On Jay-Z and the Devil Worship Nonsense
The Facebook Migration Series, Volume IX
Originally written January 24, 2010
Lately, I have been seeing a lot of things on the internet, mostly here on FB, about Jay-Z, among others, being associated with the devil, free masonry, satanic worship, occults, and other things associated with dark secretive movements. This is something that some people are not speculating about, but rather people out there are seriously convinced that Jay-Z is part of some satanic group and has brought others into the fold, such as Rihanna (did I spell her name right?) and Beyonce among others. Initially, I just laughed it off as people having too much time on their hands. You know, those same people that think JFK's assassination was some big conspiracy or are convinced that UFOs are not unidentified at all, but rather are real aliens from out of this world. It is funny how it is always some wacko from Middleofnowhere, USA living in a trailer with half their teeth missing who vehemently thinks aliens are something real that our government is covering up. This is very funny to me. However, when I recently saw a story on MTV in which they brought up the rumors of Jay-Z's corroboration with this Lucifer. For J (I am going to call him J or Shawn from now on because I'm tired of reaching for that damn hyphen) to have to actually respond to this means it is at least somewhat serious. He had to answer questions due to his latest video, "On to the Next One," which people are pointing to as indisputable proof of his alliance with the devil. Here in this note, I will discuss some issues I have with the J is the devil movement and how it is sad on so many different levels.
Before I can get into my first point about this subject, I have to reveal a little bit of what I am spiritually. I have mentioned this in previous notes already, but it is important that I make it clear again. I was a Christian for the first part of my life until after my first year of college. I found that having faith was not good enough for me because faith is not tangible to reality. Faith requires taking a leap over actual facts and accepts what cannot be proven to be an absolute truth. I could not go on like that. I am actually what scientist Richard Dawkins calls a Temporary Agnostic in Practice, or TAP. I do not believe in God like most do. I believe in a greatest conceivable being, in which the universe was created by some kind of an alpha entity. This could be God or any kind of god or gods that people believe in, but the difference with me is that I do not take anything to be an absolute truth. Subsequently, I do not care for any religion of any kind because they preach dogma from texts that I have serious problems with on many different levels (maybe another note, but that is such a deep, intellectual topic, so I don't know, lol).
In order to believe J is associated with the devil or whatever, we first have to consider the existence of God. Now, we, for the most part, believe in some sort of God(s), but the key word is believe. I will bet any and everything I have that nobody out in this world KNOWS that their version of God exists. Of course people will know in their own minds that god exists, but they could never step out of their mind to prove it. This is a very important leap here. In order for the devil to exist in the first place, god has to exist. If the existence of god is dubious, then the existence of the devil is also dubious. I am not saying that god and devil absolutely does not exists. But, from what I have observed, I doubt that god exists in the way most people believe. When people come out and say that J is a devil worshiper, they cannot be absolutely sure since they probably cannot prove the existence of a god in the first place.
I know vaguely of all what is out there on the internet about the polemics of J's unquestioned association with the devil. I say vaguely because I know that they are not to be taken seriously. I have to hand it to them though. I seems like they spend a good amount of time going over all of this. Seems like that is good time lost that could be spent on something uplifting, improving themselves, or even getting laid rather than trying to bring down someone. What these people do not realize is that if you spend enough time on anything, you can come up with anything. Also, these people already have their belief systems established. This means they are going to be incredibly biased in their analyses. Having their pre-conceived beliefs will lead to a larger tendency to merely confirm their own beliefs. In psychology, there is something called confirmation bias. You all my know this, but confirmation bias occurs when your mind confirms things that have already been planted in your mind. To better understand this, I will use the classic new car analogy. When you or your parents got a new car, did you remember thereafter inexplicably seeing that same new car seemingly everywhere all the time? Well, the fact is that there were just as many cars out there just like your new car before you got the new car. However, once you got that new car, you mind became aware of it, and started noticing your same car more. Since you got that new car, that car did not become any more or less popular, it was just your mind confirming the existence of your car because it is now aware of it. Well, since people have their beliefs about god and the devil, they are going to seek those things that appeal to their preconceived notions. Now, anything some people do will automatically be registered in their minds as relating to the devil. As for me, I do not have those beliefs. Hence, I could not see what these people were talking about until they mentioned it. Do you see the difference?
