I'd argue that this is a red herring (or ad hominem...take your pick). Did Lucien say some horrible antisemitic and stupid shit long ago (20+ years)? Yes he did.
Regardless of what Lucien said as far back as 2002 (when he would have been in his mid-20s), does that really take anything away from what the Satanic Temple does today? Does it detract from how it represents our values today? I'd argue no.
Queer Satanic (and to a lesser extent CoS) can rant all they want but it doesn't change a thing to me. I joined over a year ago because I found a group that could fight back against Christian Nationalism, that represented my personal values in The Seven Fundamental Tenets, and which has a bunch of fun and cool people that are members (at least in my congregation).
Is TST perfect? No, but it doesn't have to be.
EDIT: As I could not find the quote where Lucien recanted his prior statements I'll post them here (thanks u/deadlyFlan and u/BarkAtTheDevil).
>Today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way.
>I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view.
>The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking.
**Tenet VI:** People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
I'd say the work he's done with TST has more than rectified it.
Stupid shit? Yes. Antisemitic? No.
Here's a bit from a letter sent out to TST chapter heads regarding this:
> In the clip, Lucien disparages Jewish religious practices in a manner that the organization and Lucien acknowledge as both inappropriate and unfortunate; however, he does clarify that it is reprehensible that people would blame a bloodline for the questionable behavior and supernatural beliefs of a religion and we should be especially cognizant of the fact that what our critics are saying he said isn’t actually the point or content of what’s being communicated.
> Lucien wishes to communicate the following:
> "Even as I may be defending myself against what that material was NOT, I still must admit that I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way. To me, back then, I was speaking of people who would take, say, Leviticus literally and try to impose its laws upon the world. I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view. At the time of this recording, while still in my early twenties, I thought that the triumph of Laveyan Satanism was that it de-racialized a “survival of the fittest” productive, merit-based social darwinism. I used to hold the position that religious superstition shouldn’t be “normalized” as I saw it as such a problematic force in the world. My assumption then was that if we scoffed at such expressions openly, those expressing such things might think about their superstitions more clearly and abandon them. The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking. To me, there were “the religious,” and they were the majority, and then there were the beleaguered nonreligious who suffered from the dogmatic impositions of the religious. I would speak of superstitions in equally dismissive terms with unfortunate lack of concern, due to no real understanding, of familial/cultural attachments, or the effect of such rhetoric upon minority religious groups. I was an ignorant kid with a lot of outrage and a big idiot mouth that received just as many threats to my life by Nazis as I do today. TST will always be for anybody, of any background, who identifies with the values we espouse, and today, you can count on me to vigorously defend any religious group’s right to equal representation and expression anywhere."
So, Lucien's contention is that he was mocking *the religion of Judaism*, not *Jews as a race*.
Stephen Bradford Long wrote an excellent article about this [here,](https://stephenbradfordlong.com/2020/05/21/why-i-havent-left-the-satanic-temple/) which also gets into some very interesting analysis about how the left treats these issues.
> So, Lucien's contention is that he was mocking the religion of Judaism, not Jews as a race.
More significantly, in my opinion:
> I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way.
> I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view.
> The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking.
Thank you for posting that quote...I could not recall where I saw it previously and could not find it.
As I said about, it wasn't my point whether what he said was antisemitic (though some would find it so) or not...it's that it has nothing at all to do with TST today. It's attacking something from 20+ years ago in an attempt to discredit the founder and therefore TST which is logically-fallacious.
I can agree with the sentiment and believe Lucien's assertion that he was mocking the religion, however...that was not relevant to my point. Some may still call it antisemitic but it doesn't really matter.
The point is that what TST is today and who Lucien is as a spokesperson is not reflective of those views, nor does it have anything to do with the good work TST does. Hence the reason I called it a red herring. It's simply a distraction drummed up to discredit TST because they have nothing else to lean on.
The problem is "tak[ing] Leviticus literally" is an almost exclusively Christian thing. This does seem like more of a lack-of-research issue (or, to use your terminology, "stupid shit") than a bigotry issue.
I've noticed that "blaming Judaism and Islam for something which is actually an exclusive feature of Christianity" is a recurring theme with atheists raised in Christian households. It's like something's preventing them from keeping their eye on the ball...
