The Fear is Real: A New View of Halloween “Hell Houses” - with an 'Obama-like Antichrist'

[Shallah Kali]

A 90-minute walk through the South Georgia woods, as part of this year’s Tribulation Trail offers violence, fear, and an Obama-like Antichrist

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3614/the_fear_is_real%3A_a_new_view_of_halloween_%E2%80%9Chell_houses%E2%80%9D/

Last week I partook in Tribulation Trail’s brand of hell house pageantry, which brings participants—a total of 25,000 every October—on a 90-minute walk through the South Georgia woods. We observed intensely violent renditions of standard end-times scenarios: the rapture of believers; an ensuing period of torture and tribulation for the faithless “left behind”; a climactic battle between Jesus and Satan; and a final judgment in which Jesus orders a teenage church-girl to be dragged by demons into hell for “knowing me only in your head, and not in your heart.”

Unsurprisingly, scenes from the “tribulation” make up the majority of the walk. Our tour group was asked to imagine that we were in the days just following the rapture, and the Antichrist (whose speeches involved a lot of Obama-flavored language about “change”) had established a totalitarian government after duping the masses with his political charm.

Based on the Antichrist’s orders, our tour group was being initiated into something called “Citizen Change Camp.” A main part of our “initiation” was witnessing the execution and torture of people who refused to denounce their Christian faith.

Six out of twelve total Tribulation Trail scenes involved executions. During one scene we saw a middle-aged male soldier throw a preteen girl into a coffin and spray her with blank bullets. In another scene, soldiers played by teen boys forced a fellow teen to watch his younger sister beaten to death with a club. In yet another, soldiers executed a girl—played by a child who could not have been more than eight years old—in order to pressure her mother into renouncing Christianity. Between scenes, men and teenage boys wearing camouflage and carrying automatic rifles surrounded our group, pointed their guns at us, and herded us to the next station. Along the pathways, we heard the groans of child actors locked up in cages and people begging us for water.

[lolly]

1. Um, can you say Freudian Projection?

Or are they just afraid that non-Christians are going to do to them what they've been doing since the Inquisition?

(or for that matter, what they've been doing to each other when they disagree about minor doctrinal issues?)

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Talk about spiritual abuse.

[tomg]

3. I thought they were just

morons until I read the kids' ages. Spiritual abuse? True, but also close to child abuse.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Definitely

[Individualist]

5. Those people need good psychotherapists.

[comrade snarky]

6. End times torture porn

Saw, with Jesus

[Bitwit1234]

7. This really shows the mind set of the so called Christians

Jesus would never have told any of them if they were on the cross with him they would see him in Paradise. He would have said you will see each other in hell.

[Webster Green]

8. WTF?!

That's really fucking scary.

90 minutes of that crap?

Wow!

Everyone.....keep all your tools oiled up real good. We're gonna need 'em here pretty soon. Rust never sleeps. We got a bunch of crazy mutherfuckers we gotta deal with. :smoke:

[SpiralHawk]

9. Sick, sick puppies

Fear fear fear - that's all they got going for them.

American is the land of the brave and the home of the free. These fear freaks need to either summon a minimal amount of human courage, or go live apart from America in the fear-besotted Totalitarian Homeland they seem to crave.

[dgibby]

10. This is what makes them so dangerous. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. too bad I will still be in Canada tommorow, I haven't been kicked out of a Hell House in a few years

Showing up to a Hell House drunk or high was a tradition among me and my friends for many years.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Orwell was off by 88 minutes.

[Shallah Kali]

13. I think I found it's website - they don't recomend anyone under 10 to go to the hell house

http://www.tribulationtrail.org/

[OneGrassRoot]

14. Our "hell house" is anywhere that airs Fox 'News.' Ugh. n/t

[Brickbat]

15. Huh. Reading this description, it seems to me they really hate women.

But I already knew that.

It's disgusting to think how much these actors must get off on this crap. Visualizing, witnessing and acting out this fake violence can't be spiritually healthy. It's a sick little pressure release -- these people know it's unnatural, and must get something out of it.