylized
representation of the head of the man-goat.

I don't personally care either way.  If it offends someone that I said the
south-pointing pentagram is Satanic, forget I said it.  The same holds for
my comments about non-evil pentagrams.

> However, I also noticed that the first time you said what the pattern
> made,
> you said "pentagon".  
> 
Five equally spaced points define a star, a circle, and a pentagon with
equal ease.  I'm pretty sure my guys would pick up on the geometry first.

> This made me think of Discordianism.  Perhaps you
> could have the group be a bunch of Weird West Discordians 
> 
Interesting concept, but not quite what I was looking for.  Your idea of
only killing those who need killin' kinda takes away from the irredeemable
evil I was shooting for.  Besides, wasn't Discordianism founded in the 60's?

> I'd recommend that you read the Principia Discordia.  
> 
I've read it.  Printed it out on my college's group printer in 1991, in
fact.  Talk about chaos.

> Nick "Hail Eris!" Zachariasen
> 
Praise "Bob" 

David