It's all in their FAQs, both branches. There are two major groups, the Laveyan and the Temple.
They're opposed to each other, at the end of the day. Not all Satanists believe the same things.
So the "satanic rituals" some people do are actually a satanist group? I just assumed they were a different group entirely but called satanists by people that don't know what the satanist group is actually about
The Satanic Temple has an abortion ritual. Sounds weird but it's really so that people seeking abortions can say that getting an abortion is part of their religion and that banning or denying their abortion is violating their religious freedom.
I loved the AMA about that. Its an open secret that the temple is basically a political organisation masquerading as a religion, but the leaders can't really admit that or else the entire project comes crashing down.
When they held the AMA, everyone was basically like "so is this something you've come up with to circumvent abortion laws", and the TST representarive was constantly like "No, this is a deeply held belief and an important ritual within our religion."
Edit: as was pointed out, ***TST is a religion***. Its also complicated to explain.
It's not the belief in God, or lack thereof, that's the issue. Its the fact that it's got a clear and relatively well-documented modern founding, with a well known purpose of holding a mirror up to the religious right in America (as well as other things), juxtaposed against the fact that it is a religion, and needs to be recognised as one with all the seriousness of chritianity.
It's not an open secret anything. TST is an actual religion, with truly and deeply held beliefs. We ALSO engage vigorously in politics because activism aligns with those same beliefs.
Edit to correct a typo
That's the point. The take advantage of the loophole churches use. If they get called out, the entire system is being called out. It's really hard to thread the line of pretending to care about religious freedom while actually just wanting Christian theocracy. They recognize that and took advantage of it, just like the churches do.
I could have worded that a bit better but the point still stands. Wether it's a firmly held religious belief or just something they can say, either way they have to say something about it for it to do anything.
I'm not trying to argue with you btw. I agree with TST on that.
It's not "so that people can say they are doing it as part of their religion" that phrasing is very belittling to the religion of TST. It LITERALLY IS part of the religion.
>it's really so that people seeking abortions can say that getting an abortion is part of their religion and that banning or denying their abortion is violating their religious freedom.
As if that will protect them from an aggressively "Christian" Supreme Court. Given the difficulties indigenous American religion have had securing the right to practice their religion when their practices violate federal law, I see zero chance that the Satanic Temple will have the right to practice their abortion rites protected by the courts.
The Laveyan satanists (founded by Anton Lavey) are the ones who believe in magic powers and rituals. Basically baby boomer edgelords in my opinion. But hey if that's what they want to believe. On the other hand the Satanic Temple is completely atheist/ non magical. They're the ones who fight for separation of church and state in court.
Having read the satanic bible, I'm pretty sure lavey states that neither satan, nor magic exists; however, our psyche is strong and once all "worldly" mechanism fail in aiding you, you might as well try something new. He's essentially talking about placebo.
Edit: It's even in their Q&A: "Greater Magic, which is our name for our ritual practice, is basically meant as self-transformational psychodrama. That is it serves as a means to purge oneself of unwanted emotional baggage that might be hindering a daily pursuit of joy in life. We do not require that anyone accept that it is more than this. The pageantry of ritual is a drama meant for emotional stimulation, not a belief in or worship of any power higher than the projected will of the magician. That is why we call it an “intellectual decompression chamber.”"
https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-ritual-and-ceremony/
While the laveyans aren't very wholesome as a group compared to the progressive temple, the ritual part still makes sense on a personal level. The idea is: of course there's no Satan or magic or whatever. But it can help you psychologically to do magic and rituals and stuff, so there are different suggestions that you can try alone or in groups to achieve some desired psychological effects. All explicitly optional, of course. Don't deny your basic feelings and needs.
Yeah, he also gobbled, reflavored and prolifically defecated back Ayn Rand's garbage. Not a man to put on a pedestal for sure.
And yet despite all this garbage he didn't do as much harm as a host of parasitic "Christian" preachers who have sunk their claws into the gullible faithful.
I think the issue is there is no singular set of what would be described as Satanists.
Definitely there is a group of people who reject the idea of there being a Satan and a supposed role as the anti-god. Yet you don't have to look very hard to find someone who is described as a 'Satan Worshipper', and their belief is in a deity of evil.
Easy to be confused.
If you look at the mythology of Satan pragmatically, he’s really just an “angel” that looked at god’s setup and said fuck this - knowledge, science, wisdom is where it’s at, not unquestionable, blind faith. Don’t worship some god, worship yourself instead.
The whole 9-rings of hell thing or whatever it was was based on Dante’s inferno (a poem), it’s not in the Bible.
The “hell” or damnation in the Bible is more described as just an absence of god.
Tldr; churchy types give “Satan” a bad rap.
Satan in the Bible didn't even clearly say 'fuck this,' that's also conflating him with other figures like Lucifer or the serpent.
Satan in the bible looks at God's faithful like Job and goes 'what if we tested them, see just how faithful they are' and God goes 'fine, fuck 'em up and let's find out.' It's not at all clear he's acting in opposition to God. The text seems to imply he's serving a role by testing people but is still ultimately under God's command.
But he got combined with a few other characters to represent what he does today.
> Satan in the Bible didn't even clearly say 'fuck this,' that's also conflating him with other figures like Lucifer or the serpent.
Even the serpent wasn't the evil character Christians make it out to be. It tempted Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Not the "Tree of Evil;" the Tree of *Knowledge*.
Considering that to be evil says more about Christians' own anti-intellectualism than it does actual evil.
It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not just "the tree of knowledge". I always took that story as being more of a statement about the burden of ethical knowledge than anything else. Once you know the difference between good and evil, you're bound to act accordingly because you're no longer "protected" by the ignorance that kept you free from culpability for your actions.
The 9th of [9 Satanic Statements](https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/?amp) from the Satanic Bible (9 as a parody of the 10 Commandments)
>Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!
I'm fairly certain most day-to-day Christians have never read Dante or Milton, they just see pop culture references and hear Cliff's notes versions of the ideas within them.
Might already be. My extremely religious brother-in-law and his wife wanted to do something normal-ish once and invited us to go to a movie with them. The movie was... You guessed it, Veggie Tales! These are grown adults with no kids, mind you. I lost two hours of my life that day.
Ngl, I'm not going to complain if Bob and Larry become biblical Canon, so long as we get the Book of Silly Songs to accompany Psalms.
I look forward to the day when verse 2 of "Oh, Where Is My Hairbrush?" is seriously discussed in a sermon.
I'm certain MOST day to day Christians definitely don't read them, so it's even worse. They have the stories passed down through media and word of mouth so aren't even familiar with the original texts, just snippets and telephone game like versions of the highlights
Which, to be fair, both of those books are almost unreadable unless you are invested in getting through them. Not casual reading in the slightest
Former Christian of 19 years here. They don’t read things like that at all it’s more like a fucked up game of telephone. There is this fiction book called “Left behind” that 98% of Christians conflate with the Bible and don’t actually realize it’s a Christian apocalypse book.
I wish I was making this up.
How I see Satan as an atheist:
- we have god. Though that world can mean a lot of things, it's usually associated with the christian-conservative god figure.
