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I found it somewhat amusing that Michael Cassidy knocked over the statue of Baphomet at the Iowa State Capitol building, and proceeded to throw his head in the trash.
Naturally they arrested him, which struck me as a bit humorous too. What you in for? Throwing satan in the trash.
Needless to say, I am not overly grieved by this alleged property crime. I found it rather entertaining and symbolically delightful. Just the same he violated the rule of law, he violated the will of the people, he disrespected someone’s property, and he bypassed due process. No, no, I am not eager to vote for people who show complete disrespect for those principles.
My second thought was, welp, there’s a meaningless publicity stunt from someone running for political office.
Don’t you wish that tearing down statues actually made things go away? People aren’t going to like me for saying this, but that’s a very liberal concept. I call it tokenism. You do something superficial and meaningless, something likely to create even bigger problems, and then pat yourself on the back for having been the only one courageous enough to solve all the world’s problems. Tokenism is a form of virtue signaling.
I don’t wish to single out and target Iowa. I myself often say I live in the 9th circuit of hell. Trust me, Iowa has lots of rotten company. However, some of us might want to ask ourselves if perhaps Baphomet might be a better representative of what really goes on in our state capitols in the first place?! Call me crazy, but I’m far more concerned about people misrepresenting Jesus in deed and act, and then using His image as a brand, as a stamp of approval.
Also, if one is a Christian then we really need to take a better look at Acts 17. The Apostle Paul is in hostile territory and has encountered numerous idols. Does he tear them down? No! He says, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
Acts 17:24-31 is where Paul proceeds to proclaim his truth. I am especially fond of these passage because he pays tribute to their poets. Apologetics is not supposed to be a dry, scientific, intellectual pursuit. Let me tell you about God, let me make Him known to you.
A huge problem I see in the world right now is that force, publicity stunts, and doing the precise same thing as the other guy just with your own team colors stamped on it, is all the rage. Might makes right. Naturally Michael Cassidy is a military guy, and that is probably an appropriate response in a physical battle, in a war. Some might even say, we are in a spiritual war right now, the problem being you simply cannot use force and violence against the devil. Why? Because it doesn’t work, because it is foolhardy. You just can’t shoot things like cancer, disease, grief, despair, ignorance, greed. You can’t just punch people in the head for doing things like “worshiping an unknown god,” a god they don’t even know how to define!
Have a chuckle with me, this particular little god was actually made out of pool noodles. I so appreciate the effort and the symbolism, but in truth Michael Cassidy simply fought a pool noodle and won. I’m not overly impressed.
Those of us who are Christians have a wealth of information to draw from in the Bible, actual examples of how to address things properly. The book of Jude actually says, “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Jude is a reminder that we need Jesus. We are not powerful enough ourselves to fix anything. Some of the things we try to fix are not the things that are broken. And some of the things that really are broken, we refuse to fix. I’ve been trying to say this to conservatives and Christians and conservative Christians for decades now to almost no avail. What is needed is not more force, more aggression, and more authority, more meaningless posturing and displays of tough-guy-ness, but rather more wisdom. Good grief are we famished from some wisdom! We need to stop fighting pool noodles and start using our own noodles.
We don’t just lose politically when we reject wisdom, we lose the war of faith, too.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
IB, For crying out loud, Satan pays us a visit and then a Christian beheads him. And you are concerned about the property crime.
SATAN HAS NO PROPERTY IN GOD’S COUNTRY!
IB, whatever religion you practice, it ain’t Christianity.
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We are currently experiencing a horrific addiction epidemic that has now killed hundreds of thousands of young people while Aidan Maese-Czeropski just released a gay porn video actually filmed in the senate hearing room, and we pat ourselves on the back for successfully slaying pool noodles and accusing our sisters of not being good Christians.
This is not wisdom, this is teh stoopid.
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Where does the Bible say that Iowa is God’s Country?
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Night Wind, Where in the Bible does it say to ask what’s in the Bible?
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While I realize that the Churchian Right doesn’t pay much attention to the Bible anyway, it probably wouldn’t hurt if they took some of its advice. For example, ‘trying the spirits to see whether they are of God” and “knowing them by their fruits,” instead of believing everything that their leadership tells them.
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Night Wind, You are a rabid atheist. Only an idiot would take spiritual advice from you, because you are completely ignorant of such matters.
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No, not an Atheist. But certainly I don’t worship whatever you’re calling God.
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IB, the usual atheist response to the facts is to change the subject and claim to be a victim. You may not be an atheist, but you think like an atheist.
Gay love in Washington DC is to be as expected as sodomy in Sodom.
