Nothing in the article you linked indicates Satanic reasons behind any of the behavior listed. It appeared to me to be a well written article about on-line safety for children.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish by implying the article has any basis what so ever on religious beliefs? You are indicating the article is something that it is not. I hate to say it, but I wish in cases like this I can give someone negative stars.

lol yeah phreaking. That is what satanists are doing these days, they are all stuck in the early 90's. They use home made linemans handsets (that they learned from the Anarchist cook book) to call satan over a fraudulent AOL dial-up connection.
They also watch saved by the bell, melrose place and 90210.

Originally posted by zaiger
lol yeah phreaking. That is what satanists are doing these days, they are all stuck in the early 90's. They use home made linemans handsets (that they learned from the Anarchist cook book) to call satan over a fraudulent AOL dial-up connection.
They also watch saved by the bell, melrose place and 90210.

Duuuudddeee you're giving way our secretttts.

I didn't see anything out right religious about the tone, and it only had one satanic reference.

I also didn't think it was that well written or even that good of an article. When it comes to my kids and "internet safety" those are the ways I plan on going about it.

Wow, this almost pissed me off. And then I laughed

I read through the article written. Now some of what is written is a good thing as parents should monitor what their children are doing on the internet, though the questionable parts I find is about the mention of Satanic references. All children go through a rebellious phase, and it is a part of life. The other part and it reeks of someone who is heavily Christian in beliefe is the part on Dungeons and Dragons, that I have seen on other Christian web sites linking such to satanism.

Years ago I knew a lady who professed to be a real satanists... her and her friends even had weekly meetings... She made the best blueberry muffins...

She and her friends were very old school... anti technology hippy hold outs... I doubt she and her friends would know a word like "phreaking" "Leet Speak" However one of her friends did play Dungeons and Dragons...

OF course I could be wrong I mean I was dating her niece some 20+ years ago... lot of things change in a couple of decades... Look at Timothy Leary From Psychedelics to Cybernetics...

Naw this sounds more like your normal teen behaviour...Especially in an age where parents let TV and video games raise their kids...

“"Turn on, Tune in, Drop out."” oh wait wrong decade ""DoNt Bz PoEnEd""

I wonder when the Religious Parental Controls come out?

Originally posted by OpenYourHead
Wow, this almost pissed me off. And then I laughed

And that is probably the healthiest way of looking at it.

I realize I may have come across as "incensed" in my OP, but really my disbelief is one of humor.

I remember the "Satanism" Scare of the 1980s when my playing Dungeons and Dragons, collecting Baseball Cards, watching Television, listening to Rock Music, dressing in Black clothes, using a computer, and gasp...reading Classic Literature were all condemned weekly on the Geraldo Rivera show as "Satanic" activities. Not a week went by that I wasn't confronted by my parents (who weren't even Christian!) questioning whether I was a Satanist. (Thankfully, answering questions with questions were my saving grace..."Do Satanists devote their time to charitable works such as serving on the City Council, volunteering at clinics, and working for the Sheriff's Department? Do Satanists take the time to become Eagle and Explorer Scouts? Do Satanists have a stronger sense of morality than their Christian anti-thesis? Think about it!)"

How little changes as time goes on...

Further proof that Technological Advancement does not necessarily equate with Cultural Advancement contrary to what Anthropologists may posit otherwise.

Perhaps laughter is the best way to respond to such silly fear-mongering.

Your link does not work and there is nothing on the Sheriff's web site that refers to your quoted passage. This only one hour after your OP.

I did find a cached page, dated 18 Oct 2009, by doing a search in Google.

Most of the page was perfectly good advice for non-computer-literate parents, though I agree that some of it is rather dated. That may explain why it is no longer up.

It is not warning parents of the dangers of Satanism. It is pointing out that changes in behavior could be signs of a developing problem. If your kid has just discovered Ozzy and Black Sabbath, I wouldn't be overly concerned. If he/she is spending all their time on the computer and putting up posters and drawings of disturbing images, you just might want to check the sites they are going to.

An interest in the occult or D&D shouldn't be worrisome. An obsession, with anything, to the exclusion of what they used to really like might be.

My main concern with my kids' net use was impairment of written language skills. I've got nothing against leet or txt but I did also want them to get a decent vocabulary early. Another problem in this regard was both of them caught on to the idea that they could simply copy & paste bits of articles into their schoolwork & just change a few words/phrases to avoid being busted for plagiarism by their teachers.
I really didn't see how getting all authoritarian about it could help tho, it'd have just undermined the trust between us. Their mother & I set about a concerted effort to email them links to interesting stuff that was long on well written & short on pictures; New Scientist, et al. We'd then make a point of asking them what they thought of the articles. It got them interested in learning a bit. I'm just glad that YouTube didn't exist when they were young teenagers!
Porn was always going to be an issue. Neither my ex nor I object to porn per se, but there's a certain type of exploitative porn, where women being to a greater or lesser extent degraded seems integral to it. That cant be good for teenagers of either gender to get into, but then again, what can you do? If you try to aggressively police their browsing, they'll just find ways to go around you. We decided to let them have free reign & talked to them about various types of porn, doing our best to put it into context & explain some of the psychology behind the things they would see, if they visited adult sites, which is not such an easy conversation to initiate, but seemed essential. Other than that, limiting their time allowed online to a few hours a day occasionally & talking to them about their lives seemed to do the job. They're happy & doing ok. Best of all, we all still talk openly, even tho their mother & I have split up.
As for "Satanic" - bollocks! If people aren't going to trust that their kids are sensible people, just young & in need of a little guidance, what was the point of having them? Its exactly this type of thing that makes rebels.

Originally posted by erwalker
Your link does not work and there is nothing on the Sheriff's web site that refers to your quoted passage. This only one hour after your OP.

I did find a cached page, dated 18 Oct 2009, by doing a search in Google.

Most of the page was perfectly good advice for non-computer-literate parents, though I agree that some of it is rather dated. That may explain why it is no longer up.

I got the news item from a very popular Tech News Site. They were probably inundated with Traffic from both them as well as ATS.

It will be interesting to see if it makes a re-appearance with updated information and without the 4 references to "Satanism" along with the innuendo that other Internet and non-Internet Activities (such as Dungeons & Dragons) are "Satanic".

You are right though. If you stripped the Religious Undertones, vague warnings, and ignored the grievously outdated information on that page, it did contain some Common Sense advice for parents in regards to their Children's Internet Usage. However, only after you looked past the ignorant scare tactics.

i've only got one question for them....what the heck is trade wars?

This is one of the funniest threads I've read in a long time!!

Not only is the tech they're describing at least 10 years out of date, but they are totally ignoring the rebellious nature of teenagers in general.

Hell, when I was a teen, watching internet porn and playing with the anarchist's cookbook was the least of my parent's worries, lol. Hacking was a part of every day life for me and I wasn't happy only watching porn, I had a thriving business at school selling it by the disk (3.5 floppy, remember them??). I also had a nice line in hacks and cracks to order.

TBH, I think they were more worried about the long hair, tattoos and peircings, black clothes and a constant desire to listen to Metallica and GnR.

Roll forward 10 years and I'm an upstanding member of society with a family, honors degree and a decent job in IT, although I do still have the tattoos and peircings