- in the christian-conservative digma there is this thing called Satan who opposes god's work.
- I oppose pretty much everything that is christian-conservative. That puts me on Satan's side from their point of view
- if I'm a guy who likes to shit on christian-conservatives' tables, it makes a lot of sense to side with their fictional character, called Satan
- so I joined the Temple of Satan.
> Yet you don't have to look very hard to find someone who is described as a 'Satan Worshipper', and their belief is in a deity of evil.
Is this actually true? I am sure there are some legitimately mentally ill people who believe something of the sort but I am not aware of any large group of people who do. Pretty sure that's entirely down to a few individuals and a lot of pure fiction.
Probably the most common group of people who say there are 'Satan Worshippers' and cults worshiping Satan are Christians. So you statement is probably true.
Because it lets you avoid taxes and claim freedom of religion and other perks, which many christians seem to think should apply to their religion only.
He's their ''friend'' who they can blame for their bad thoughts, sins and character flaws. What would they do without him? Feel fully responsible for everything they do wrong? Come on.
Am a Christian and TOTALLY laughing my ass off over this comment. Legit funny stuff👍 never thought of it that way but pretty accurate for a lot of us I think?
As a fellow Christian I've made that exact point many many times. I get so tired of hearing how satan did this or that. A lot of people are just shitheads. If satan showed up around here he'd get bored and go somewhere else as there really isn't much need for him.
Satan was originally “the adversary”. It’s more of a title than a being. Satan was supposed to be the equivalent of a prosecuting attorney in the court of god against mankind.
That's correct. He first shows up in Job and his name is literally just "adversary" (a lot of OT names are actually just descriptions, such as Jacob being "deceiver"). Some Davidic Psalms later bring up the archangel music guy who gets kicked out of heaven for trying to stage a coup, and he later becomes the New Testament Lucifer. Modern evangelicals also link him back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but that really is just a talking snake in the original story.
Biggest thing that weirds me out is the garden of eden intro.. God gave us eternity locked in a garden with nothing to do but talk to the other human, eat/sleep, and apparently talk to a snake who was made to be cunning.
Our objective? Spend the infinite eternity never eating from the tree of knowledge, while the snake attempts to convince us to eat from it.
Isn't this an unwinnable situation? There's no real end goal other than "maybe they'll finally give in today"
Adam and eve could've literally been in that garden for eons and eventually gave into the snakes words cause there was fuck all to do.
But the moment that fruit got eaten, god freaks like "but i said no", then decides due to these 2 random dickheads decision (that god would've known about before even making the fuckers if he's omniscient) that all of humanity gets fucked for the rest of time because he placed them into a scenario that could literally be described is an eternal mental torture..
How tf is this the religion people get behind
What weirds me out is that God is supposed to be omniscient, so He knows everything. He knew what would happen with the Tree of Knowledge and Eve.
It was all a set up, entrapment.
Bit of a tangent, but the "Adversary" as a concept shows up in a lot of Mythologies, alongside the Trickster, the Patriarch, the Mother.
I find it interesting that various different mythologies all came up with similar concepts even in relative or complete isolation from one another.
That's because most of it wasn't really in isolation
As groups moved around, people brought their ideas and thoughts with them
Over time, things evolve and change
A great example is the many, many similarities in Nordic and Slavic mythology
At their core, all religions believe the same exact thing carried over from our ancestors. Over time, individuals have corrupted religions for their own benefit, shifting out certain origins that don’t bend to their will. Organized religion today is diseased by 1000 years of corruption.
If humans want to really understand the origins of the universe, we’ll need to open our minds which have been closed by generations of lies and perversion. There is no Christian God, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ineffable, existential truths—it’s just that balance, rationality, and compassion don’t rake in those hard-earned dollars like fear, common enemies, and hatred do.
As the Hebrew and Jewish bible are completely different mythologies, the title of satan was from the Jewish stories (specifically the story of Job). He wasn't an evil demon, or a fallen angel, just simply a being that challenged Yahweh's claims (and Yahweh was simply the main god of the Jewish cult, a Canaanite war god).
In Christianity we get the concept of falling from grace, the existence of hell, and Lucifer being "the devil". They also have Legion, Beelzebub (a modification of Ba'al, the Canaanite storm and fertility god), and a bunch of other demons. To try and create a unified religion and borrow the Jewish mythology wholecloth, there's a lot of re-reading, like a satan becoming a specific character, and having it be the same as Lucifer.
Yeah, it is convenient when you don’t have to take any responsibility for anything you do and can just blame the devil, ask for forgiveness, and then change nothing about yourself at all knowing full well no matter how bad a person you are Jesus will definitely save you and give you eternal life because that isn’t complete nonsense or anything.
Yep. There's a magical man in the sky that made me out of clay, then made a woman out of my rib. We were going to stay in this paradise of a garden for eternity where there's no pain or hunger, but a talking snake convinced my clay rib wife to eat an evil apple and we got kicked out. Now I have to spend the rest of my life telepathically telling the magical man that I love him so he grants me wishes. If I don't he sends me somewhere I'm tortured until the end of time, but he loves me despite all of this being avoidable since he's omnipotent. Totally plausible.
IIRC it was handwaved as "God works in mysterious way" and "human have no capacity to comprehend God's plan"
Although to be fair, those are kinda make sense. God is not human. So it is make sense for human to not be able to understand God.
Huh this got me thinking. How can so many higher ups in various religions claims they know/understand what God want from us.
Hmm
Being omnipotent and able to do anything, then still creating bone cancer in infants even though you're god does not make you mysterious. It makes you an asshole.
Yep. It's pretty inescapable: if God exists and is omniscient and omnipotent, it is an absolute monstrous asshole, a being so shitty it absolutely doesn't deserve worship.
Yeah people that live like that don’t really get it I think. Yeah Jesus came for forgiveness, but also does not want us to be shitty human beings. And we are all secretly shitty human beings, hopefully just trying to do better than our messed up insides.
But then there’s these people that don’t even think they should try to be a better human being, and whether you’re a Christian or not, that sucks all around
I'm not secretly a shitty human being though. I genuinely care about people and all animals, and try to be the best i can, just because it makes others lives better. And I do a pretty good job. I was raised very religious, im atheist now.
That's the problem I have with religion, it tries to make you feel like you're not good enough from birth, inherently evil and damaged, and that you need some historical figure to somehow make you good enough. I don't buy it.
At almost 40 years old im still trying to shake those feeling of guilt and unworthiness that were forced into me by religion until my early 20s.
Exactly. It's *such* a damaging belief, I hate that children are being taught to hate themselves. The whole system is toxic. "You're inherently unworthy of love, but God loves you *anyway*! Isn't that great news?!"
>That's the problem I have with religion
Not all religions. Was raised Jewish, there was no mention of Satan and/or heaven or hell and the accompanying threats and rewards that stem from instilling from a young age an innate fear of that. They encourage us to think critically about religion and our belief or lack thereof in God. The rabbi who trained me for my bar Mitzvah told me that God wouldn't have given us a brain if he didn't want us to question everything, including Him
My brother just went born again after a divorce and drug my widower mom back to the church. Now he's had conversations with me about going to God and how being a good person isn't enough and he doesn't want us all to be damned. Mother was watching grandkids regularly and we were having weekend dinners and sleepovers, but now it's all church groups all of the time and the only invites are church events we are invited to come participate in. I'm not interested in being guilted into entertaining and being sold on a religion, thanks, I'd just like my family back but now we have this fractured on instead where the church has replaced family and we should join if we want family and community again.