I recall the only clip, at least the couple seconds I saw of it, I seen that analyzed J and his alleged devil worship. I remember one part that analyzed the symbol he uses, which symbolizes "The Roc" originally for the Rocafella label he co-founded. When I see the Roc symbol thrown up, it is strikingly similar to the sign that the sisters of Delta Sigma Theta throw up when they are representing their sorority. The only difference is that the Roc symbol allows for the thumbs to be pointed slightly downward to mimic a diamond. The Deltas' symbol allows for the thumbs to be risen slightly higher to form the Greek letter delta, which is basically a triangle. There is no YouTube clip I know of that accuses them of devil worship. And there should not be either. I have two cousins that are Deltas and know a couple others. They are far from devil worship. The point of this anecdote is that you can take anything you want and make it appear in a way to confirm your own beliefs.
The latest in the J is the devil movement comes from the aforementioned "On to the Next One" video from his latest album, "The Blueprint 3." I will be the first to admit that the video is weird. Like all abstract art, however, the video is made up of many different symbols and things that perhaps only the artists involved can truly tell you what all of it means. If weird automatically means devil worship, then I guess Prince is Lucifer's father. You talk about weird, Prince is hilariously weird. Who remember when he rented a house from Utah Jazz center Carlos Boozer and Painted a ginormous purple stripe throughout the property? When I heard that story, I was in tears of laughter. Boozer then filed a lawsuit against Prince. In showbiz, there are plenty of songs, music videos, television shows, movies, and artists and actors themselves that could be described as weird; but there is no movement to associate them with devil worship.
Some of these people that believe in this J is the devil stuff embarrass themselves from my perspective. Some of these people will claim that they believe in god and everything. At the same time, some wear earrings that are strikingly similar to diamonds, something that the devil Jay-Z throws up with his hands. I wish these people were spending more time on analyzing the sad story about how a substantial percentage of their diamonds are blood diamonds. But of course not. They will use this to symbolize how J is associated with the devil. Also, I will bet that many of these people are down with a Christian god and wear Nike gear. You may ask what's wrong with being Christian and wearing Nike gear? Well, Nike is actually the Greek goddess of victory according to Greek Mythology. She fought in the epic mythical battle between the Olympians and the Titans on the side of the victorious Olympians, the side of Zeus among others. Is this not blaspheme? Coveting a pair of Nikes is not idolizing another god? It is not a big deal to me, but these J hunters should analyze themselves and become better followers of god rather than trying to bring someone else down.
Those that call J a devil worshiper are put, by me, into a category with those that I like to call conspiracy nuts. You know, those people that think the NBA is fixed, 9/11 was planned by our government, aliens are locked away by our government, there is a New World Order that is going to take over everything, et cetera. In this day and age, conspiracy theories could never thrive. We live in an age where information is disseminated at a level that is hard to keep track of. We also live in an age where people want to be insiders. We all love having information that nobody else has. In our desire to be looked at better, we want to hold and release that special information to better ourselves. We all gossip and want to be on the inside of things. Now ask yourself, if we live in the information technology age and everyone loves having inside information to give to people, could any conspiracy of any kind survive? I'd think not. Somebody somewhere will spill the beans making no secret safe. Someone will score some money by writing a tell-all book. Somebody will give up information to get that 15 minutes of fame. Somebody will squeal to get into some special group. These things just cannot survive in today's age. With that being said, all this stuff about secret cults and conspiracies are nuts. Some will say "well what about the Free Masons or Skull and Bones?" Well that is my point exactly, we know about them. If J is making all of his alleged alliance with the devil blatant in his songs and videos, why wouldn't he just come out and admit it? He's admitted to being a hustler, drug dealer, womanizer, and other things, why not devil worshiper when he supposedly makes it very obvious?