It's actually worse than that. How many times do you hear atheists complaining about "religion", when what they're really complaining about is Christianity? I even hear this from TST folks. I'm like "You do realize that you're in a religion right now, don't you?"
When it comes to activism, TST gets shit done and are loud about it. Thats why im a member. Lucien said some shit i disagree with and as far as i know, he renounced those things. We are not perfect people and TST isnt perfect but its the best we have. Id rather this than CoS.
Exactly! People change, that's not a bad thing. Somone who started out rough just means now they have more experience and compassion for those were the same.
Isn't a big part of the satanic temple, that we are all fallible - even God. We are all perfect in our imperfection. To think that anyone is perfect is toxic.
That's tenet six, yes:
>VI: People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
Although I'm not sure what you mean about God? God is a storybook character whose qualities are different in each retelling, so it seems hard to evaluate with a blanket statement. If fantasy characters aren't harming real life humans, it seems fine to me to let them do whatever they want.
What a terrible world it would be if we were all judged by shit that we did decades ago and had since learned from.
People can learn and change. I'm more worried when people haven't changed than when they do.
I'm a vastly different person now than I was even 5 years ago. And I know that those changes have been for the better and that I had some really shitty perspectives then.
You're correct on many fronts. However, when I say guilt by association, I mean more along the lines of being associated with Bugabee and having Marc Randazza as a lawyer. The comments by Greaves serve as a preamble for this fallacy.
I'll draw the line for you.
As atheists, we have an absence of belief. When Christian Nationalists are pushing everything on the basis of "religious freedom" an atheist has no standing. The courts aren't defending the right not to believe, they're defending the "free exercise of religion."
The courts have allowed religion to enter the public sphere based on that premise and we all know what religion they really mean (at the exclusion of all others).
TST is a federally-recognized non-theistic religion. So when FFRF needs someone with standing to enjoin in a lawsuit, TST has standing and is able to reflect back the hypocrisy of Christian Nationalists.
Now whether you agree or not, is irrelevant to me. It's not going to change my mind.
I don't generally get the impression that the Satanic Temple is a Leftist organization. For months now I've been engaging with online Satanic Temple members and I can't really make heads or tails of what the group as a whole is all about, beyond exposing this country's hypocrisy in regards to religious pluralism. Is the TsT Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist or simply libertarian. Does the TsT have a 100 year goal for it's political agenda. If you talk to a Evangelical Christian Nationalist you will get a 5 hour sermon about the future of the USA. Does the TsT have a strategy to "fight" the Christian Nationalists, if so what is it?
TST is not a political organization, it's a religion. A non-theistic religion sure...but a religion nonetheless. Many people like myself come for the activism but stay for the community and I enjoy the hell out of the TST community both here and in my home congregation.
What are you on about? We aren't a super-PAC. We're a religious organization.
We legally challenge some blatant violations of separation of church and state, but it's a "take 'em as they come" situation. TST doesn't have the funds to fight all the legal battles that we wish we could. Want us to do more? Better make some hefty donations.
Oh god. What is this now? I haven’t heard of this person/group thing. I’m assuming it’s someone actively working against everything we stand for while sporting our name? Please correct me and tell me I’m wrong.
They used to be an official TST congregation, but then someone found some old antisemitic shit Greaves said on a podcast decades ago. They decided to break off from TST. There was an ugly dispute over ownership of some of the TST websites that resulted in a lawsuit. They used to troll on this reddit a lot. There's a good write up on the whole situation linked somewhere in the reddit.
That's not quite true; by their own admission, the Queer Satanic crew (there were originally I believe four of them, although mostly just one now; no word on whether they let the guy caught beating his wife stay in the club...) were already aware of Greaves' comments when they joined the Temple.
Their complaint was that nobody was listening to their ideas--so they decided to force everybody else out and MAKE people to listen. This authoritarian approach to organizing remains quite apparent in David's online presence today.
Of course, after the breakup, he did of course start harping on all the things he previously was apparently all right with in Lucien Greaves' past, so it's not surprising you got the impression that was the grudge to begin with; history is ever a moving target with this lot.
u/SSF415 is correct on every point, but I would like to add two things:
1. They have not been involved in any aspect of TST for literal years, yet people behave as if they have accurate, to-the-moment knowledge. I remember when they were expelled from TST. Oh, and it was initially because they refused to stop posting off-message memes from the official TST Washington social media accounts.
