Pentagrams and Hexagrams

In the comments on Mel's thread about the Wiccan lady's ritual gone awry, someone mentioned pentagrams as a symbol of evil.  Here are some thoughts on that.  I don't remember where I heard or read this, and I'm not asserting some great truth in it, but it makes a certain amount of sense.

The hexagram (6-pointed star) is a symbol for big-G God, because it looks a bit like the sun and because it can be seen as arrows pointing in all directions all the time (all-seeing, all powerful, always).

The pentagram (5-pointed star) is a symbol of mankind, because it is sort of shaped like a person.

Right side up, that is with one point up, the head rules the body.  Mind over matter.  Follow your brain, not your base desires.  Good stuff.

Inverted, the body rules over the mind.  Do what you feel like, regardless of the harm to others.  Bad stuff.

Thanks, Lady Fingers.  :-)
Mel

That is very interesting, Lady Fingers! 

Lady Fingers:

The pentagram (5-pointed star) is a symbol of mankind, because it is sort of shaped like a person.

Interesting, LF!  The pentagram, the way I understand it,  is symbolic of All Life and All that is needed to sustain Life.    The 5 points representing Air, Earth, Water, Fire and Spirit.   I do believe the church didn't like that too much (too simple...I suppose... or maybe they just could not understand) and therefore declared it to be 'evil.' 

I actually had a woman in my home not long ago that saw my lovely little pentacle dangling in my bay window and freaked out.  She pointed to it with a look of horror on her face,  backed away from it, and mumbled something like "Oh my God...get that out of here...it's evil...it's evil!"  Her face turned all red and she looked like she could not catch her breath.   I lead her away from the bay window...it's all glass you know...and I didn't know if she was gonna take a header into it!

After I sat her down and gave her a glass of water (though she was now looking at me as if I had 6 heads) I asked her if she knew what the pentacle meant.  (She gathered some 'air' in her lungs and drank the 'water')   All she knew was that it was of the 'devil' and it was 'evil' and that's all she has to know about it.  That's what she learned in church.  I asked her if she'd like to educate herself.  Nope.  Too afraid. :(

Pentagrams mean nothing to me, so I don't find them evil.  Some say the Confederate flag I fly is "evil", but again, only if you choose to see it that way, I think.

The flag itself cannot be evil.  It can, however, represent evil intention.

When I wear a pentacle I am deliberately letting people know I am a witch.  And by my actions I am deliberately letting people know I have no evil intent.

Why do you fly the Confederate flag, OBB?  What message are you trying to send?

Mel

Widdle_NY:

The pentagram, the way I understand it,  is symbolic of All Life and All that is needed to sustain Life.    The 5 points representing Air, Earth, Water, Fire and Spirit.

Earth, Air, Fire and Water is interesting too.  People look at that as evidence that early people didn't understand their world.  After all, we smart modern folk know that there are lots of elements, not just five.  But if you look at it a different way, it fits very well with science.  Look at it not as elemental particles of matter, but as elemental forms of matter.

Solid, gaseous, liquid and plasma.  What then is the spirit of matter?  Perhaps that is the atomic makeup, the unique quality which makes that piece of matter what it is, regardless of which form it takes.  That which tells us that ice is water but steam is also water.

At this point, though, my husband would point out that colloids are neither truly liquid nor truly solid.

FtLaudMom:

Why do you fly the Confederate flag, OBB?  What message are you trying to send

I have several and im sending a message that a confederation is better than a strong centralized governement.

I think that's BS, Bad Karma.  The Confederacy for which you're flying the flag is defunct and I doubt what you stated is inferred whenever anyone sees it. 

Why not just put what you said on a flag and fly that?  Or better yet -- don't you think the "Don't Tread on Me" flag would state better what you just said?

Try again. What are some of your other messages?  Perhaps that would have the ring of truth.

Mel

FtLaudMom:

I think that's BS, Bad Karma.

Thats because you're an idiot that thinks the Civil War was about slavery.

My understanding of pentagrams was always that it represented the five elements.  Earth, fire, water, air, and spirit.  And inverted pentagram represented the physical over the spirit. 

Where in what I said do you read that, Bad Karma?  I think your real reason is to be provocative because you know that's what many people do think, and that it has nothing to do with confederate government as opposed to centralized government.

Mel

I fly the Confederate flag because to me it represents the South and I'm Southern to the bone.  I fly the Confederate flag because I had ancestors who were in the Confederate Army and some who died in the Civil War.  Unlike you, Ft.LaudMom, I'm NOT trying to send a message to anyone.  I fly the flag because it means something to me . 

..but you fly the flag as a symbol so you are sending a message OBB.

Renee____NCalif:

..but you fly the flag as a symbol so you are sending a message OBB.

 

...and you being a racist is completely coincidental.