The part that irritates and saddens me the most is who we are attacking here. We are all at least somewhat familiar with J's story. If you do not know the story, look no further than his track "December 4th" from his 8th and 1st final album (lol) "The Black Album." Anyhow, he had meager beginnings growing up in a housing project in Brooklyn, New York. While coming up in this housing project, he then got into the drug game to come up on some money he and his family did not have. He eventually fell into the rap game, perfected it and "tried this rap sh*t for a livin'." The rest, as they say, is history. He would go on to drop lyric after lyric of rap genius. He started with pushing his music out of trunks of cars to small underground shows to international icon. Is this not a good story of literal rags to riches? To many out there, it is not.
J is obviously black. What makes me the most irritated and sad is the fact that a lot of this J is the devil stuff comes from black people. As great as we black people are, we sure can have a knack for bringing down our own. For the sake of argument, let's just say that J is a devil worshiper. Why is it that we only go after one of the few black males that made it out of a dire situation to become a global icon? There are plenty of people out there that are doing much harm to the world and do not get this kind of negative attention. Do we go after social issues that is causing much peril in society, and in especially black communities? No, we make clips explaining how J is linked to the damn Free Masons, which he isn't by the way. Do we make clips of how Citi Bank laid off so many employees and then use bailout money to spend $400 million on naming right to a baseball stadium. Naming rights! This means they are paying the New York Mets $400 million over the course of x-years to put their name on the stadium. Do we make clips to show how ridiculous the ridiculous, hyper-liberal ALCU defend the rights of a Nazi group that wanted to celebrate the Nazi's and the holocaust because it was "their right" to do so? The point in all this is that in all that is going on, why do we have to bring down our own and only our own? Never have I seen a group of people trying to hinder the process of its own people like we can do sometimes. J is merely a man from the hood who had an immense talent, developed that talent, worked hard, and became a super millionaire and president of a very successful company. Instead of drawing inspiration to be successful from him, we try to cast him as the devil! Even if he is the devil, he is our devil. And he is not part of some dark cult that worships the devil. People are going to believe what they want to believe anyhow, which is fine. I only hope that they realize that it is all belief and not something that could be proven in reality. They are talking about a man who has devoted more time and money to so many different causes that you or I could not even imagine, and he doesn't make it very known. What have the J-is-the-devil followers ever done? Also, isn't the theme of Jesus' story not about judging and bringing down others, but to have forgiveness, love, and a passion for the father rather than a passion for destroying, accusing, and slandering? People should listen to what he is saying, then either love him, or leave him alone...
Originally written January 24, 2010
Before I can get into my first point about this subject, I have to reveal a little bit of what I am spiritually. I have mentioned this in previous notes already, but it is important that I make it clear again. I was a Christian for the first part of my life until after my first year of college. I found that having faith was not good enough for me because faith is not tangible to reality. Faith requires taking a leap over actual facts and accepts what cannot be proven to be an absolute truth. I could not go on like that. I am actually what scientist Richard Dawkins calls a Temporary Agnostic in Practice, or TAP. I do not believe in God like most do. I believe in a greatest conceivable being, in which the universe was created by some kind of an alpha entity. This could be God or any kind of god or gods that people believe in, but the difference with me is that I do not take anything to be an absolute truth. Subsequently, I do not care for any religion of any kind because they preach dogma from texts that I have serious problems with on many different levels (maybe another note, but that is such a deep, intellectual topic, so I don't know, lol).
In order to believe J is associated with the devil or whatever, we first have to consider the existence of God. Now, we, for the most part, believe in some sort of God(s), but the key word is believe. I will bet any and everything I have that nobody out in this world KNOWS that their version of God exists. Of course people will know in their own minds that god exists, but they could never step out of their mind to prove it. This is a very important leap here. In order for the devil to exist in the first place, god has to exist. If the existence of god is dubious, then the existence of the devil is also dubious. I am not saying that god and devil absolutely does not exists. But, from what I have observed, I doubt that god exists in the way most people believe. When people come out and say that J is a devil worshiper, they cannot be absolutely sure since they probably cannot prove the existence of a god in the first place.
