Therumancer said:
Such a long response, I have to do this by the numbers...
(1) I have played D&D twice, over 12 years ago. I can't stand video game RPGs. The closest I'll come to one is Zelda. So I wouldn't say I was blinded my love of RPGs.
(2) Dark? How? Pagan simply means you aren't a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew or Hindu? OK, fine, we can also exclude Ba'hai and Shinto. I've never met a Pagan who said 'let's worship Satan!'
(3) Your information is nearly as old as me (3 decades). System of a Down and Deer Hunter and Mastadon don't sing about Satan. Hell, no one's even called it "heavy" since like '91! It's just METAL. You may hear some devilish stuff out of Dethklok but the fans understand that it's satire (Murderface Murderface Murderface!) Leaving aside how dated and no longer relevant this information is, your approach can be applied to video games. Tell me how feasible you actually think this is: I played Super Mario Brothers in the arcade when I was 8 years old. That Christmas, I got an NES. Someone recommended I try Legend of Zelda. There was minimal use of magic in Zelda, the theology of which was polythiest. Ergo, Mario Brothers led me down the path to polythiestic witchcraft!
(4)Let's be honest, and this is where we're going to reach an unresolvable conclusion, to a Christian, snakes talk. A guy lived in a fish for 3 days. But I really think that what you stated here isn't even the Christianity of Jesus' and Paul's time. Jehovah said "have no other Gods BEFORE me." You and your ilk say things that are far more Bush-like: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." This mode of thinking leaves you very vulnerable to charlatanry. I'll tell you like my favorite televangelist, Bill Maher, tells it: "I'm selling doubt."
(5) Because it's the truth? Because no one on Earth ACTUALLY worships Satan?
(6) This sort of thing doesn't happen. NO religion, least of all that non-religion Satanism, recruits through D&D or geek culture. Krishnas hand out literature at airports. Christians take to the airwaves. No one recruits through roleplaying games, or ever did during the paranoid 70's and 80's.
(7) I can only presume that this conflict you're describing is some form of "spiritual warfare." So, from a rationalist to a mystic, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Real quick, I'd like to point out some of the other things that these fundamentalist D&D detractors had to say during the 80's.
Cabbage Patch Kids' middle names came from the monikers of demons from Hell.
Star Trek is a vessel for promoting witchery.
He-Man and She-Ra promotes the worship of demons and devils.
Homosexuals have brought the plague of AIDS to America, where it will spread to the heterosexual population as God's divine wrath for us tolerating and accepting them.
Understand, I don't believe that any faith, any belief, is worth holding onto if it can't stand up to a little internal doubt.