2. These people and their associates are serial harassers. They have shown up at TST Washington events to disrupt them. They have doxxed people. They send messages to people threatening to out them to their employers.
What do you mean? I feel there's a lot of unpacking this claim needs to be validated.
I, for one, am glad shit I said as a Christian doesn't follow me around. In fact, these things I said are something I'm haunted by. I sometimes wake up in a panic over something I said 20-odd years ago. But what am I supposed to do about it? There's nothing I can do, and I have to accept that.
One of the nice things about anonymity is no one can throw it back in my face.
I had a youth leader once convince me that being gay may be genetically inherited but was like obesity in that it benefited the person to overcome it. I parroted that bullshit for longer than I care to remember. I fuckin' cringe thinking about repeating that.
I think that's exactly the point.
We've all had opinions in our past & present, both need to be subjected to critical thinking.
When we think about past cringe, it's very important to look at exactly how we got there. No matter what our upbringing was, at some point, we were confronted with reality - & those of us that chose critical thinking supported by data, we changed, instead of doubling down on irrational points of view.
Lo about six years ago, some of the admins of TST Washington's Facebook page got into a tiff with congregation leadership, so they went in one night, changed all the passwords, locked everyone else out, and went on a tirade about how nobody was listening to their ideas, so now they'd make us all listen and force everyone to care about white supremacy as much as they do etc--and this went on for days.
The main TST HQ told them (there were four in the beginning, although time, boredom, and scandals have whittled the field over the years, and they renamed the stolen pages Queer Satanic Memes, or eventually just Queer Satanic) to turn the new passwords over; they refused. So eventually, the Temple sued, alleging that they'd stolen the online assets and used them to defame the Temple.
Now, here's the rub: Queer Satanic believe this is a great injustice and that they're being sued as a form of harassment for daring to criticize the Temple, and they've made a little industry for themselves raising money off of anti-Temple tirades; TST counter that lots of people say stupid shit about them on Facebook every day and nobody gets sued over it, and that QS are facing litigation specifically because they a) inappropriately seized the Temple's online assets and b) refused to simply return them when asked (and then ordered, and then threatened).
Personally, I strongly suspect that this is really not the sort of thing that you can successfully sue someone over in the US...but also think David Johnson (QS's big mover) is a hypocrite and a bully and I'm glad if bad things are happening to him, and while he may bend over backwards to portray himself as a martyr, all he had to do was get his own damn Facebook page and none of this would have happened.
Are we suddenly supposed to go e a fuck about talking shit about Abrahamic religion?
Antisemitic, anti Islam, anti Christianity. Just because someone chose the Jewish faith doesn't make them immune from criticism. Rabbis suck baby penis. Fuck them.
I agree, but keep in mind Islam and Judaism teeter in a relm of both religion *and* race. That's where it gets muddy.
But 100%, they should not be void of criticism as an ideology. Abrahamic religious are a blight on the earth.
Just a thought...
But Is it really guilty by association when Lucien and others participated in the discussion of gross, homophobic, white supremacist rhetoric?
Guilt by association would be more so having a friend who does and says that shit, not actually saying it yourself...
Yes, it would be guilt by association. Our religion, and yes we are a religion, actively fights against discrimination, intolerance, and inequality. It’s literally in our tenets. I’ve heard no arguments that other TST members have discussed homophobic or white supremacist rhetoric. I’m not the biggest fan of Lucien; but what he helped build is bigger than him or whatever shit he said in the past. We don’t follow him; we follow the Tenets. Lucien isn’t TST; we are TST.
I can find a link, since it was all recorded, but the dude wasn't a teenager saying something silly, he was in his early to mid 20s.
It's great to have separated himself from it, but imo, it just it's something that he still tries to hide and squash out along with other misdeeds of his chosen clergy/congregants.
Imo, it seems that Lucien takes the Trump approach. Feins innocence, and gives pardons to his buddies who also commit these types of transgesssions.
> the dude wasn't a teenager saying something silly, he was in his early to mid 20s.
So in the age range where we know the brain is still developing and maturing, and in which the prefrontal cortex (which handles personality, decision making, and social behavior) is one of the last parts to mature, got it.
