Obsessed with the Devil | Christianity vs Halloween and Harry Potter | I Am Judas Project #55

With Halloween around the corner, I was reminded of the ideas of my previous Catholic community, their obsession with darkness and the devil, and a little bit about Harry Potter. I look back with a smile.
Let me know in the comments about your experiences. Like and subscibe.
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Have a wonder weekend, and Happy Halloween... or Satan's Holy Day. lol.

[@iamjudasproject]

Let me know what your experiences are from your past. What were you told about Halloween or Harry Potter?? 👀

[@marcelstephens8683]

Harry Potter was forbidden. My girlfriend who is Catholic ( not Sspx ) has always watched Harry Potter lol.

[@iamjudasproject]

Haha. Yeah.

[@Maria-ow8pk]

You are totally right about the paranoia and superstitious beliefs in the sspx communities. Halloween was vilified and a lot of power was attributed to things that weren't necessarily evil or harmful: pumpkin carving, trick or treating, scary stories, Harry Potter, etc etc. 🎃🧹☠️ It was not a fun time of year. Now I celebrate all of these things every October! Halloween is so much fun and it's great to finally celebrate! 🎃♥️🍂

[@Manticore00]

It’s crazy how seemingly extremely orthodox the Catholic Church, I assume in America, is, compared to the one here in Ireland. It used to be really orthodox but, well the priests never told us to not participate in Halloween, but then again it is our Irish tradition and the ancient Gaelic pagan religions have kind of blended with our Irish Catholicism. Same with the 1st day of spring, in February we have St. Brigid’s day, and though she’s canonised now, Brigid was originally a Gaelic pagan goddess. Very interesting to hear your stories.

[@kukulcan9119]

I identify with what you're saying so so much. The Catholic church traumatized me. Growing up, learning this from childhood, isolated in these ideas, you don't know any different. As an adult, I left the Church, and it was the most difficult, guilt-ridden, scary thing I ever did. It takes a lot of courage to leave everything you know without something else to grasp onto.

[@iamjudasproject]

It does feel like “taking the leap.” Haha. A “leap of faith” ironically. 😂

[@chaelikarval1421]

I grew up in the SSPX and this was accurate for me too. We didn't participate in Halloween. The aloof atmosphere of the community was true all year round in every interaction outside of SSPX affiliation and it partially defined my personality too. You should really watch this German movie called Stations of the Cross. The acting isn't astounding the whole time but it is a fiction based on the SSPX about a devout girl and it exposes a lot of its problems in a very pure, down to earth kind of way. Actually it's kind of mandatory for you to watch this movie. 😁

[@iamjudasproject]

Ok ok. Lol. I’ll obey. I should be really good at obeying by now. 😎😜

[@katrinamyers4999]

You’re right! I definitely laughed, hearing about my being such a terrible influence. I know I was really confused by the overt rejection of Harry Potter vs the adoration of Lord of The Rings and I was so sad when you announced that you would no longer be celebrating Halloween or doing the trails. I was losing my co-conspirator! I’m glad you remember those trails as fondly as I do!

[@iamjudasproject]

Katrina!! Hahaha. There was even a campaign to try and get rid of Pokémon because it was demonic. And you know how much you and I were obsessed with the card game. I wasn’t going to listen to that… I knew that their arguments had no foundations. Happy Halloween!! ❤️

[@steventan2754]

Listening to this while I make my halloween costume 😆 I feel extra heretical 🤣

[@iamjudasproject]

😂🤣

[@lisasimonton9639]

Mostly same experience with Halloween at our parish…only all saints day. BUT We we’re an exception. For a small period of time we actually threw “All Hallows’ Eve” party at our sspx church. Mass then a party dressed up as anything you wanted and you could trick or treat around the neighborhood if you wanted too. 🤷🏼‍♀️ instead of creating controversy they decided to celebrate it in a “healthy” way as All Hallows’ Eve. As a kid that was way more fun then just all saints day 😂

[@dmckenzie9281]

It was interesting when you talked about the Irish music. I didn't know that connection. I was never Catholic but much of my family converted as adults and became sspx an they like Irish music. As far as halloween goes as a preteen and into my twenties I was a fundamental Baptist and a lot of their beliefs about the "world" are very much in line with the tradition catholics. Harry Potter bad LOTR good. Trick or treating bad and Hollywood bad.

[@iamjudasproject]

It’s funny when we start making connections. Haha. And also realizing that it’s a similar pattern that happens to everyone. Maybe Irish music is secretly hypnotic, and creates mindless drones. Ok… That was a joke. Hahaha. ❤️

[@iKarla]

I grew up thinking Harry Potter was some pathetic malignant thing. When I watched it for the first time I was 14y. I wish I had the chance to watch it as a kid.

[@majorcoconuts7609]

I was allowed to do Halloween things like have a costume and go trick or treating as long as I wasn't anything 'bad' like a monster or witch. I was also allowed to read and watch Harry Potter without any issues oddly enough, but I definitely had a lot of friends who weren't allowed to read it. I think the justification my mom found was that the plot was love and friendship vs wizard Hitler. The books didn't make it seem like you yourself could do magic and ultimately the message was good.