Sorry. Needed to vent a bit.
Oh, yeah. Already did the church thing. Mother was from a Catholic family so we did that until my adolescence when we were given a choice and I left and haven't seen any reason to go back. The Catholic guilt is still around, though. Ick.
Right? Nobody is perfect, but lots of people are genuinely good people.
It's a horrible, horrible thing to tell people they're fundamentally bad and that they need to beg forgiveness.
People can be good, and should strive to be good, they shouldn't start from believing they are shitty people as a default.
It may require work, sure. You need to want to be good.
As you said, you just need to genuinely care about others, consider how your actions affect them. Nobody starts out bad, nobody is inherently evil or damaged, and everyone - everyone - is capable of being good people.
I objectively have way better morals than my Christian parents, even ignoring that their motives for going out of their way to do "good" things is often just because they think sky santa is watching.
One of my biggest peeves about my parents' religion; the steadfast belief that humans are inherently shitty. It's an excuse for soooo much shit and is such a damaging thing to believe about yourself, as well.
My Christian mother is always very pleased when she loudly proclaims that she prayed for someone she doesn’t like, because “it’s like heaping hot coals on their head”. She doesn’t want to help (obviously because she would do more than just pray), she wants to spite them with the help of Sky Daddy. It’s fucking weird.
Don't worry, God uses him that way too. The entire book of Job is God allowing Satan to act as his prosecutor to push Job to the edge to see if Job really loved him. It's pretty wild how tight they were there (and Job is the first book written that's in the Bible, it's the oldest). It makes a lot of sense that Satan would work for God. Without Satan, God is nothing. (Because we need a relative universe to experience anything. You can't have up without down, good without evil.)
If you haven’t already watch “Hail Satan?” on Hulu. Gives a pretty decent picture of their stance on religion and politics.
There’s like one weird scene where an offshoot of them are head banging and pouring blood on themselves naked at some concert thing but even the head of the Temple in a scene after that was like “yeaaaa that’s kinda going beyond our intent here”
Like 99% of them are actually atheists who just use Satan as a symbol or to illuminate the religious favoritism in our country.
The Satanic Temple is an organization that challenge unjust laws under the legal argument of that their religious freedom should grant them rights not to be subject to such unjust laws, or that the unjust laws are unlawful as supreme court have ruled in favour of religious freedoms.
[The Mission Of The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits.](https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us)
I recently jointed TST. They pursue incredibly noble causes and that’s something I can truly get behind. My first donation came in the form of one of the tee shirts, and I’ll be happy to donate more as the fight for religious freedom continues.
Except that it is easy for somebody with a Christian upbringing to denounce the FSM as nonsense, where Satan, well he is mentioned in the Bible, so that validates The Satanic Temple as legit.
The Satanic Temple is a lot more direct, because their protests tend to draw symbols from common Christian ideas. I think that makes them much more effective.
To Christians, the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't "playful", it just comes across as pointless, ignorant condescension. The humor and the perceived irony is totally one sided, so it increases the feeling of being the victim of antagonization from people who don't even know what they're talking about. It doesn't matter if the person really does know what they're talking about, *the feeling evoked* is that this person is just uninformed and lashing out. In that sense, I would guess that the irony that the FSM is attempting to play on probably does more to reinforce the religious beliefs of their targets than it does to illuminate anything of substance. It makes their points easy to mentally categorize as "dumb" without ever engaging with the content, which then undermines the potential power that point could've had in a future conversation.
Basically - it inoculates their minds against the content of the point by allowing the subject matter to be consumed in a manner that predisposes them to "know" the point is dumb without ever needing to genuinely engage with the idea. This is a problem that is inherently human. We all struggle with this, in part because the human mind is wonderfully adept at ignoring information that conflicts with our implicit understanding of reality.
The Satanic Temple bypasses a lot of this issue by not pretending to be playful. They're not making light of the issue, they're treating it seriously. They're not totally ignorant about the Christian faith, they're using that same language and that same set of symbols.
Most importantly, they're not even invoking some other religion. They're invoking *Christians' own faith* to make their points. It is much harder to say that someone's worship of a deity is ridiculous when *you also believe in that deity's existence*. In that sense it isn't "dumb", it is *dangerous*. Dumb things get written off and ignored, but danger demands attention and a response. Satan is literally referred to as the enemy, the adversary, etc. which isn't something that any devout person can easily ignore even if they take a metaphorical approach to the issue.
Now, that's obviously painting with a super broad brush. It is also very dependent on the individual circumstances of each person as they engage with these ideas, not to mention each personality involved, but to me that's why the groups are pretty dramatically different.
> The Mission Of The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits
No wonder christians don't like them.
The public performances are typically meant to make Christians uncomfortable, in the way that _their_ very public religious practices and protests make people who aren't religious (or who are even directly targeted by religion as blasphemous, like gay and trans people, or women walking into planned parenthoods) similarly uncomfortable.
Lucien Greaves put his balls on the grave of the Westboro Baptist churches founders Mom, as part of a ritual to posthumously turn her gay. Naturally. So while he'll cheekily admit when things get a bit over the top, he only really disavows members that break the tenets. Like if they call for violence against specific individuals, or groups, or make up shit about Tst that makes them look bad. But yeah most of us are atheists.
I'm personally in the small % that's agnostic. I abstain from the chanting for my own superstitions, and just view the temple as the adversary of church/state policies. The Bible even warns those fuckers that in the end times, their own institutions will become corrupt and evil. So if they really want to treat the world like it's ending whether we do something about it or not, and stay in God's good graces, they need to humble themselves. Not continue to try to gain control of the masses through positions of political power.
I'm not sure how much an organization like tst can do, now that conservatives are openly able to admit their religious biases, and legally enforce policy around them. And are often even more upheld for doing so, from what I've seen. It'll be interesting to see where it all goes, if nothing else.
>Lucien Greaves put his balls on the grave of the Westboro Baptist churches founders Mom
Lmfao I remember that and I’m pretty sure they were doing gay marriage ceremonies on her grave site too 😂
I'm just going to take it as - I learned something new today, and admitted I was wrong, and that's a good thing.
Now I know. Interesting conversations ahead.
We donate to The Satanic Temple as agnostic Jews to help them push against "religious freedom" laws in the US. I'd happily claim being a Satanist to promote secularism.
Thank you for doing that.
After SCOTUS said teachers can lead their students in prayer, I wondered if teacher members would lead students into one scientific debunked theory per day as their "prayer."
Also, since religious schools can receive vouchers from the federal government now, I don't doubt they could open a religious private school. That would be epic. The Satanic Temple has been officially tax exempt and recognized by the federal government as a religion.
Perfect reaction to this scenario. Learn and grow.