I know vaguely of all what is out there on the internet about the polemics of J's unquestioned association with the devil. I say vaguely because I know that they are not to be taken seriously. I have to hand it to them though. I seems like they spend a good amount of time going over all of this. Seems like that is good time lost that could be spent on something uplifting, improving themselves, or even getting laid rather than trying to bring down someone. What these people do not realize is that if you spend enough time on anything, you can come up with anything. Also, these people already have their belief systems established. This means they are going to be incredibly biased in their analyses. Having their pre-conceived beliefs will lead to a larger tendency to merely confirm their own beliefs. In psychology, there is something called confirmation bias. You all my know this, but confirmation bias occurs when your mind confirms things that have already been planted in your mind. To better understand this, I will use the classic new car analogy. When you or your parents got a new car, did you remember thereafter inexplicably seeing that same new car seemingly everywhere all the time? Well, the fact is that there were just as many cars out there just like your new car before you got the new car. However, once you got that new car, you mind became aware of it, and started noticing your same car more. Since you got that new car, that car did not become any more or less popular, it was just your mind confirming the existence of your car because it is now aware of it. Well, since people have their beliefs about god and the devil, they are going to seek those things that appeal to their preconceived notions. Now, anything some people do will automatically be registered in their minds as relating to the devil. As for me, I do not have those beliefs. Hence, I could not see what these people were talking about until they mentioned it. Do you see the difference?
I recall the only clip, at least the couple seconds I saw of it, I seen that analyzed J and his alleged devil worship. I remember one part that analyzed the symbol he uses, which symbolizes "The Roc" originally for the Rocafella label he co-founded. When I see the Roc symbol thrown up, it is strikingly similar to the sign that the sisters of Delta Sigma Theta throw up when they are representing their sorority. The only difference is that the Roc symbol allows for the thumbs to be pointed slightly downward to mimic a diamond. The Deltas' symbol allows for the thumbs to be risen slightly higher to form the Greek letter delta, which is basically a triangle. There is no YouTube clip I know of that accuses them of devil worship. And there should not be either. I have two cousins that are Deltas and know a couple others. They are far from devil worship. The point of this anecdote is that you can take anything you want and make it appear in a way to confirm your own beliefs.
The latest in the J is the devil movement comes from the aforementioned "On to the Next One" video from his latest album, "The Blueprint 3." I will be the first to admit that the video is weird. Like all abstract art, however, the video is made up of many different symbols and things that perhaps only the artists involved can truly tell you what all of it means. If weird automatically means devil worship, then I guess Prince is Lucifer's father. You talk about weird, Prince is hilariously weird. Who remember when he rented a house from Utah Jazz center Carlos Boozer and Painted a ginormous purple stripe throughout the property? When I heard that story, I was in tears of laughter. Boozer then filed a lawsuit against Prince. In showbiz, there are plenty of songs, music videos, television shows, movies, and artists and actors themselves that could be described as weird; but there is no movement to associate them with devil worship.
Some of these people that believe in this J is the devil stuff embarrass themselves from my perspective. Some of these people will claim that they believe in god and everything. At the same time, some wear earrings that are strikingly similar to diamonds, something that the devil Jay-Z throws up with his hands. I wish these people were spending more time on analyzing the sad story about how a substantial percentage of their diamonds are blood diamonds. But of course not. They will use this to symbolize how J is associated with the devil. Also, I will bet that many of these people are down with a Christian god and wear Nike gear. You may ask what's wrong with being Christian and wearing Nike gear? Well, Nike is actually the Greek goddess of victory according to Greek Mythology. She fought in the epic mythical battle between the Olympians and the Titans on the side of the victorious Olympians, the side of Zeus among others. Is this not blaspheme? Coveting a pair of Nikes is not idolizing another god? It is not a big deal to me, but these J hunters should analyze themselves and become better followers of god rather than trying to bring someone else down.