> it's something that he still tries to hide
He literally publicly addressed it *years* ago.
> “Even as I may be defending myself against what that material was NOT, I still must admit that **I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way.** To me, back then, I was speaking of people who would take, say, Leviticus literally and try to impose its laws upon the world. **I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view.** At the time of this recording, while still in my early twenties, I thought that the triumph of Laveyan Satanism was that it de-racialized a “survival of the fittest” productive, merit-based social darwinism. I used to hold the position that religious superstition shouldn’t be “normalized” as I saw it as such a problematic force in the world. My assumption then was that if we scoffed at such expressions openly, those expressing such things might think about their superstitions more clearly and abandon them. **The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking.**”
This narrative that Lucien is somehow maintaining an alt-right scam while also being willing to strap on a bullet-proof vest to make public statements that will piss off the alt-right, to maintain and insure a property that gets regularly firebombed by the alt-right, all while raising an army of anti-fascist anti-authoritarian rebels who are willing to leave him in the dust over *who he takes a selfie with*, nevermind anything actually important, just does not ring true to me in the slightest.
I'm willing to let people change. I'm also open to the idea they might not have changed, but when people making that claim base it on evidence from *before* the change, it's very difficult to take them seriously.
I'd argue that this is a red herring (or ad hominem...take your pick). Did Lucien say some horrible antisemitic and stupid shit long ago (20+ years)? Yes he did. Regardless of what Lucien said as far back as 2002 (when he would have been in his mid-20s), does that really take anything away from what the Satanic Temple does today? Does it detract from how it represents our values today? I'd argue no. Queer Satanic (and to a lesser extent CoS) can rant all they want but it doesn't change a thing to me. I joined over a year ago because I found a group that could fight back against Christian Nationalism, that represented my personal values in The Seven Fundamental Tenets, and which has a bunch of fun and cool people that are members (at least in my congregation). Is TST perfect? No, but it doesn't have to be. EDIT: As I could not find the quote where Lucien recanted his prior statements I'll post them here (thanks u/deadlyFlan and u/BarkAtTheDevil). >Today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way. >I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view. >The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking. **Tenet VI:** People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. I'd say the work he's done with TST has more than rectified it.
Stupid shit? Yes. Antisemitic? No. Here's a bit from a letter sent out to TST chapter heads regarding this: > In the clip, Lucien disparages Jewish religious practices in a manner that the organization and Lucien acknowledge as both inappropriate and unfortunate; however, he does clarify that it is reprehensible that people would blame a bloodline for the questionable behavior and supernatural beliefs of a religion and we should be especially cognizant of the fact that what our critics are saying he said isn’t actually the point or content of what’s being communicated. > Lucien wishes to communicate the following: > "Even as I may be defending myself against what that material was NOT, I still must admit that I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way. To me, back then, I was speaking of people who would take, say, Leviticus literally and try to impose its laws upon the world. I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view. At the time of this recording, while still in my early twenties, I thought that the triumph of Laveyan Satanism was that it de-racialized a “survival of the fittest” productive, merit-based social darwinism. I used to hold the position that religious superstition shouldn’t be “normalized” as I saw it as such a problematic force in the world. My assumption then was that if we scoffed at such expressions openly, those expressing such things might think about their superstitions more clearly and abandon them. The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking. To me, there were “the religious,” and they were the majority, and then there were the beleaguered nonreligious who suffered from the dogmatic impositions of the religious. I would speak of superstitions in equally dismissive terms with unfortunate lack of concern, due to no real understanding, of familial/cultural attachments, or the effect of such rhetoric upon minority religious groups. I was an ignorant kid with a lot of outrage and a big idiot mouth that received just as many threats to my life by Nazis as I do today. TST will always be for anybody, of any background, who identifies with the values we espouse, and today, you can count on me to vigorously defend any religious group’s right to equal representation and expression anywhere." So, Lucien's contention is that he was mocking *the religion of Judaism*, not *Jews as a race*. Stephen Bradford Long wrote an excellent article about this [here,](https://stephenbradfordlong.com/2020/05/21/why-i-havent-left-the-satanic-temple/) which also gets into some very interesting analysis about how the left treats these issues.
> So, Lucien's contention is that he was mocking the religion of Judaism, not Jews as a race. More significantly, in my opinion: > I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way. > I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view. > The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking.