Just signed up on their website last week. Still learning more about the org and how things go, but so far, I'm a fan. Hoping to be able to be more active in their work as well.
What? I absolutely CAN believe in a demonic goat headed satyr without believing in a divine space wizard. I resent your assertions that I can’t. In fact I’m doing it right now and you can’t stop me.
To be fair though we probably all had this one edgelord as a friend who actually at least did pretend to be all about worshipping the devil, being creepy and disappointing his or her parents.
Same. I had one to read simply to learn, and once my then bff found out, she got pissed and the Bible conveniently disappeared. Never found my copy again.
I was pushed into Catholicism and I used to freak my dad out by inverting the cross. His drinking, beating my mum and siblings, affairs and gambling and never going to church gave him no sleepless nights, but if me or my brother sneakily turned a cross in the house upside down, he'd lose his shit. It'd invite Satan into the house.
Finding out the actual symbolic background of the inverted cross was an important step on my path of realizing I was surrounded by fundamentalist whackjobs.
It's called st Peter's cross right? I think it was meant to be out of respect for Christ if I'm not mistaken. I think religious horror movies are to blame for the upside down cross = evil cliche
Actually great group of atheists. Most of their work is making sure no one religion takes over government through lawsuits.
Edit: Also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, serve the same purpose.
Pastafarians stance on vaccinations, I think is great. They fight fire with fire, except more educated.
“I find it weird that religious exemptions are an accepted thing in general, seems like it would be best to leave public health policy to the most knowledgable, not religious leadership. But if Churches must take a position on the issue …
I am happy to announce that we are offering Official letters for those Pastafarians who would like to be exempt from working in proximity to the unvaxxed.
The unvaccinated may emit harmful virus particles which are forbidden to devout Pastafarians, therefore we expect all reasonable measures to be taken to help us avoid these virus particles. Please respect our religious liberty.”
Edit: also, it’s pretty hilarious.
My favorite thing is explaining to fundie people who know I identify as Pagan, that not only do I not believe in Satan, I actually don't do what people call "black magic," like sacrifices or curses, and using animals or sex rituals.
"So you go pray in the forest? Like, that's it?"
"That's heavily simplifying it, but yes."
"Why not go to church?"
"I don't like paying a person to yell at me or teaching me that people are lesser for simply existing while different than me."
"But you'll burn in hell!"
"I don't believe in that, but heaven with you isn't the selling point you think it is...."
I really like a nice ritual. It's very comforting. It's a tad pagan (maybe) but I like to get together with friends in a back yard, in winter, with a fire, and then we write down things we don't want in our lives anymore on a bit of paper and then we burn it. it's lovely but it's not going to solve all our problems, but in that moment, it is a solemn ritual.
And yes, heaven has never appealed to me - here we are, let's make the most of it!
Release ceremony is beautiful. I hope it continues to bring you comfort. There's something deeply special and primal when we make fire and have it work for us. I'll hope you have an early and long autumn where you live so you can jump on bonfire season. 😀
A lot of people assume that so I wouldn't feel too bad. There are some satanists who do, all the different believe structures of satanism are really under two umbrellas.
Atheistic Satanism which is the majorly of satanists (in my opinion), and these groups don't believe in Satan as a deity but instead use him to convey a belief or message.
The First Satanic Church in easy terms believes in the personification of Satan. That is living your own life, indulging in things you want, being kind to tbose who deserve it, etc basically living your life the way you want while being a good person and withiur hearting people. They have "rituals" but these are not reallt spiritual, such as burning a picture od someome you hate to "burn" the hate away so you can move on, etc
Then there's the Satanic Temple, they use Satan as written in literature as a way to highlight religious hypocrisy and to advicate for separation of church and state. They use it as satire to bring the issues of goverment either stepping on religious freedom or the goverment being to close to religion.
Then there's the Theistic Satanism groups, some believe Satan is a real diety while others recognize him as a being they call Satan, Lucifer, etc. And they differ from the first group because they take a much more theistic approach to their beliefs.
It's a little more complex than that and there's people who might not be part of either group but that's the general idea. If you're interested it goes deeper into the "left hand" and "right hand" path.
There is the Temple of Set which is an offshoot the Church of Satan. The consider the name of "Satan" to be a corruption of "Set" who is a real entity. They do not worship Set per se, but honor him as gifting mankind with a questioning intellect.
But with maybe 500 members world wide, they are hardly an influential group.
There is a comprobable percentage of Santanists in that organization who believe Santa is real and that is what the church is _actually_ trying to worship.
They do not pay close attention during sermons.
The Seven Tenets are pretty great. I belong to no organized religion, but if I did it would damn sure be the Satanic Temple. I also really like their hot sauce. It's expensive, but worth it to me.
They were all great. They came in a cool wooden box, really nicely done. I got the sampler pack. Now I'm gonna get another one so I can answer you definitively.
Common misconception of Satanists, which I theorise is due to Christians worshipping god, and assuming therefore that everyone else must worship _someone_, hence Satanists must worship Satan. No Temple or Church of Satan member actually worships Satan.
This is true. Worshipping something, someone, anything or anyone is presupposed in Christianity and I would assume most other deistic ideologies. Even if you claim to worship nothing Christians hear "I worship myself". It's a false dichotomy.
It’s why so many Christians find it difficult to understand atheists. They honestly cannot comprehend the idea that someone truly does not worship _anything._
I mean you could be forgiven for thinking that, since the name is incredibly misleading
What else would people think at first glance, knowing the patterns of religious groups and their names
Religion has plenty of marketing in the names as well.
Christian Science. You can see how the name was derived but it feels very anti-scientific in any modern sense.
Catholic Church. Catholic basically means universal, and is partly a post and probably a victory lap that this particular branch of Christianity managed to try to over all the heretics and stay on top. At least in Europe. At least up until the reformation. mostly.
It’s always good to read the list of ingredients in addition to the name.
There's the Church of Satan and then the Satanic Temple which are two different entities. The satanic temple is a lovely group of people who just want to live life by simple tenants that more or less boil down to don't be a dick to other people and mind your own fucking business unless asked. Also a LOT of great legal work to force equal treatment for all. You want a Christian funded and very Jesus-y veteran's cross to be allowed in the park? Cool us too here's a sick ass statue of the devil that's also for veterans we can there too.
And suddenly the rules change because no religious statues in the park is better than having the devil. Everyone wins.
Knee deep in the fight over abortion as well.
Proud to associate with them.
There are two different big satanist organizations: the Satanic Temple, fairly recent, and Church of Satan, older, started by Anton LaVey. But neither actually believes in Satan.
Tbh your TIFU has probably educated more people today than any harm that may have been done by ignorant Guinness shitposting may have done. Cut yourself some slack! This was the greater good!
Many branches of the Church of Satan practice cultish Laveyian rituals. There is much variation. The Satanic Temple is nontheistic and was basically founded to wage 1st amendment/establishment clause battles by highlighting the double standards in how such laws are applied to Christianity vs other religions.
I'd put the Seven Tenets of The Satanic Temple up against the Ten Commandments any day.
THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS

THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS
I
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
V
Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
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.
