This is something that I was taught in the IFBC bubble. It took a long time to realize this was nonsense. Was anyone else taught this in your church denomination? If so, what denomination?

In fundie world, we were taught since it was an upside broken cross, it's a satanic symbol. I think it was because the peace/nuclear disarmament was associated with groups that fundies have a visceral hatred for.

I don't remember if it was from a sermon or just people in church talking, but I have heard that. Southern Baptist

Never heard anything bad about the peace symbol. One student group placed small engines on the arms once to invoke imagery of a B-52 bomber.

Chicken foot?

That's Sammy Hagar's band... pretty good!

I had forgotten about this.

Grew up in rural Church of Christ (mid-90's) and the peace sign was frowned upon because of the hippies using it. Suppose it would make more sense to equate it to a satanic symbol to hide their blanket hatred of a group of people.

Satan was the original rebel. Non serviam.

Sbc kid here and yes I remember being told that.

Frok said:

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Were you told as a kid that stepping on a crack would break your mother's back?

-Recovering elementary kid

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No, but I was told that if a woman wore pants or shorts, she was degenerate and a harlot. Or if you listened to country music. Jack Hyles even called a friend's girlfriend a *****...in chapel...when he heard she listened to it.

I found an article from 1989 about the Pasadena school district banning the peace sign. Reminds me of all the things that get banned nowadays for ridiculous reasons as well.

https://apnews.com/article/f2872ca90011fa3f1368a487ae4516bc

Peace out

My mother in law has mellowed out a lot, but apparently my wife was very strongly encouraged to not read or watch Harry Potter when she was growing up.

Because witchcraft.

Grew up Southern Baptist in a small rural town and never heard this. In the 80's people were very concerned with Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had heard of until we were told how evil and mysterious it was and that we should never play it. That made it sound cool, so we probably would've tried it for that reason alone if we'd had any way of knowing what it was or how to do it.

Parents also became upset by the evil "Halloween Carnival" our school had done for 30 years, so it was changed to "Harvest Festival" in about 1991. That name sounds more pagan than the previous one to me and it had all the same activities as the Halloween Carnival, but the new name did seem to protect us from evil spirits so you can't argue with results.

That said, I think all that had more to do with the general Satanic Panic of the time than it did with the beliefs of our church or the SBC at large.

i wasn't "taught" this, but it's one of those things that i heard from other kids that they likely heard from an adult at some point.

I think this is one of those things that doesn't actually happen very often...but is insane enough that you remember it later.

Beer Baron said:

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Grew up Southern Baptist in a small rural town and never heard this. In the 80's people were very concerned with Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had heard of until we were told how evil and mysterious it was and that we should never play it. That made it sound cool, so we probably would've tried it for that reason alone if we'd had any way of knowing what it was or how to do it.

Parents also became upset by the evil "Halloween Carnival" our school had done for 30 years, so it was changed to "Harvest Festival" in about 1991. That name sounds more pagan than the previous one to me and it had all the same activities as the Halloween Carnival, but the new name did seem to protect us from evil spirits so you can't argue with results.

That said, I think all that had more to do with the general Satanic Panic of the time than it did with the beliefs of our church or the SBC at large.

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Yup. D&D was from Satan himself. My parents were Jehovah Witnesses for a couple of years when I was around 5-7 years old. No Santa, birthdays, or saying the pledge as a kid. EVERYTHING is considered worldly or evil, except other Jehovah Witnesses.

Now I'm a practicing Catholic.

Beer Baron said:

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Grew up Southern Baptist in a small rural town and never heard this. In the 80's people were very concerned with Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had heard of until we were told how evil and mysterious it was and that we should never play it. That made it sound cool, so we probably would've tried it for that reason alone if we'd had any way of knowing what it was or how to do it.

Parents also became upset by the evil "Halloween Carnival" our school had done for 30 years, so it was changed to "Harvest Festival" in about 1991. That name sounds more pagan than the previous one to me and it had all the same activities as the Halloween Carnival, but the new name did seem to protect us from evil spirits so you can't argue with results.

That said, I think all that had more to do with the general Satanic Panic of the time than it did with the beliefs of our church or the SBC at large.

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Maybe you grew up in my town. I also crack up when fundamentalists refuse to use "halloween", considering it's just pidgin for "All Hallow's Eve". Using "Fall Fest" or "Harvest Festival" just completely removes the faint sliver of Christianity still in the holiday

And of course D&D is demonic. You can't mix imagination, storytelling, tons of rules, math, and dice without automatically summoning the devil

Yeah, I think it depends on the group. It's a very common teaching in the IFBC world, but beyond fundamentalist bubbles, I think it's very rare. Probably more like "razor blades in candy" or "D&D is from Satan" things that are spread by word-of-mouth but never really taken seriously. The ones who took it seriously are, I imagine, the ones who share "5G is spreading coronavirus" stories on facebook.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Beer Baron said:

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Grew up Southern Baptist in a small rural town and never heard this. In the 80's people were very concerned with Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had heard of until we were told how evil and mysterious it was and that we should never play it. That made it sound cool, so we probably would've tried it for that reason alone if we'd had any way of knowing what it was or how to do it.

Parents also became upset by the evil "Halloween Carnival" our school had done for 30 years, so it was changed to "Harvest Festival" in about 1991. That name sounds more pagan than the previous one to me and it had all the same activities as the Halloween Carnival, but the new name did seem to protect us from evil spirits so you can't argue with results.