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You know, it seems to me this country… this world.. could use a bit more love regardless if it’s gay, straight, puppy, superficial, patronizing, or indifferent.
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Doug, What is love? When Satan strikes, is kissy poo tolerance the answer?
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One could easily wonder… when “Satan strikes” is that God blinking for a moment? I personally don’t dwell on Satan. It’s bad enough man is divided among himself.. we don’t need to divide up a spiritual yin-yang. But we will.
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Yes Doug, if only we were as united and bonded as the latest rash of evangelical churches busy protecting pedophiles and sexual abusers are. Yep, just what the world needs, more “love” and less division. And lots more congratulating ourselves for being so tone deaf.
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Being “tone deaf” suggests that any tone is universally heard, and interpreted, equally, in order to assign a “deafness”. Such is the variety of mankind.
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So the needless and untimely death of hundreds of thousands of people due to drug overdoses and the filming of gay sex in the senate hearing room is to be, “just as expected as sodomy in Sodom,” but we draw the moral line at people making a pool noodle effigy?
I’m not a victim. I just wonder if Baphomet might actually be a better representative of who we serve and what we up to as country.
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Based on what he’s said here, I think that Silence might be an adherent of Mormonism. Their ‘testament’ is the only one that I know of claiming that America is a Holy Land or that Americans are a Chosen People, or that we should be a Theocracy. Their leadership teaches that everyone else are ‘heretics’ or ‘atheists.’
We have to be careful of these cults because they like to slither into debates to spread their doctrines. In our own wider national political discourse, it’s a real problem. Reagan was really the last President to address it: he did it simply by enforcing the laws. Almost all of them are tax-exempt foundations, so he had the IRS investigate and several Scientologists, Moonie, and Megachurch leaders ended up in jail among others. Now the laws aren’t enforced anymore, so these people have unlimited money to stir up trouble.
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Yes, Night Wind, I profess Catholic teachings because I am Mormon.
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Biden and Pelosi profess Catholicism too; what does that prove? It goes back to what I said about “knowing them by their fruits.”
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Night Wind, Why do you always change the subject when I refute your comments?
I am still waiting for you to tell me, “Where in the Bible does it say to ask what’s in the Bible?” And I am still waiting for you to tell me why anyone but an idiot would take spiritual advice from you?
And now you babble about two of the most evil, corrupt people in the world, Nancy Pelosi and Joseph Robinette posing as Catholics after you asked if I was Mormon.
Your mind does not think. It simply gets triggered and screeches out the first inane thought that comes to mind.
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Somewhere in that “knowing their fruits” business makes me recall “those living in glass houses” judging the fruits one way or the other.
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Doug, Most of commenting here have no idea about “the fruits” yielded by our fellow commenters. I imagine that most of you have good families that yielded good kids, but I do not know that for sure.
I have mentioned that I teach math and science at a Catholic classical high school I helped found. But it will be years before my students become adults and face the trials and travails of the world. I will probably never see the fruit from the garden I worked on. It’s like someone who started out late in life responding to Pharaoh’s order to build a gigantic pyramid that will take decades to finish.
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Life itself is always a work in progress regardless of our age. The day we stop learning is the day we die.
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Your main point here seems to be right along the lines of this article on the “Media-Friendly Sins of Other People” – which lots of us are fond of deploring, while ignoring all the others. Like the ones we ourselves have chronic difficulties with.
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Hmm, interesting article. I’ll have to think about that!
Everything has gotten so political that a “crime” is not about what laws you broke, but rather how much mileage can we get out of the issue of the day. Kind of scary too, because these aren’t actual crimes with the protections afforded one in criminal court, they are “bad thought” being tried in the court of public opinion and involve doxxing people, trying to get them fired, etc.
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Lots of combat in these comments eh? One notable, Michael/ devil/ the right arm of God did not address his rival as Lord, as if there could be two.
Sure, lords and ladies, lords a leaping, but God had/ has no worthy competitor.
Once we go down the road of ‘mistakes’ in scripture, there I dare say, is the devils footprints. ‘Hath God said???’ etc.
I also like that idea of govt laws in churches. But we rarely connect the dots. ‘Thou shalt approve all theft of your neighbors property.’
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This is one of the most deliciously wise words in a blog I’ve been blessed to read. I’m a big fan.
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Thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated. 🙂
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Good post. Iowa has a Republican Governor and a GOP-controlled State Legislature; it’s not as though there weren’t legal means to accomplish removing the display. Just a couple of years ago, the BLM and Antifa scum were doing this to statues of Jesus and Mary. The Churchian Right clutched their bowties (without doing anything else) and condemned that; but I guess that it’s only wrong when the Left does it.