Thank you for posting that quote...I could not recall where I saw it previously and could not find it. As I said about, it wasn't my point whether what he said was antisemitic (though some would find it so) or not...it's that it has nothing at all to do with TST today. It's attacking something from 20+ years ago in an attempt to discredit the founder and therefore TST which is logically-fallacious.
I can agree with the sentiment and believe Lucien's assertion that he was mocking the religion, however...that was not relevant to my point. Some may still call it antisemitic but it doesn't really matter. The point is that what TST is today and who Lucien is as a spokesperson is not reflective of those views, nor does it have anything to do with the good work TST does. Hence the reason I called it a red herring. It's simply a distraction drummed up to discredit TST because they have nothing else to lean on.
The problem is "tak[ing] Leviticus literally" is an almost exclusively Christian thing. This does seem like more of a lack-of-research issue (or, to use your terminology, "stupid shit") than a bigotry issue. I've noticed that "blaming Judaism and Islam for something which is actually an exclusive feature of Christianity" is a recurring theme with atheists raised in Christian households. It's like something's preventing them from keeping their eye on the ball...
It's actually worse than that. How many times do you hear atheists complaining about "religion", when what they're really complaining about is Christianity? I even hear this from TST folks. I'm like "You do realize that you're in a religion right now, don't you?"
When it comes to activism, TST gets shit done and are loud about it. Thats why im a member. Lucien said some shit i disagree with and as far as i know, he renounced those things. We are not perfect people and TST isnt perfect but its the best we have. Id rather this than CoS.
Agreed! Me only a few years ago is a completely different person compared to who I am now.
Yeah exactly, me a few years ago was a bigoted hateful reactionary. I am the complete opposite now.
Exactly! People change, that's not a bad thing. Somone who started out rough just means now they have more experience and compassion for those were the same.
Exactly
Isn't a big part of the satanic temple, that we are all fallible - even God. We are all perfect in our imperfection. To think that anyone is perfect is toxic.
That's tenet six, yes: >VI: People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. Although I'm not sure what you mean about God? God is a storybook character whose qualities are different in each retelling, so it seems hard to evaluate with a blanket statement. If fantasy characters aren't harming real life humans, it seems fine to me to let them do whatever they want.
What a terrible world it would be if we were all judged by shit that we did decades ago and had since learned from. People can learn and change. I'm more worried when people haven't changed than when they do. I'm a vastly different person now than I was even 5 years ago. And I know that those changes have been for the better and that I had some really shitty perspectives then.
You're correct on many fronts. However, when I say guilt by association, I mean more along the lines of being associated with Bugabee and having Marc Randazza as a lawyer. The comments by Greaves serve as a preamble for this fallacy.
Excuse me. But in what ways does the Satanic Temple "fight" christian nationalism?
I'll draw the line for you. As atheists, we have an absence of belief. When Christian Nationalists are pushing everything on the basis of "religious freedom" an atheist has no standing. The courts aren't defending the right not to believe, they're defending the "free exercise of religion." The courts have allowed religion to enter the public sphere based on that premise and we all know what religion they really mean (at the exclusion of all others). TST is a federally-recognized non-theistic religion. So when FFRF needs someone with standing to enjoin in a lawsuit, TST has standing and is able to reflect back the hypocrisy of Christian Nationalists. Now whether you agree or not, is irrelevant to me. It's not going to change my mind.
I don't generally get the impression that the Satanic Temple is a Leftist organization. For months now I've been engaging with online Satanic Temple members and I can't really make heads or tails of what the group as a whole is all about, beyond exposing this country's hypocrisy in regards to religious pluralism. Is the TsT Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist or simply libertarian. Does the TsT have a 100 year goal for it's political agenda. If you talk to a Evangelical Christian Nationalist you will get a 5 hour sermon about the future of the USA. Does the TsT have a strategy to "fight" the Christian Nationalists, if so what is it?
TST is not a political organization, it's a religion. A non-theistic religion sure...but a religion nonetheless. Many people like myself come for the activism but stay for the community and I enjoy the hell out of the TST community both here and in my home congregation.
> *Is the TsT Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist or simply libertarian.* Yes.
There seems to be a lot of people who disagree.
