At least they can be entertaining.

One thing you can say about fundamentalist Christians is that if they don't scare the beejesus out of you they will tickle your funny bone with their antics. Of course, they are dead serious about their nuttiness. They really believe it. Consider the post from Charisma magazine that Pat Robertson's web site reprinted concerning Halloween.

According to the article, which got some publicity that Robertson didn't want so he deleted it with no comment, there is a "demonic godhead" made up of the Luciferian Spirit, the Antichrist Spirit and the Spirit of Belial. (I should note that as far as I know this sort of theory is not actually in the Bible. The article warns Christians about Halloween because there are "time-released curses" that are loosed to enable "demonic activity" "to ensnare souls."

They also claim that "most the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches." Those little devils at Nestle, pulling a trick like that.

The article also claims that bonfires are demonic tradition and that when schools have bonfires they are participating in "pagan, occult rituals." The minister who wrote the article claims that she has "prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon." I can imagine that when she's around there is a lot of howling at the moon. But I'm not sure it is blood-drinking witches who have gone loony.

Crazy Pat's website also claimed that during Halloween there are secret activities that go on. (Don't you love how the crazies always talk about "secrets" that these morons somehow have figured out but the rest of the world doesn't know about -- the conspiracists make similar claims about the secret and their special knowledge of the conspiracy.) According to the article these activities include:

• Sex with demons
• Orgies between animals and humans
• Animal and human sacrifices
• Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
• Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
• Revel nights
• Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
• Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Lucky for you the article promises that if you have opened the door to the evil spirits you can call Crazy Pat's prayer line and speak with "a CBN Prayer Counselor." Actually what these people need, on both ends of the phone, is to talk to a good psychiatrist.

The funniest incident I remember from Crazy Pat was when he was predicting massive hurricanes to hit the US that particular year. He went on and on about the damage these would do and how God had personally warned him about them. That year the US didn't have a single hurricane. Actually Pat shouldn't feel too made, the global warming modelers were making the same predictions that year and they weren't any closer to the mark.

Note: The provider here links to a cached version of the article as the originally has vanished from Pat's website—maybe the Devil took it down.