In the writings of the Church Fathers, it’s related that some early Christians were doing things like this to Pagan shrines—the Church Fathers denounced such behavior. Today, that would make the Fathers sell-outs instead of saints.
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Statues of Jesus and Mary are as much idols as Baphomet, part of the same problem.
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Alpha, Statues of Jesus and Mary are Catholic. Christian Western Civilization, the greatest civilization in all of history, the civilization that you bathe in luxuriously, was brought to life by the Catholic Church.
Statues of Jesus and Mary are integral to Christian Western culture. They belong here. Statues idolizing Jesus’ tempter, do not.
Consequently, your comparison between Jesus, Mary and the idol Baphomet demonstrates raw cultural ignorance.
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Statues of Jesus and Mary transgress the 2nd commandment. They do not belong anywhere, let alone those of Baphomet. You accuse insanitybytes of ‘not practicing Christianity’. What a hypocrite you are!
The Roman Catholic Church is an abomination, an artificial worldly structure, corrupting the gospel. It is the continuation of the Roman Empire and has nothing to do with real life in Jesus Christ.
It is the leavening of the gospel of truth as spoken about by Jesus in Matthew 13 where the woman puts corrupting leaven into the pure flour. Truth is mixed with lies.
The Vatican and all its structures, its popes, cardinals, priests etc. dividing clergy and laity are a pyramidal ponzi scheme to deceive the gullible masses.
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Alpha, Idolatry is the worship of false gods and/or their images. Catholics do not worship images of Jesus, who is God, or Mary, the Mother of God.
What you profess is a common Protestant misconception and erroneous teaching of the Catholic 1st Commandment. The Catholic 1st Commandment is: “I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have any other gods besides me.”
The Catholic Church stated the 1st Commandment that way so mentally ill, egotistical dummies like Martin Luther would not confuse themselves and others into iconoclasm. The beautiful images on display in nearly every Catholic church are world renowned. Their purpose is to glorify God.
As Plato teaches in, The Republic, images can, indeed, be problematic. But images are indispensable to education and clear communication.
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The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is as I have stated. “The Catholic 1st Commandment”???? Now you set up the Catholic Church as the arbiter of truth, not God. No wonder the world is in such a pickle.
The images of Jesus and Mary are made up images, false images, made up in the mind of Man. They are designed as a branding exercise to ‘sell’ the RCC. They are as ever part of the ‘business’, the profit making of the RCC, a giant ponzi scheme as I previously stated.
The RCC via its pope has been promoting vaccines, a mark of the beast, the big pharma beast. The RCC is an evil, corrupted institution and will be destroyed.
I see ‘Silence of mind’ anagrams to ‘icons defile mn’, ‘icons Mel fiend’ and ‘icons flee mind’. Perhaps this is why you defend them.
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Alpha, Jesus is the arbiter of truth. The Catholic Church was set up to continue spreading the truth of Jesus in the world. Matthew 16:13–20
The real question is, “Who set up Martin Luther as the arbiter of truth?” The real answer is, he set himself up as the arbiter of truth. How crazy is that?
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You are correct to say Jesus is the arbiter of truth, but then you go and spoil it by saying “…the Catholic Church was set up to continue spreading the truth of Jesus in the world.”
You use the old chestnut of Peter, one of the apostles. He did not set up the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic institution. Jesus was not talking about Peter (petros in the Greek) but Himself (petra).
Petros is ‘stone’ or ‘boulder’, a separate stone whereas petra is ‘cliff’ or ‘boulder’. As 1 Corinthians 3 v. 11 says “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
You have been indoctrinated by the RCC to believe a lie.
As to Martin Luther, what of him? I am not interested in him but in the Word of God, Jesus Christ.
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Alpha, Your Protestant interpretation of the Bible is the chestnut. In Greek and Latin, nouns are masculine and feminine. If I call a man a stone in Spanish (piedra) that does not mean I did not call the man a stone because “stone” is a feminine noun. So your reasoning on this matter of language fatally flawed.
Also, if you read the verses leading up to Matthew 13:18, it is crystal clear that Jesus is talking to Peter (the rock), about Peter. Peter was formerly known as Simon. If Peter were not the Rock, why was his name changed from Simon to Peter (Rock). The name “rock” (Peter) in Latin is Petrus.
There simply isn’t any rational way to misconstrue the fact that Jesus was talking to Peter, about Peter. Peter is the rock upon which Jesus founded his church.
However, it is absolutely necessary for Protestants to twist Matthew 13:18 into a pretzel, otherwise Protestantism would be in direct violation of the Bible, which it is, and always has been.