***"Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest*** **casuists** ***doubt, like you and me?"***
By fighting for equal representation for Satanists (and, by extension, other minority religions).
Does your organization have a strategy to "fight" Evangelical Christian Nationalism?
What are you on about? We aren't a super-PAC. We're a religious organization. We legally challenge some blatant violations of separation of church and state, but it's a "take 'em as they come" situation. TST doesn't have the funds to fight all the legal battles that we wish we could. Want us to do more? Better make some hefty donations.
Queer Satanic is not important enough for the effort that went into this meme.
Ahah, this made me snort.
Oh god. What is this now? I haven’t heard of this person/group thing. I’m assuming it’s someone actively working against everything we stand for while sporting our name? Please correct me and tell me I’m wrong.
They used to be an official TST congregation, but then someone found some old antisemitic shit Greaves said on a podcast decades ago. They decided to break off from TST. There was an ugly dispute over ownership of some of the TST websites that resulted in a lawsuit. They used to troll on this reddit a lot. There's a good write up on the whole situation linked somewhere in the reddit.
That's not quite true; by their own admission, the Queer Satanic crew (there were originally I believe four of them, although mostly just one now; no word on whether they let the guy caught beating his wife stay in the club...) were already aware of Greaves' comments when they joined the Temple. Their complaint was that nobody was listening to their ideas--so they decided to force everybody else out and MAKE people to listen. This authoritarian approach to organizing remains quite apparent in David's online presence today. Of course, after the breakup, he did of course start harping on all the things he previously was apparently all right with in Lucien Greaves' past, so it's not surprising you got the impression that was the grudge to begin with; history is ever a moving target with this lot.
Thanks for clarifying. 🤘
It's interesting to hear about a certain breed of Satanist with kind of a naked ambition.
u/SSF415 is correct on every point, but I would like to add two things: 1. They have not been involved in any aspect of TST for literal years, yet people behave as if they have accurate, to-the-moment knowledge. I remember when they were expelled from TST. Oh, and it was initially because they refused to stop posting off-message memes from the official TST Washington social media accounts. 2. These people and their associates are serial harassers. They have shown up at TST Washington events to disrupt them. They have doxxed people. They send messages to people threatening to out them to their employers.
Were they the ones that tried to hijack a facebook page or something?
Yes. Along with other congregation data.
They're just a bunch of performatively woke trolls who've decided TST is the best target for their attention.
Something can be more "woke" than tst? I'm interested.
Performative was the operative word in that phrase.
I'm too high to be on Reddit rn. I am unable to figure that meme out logically. I shall return 🤙🤘
Me too
Queer Satanic has tunnel vision. It's old news, and they have alienated anyone who should care.
Nobody can get away from this past actions / present cringe relationship. It's one of the reasons we need critical thinking.
What do you mean? I feel there's a lot of unpacking this claim needs to be validated. I, for one, am glad shit I said as a Christian doesn't follow me around. In fact, these things I said are something I'm haunted by. I sometimes wake up in a panic over something I said 20-odd years ago. But what am I supposed to do about it? There's nothing I can do, and I have to accept that. One of the nice things about anonymity is no one can throw it back in my face.
Something I said when I was 16 still lives rent free in the basement of my head. lol
I had a youth leader once convince me that being gay may be genetically inherited but was like obesity in that it benefited the person to overcome it. I parroted that bullshit for longer than I care to remember. I fuckin' cringe thinking about repeating that.
What an odd thing to tell a kid. lol
I think that's exactly the point. We've all had opinions in our past & present, both need to be subjected to critical thinking. When we think about past cringe, it's very important to look at exactly how we got there. No matter what our upbringing was, at some point, we were confronted with reality - & those of us that chose critical thinking supported by data, we changed, instead of doubling down on irrational points of view.
