what we know of as Christianity has its roots very firmly entrenched in the history of Europe.
I agree with that, sadly Europe is Christian which it shouldn't imo be
Devil Worship is not something that was made up by Christianity.
Not exactly sure what you put into the term Devil Worship, but most of what we relate to it today as is what was made up by Christianity. Most notably from the middleages and with theology-books as "Malleus Maleficarum", various folklore and the witch-processes. Thats from a European perspective. But also the study of words like Satan, Devil, Diablo combined with European religion-history helps people relate and reflect over it.
As we don't exactly know what Pagan and Hexen (witch) means we don't understand the full meaning of Devil either.
Mostly Devil is refered to someone percieved evil, so this can be a fundament for modern satanism.
But from a historical perspective we know the term was rethoricly used to devalue and demonize religious practice in the ideologic power-struggle when it comes to European history.
Burning of books and rites, and public executions was their tools.
It's was also used to classify diferent deities in mythology afaik in other parts of the world.
But infact, there is no historical evidence or trace of anything you can academicly term as devil worship in Europe.
Neither worship of Satan as in the Hebrew deity.
When you research it Satanism is infact something with very little depht in it.
Sure the Christians have their own spin on it. But "satan" type characters have existied long before Christianity was constructed.
Yes, this is true.
I assume you envision "satan type charracters" as from a Christian description of Satan or a Satan (various deitys in mythology).
Gods and godesses with animal features (horns, hofs, tails) big penises, sexually indulgant, elitists, use of weapons/farmer tools, usage of natural herbs and "songs" to heal, wise women, use of animals and all the diferent personlities they portray etc.
The cults of these, like love and fertillity cults, their worshippers and various practices indeed existed long before Christianity was constructed.
Yes, this is the ancient pagan religion in it's various forms, which in the middleages the Church labeled devil worship (kinda).
So a lot of people only know about it from that perspective, assuming you do aswell.
Let me elaborate on this Black Sabbath, celebrated on "Blokberg" or some mountain, Friday the 13th, Satan-charracteristics, sacrifice of infants, Sex with the devil and all this nonsense from a pre-christian and European perspective instead of telling with I think about it:
A
pagan symbol.
Hel is a Nordic death-mistress. And hell, Norwegian word is Helvete is actually translated Hel's vite (vite= area) the underworld.
Those who came to her had died from old age or disease. Diferent from Valhall in ?sg?rd.
As we know, Christianity came long after Norse paganism...Polluxm must have a theory
What we know about what the Christians called "Black Sabbath" is that it was a festival of fertility, celebrated the Friday 13th.
The number 13 was not to mock Jesus (the last supper had 13 people) but because of Europeans own timezoning. A year had 13 months and each was made up of 4 weeks. The reasoning of that is answered in the mythology. 13 was a very special number for pagans because of their own mythology and timetables. It has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or Christian symbolism.
The pagans used Night, Moon, Sun etc to structure various religious practise and events. Honey is the symbol of the
?sir and ?synjur, therefor the name honeymoon. This night, "Valborgsnatt" (Friday 13th in their calendar) was their traditional wedding-night. They married this day, for reasons I'm not gonna bother go into here, and had great weddings, and natually had sex the night they married. This is "the night of the witches" where witches wen't to have sex with Satan.
The pagans had priests and priestesses (also called Valkyrie, selectors of the chosen) and the priests was choosen by the priestesses. They selected the men from how they performed certain physical and intelectual competitions (nude) and one of these events is the Olympics from Greece. Not many know that was originally a old prototype of a "meat market" for umarried women.
This was to sepeate the strong from the weak (In modern times often this is adopted in "Satanic" ideology and very diferent from Chistian "each human is worthy" philosophy) and find the man they liked the best to marry. To get the best blood carried on. It's was organised every 4th year, this is where the Pentagram (a love symbol) comes in, another symbol used by modern "satanists".
Sex with satan-
The chosen priest represented the phallic fertillity
god (not devil/demon)
Freyr.
As we know the Greek used masks to impersonate and "become" their gods in rituals with horns or whatever charracterised the god, so therefore the group of women (covens) that were priestiesses who worshipped those gods (by embracing/marrying men with those features) was what Christians wanted future generations to know as withces that were having sex with Satan on Friday the 13th to mock Jesus and that the penis was so big it was uncomfortable for the women (they
carefully chose these men!).
The limp, the kiss of sin etc, mark of the devil, also stems from Pagan rituals or effects of it.
The priestiesses not only wanted quality in men, but also in their children. This is where the myth of sacrificing infants to the devil comes in. As modern "western" (I'd say European) and Nordic women often choose abortion when they discover something is wrong with their child the pagan priestiesses rejected babies with severe deficiencies. The quality is what mattered.
So historic European devil worship was indeed elitist cults of love and fertility practising the ancient pagan religion.
Satanism" or "devil worship" as described by the Judeo-Christians has simply never existed. The belief in the existence of European "Satanism" or "devil worship" is just ignorant or imo plain Christian reactionarism/revolt for the modern part. The "witches" were murdered by the church not because they worshipped "Satan" or any other fictional Hebrew deity, but because they kept practicing our European religion, against the will of the Judeo-Christians. Northern Europe was Christianised last and each coven had only 1 priests (man). This shed light on why witchburning happened so much in that part of Europe and why it was so many women compared to men who were executed.
With these kids, I rather called them psychos and disturbed then anything else from what I read about this.