Those that call J a devil worshiper are put, by me, into a category with those that I like to call conspiracy nuts. You know, those people that think the NBA is fixed, 9/11 was planned by our government, aliens are locked away by our government, there is a New World Order that is going to take over everything, et cetera. In this day and age, conspiracy theories could never thrive. We live in an age where information is disseminated at a level that is hard to keep track of. We also live in an age where people want to be insiders. We all love having information that nobody else has. In our desire to be looked at better, we want to hold and release that special information to better ourselves. We all gossip and want to be on the inside of things. Now ask yourself, if we live in the information technology age and everyone loves having inside information to give to people, could any conspiracy of any kind survive? I'd think not. Somebody somewhere will spill the beans making no secret safe. Someone will score some money by writing a tell-all book. Somebody will give up information to get that 15 minutes of fame. Somebody will squeal to get into some special group. These things just cannot survive in today's age. With that being said, all this stuff about secret cults and conspiracies are nuts. Some will say "well what about the Free Masons or Skull and Bones?" Well that is my point exactly, we know about them. If J is making all of his alleged alliance with the devil blatant in his songs and videos, why wouldn't he just come out and admit it? He's admitted to being a hustler, drug dealer, womanizer, and other things, why not devil worshiper when he supposedly makes it very obvious?
The part that irritates and saddens me the most is who we are attacking here. We are all at least somewhat familiar with J's story. If you do not know the story, look no further than his track "December 4th" from his 8th and 1st final album (lol) "The Black Album." Anyhow, he had meager beginnings growing up in a housing project in Brooklyn, New York. While coming up in this housing project, he then got into the drug game to come up on some money he and his family did not have. He eventually fell into the rap game, perfected it and "tried this rap sh*t for a livin'." The rest, as they say, is history. He would go on to drop lyric after lyric of rap genius. He started with pushing his music out of trunks of cars to small underground shows to international icon. Is this not a good story of literal rags to riches? To many out there, it is not.
J is obviously black. What makes me the most irritated and sad is the fact that a lot of this J is the devil stuff comes from black people. As great as we black people are, we sure can have a knack for bringing down our own. For the sake of argument, let's just say that J is a devil worshiper. Why is it that we only go after one of the few black males that made it out of a dire situation to become a global icon? There are plenty of people out there that are doing much harm to the world and do not get this kind of negative attention. Do we go after social issues that is causing much peril in society, and in especially black communities? No, we make clips explaining how J is linked to the damn Free Masons, which he isn't by the way. Do we make clips of how Citi Bank laid off so many employees and then use bailout money to spend $400 million on naming right to a baseball stadium. Naming rights! This means they are paying the New York Mets $400 million over the course of x-years to put their name on the stadium. Do we make clips to show how ridiculous the ridiculous, hyper-liberal ALCU defend the rights of a Nazi group that wanted to celebrate the Nazi's and the holocaust because it was "their right" to do so? The point in all this is that in all that is going on, why do we have to bring down our own and only our own? Never have I seen a group of people trying to hinder the process of its own people like we can do sometimes. J is merely a man from the hood who had an immense talent, developed that talent, worked hard, and became a super millionaire and president of a very successful company. Instead of drawing inspiration to be successful from him, we try to cast him as the devil! Even if he is the devil, he is our devil. And he is not part of some dark cult that worships the devil. People are going to believe what they want to believe anyhow, which is fine. I only hope that they realize that it is all belief and not something that could be proven in reality. They are talking about a man who has devoted more time and money to so many different causes that you or I could not even imagine, and he doesn't make it very known. What have the J-is-the-devil followers ever done? Also, isn't the theme of Jesus' story not about judging and bringing down others, but to have forgiveness, love, and a passion for the father rather than a passion for destroying, accusing, and slandering? People should listen to what he is saying, then either love him, or leave him alone...
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