My big reveal!!

So I need to take the opportunity on the public forum to finally reveal my true identity to the world. I am the Antichrist!

Yes! And that is why I took the role of a college professor when I came to Earth. This is the profession that gives me the greatest opportunity to corrupt the most minds. Young, innocent, impressionable minds!

OK, so I’m kidding. But this is actually part of my introduction to the Do It Yourself Conspiracy exercise in my Conspiracy Films class. Through the reverse scientific process, by cherry-picking facts, making spurious connections, anyone can “prove” that just about any event in the world is but a part of a massive conspiracy. Even the most ridiculous of the supernatural, Antichrist and Satanic conspiracy theories can be proven true through the deceptive presentation of actual facts. The exercise is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills and help them understand how unethical communicators can manipulate the into believing the most patently absurd claims. In the age of fake news spreading through the internet and YouTube channels claiming to prove that the Earth is flat and that all entertainers are Satanic Illuminati conspirators plotting to take over the world (completely nuts, isn’t it? The only Satanic Illuminati conspirators around are teaching on college campuses) through the use of chemtrails and tainted vaccines that cause autism, I do believe that this is one of the most important exercises I give any of my classes.

But here is the proof that Barna William Donovan is the Antichrist himself:

The name! “William Donovan” was the founder of the CIA, the organization behind the biggest conspiracies of the late twentieth century. Assassination – from JFK to RFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Princess Diana, and Michael Jackson – coverups from the Moon landing to the Roswell crash. And 9/11 anyone? Who but the CIA could have pulled that off?

Take a look at my books! Doesn’t all that violent imagery make you wonder? Blood? Guns? Testosterone? “A thirst for violence?” Who but the Antichrist would write such things?

Look at my blog posts arguing that there is no connection between media violence and real world violence? Is that not part of the most vile of Satanic deceptions??

Check out all the positive references to Lucifer, Satanists, and Baphomet. The work of the great deceiver himself!

Then let’s check out the fact that I teach at a Jesuit university. The Jesuits have also been accused of some of the biggest conspiracies in history. Check out this link to Jesuit conspiracies.

And let us not forget that Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was trained by…wait for it…the Jesuits!!

And how about the location where I teach? Saint Peter’s University is on John F. Kennedy boulevard in Jersey City.  So a link between the CIA, the Jesuits, and JFK? Coincidence, right? Well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn if you believe that!

And how about the Satanic numerology of Saint Peter’s University’s location. You, I’m sure, are familiar with the oft-proven Satanic symbolism of the number 13. So guess where Saint Peter’s University is located…?

2641, John F. Kennedy boulevard!

And 2641 adds up to…13!!!!

So can any of this really be a coincidence?

Of course it can. This is a simple parlor trick that can be used to prove anything anyone wants to prove. Some of my students have “proven” that they had relatives who took part in the JFK assassination. 

And hopefully they all walked away from the class wiser to the ways of all the deception spreading through the Internet and social media today like a malignant virus.

Yes! Put Baph6met on Displ6y Right N6w!

This is quite an amusing story and a perfect example of what Rush Limbaugh used to call "illustrating absurdity by being absurd." And I find it quite absurd and amusing that in 2018 this sort of a public kerfuffle still goes on. So the Satanic Temple in Arkansas wants to place a statue of the devil - OK, they call it "Baphomet" - in front of the state capitol if the Ten Commandments get placed there too. If one religion is to be favored, then, if the First Amendment is to have any value, all religions must be given the same equal treatment. The First Amendment, after all, is quite clear in its prohibition against the government favoring any one belief system that worships invisible magical beings over any other beliefs and their imaginary beings.

So, yeah, go ahead and put Baphomet up in government buildings if the deities and religious artifacts of other faiths are placed there. The Satanic Temple is absolutely right.

Actually these kinds of culture wars over the displays of religious symbols in government-run places are the most absurd of all. If you don't get to put your religious iconography on public display, it does not mean that you don't get to practice your faith in the privacy of your own home or have to somehow deny your faith in the privacy of your own thoughts. If you are a Christian or a Jew, you are NOT being oppressed just because you can't put the Ten Commandments up in a public building!

And no, this kind of a prank for the sake of attention by the Satanic Temple is not another sign of the End Times or the Apocalypse or the rise of the Antichrist or the New World Order or any of that nonsense. It's a prank and simple a prank by an organization which - guess what?! - doesn't believe in a literal Satan. As I discuss with my students in my Communication Ethics class when we examine "meta ethics" and various belief systems' views on the source of our sense of right and wrong, "Satanism" today is a form of radical social constructionism. It's a belief system that advocates a very extreme form of individualism and calls for the critical interrogation of ALL belief systems that seek to control people through arbitrary rules. They especially call for the critical interrogation of belief systems that seek to control by way of commandments coming from invisible, unprovable magical beings.

Oh, yeah, and the Satanic Temple also has one of its tenets arguing that "one should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason." Sounds pretty good to me.

By the end of that class session, usually many students find that there just might be a little bit of a Satanist in all of us.

At least when it comes to the First Amendment, the Satanists right now are spot on.