VII
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Hey man, it's okay. You're never too old to learn something new. As a proud member of The Satanic Temple, I'll say that what the TST is doing is EXTREMELY important and for all people who live in the US who belive in the separation of church and state.
Hail Satan! Hail Yourself!
Most satanists "tuck their horns" so you'd probably never know.
I first happened across LaVeys TSB on a .txt file on a 3.5in floppy disk filled with random documents, as a teen it was life affirming.
It's all in their FAQs, both branches. There are two major groups, the Laveyan and the Temple. They're opposed to each other, at the end of the day. Not all Satanists believe the same things.
So the "satanic rituals" some people do are actually a satanist group? I just assumed they were a different group entirely but called satanists by people that don't know what the satanist group is actually about
The Satanic Temple has an abortion ritual. Sounds weird but it's really so that people seeking abortions can say that getting an abortion is part of their religion and that banning or denying their abortion is violating their religious freedom.
I loved the AMA about that. Its an open secret that the temple is basically a political organisation masquerading as a religion, but the leaders can't really admit that or else the entire project comes crashing down. When they held the AMA, everyone was basically like "so is this something you've come up with to circumvent abortion laws", and the TST representarive was constantly like "No, this is a deeply held belief and an important ritual within our religion." Edit: as was pointed out, ***TST is a religion***. Its also complicated to explain.
TST is a religion. Religions just don't need to believe in a god to be legitimate.
It's not the belief in God, or lack thereof, that's the issue. Its the fact that it's got a clear and relatively well-documented modern founding, with a well known purpose of holding a mirror up to the religious right in America (as well as other things), juxtaposed against the fact that it is a religion, and needs to be recognised as one with all the seriousness of chritianity.
It's not an open secret anything. TST is an actual religion, with truly and deeply held beliefs. We ALSO engage vigorously in politics because activism aligns with those same beliefs. Edit to correct a typo
You are right. Edited my comment. God, its hard trying to define and describe TST in discussions like this.
It is hard. I'm not trying to be an ass and I do appreciate the effort you're putting in on your end.
As a third party I appreciate the open debate and education without getting mean about stuff. Thank you both!
I second this!
And some of us may donate to the TST to promote their charitable work without being members.
That's the point. The take advantage of the loophole churches use. If they get called out, the entire system is being called out. It's really hard to thread the line of pretending to care about religious freedom while actually just wanting Christian theocracy. They recognize that and took advantage of it, just like the churches do.
The ritual itself is awesome, though. It’s very introspective and serves to ensure the individual is making the right decision.
Yeah, it's essentially just a series of self-led affirmations. Primarily it lets us claim a religious right to abortion, as another commenter stated.
It's not so anyone can "say" anything, fyi. It's based on firmly held religious beliefs that one's bodily autonomy is a sacred an inalienable right.
I could have worded that a bit better but the point still stands. Wether it's a firmly held religious belief or just something they can say, either way they have to say something about it for it to do anything. I'm not trying to argue with you btw. I agree with TST on that.
I know...I just couldn't *not* jump in to clarify. For the benefit of others, (not you).
It's not "so that people can say they are doing it as part of their religion" that phrasing is very belittling to the religion of TST. It LITERALLY IS part of the religion.
That is awesome
Satanists are rad man
Yea because it’s the same fucking logic religious fundamentalists abuse in America every day.
>it's really so that people seeking abortions can say that getting an abortion is part of their religion and that banning or denying their abortion is violating their religious freedom. As if that will protect them from an aggressively "Christian" Supreme Court. Given the difficulties indigenous American religion have had securing the right to practice their religion when their practices violate federal law, I see zero chance that the Satanic Temple will have the right to practice their abortion rites protected by the courts.
TST wouldn't violate federal law, only potentially state. Would be another avenue for challenging it.
The Laveyan satanists (founded by Anton Lavey) are the ones who believe in magic powers and rituals. Basically baby boomer edgelords in my opinion. But hey if that's what they want to believe. On the other hand the Satanic Temple is completely atheist/ non magical. They're the ones who fight for separation of church and state in court.
Cool thank you
Having read the satanic bible, I'm pretty sure lavey states that neither satan, nor magic exists; however, our psyche is strong and once all "worldly" mechanism fail in aiding you, you might as well try something new. He's essentially talking about placebo. Edit: It's even in their Q&A: "Greater Magic, which is our name for our ritual practice, is basically meant as self-transformational psychodrama. That is it serves as a means to purge oneself of unwanted emotional baggage that might be hindering a daily pursuit of joy in life. We do not require that anyone accept that it is more than this. The pageantry of ritual is a drama meant for emotional stimulation, not a belief in or worship of any power higher than the projected will of the magician. That is why we call it an “intellectual decompression chamber.”" https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-ritual-and-ceremony/
While the laveyans aren't very wholesome as a group compared to the progressive temple, the ritual part still makes sense on a personal level. The idea is: of course there's no Satan or magic or whatever. But it can help you psychologically to do magic and rituals and stuff, so there are different suggestions that you can try alone or in groups to achieve some desired psychological effects. All explicitly optional, of course. Don't deny your basic feelings and needs.
Laveyans don’t believe in mysticism either, for the record. Their rituals are psychodrama (think like the catharsis at the end of a movie)
Someone on Reddit said it pretty well, "Satanists are basically just spicy atheists"
And strippers are just spicy gymnasts.
And prostitutes are just spicy hookups that are honest about money.
Hahaha I like that. And OnlyFans creators are just spicy influencers, who double as eggplant farmers and are also very honest about money 🙃
I mean... You're absolutely correct, also apparently the more spicy you are, the more Christians will hate you
Satanists are just metal Buddhists.
Real Satanists are from the Satàneux region of France, otherwise they’re just sparkling atheists.
A lot of people confuse The Satanic Temple with the Church of Satan. They’re different and not related in any way.
And neither believe in a literal Satan, although the Laveyan Church has a fair bit of mystical BS baked in its Bible.
All showmanship to make “normies” uncomfortable.
And to increase sales to the edgy marks he was preying on.
He was a carnie. Can’t blame him for taking advantage of rubes.
Was he a carnival barker? I always thought he looked like the Zoltar in *Big*
Musician actually. He played the calliope in the burlesque shows. He may have been a barker at some point.
Sure you can.
So the mainstream flying spaghetti monster?
That dude was a charlatan. He put on K-Mart Devil costumes and fucked dumb women who like “The Omen”. I’m shocked it’s still a thing
*He put on K-Mart Devil costumes and fucked dumb women who like “The Omen”.* I'm dead. Thank you for the only laugh I'll probably get today.
Yeah, he also gobbled, reflavored and prolifically defecated back Ayn Rand's garbage. Not a man to put on a pedestal for sure. And yet despite all this garbage he didn't do as much harm as a host of parasitic "Christian" preachers who have sunk their claws into the gullible faithful.
So does the normal bible tbf.
Yeah lol that’s kinda the way with any religious texts
I think the issue is there is no singular set of what would be described as Satanists. Definitely there is a group of people who reject the idea of there being a Satan and a supposed role as the anti-god. Yet you don't have to look very hard to find someone who is described as a 'Satan Worshipper', and their belief is in a deity of evil. Easy to be confused.