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What a load of bollox. It is those who are Roman Catholic cultists like yourself twisting the truth. You ignore the plain teaching of Paul the apostle as I told you. Peter, once Simon, is the ‘chip off the old block as the saying goes. Jesus gives him a new name. This is linked to Revelation where Jesus talks about such things.
Simon as he once was means ‘hearing’. He listened to Jesus and was given understanding, so Jesus gives him a new name to represent what Simon, now Peter has gained.
As regards petros this is masculine as opposed to petra which is feminine. Go look it up.
Petra is an anagram of ‘Pater’ meaning ‘father’ and used of the heavenly Father in Matthew 16 v.17. Jesus is the ‘petra’, not Peter. Jesus is the son of the living God as Peter says, the Son of God the Father and therefore Jesus is the foundation of the church, not Peter.
I am not interested in your silly Protestant vs. Catholic nonsense, it is the truth that matters and you, like all fanatics Roman Catholic or otherwise, have corrupted the truth as always.
You called yourself Silence of Mind. It is high time you stopped thinking such foolishness and listened to the word of God for once.
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Alpha, Just read the Bible. It is right there before your eyes. Do what Johannes Kepler did when he looked at the sky. Ditch all the dogma and see what is really before your eyes and mind.
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Yes, I do read the bible. I also meditate upon it it. I do consider the heavens as “Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
However, it is you that need to ditch the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. ‘go mad’ is anagram of ‘dogma’ and you seem to have gone mad.
I also note silence of mind anagrams to ‘I inc self demon’. Oh dear, that would explain things.
You do seem to lack humour and it may be you prefer an unhappy Christmas but that would be mad of course.
Anyway I hope you will reflect on these things and for my part I hope you have a happy Christmas.
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Many thanks for your post, gave me a chance to relook at Jude. The thing is the passage is misunderstood and the translation misleading. The text according to biblehub.com says Michael “…did not dare a judgement to bring against (him) blasphemous, but said, rebuke you, Lord.”
In other words the Devil is a Lord with certain authority given by God, and Michael rebuked him for the Devil’s arrogance.
As to today if we are in Christ then we are part of Him, His body and therefore we carry the same authority via the Holy Spirit. We can rebuke the Devil in the same way but we must not slander the Devil for what he isn’t. The same applies in our dealings with anybody for that matter.
Mind you the Devil is a very nasty piece of work as we know. It amuses me to note that ‘blasphemous’ anagrams to ‘asshole bump’. Personally I think that is the Devil and not slanderous!
As regards the silly Baphomet idol was it really the will of the people it was there? As for disrespecting someone’s property, well the earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein and the creating of idols like Baphomet and worshiping them is disrespecting God. Such objects need destroying but is won’t change people’s hearts of course.
But then there are lots of things idolised and as long as people foolishly worship the created and not God there will be problems. Christians make idols of all sorts of things including crosses and statutes of Mary and Jesus (breaking the 2nd commandment), let alone wealth, homes, cars, and various so-called ‘stars’ etc.
Jesus is my star and that will do for me.
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No, Michael did not rebuke the devil. Some versions say “durst not,” “dared not,” “did not himself dare,” or “did not presume.” Michael is a powerful angel and yet even he declines to engage with the enemy. The phrase used in various translations is, “the Lord rebuke you.” Michael is certainly not calling the devil some kind of lord.
This is somewhat congruent with the temptation of Christ where Jesus also does not really engage with the enemy, He refers back to the Bible saying things like, “as it is written…”
“As regards the silly Baphomet idol was it really the will of the people it was there?”
I think so, somebody had to petition to have it placed there, the capitol had to grant permission, laws had to be followed. The state legislature could have acted, they could have stood up and said “no,” written a law, gone to court, taken numerous forms of legal action.
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Re Jude I appreciate that that is what we have been told and I used to believe that was the case. However we must go back to the original text. The bible has been poorly translated in many places and has been misunderstood, the context ignored.
If we go back to Jude v. 8 we have from the interlinear text the following;
“Likewise yet also these dreaming (ones), (the) flesh indeed defile, authority then set aside, glorious (ones) and blaspheme.”
The word for dreamers is interesting as it is ‘Enypniazomenoi’ which anagrams to ‘Ye az men opinion’ which helps explain its meaning.
However, the words in brackets are translators’ assumptions. The ‘ones ‘ associated with glorious is highly misleading, as ‘doxas’ has to do with glorifying themselves which is exactly what the ungodly do, setting their own thoughts or ‘dreams’ as it were over God’s thoughts.