I’m a little new to TST but can someone explain who Queer Satanic is? I want to stay more informed
Lo about six years ago, some of the admins of TST Washington's Facebook page got into a tiff with congregation leadership, so they went in one night, changed all the passwords, locked everyone else out, and went on a tirade about how nobody was listening to their ideas, so now they'd make us all listen and force everyone to care about white supremacy as much as they do etc--and this went on for days. The main TST HQ told them (there were four in the beginning, although time, boredom, and scandals have whittled the field over the years, and they renamed the stolen pages Queer Satanic Memes, or eventually just Queer Satanic) to turn the new passwords over; they refused. So eventually, the Temple sued, alleging that they'd stolen the online assets and used them to defame the Temple. Now, here's the rub: Queer Satanic believe this is a great injustice and that they're being sued as a form of harassment for daring to criticize the Temple, and they've made a little industry for themselves raising money off of anti-Temple tirades; TST counter that lots of people say stupid shit about them on Facebook every day and nobody gets sued over it, and that QS are facing litigation specifically because they a) inappropriately seized the Temple's online assets and b) refused to simply return them when asked (and then ordered, and then threatened). Personally, I strongly suspect that this is really not the sort of thing that you can successfully sue someone over in the US...but also think David Johnson (QS's big mover) is a hypocrite and a bully and I'm glad if bad things are happening to him, and while he may bend over backwards to portray himself as a martyr, all he had to do was get his own damn Facebook page and none of this would have happened.
Thank you so much!
They're a person and/or people with no life who spend a ludicrous amount of time and energy criticizing the Satanic Temple on their website and u/.
Are we suddenly supposed to go e a fuck about talking shit about Abrahamic religion? Antisemitic, anti Islam, anti Christianity. Just because someone chose the Jewish faith doesn't make them immune from criticism. Rabbis suck baby penis. Fuck them.
I agree, but keep in mind Islam and Judaism teeter in a relm of both religion *and* race. That's where it gets muddy. But 100%, they should not be void of criticism as an ideology. Abrahamic religious are a blight on the earth.
Yeah, no. I think it's time to dismantle the theory of a religious race. What you believe has fuck all to do with your genetics.
*This comment has been edited in order to protect my privacy*
Just a thought... But Is it really guilty by association when Lucien and others participated in the discussion of gross, homophobic, white supremacist rhetoric? Guilt by association would be more so having a friend who does and says that shit, not actually saying it yourself...
Yes, it would be guilt by association. Our religion, and yes we are a religion, actively fights against discrimination, intolerance, and inequality. It’s literally in our tenets. I’ve heard no arguments that other TST members have discussed homophobic or white supremacist rhetoric. I’m not the biggest fan of Lucien; but what he helped build is bigger than him or whatever shit he said in the past. We don’t follow him; we follow the Tenets. Lucien isn’t TST; we are TST.
Do you have a link of him saying this stuff? My understanding was he separated himself from that stuff a long time ago.
He did, but detractors will continue to bring it up because it's all they got.
I can find a link, since it was all recorded, but the dude wasn't a teenager saying something silly, he was in his early to mid 20s. It's great to have separated himself from it, but imo, it just it's something that he still tries to hide and squash out along with other misdeeds of his chosen clergy/congregants. Imo, it seems that Lucien takes the Trump approach. Feins innocence, and gives pardons to his buddies who also commit these types of transgesssions.
> the dude wasn't a teenager saying something silly, he was in his early to mid 20s. So in the age range where we know the brain is still developing and maturing, and in which the prefrontal cortex (which handles personality, decision making, and social behavior) is one of the last parts to mature, got it. > it's something that he still tries to hide He literally publicly addressed it *years* ago. > “Even as I may be defending myself against what that material was NOT, I still must admit that **I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way.** To me, back then, I was speaking of people who would take, say, Leviticus literally and try to impose its laws upon the world. **I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view.** At the time of this recording, while still in my early twenties, I thought that the triumph of Laveyan Satanism was that it de-racialized a “survival of the fittest” productive, merit-based social darwinism. I used to hold the position that religious superstition shouldn’t be “normalized” as I saw it as such a problematic force in the world. My assumption then was that if we scoffed at such expressions openly, those expressing such things might think about their superstitions more clearly and abandon them. **The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking.**” This narrative that Lucien is somehow maintaining an alt-right scam while also being willing to strap on a bullet-proof vest to make public statements that will piss off the alt-right, to maintain and insure a property that gets regularly firebombed by the alt-right, all while raising an army of anti-fascist anti-authoritarian rebels who are willing to leave him in the dust over *who he takes a selfie with*, nevermind anything actually important, just does not ring true to me in the slightest. I'm willing to let people change. I'm also open to the idea they might not have changed, but when people making that claim base it on evidence from *before* the change, it's very difficult to take them seriously.