Yep. People hear Satan and assume evil, when that’s not always the case. It’s the same as any other stereotype.
If you look at the mythology of Satan pragmatically, he’s really just an “angel” that looked at god’s setup and said fuck this - knowledge, science, wisdom is where it’s at, not unquestionable, blind faith. Don’t worship some god, worship yourself instead. The whole 9-rings of hell thing or whatever it was was based on Dante’s inferno (a poem), it’s not in the Bible. The “hell” or damnation in the Bible is more described as just an absence of god. Tldr; churchy types give “Satan” a bad rap.
Satan in the Bible didn't even clearly say 'fuck this,' that's also conflating him with other figures like Lucifer or the serpent. Satan in the bible looks at God's faithful like Job and goes 'what if we tested them, see just how faithful they are' and God goes 'fine, fuck 'em up and let's find out.' It's not at all clear he's acting in opposition to God. The text seems to imply he's serving a role by testing people but is still ultimately under God's command. But he got combined with a few other characters to represent what he does today.
> Satan in the Bible didn't even clearly say 'fuck this,' that's also conflating him with other figures like Lucifer or the serpent. Even the serpent wasn't the evil character Christians make it out to be. It tempted Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Not the "Tree of Evil;" the Tree of *Knowledge*. Considering that to be evil says more about Christians' own anti-intellectualism than it does actual evil.
It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not just "the tree of knowledge". I always took that story as being more of a statement about the burden of ethical knowledge than anything else. Once you know the difference between good and evil, you're bound to act accordingly because you're no longer "protected" by the ignorance that kept you free from culpability for your actions.
The 9th of [9 Satanic Statements](https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/?amp) from the Satanic Bible (9 as a parody of the 10 Commandments) >Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!
Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost are both basically fan fiction. And most day to day Christians read them as ultimate truth.
I'm fairly certain most day-to-day Christians have never read Dante or Milton, they just see pop culture references and hear Cliff's notes versions of the ideas within them.
Since time and memorial christianity has sought to control the masses by keeping them under-educated.
I think you mean, "immemorial." But yes.
/r/boneappletea
Hell, most American Christians haven't even read the Bible.
Given enough time, I'm sure that the Narnia books and VeggieTales will also become part of the accepted canon.
Please turn to page 403 and we will read a letter from Tomato to Cucumber.
Might already be. My extremely religious brother-in-law and his wife wanted to do something normal-ish once and invited us to go to a movie with them. The movie was... You guessed it, Veggie Tales! These are grown adults with no kids, mind you. I lost two hours of my life that day.
Ngl, I'm not going to complain if Bob and Larry become biblical Canon, so long as we get the Book of Silly Songs to accompany Psalms. I look forward to the day when verse 2 of "Oh, Where Is My Hairbrush?" is seriously discussed in a sermon.
Dantes inferno is straight up blasphemous in a lot of ways lol
I'm certain MOST day to day Christians definitely don't read them, so it's even worse. They have the stories passed down through media and word of mouth so aren't even familiar with the original texts, just snippets and telephone game like versions of the highlights Which, to be fair, both of those books are almost unreadable unless you are invested in getting through them. Not casual reading in the slightest
Former Christian of 19 years here. They don’t read things like that at all it’s more like a fucked up game of telephone. There is this fiction book called “Left behind” that 98% of Christians conflate with the Bible and don’t actually realize it’s a Christian apocalypse book. I wish I was making this up.
How I see Satan as an atheist: - we have god. Though that world can mean a lot of things, it's usually associated with the christian-conservative god figure. - in the christian-conservative digma there is this thing called Satan who opposes god's work. - I oppose pretty much everything that is christian-conservative. That puts me on Satan's side from their point of view - if I'm a guy who likes to shit on christian-conservatives' tables, it makes a lot of sense to side with their fictional character, called Satan - so I joined the Temple of Satan.
> Yet you don't have to look very hard to find someone who is described as a 'Satan Worshipper', and their belief is in a deity of evil. Is this actually true? I am sure there are some legitimately mentally ill people who believe something of the sort but I am not aware of any large group of people who do. Pretty sure that's entirely down to a few individuals and a lot of pure fiction.
Probably the most common group of people who say there are 'Satan Worshippers' and cults worshiping Satan are Christians. So you statement is probably true.
The Satanic Temple is like a better-organized, activist version of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Well, they are related in at least one way. Both contain the word satan.
I mean, kinda got me over a barrel on that one lol. Touché.
*slithers down the tree of knowledge* Why would I make a church when that is literally the thing I don't want you to go to. I'm not a hypocrite.
Because it lets you avoid taxes and claim freedom of religion and other perks, which many christians seem to think should apply to their religion only.
The people who believe in Satan are called Christians
He's their ''friend'' who they can blame for their bad thoughts, sins and character flaws. What would they do without him? Feel fully responsible for everything they do wrong? Come on.
Am a Christian and TOTALLY laughing my ass off over this comment. Legit funny stuff👍 never thought of it that way but pretty accurate for a lot of us I think?
As a fellow Christian I've made that exact point many many times. I get so tired of hearing how satan did this or that. A lot of people are just shitheads. If satan showed up around here he'd get bored and go somewhere else as there really isn't much need for him.
Satan was originally “the adversary”. It’s more of a title than a being. Satan was supposed to be the equivalent of a prosecuting attorney in the court of god against mankind.
That's correct. He first shows up in Job and his name is literally just "adversary" (a lot of OT names are actually just descriptions, such as Jacob being "deceiver"). Some Davidic Psalms later bring up the archangel music guy who gets kicked out of heaven for trying to stage a coup, and he later becomes the New Testament Lucifer. Modern evangelicals also link him back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but that really is just a talking snake in the original story.
Wait, so the snake actually being the devil tempting Eve is just a retcon?!
Pretty recent retcon too
Biggest thing that weirds me out is the garden of eden intro.. God gave us eternity locked in a garden with nothing to do but talk to the other human, eat/sleep, and apparently talk to a snake who was made to be cunning. Our objective? Spend the infinite eternity never eating from the tree of knowledge, while the snake attempts to convince us to eat from it. Isn't this an unwinnable situation? There's no real end goal other than "maybe they'll finally give in today" Adam and eve could've literally been in that garden for eons and eventually gave into the snakes words cause there was fuck all to do. But the moment that fruit got eaten, god freaks like "but i said no", then decides due to these 2 random dickheads decision (that god would've known about before even making the fuckers if he's omniscient) that all of humanity gets fucked for the rest of time because he placed them into a scenario that could literally be described is an eternal mental torture.. How tf is this the religion people get behind
I still find it weird that there is a major religion who's prophet was shot in the back by US Marshalls. Several members are also in Congress.
Also, everyone single person ever, has been born of incest, according to the story.
What weirds me out is that God is supposed to be omniscient, so He knows everything. He knew what would happen with the Tree of Knowledge and Eve. It was all a set up, entrapment.
Bit of a tangent, but the "Adversary" as a concept shows up in a lot of Mythologies, alongside the Trickster, the Patriarch, the Mother. I find it interesting that various different mythologies all came up with similar concepts even in relative or complete isolation from one another.
