Hi Dominikus;
Greetings! I’d like to respond to your question. Is witchcraft evil if someone uses it for good? Well, yes. The whole point is that witchcraft is not of God but of His enemy and using the enemy’s tactics and tools to achieve any purpose taints that purpose and poisons the one who uses those tactics and tools. One cannot use the enemy and his methods without being used BY the enemy and his methods.
“We” as a Church never burnt them at the stake. On the contrary, the Church, through her Inquisitions, saved many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people who were accused of witchcraft and who would have otherwise been burnt at the stake by State authorities or local mobs or local petty rulers. The vast majority of these people had never had anything to do with witchcraft, but were victims of the “witchcraft crazze” which swept Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries. Their counterparts in Protestant countries were less fortunate and many thousands of alleged witches (mostly innocent) were executed there. England’s most recent conviction under the Witchcraft Act was in the 1940s.
Great explanation. Thanks!
OR we could try to stick to examples from real life. So, is Wicca and similar pagan, witchcrafty movements evil even if the practitioner is trying to do good? Well, I’d have to say yes as well. First of all, one has to realize that there can only be one Truth. If we believe in God, then we can’t go around worshiping spirits, goddesses, and fairies at the same time. To do such is a blatant violation of the first commandment. To my way of thinking, that alone constitutes it as evil. The practitioner himself might not be evil, but simply misguided and making a well-meaning mistake, but I can’t see getting around the fact that the movement itself is by its nature, pulling people away from God.Greetings! I’d like to respond to your question. Is witchcraft evil if someone uses it for good? Well, yes. The whole point is that witchcraft is not of God but of His enemy and using the enemy’s tactics and tools to achieve any purpose taints that purpose and poisons the one who uses those tactics and tools. One cannot use the enemy and his methods without being used BY the enemy and his methods.
Did you ever read or watch the Lord of the Rings? The evil one there used magic. Gandalf, if you’ve read the Silmarillion and other works, is not a magician but is of an order of being closer to an angel. And he does not want to even touch the Ring. Nor do the others who are aware of its power to use the would-be user.
This is exactly what happens to anyone who tries to take shortcuts like witchcraft. To fall for the allure and seduction of witchcraft would be a shame. Just remember, the devil is a fallen angel of light. He is a deceiver, a liar and the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. There is no such thing as white magic or good witchcraft. There are people who have fallen into the trap of believing in such things. All magic and all witchcraft were forbidden by God as far back as before the Old Testament was even written down. There’s a reason for that.
Wicca, by the way, (and the whole modern witchcraft movement) misrepresents itself as some sort of path of wisdom that stretches back into the mists of time. But it was pretty much dreamed up on a weekend by Crowley and one of his friends, Gerald Gardner. Please don’t fall for the hype or for the lies. Those two were disreputable if ever anybody was.
I’ll keep you in my prayers. Peace be with you!
Catholic Heart and Mind: catholicview.wordpress.com
The church didn’t personally kill witches, what it did was point the fingers and then hand the innocent women over to the authorities who then killed them and in 1940 a woman was accused of witchcraft by a neighbour not by the police they didn’t know what was happening, the last TRIAL for witchcraft happened in 1727 in Scotland and in England it was 1712 but no one took It seriously and she went free.
Since you use those particular examples of things that took place at particular places and times in history, you do realize, don’t you, that what you are calling “the church” was in fact not the Catholic Church at all, right? I believe that the Catholic Church was outlawed during that time in those places. I believe that Catholics were driven underground and were in danger of being hanged or otherwise tortured and killed*. So members of the Catholic Church were in as much danger as (or even more danger than) witches during that time and in that place. Something you neglected to mention.
Heh. Yep, real life examples will work too. Sometimes I like to use a story to illustrate a point and reveal a truth.
Or they could fall under the category of “silly goose of the evil instrument”.
You’ve swallowed a myth I’m afraid. If you honestly believe that this is generally true, then please provide evidence (not just accusations).
Quite false again I’m afraid.
Hunter24;9448249 ** As for persicution of witches said:
This is Totaly incorrect. Witches and homosexuals were burned or otherwise killed for centuries by Christians and Jews. And the Spanish inquisition as well as many city’s durring the Crusaids killed Jews for refusal to accept Jesus, not to mention the campaign of reprisals the roman empire took after it officially became Christian. your the one who is ruining your credibility.
I could say “go and read a real history book instead of bklindly swallowing outrageous myths” but because I’m in a kind and patient mood I’ll give you some help.
I never said they weren’t.
Absolute nonsense and totally impossible. By definition the Spanish and every other church Inquisition could only investigate the beliefs and practices of baptised Christians. Jews and other non-Christians were totally ignored by and immune from all actions of the Inquisitions. And of course the Inquisitions never killed anybody, but in fact as I said saved many innocent people (and even many probably guilty people) from being killed by civil authorities. The Inquisitions were the most liberal and humane court system that the world had ever seen up until that time. It was the inquisitions which introduced many of the advances in court procedure which we take for granted today and whic h have been adiopted in virtually all miodern court systems to make things fairer for the accused person. They even had some extra features whuich have not been generally adopted, for example the accused person was first invited to write a list of as many names as he wanted to, of people whom he regarded as his enemies or who he thought had some reason to be biased against him. Thenceforth tall these people were banned from giving any evidence against him and any accusation made by any of them was automatically dismissed!
Really, you should do stand-up comedy. Please provide a link to any paper by any actual historian about this supposed “campaign of reprisals”.
No, I took the meaning that you wrote, “Jews, Moslems and other pagans”. Don’t blame me for your inability to express what you mean.
Sodomy has been around for millennia. The idea that there is a distinct group of people called “Gays” or “homosexuals” has been around as I said only about 100 years, and it was only much later that most people heard of this idea, and even later that a significant number of people embraced the idea. This is documented historical fact as are all of teh other historical facts I referred to above.
Most likely most of the Catholics’ enthusiasm was largely motivated by a desire to avoid the accusation by their protestant rulers that Catholics were overly tolerant of “witches”.