That said, I think all that had more to do with the general Satanic Panic of the time than it did with the beliefs of our church or the SBC at large.

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Maybe you grew up in my town. I also crack up when fundamentalists refuse to use "halloween", considering it's just pidgin for "All Hallow's Eve". Using "Fall Fest" or "Harvest Festival" just completely removes the faint sliver of Christianity still in the holiday

And of course D&D is demonic. You can't mix imagination, storytelling, tons of rules, math, and dice without automatically summoning the devil

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It's like religious political correctness

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Beer Baron said:

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Grew up Southern Baptist in a small rural town and never heard this. In the 80's people were very concerned with Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had heard of until we were told how evil and mysterious it was and that we should never play it. That made it sound cool, so we probably would've tried it for that reason alone if we'd had any way of knowing what it was or how to do it.

Parents also became upset by the evil "Halloween Carnival" our school had done for 30 years, so it was changed to "Harvest Festival" in about 1991. That name sounds more pagan than the previous one to me and it had all the same activities as the Halloween Carnival, but the new name did seem to protect us from evil spirits so you can't argue with results.

That said, I think all that had more to do with the general Satanic Panic of the time than it did with the beliefs of our church or the SBC at large.

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Maybe you grew up in my town. I also crack up when fundamentalists refuse to use "halloween", considering it's just pidgin for "All Hallow's Eve". Using "Fall Fest" or "Harvest Festival" just completely removes the faint sliver of Christianity still in the holiday

And of course D&D is demonic. You can't mix imagination, storytelling, tons of rules, math, and dice without automatically summoning the devil

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Math?

If God had wanted us to do math he wouldn't have given us calculators.

Grew up Episcopalian and never heard any of that. I did hear that when you learn a friend is Southern Baptist you should kneel and say a little prayer for them. Then I married an SBC preacher's daughter. We have attended Presby, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Methodist churches and are members of St. Martin's Episcopal in Houston - a Windsor congregation. Many, many years ago my father-in-law told me he considered the differences to be mostly traditional as opposed to doctrinal. I agree.

I suspect the devil is more responsible for the divisions than hippies, signs or lack of education. Happy New Year and praise the Lord for all our blessings.

Reminds me of people saying that the band AC/DC stood for "anti-Christ/devil's children".

I saw an interview once with either Angus or Malcom where they were completely perplexed how anyone could infer any deeper meaning in anything they ever put together.

chimpanzee said:

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Reminds me of people saying that the band AC/DC stood for "anti-Christ/devil's children".

I saw an interview once with either Angus or Malcom where they were completely perplexed how anyone could infer any deeper meaning in anything they ever put together.

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Forgot about that one. The AC/DC thing is something we were told as well. Fundie life...smh.

I never heard that with AC/DC, but KISS was either Kings or Knights in Satan's Service.

As a whole, no I wasn't brought up on any of these beliefs. This stuff was limited to a few families that were seen as a "little out there" in my Missouri synod lutheran churches.

We had a few guest speakers at same denomination churches in town that we were encouraged to go see and the general attitude from the kids was "lol what? Whatever. At least this got me out of swim practice."

But at these speaking events, we heard them all, peace signs were broken crosses, KISS, AC/DC, he-man, anything to do with Heavy Metal/glam rock (Motley crue, Dio, black sabbath, even the stones and the beatles) dungeons and dragons, P&G logos, cosmopolitan magazine at the supermarket, etc etc etc all things that there going to send you to hell.

Just insanity

But honestly, I was more confused when I got to aTm and found out that people believe in a Heaven of literal streets made of literal gold where they would be given a literal mansion. Nevermind a literal 6 day creation and literal geocentrism.

The AC/DC we were taught was "After Christ, Devil comes"

Duncan Idaho said:

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As a whole, no I wasn't brought up on any of these beliefs. This stuff was limited to a few families that were seen as a "little out there" in my Missouri synod lutheran churches.

We had a few guest speakers at same denomination churches in town that we were encouraged to go see and the general attitude from the kids was "lol what? Whatever. At least this got me out of swim practice."

But at these speaking events, we heard them all, peace signs were broken crosses, KISS, AC/DC, he-man, anything to do with Heavy Metal/glam rock (Motley crue, Dio, black sabbath, even the stones and the beatles) dungeons and dragons, P&G logos, cosmopolitan magazine at the supermarket, etc etc etc all things that there going to send you to hell.

Just insanity

But honestly, I was more confused when I got to aTm and found out that people believe in a Heaven of literal streets made of literal gold where they would be given a literal mansion. Nevermind a literal 6 day creation and literal geocentrism.

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I kind of figured early on, you had folks like Black Sabbath that picked the name to get people riled up for their own publicity, and it worked to the point that it became a schtick for a piece of the industry. It seems childish at best and possibly numbing/"gateway" to more serious occult stuff at worst, but I never really got the feeling anyone was terribly organized about any specific evil intent, though, I'm sure folks would say that's exactly how Satan wants you to think, or somesuch.

We were told that Hotel California was modeled after Anton LaVey's satanic church...founded in 1969 (it was really 1966). Anyway, who knows what that song is really about.

I was also told that fig newtons caused cancer. I think that was just because grandpa didn't want to give me any. Never made sense that he kept eating them while I just sat there.

94chem said:

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We were told that Hotel California was modeled after Anton LaVey's satanic church...founded in 1969 (it was really 1966). Anyway, who knows what that song is really about.

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The Eagles were some dark dudes. Interested to hear what they thought of Witchy Woman.