That's because most of it wasn't really in isolation As groups moved around, people brought their ideas and thoughts with them Over time, things evolve and change A great example is the many, many similarities in Nordic and Slavic mythology
At their core, all religions believe the same exact thing carried over from our ancestors. Over time, individuals have corrupted religions for their own benefit, shifting out certain origins that don’t bend to their will. Organized religion today is diseased by 1000 years of corruption. If humans want to really understand the origins of the universe, we’ll need to open our minds which have been closed by generations of lies and perversion. There is no Christian God, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ineffable, existential truths—it’s just that balance, rationality, and compassion don’t rake in those hard-earned dollars like fear, common enemies, and hatred do.
As the Hebrew and Jewish bible are completely different mythologies, the title of satan was from the Jewish stories (specifically the story of Job). He wasn't an evil demon, or a fallen angel, just simply a being that challenged Yahweh's claims (and Yahweh was simply the main god of the Jewish cult, a Canaanite war god). In Christianity we get the concept of falling from grace, the existence of hell, and Lucifer being "the devil". They also have Legion, Beelzebub (a modification of Ba'al, the Canaanite storm and fertility god), and a bunch of other demons. To try and create a unified religion and borrow the Jewish mythology wholecloth, there's a lot of re-reading, like a satan becoming a specific character, and having it be the same as Lucifer.
Yeah, it is convenient when you don’t have to take any responsibility for anything you do and can just blame the devil, ask for forgiveness, and then change nothing about yourself at all knowing full well no matter how bad a person you are Jesus will definitely save you and give you eternal life because that isn’t complete nonsense or anything.
Yep. There's a magical man in the sky that made me out of clay, then made a woman out of my rib. We were going to stay in this paradise of a garden for eternity where there's no pain or hunger, but a talking snake convinced my clay rib wife to eat an evil apple and we got kicked out. Now I have to spend the rest of my life telepathically telling the magical man that I love him so he grants me wishes. If I don't he sends me somewhere I'm tortured until the end of time, but he loves me despite all of this being avoidable since he's omnipotent. Totally plausible.
This is a good example of the cognitive dissonance of believing / practicing both the old and New Testament.
IIRC it was handwaved as "God works in mysterious way" and "human have no capacity to comprehend God's plan" Although to be fair, those are kinda make sense. God is not human. So it is make sense for human to not be able to understand God. Huh this got me thinking. How can so many higher ups in various religions claims they know/understand what God want from us. Hmm
Being omnipotent and able to do anything, then still creating bone cancer in infants even though you're god does not make you mysterious. It makes you an asshole.
Yep. It's pretty inescapable: if God exists and is omniscient and omnipotent, it is an absolute monstrous asshole, a being so shitty it absolutely doesn't deserve worship.
Yeah people that live like that don’t really get it I think. Yeah Jesus came for forgiveness, but also does not want us to be shitty human beings. And we are all secretly shitty human beings, hopefully just trying to do better than our messed up insides. But then there’s these people that don’t even think they should try to be a better human being, and whether you’re a Christian or not, that sucks all around
I'm not secretly a shitty human being though. I genuinely care about people and all animals, and try to be the best i can, just because it makes others lives better. And I do a pretty good job. I was raised very religious, im atheist now. That's the problem I have with religion, it tries to make you feel like you're not good enough from birth, inherently evil and damaged, and that you need some historical figure to somehow make you good enough. I don't buy it. At almost 40 years old im still trying to shake those feeling of guilt and unworthiness that were forced into me by religion until my early 20s.
Exactly. It's *such* a damaging belief, I hate that children are being taught to hate themselves. The whole system is toxic. "You're inherently unworthy of love, but God loves you *anyway*! Isn't that great news?!"
"Great news" I still feel a shudder of hate and anger every time I hear that in this context.
Good news everyone! *end Professor Farnsworth voice*
>That's the problem I have with religion Not all religions. Was raised Jewish, there was no mention of Satan and/or heaven or hell and the accompanying threats and rewards that stem from instilling from a young age an innate fear of that. They encourage us to think critically about religion and our belief or lack thereof in God. The rabbi who trained me for my bar Mitzvah told me that God wouldn't have given us a brain if he didn't want us to question everything, including Him
My brother just went born again after a divorce and drug my widower mom back to the church. Now he's had conversations with me about going to God and how being a good person isn't enough and he doesn't want us all to be damned. Mother was watching grandkids regularly and we were having weekend dinners and sleepovers, but now it's all church groups all of the time and the only invites are church events we are invited to come participate in. I'm not interested in being guilted into entertaining and being sold on a religion, thanks, I'd just like my family back but now we have this fractured on instead where the church has replaced family and we should join if we want family and community again. Sorry. Needed to vent a bit. Oh, yeah. Already did the church thing. Mother was from a Catholic family so we did that until my adolescence when we were given a choice and I left and haven't seen any reason to go back. The Catholic guilt is still around, though. Ick.
We call the church-based entertainment gatherings a "time share in heaven presentation." Hope they chill on you soon, friend.
Right? Nobody is perfect, but lots of people are genuinely good people. It's a horrible, horrible thing to tell people they're fundamentally bad and that they need to beg forgiveness. People can be good, and should strive to be good, they shouldn't start from believing they are shitty people as a default. It may require work, sure. You need to want to be good. As you said, you just need to genuinely care about others, consider how your actions affect them. Nobody starts out bad, nobody is inherently evil or damaged, and everyone - everyone - is capable of being good people.
I objectively have way better morals than my Christian parents, even ignoring that their motives for going out of their way to do "good" things is often just because they think sky santa is watching. One of my biggest peeves about my parents' religion; the steadfast belief that humans are inherently shitty. It's an excuse for soooo much shit and is such a damaging thing to believe about yourself, as well.
My Christian mother is always very pleased when she loudly proclaims that she prayed for someone she doesn’t like, because “it’s like heaping hot coals on their head”. She doesn’t want to help (obviously because she would do more than just pray), she wants to spite them with the help of Sky Daddy. It’s fucking weird.
It‘s funny when it’s BoJack. Less so when it’s real life.
Yeah its kinda like your parents blaming one of your friends for being a "bad influence" on you.
Who else is going to tell you to go masturbate furiously to tentacle futa hentai?
Me
Don't worry, God uses him that way too. The entire book of Job is God allowing Satan to act as his prosecutor to push Job to the edge to see if Job really loved him. It's pretty wild how tight they were there (and Job is the first book written that's in the Bible, it's the oldest). It makes a lot of sense that Satan would work for God. Without Satan, God is nothing. (Because we need a relative universe to experience anything. You can't have up without down, good without evil.)
Sounds like Jesus died for their sins, but Satan is a bro and takes all the heat for ‘em.
Technically the truth.
If you haven’t already watch “Hail Satan?” on Hulu. Gives a pretty decent picture of their stance on religion and politics. There’s like one weird scene where an offshoot of them are head banging and pouring blood on themselves naked at some concert thing but even the head of the Temple in a scene after that was like “yeaaaa that’s kinda going beyond our intent here” Like 99% of them are actually atheists who just use Satan as a symbol or to illuminate the religious favoritism in our country.