[@marcelstephens8683]

🔥

[@cartilaginous.studios8817]

I just had a family member say the Mandalorian has satanic symbols in it. I looked up satanic symbols to see if it's true. From looking on Wikipedia occult symbols page (so not an in-depth search), I did not see anything that resembled the Mandalorian crest. The closest I could find was Baphomet, but that's a bit of a stretch. Honestly, I doubt he knows what the symbols are and just thought the horned skull reminded him of the devil, so boom! Satanic symbols. I also secretly read Harry Potter. One of the arguments I heard was they were portraying witches as good. But these same people loved watching The Wizard of Oz, where there's literally the good witches of the North and South. I can't stand the double standards. Halloween is a tricky topic in my family. Some refuse to partake in it. Some dress their kids up as firefighters, princesses, etc, and take them trick or treating. In their head it's okay as long as they don't dress up as monsters. As for me, I'm planning on handing out candy dressed up in a costume.

[@iamjudasproject]

If you wear red sunglasses, you’ll see all in red!! 😎

[@joelrivardguitar]

There is no such thing as "satanic symbols". If you are non-religious then it's obviously a myth. For religious folks information that isn't in scripture is not considered canon and usually it's heretical. Satan was an agent of Yahweh in the OT and during the Persian occupation he became more like the Persian devil - a mortal enemy of God in an eternal war who will be defeated at the rapture when good people get resurrected and Earth is a paradise. (Revelations is also originally Persian.) But all modern ideas and pictures and imagery came later. It wasn't until late middle ages when evangelists began preaching this "Satan is trying to get you" doctrine. So it's made up, some of it is from Dante's Inferno. All of the witchcraft and fear of satanic things is hysteria made up by people over 10 centuries after the Bible was assembled in 313AD. If people made up new stories about Jesus during the middle ages you wouldn't accept it if you were Christian? Although the concepts of Saints is a stretch "During the Early Modern Period, Christians gradually began to regard Satan as increasingly powerful[145] and the fear of Satan's power became a dominant aspect of the worldview of Christians across Europe.[136][138] During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther taught that, rather than trying to argue with Satan, Christians should avoid temptation altogether by seeking out pleasant company;[148] Luther especially recommended music as a safeguard against temptation, since the Devil "cannot endure gaiety."[148] John Calvin repeated a maxim from Saint Augustine that "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider." "In the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany.[146][147] The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery") was rooted in the work of Satan" "The early English settlers of North America, especially the Puritans of New England, believed that Satan "visibly and palpably" reigned in the New World.[154] John Winthrop claimed that the Devil made rebellious Puritan women give birth to stillborn monsters with claws, sharp horns, and "on each foot three claws, like a young fowl."[155] Cotton Mather wrote that devils swarmed around Puritan settlements "like the frogs of Egypt".[156] The Puritans believed that the Native Americans were worshippers of Satan[157] and described them as "children of the Devil".[154] Some settlers claimed to have seen Satan himself appear in the flesh at native ceremonies.[156] During the First Great Awakening, the "new light" preachers portrayed their "old light" critics as ministers of Satan."

[@robertbrown569]

Congratulations on managing to drag yourself out of all of that madness and poison and embracing your humanity. I'll bet it wasn't easy, but it must be such a relief for you now to have escaped.

[@iamjudasproject]

It wasn’t an easy transition in many ways, but then again, it was easy. I knew that it was the right thing for me to do at the moment. 😅😇

[@majorcoconuts7609]

IMHO the LOTR series doesn't earn the same condemnation as Harry Potter because of when it was released and possibly the quality of it (never read the books). I've noticed with converts or those who maybe grew up with a moderate faith and became more devout, whatever was around before that shift occurred is considered OK to watch, even though they can be substantially more 'immoral' than later stuff. The frame of mind when you're introduced to something is a powerful influence on how you interpret it. LOTR came out at a time when there wasn't much social concern about sci-fi and fantasy, and to my knowledge most Catholic groups didn't really have a stance on it was a particular work that was 'obscene'. It would've been when my grandparents and a lot of church leaders were either young and maybe not so serious about their faith and it's admiration from their peers and the public influenced how they saw it. My parents would've learned about it as an amazing book series loved by their parents, and people in our generation feel the same. Harry Potter was published in the 1990s as a children's book, when fear and mania about video games, Pokémon, and metal music was at its peak. Adult evangelicals and catholics I think read into it too much into things where childhood innocence wouldn't see things, and so it forever stained Harry Potter's perception.

[@iamjudasproject]

You’re so right about converts from the outside or just people to became really devout, that they went head first into the teachings and became super strict - beyond reason.

[@yvona7645]

It’s like You are blaming and accusing the Catholic community from the parish you worked at, all the worst stuff. Was’t there anything positive about them? What were you doing as their pastor to correct them. It’s like you throwing all the bad stuff at them. I mean that’s just sad. And i didn’t get it from your previous videos what made you lose your faith? How was it that all those years you believed in Christ, His presence in Eucharist and then you decided you don’t? Faith is truly an act of will.