You said “Michael is a powerful angel and yet even he declines to engage with the enemy.” That is incorrect as clearly he is engaging with the enemy. The text says “…when with the Devil disputing he was reasoning about Moses body…”
The Greek word for disputing is diakrinomenos. One anagram of this is‘re ask dominion’which helps explain the sense.
The Greek word for ‘he was reasoning’ is similar to dialogue, the back and forth argument. To lighten the mood here, the word in Greek is ‘dielegeto’ which can anagram to ‘ie lego Ted’. Moses wasn’t Ted but Michael was saying to the Devil ‘Lego (sic) of Moses body!
The emphasis of the passage and Jude in general is the issue of slander, the bearing false witness if you like.
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/jude/1-9.htm
Regarding the Baphomet idol perhaps legally you are right, but following the supposed law did not get people very far in lockdowns did it? There comes a point where going through due process over a silly idol is pointless.
Michael Cassidy may have been making a point for political gain but he seems to have turned himself in so highlighting the issue. Tearing down statues is as you say tokenism but it doesn’t make it worthless.
As I have said to others here, statues of Jesus and Mary are also part of the problem. Ultimately though it is the ‘idols’ in the heart that we raise that matter if these take the place of Christ.
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I wonder what our Founding Fathers would have done if Satanists had placed an idol in a government building? Probably the same as the man who tore it down. Perhaps his actions were for publicity, but for me it was refreshing to see someone take a stand against this type of wickedness.
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The Founding Father’s realizing the Satanist to be totally insane, would probably have fed him fresh baked bread, a bowl of Mama’s chicken soup, and then hustled him off to the nearest lunatic asylum (had there been one).
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Angela, I think the founding fathers had a fair amount of experience in this area? They were influenced by the monarchy, all the royal idols and religious persecution/oppression and also by the French revolution where they actually sat the “goddess of reason” idol on the throne.
James Madison certainly made the point a few times that we want to keep government and church separate because the door between them is a two way door. So near as I can tell, he did not want us doing things like hanging the ten commandments in courthouses because he realized that soon the government would be able to come in and hang their own laws on the church walls.
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I suppose I was thinking about the radicals in Boston when I made my comment. 🙂 There is so much evidence pointing to a Christian worldview before, during and directly after our nation was founded, that I think if something like this had happened back then they would have tightened up the Constitution with at least an acknowledgement of Christ. But that is a discussion for another day. 🙂
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Hmmm, a lot of interesting comments here. I have to say my first reaction to the dismantling of the idiotic satan display was good, finally some common sense! But then I felt more like you do, that’s it’s really not constitutionally correct and what will it really end up accomplishing? Funny you mention wisdom as our pastor talked about this today saying that having wisdom is not enough, you also need understanding. Wisdom is a great gift, as it brings clarity to life issues. Understanding is knowing what to do about them and how. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived and that ever will, yet the day after the Lord stated as much, Solomon married a a pagan from a warring nation, which God specifically warned him against.
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I really like that thing about “wisdom versus understanding,” Tricia. It’s kind of like how we live in the information age and have more knowledge available to us then ever before, but very little wisdom going on. And of course, we also need to be able to process life and apply our wisdom to any given circumstance.
I’m chuckling, but the comments here and some other places, really show me some of the problems around Christian nationalism. Absolutely, I want a Christian nation with Christian values, but what denomination, what theological values, what spiritual fruit, and which one of these hot heads are you going to let run things?
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“Absolutely, I want a Christian nation with Christian values,”
I’m Christian.. and a military veteran… and a lover of the Constitution… yet I don’t want this or any other state religion. If for nothing else than religion in general has been reflected faith in the world pretty badly lately.
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Evil does manifest itself physically, and sometimes in symbolic ways. I would say that a statue of satan which is erected in his honor is, by definition, evil. Not saying this is the right way to address that evil, but evil should be addressed in some manner.
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It seems the bottom line is, “Choose your battles.” With all the evil in the world today, we each need to be praying about how the Lord wants us to use what little influence we have in the best possible way and not squander it on things that don’t matter in the big scheme of things. The answer will be different for each of us, as we are each in a different place and circumstance, uniquely called, “for such a time as this.”
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Amen. Yes, I agree! Choose your battles. Something that used to make me crazy, back in the day where I live Christians would strongly object to things like Pokemon cards or teeshirts and get them banned in schools for allegedly being satanic. Meanwhile the actually satanists hosting a public convention in town or the drug dealers and sexual abusers being allowed to prey on kids went completely ignored.
I have to be compassionate of course, we all have different callings, but a lot kids here grew up thinking that Christians, rather then protecting you from genuine evil, are more likely to completely ignore it and instead persecute you for your fashion choices and the games you like.
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