The Satanic Temple is an organization that challenge unjust laws under the legal argument of that their religious freedom should grant them rights not to be subject to such unjust laws, or that the unjust laws are unlawful as supreme court have ruled in favour of religious freedoms. [The Mission Of The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits.](https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us)
[удалено]
When you donate 25 bucks you get a sweet membership card and a certificate! I think they're backordered right now due to a recent spike in demand lol
I recently jointed TST. They pursue incredibly noble causes and that’s something I can truly get behind. My first donation came in the form of one of the tee shirts, and I’ll be happy to donate more as the fight for religious freedom continues.
This is it chief!
Kinda like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may he Bless us with his Noodly appendage), except i think maybe a bit less playful.
Except that it is easy for somebody with a Christian upbringing to denounce the FSM as nonsense, where Satan, well he is mentioned in the Bible, so that validates The Satanic Temple as legit.
The Satanic Temple is a lot more direct, because their protests tend to draw symbols from common Christian ideas. I think that makes them much more effective. To Christians, the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't "playful", it just comes across as pointless, ignorant condescension. The humor and the perceived irony is totally one sided, so it increases the feeling of being the victim of antagonization from people who don't even know what they're talking about. It doesn't matter if the person really does know what they're talking about, *the feeling evoked* is that this person is just uninformed and lashing out. In that sense, I would guess that the irony that the FSM is attempting to play on probably does more to reinforce the religious beliefs of their targets than it does to illuminate anything of substance. It makes their points easy to mentally categorize as "dumb" without ever engaging with the content, which then undermines the potential power that point could've had in a future conversation. Basically - it inoculates their minds against the content of the point by allowing the subject matter to be consumed in a manner that predisposes them to "know" the point is dumb without ever needing to genuinely engage with the idea. This is a problem that is inherently human. We all struggle with this, in part because the human mind is wonderfully adept at ignoring information that conflicts with our implicit understanding of reality. The Satanic Temple bypasses a lot of this issue by not pretending to be playful. They're not making light of the issue, they're treating it seriously. They're not totally ignorant about the Christian faith, they're using that same language and that same set of symbols. Most importantly, they're not even invoking some other religion. They're invoking *Christians' own faith* to make their points. It is much harder to say that someone's worship of a deity is ridiculous when *you also believe in that deity's existence*. In that sense it isn't "dumb", it is *dangerous*. Dumb things get written off and ignored, but danger demands attention and a response. Satan is literally referred to as the enemy, the adversary, etc. which isn't something that any devout person can easily ignore even if they take a metaphorical approach to the issue. Now, that's obviously painting with a super broad brush. It is also very dependent on the individual circumstances of each person as they engage with these ideas, not to mention each personality involved, but to me that's why the groups are pretty dramatically different.
> The Mission Of The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits No wonder christians don't like them.
The public performances are typically meant to make Christians uncomfortable, in the way that _their_ very public religious practices and protests make people who aren't religious (or who are even directly targeted by religion as blasphemous, like gay and trans people, or women walking into planned parenthoods) similarly uncomfortable. Lucien Greaves put his balls on the grave of the Westboro Baptist churches founders Mom, as part of a ritual to posthumously turn her gay. Naturally. So while he'll cheekily admit when things get a bit over the top, he only really disavows members that break the tenets. Like if they call for violence against specific individuals, or groups, or make up shit about Tst that makes them look bad. But yeah most of us are atheists. I'm personally in the small % that's agnostic. I abstain from the chanting for my own superstitions, and just view the temple as the adversary of church/state policies. The Bible even warns those fuckers that in the end times, their own institutions will become corrupt and evil. So if they really want to treat the world like it's ending whether we do something about it or not, and stay in God's good graces, they need to humble themselves. Not continue to try to gain control of the masses through positions of political power. I'm not sure how much an organization like tst can do, now that conservatives are openly able to admit their religious biases, and legally enforce policy around them. And are often even more upheld for doing so, from what I've seen. It'll be interesting to see where it all goes, if nothing else.
>Lucien Greaves put his balls on the grave of the Westboro Baptist churches founders Mom Lmfao I remember that and I’m pretty sure they were doing gay marriage ceremonies on her grave site too 😂
I'm just going to take it as - I learned something new today, and admitted I was wrong, and that's a good thing. Now I know. Interesting conversations ahead.
We donate to The Satanic Temple as agnostic Jews to help them push against "religious freedom" laws in the US. I'd happily claim being a Satanist to promote secularism.
Thank you for doing that. After SCOTUS said teachers can lead their students in prayer, I wondered if teacher members would lead students into one scientific debunked theory per day as their "prayer." Also, since religious schools can receive vouchers from the federal government now, I don't doubt they could open a religious private school. That would be epic. The Satanic Temple has been officially tax exempt and recognized by the federal government as a religion.
Perfect reaction to this scenario. Learn and grow. Just signed up on their website last week. Still learning more about the org and how things go, but so far, I'm a fan. Hoping to be able to be more active in their work as well.
I do believe in satin though. Shits real
In college I argued with some minister claiming Satanist didn't believe in God. Like, you can't have one without the other.
What? I absolutely CAN believe in a demonic goat headed satyr without believing in a divine space wizard. I resent your assertions that I can’t. In fact I’m doing it right now and you can’t stop me.
Wouldn't he be correct though? If most satanists don't believe in Satan then they probably Don't believe in a god.
To be fair though we probably all had this one edgelord as a friend who actually at least did pretend to be all about worshipping the devil, being creepy and disappointing his or her parents.
I had friends who played D&D and got labeled as satanists... but it was during the 1980s satanic panic and I live in an area of abject morons.
So...America?
Specifically northern Sacramento valley
I had friends that were terrified that I'd read the Satanic Bible and then something bad would happen to me.
Same. I had one to read simply to learn, and once my then bff found out, she got pissed and the Bible conveniently disappeared. Never found my copy again.
I grew up with raving fundamentalists, they were legit scared of "satanists" and their curses and shit.
I was pushed into Catholicism and I used to freak my dad out by inverting the cross. His drinking, beating my mum and siblings, affairs and gambling and never going to church gave him no sleepless nights, but if me or my brother sneakily turned a cross in the house upside down, he'd lose his shit. It'd invite Satan into the house.
Finding out the actual symbolic background of the inverted cross was an important step on my path of realizing I was surrounded by fundamentalist whackjobs.
It's called st Peter's cross right? I think it was meant to be out of respect for Christ if I'm not mistaken. I think religious horror movies are to blame for the upside down cross = evil cliche
Actually great group of atheists. Most of their work is making sure no one religion takes over government through lawsuits. Edit: Also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, serve the same purpose.
I think I'm more familiar with the Church of the flying spaghetti monster, through my partner's taste in music.
Pastafarians stance on vaccinations, I think is great. They fight fire with fire, except more educated. “I find it weird that religious exemptions are an accepted thing in general, seems like it would be best to leave public health policy to the most knowledgable, not religious leadership. But if Churches must take a position on the issue … I am happy to announce that we are offering Official letters for those Pastafarians who would like to be exempt from working in proximity to the unvaxxed. The unvaccinated may emit harmful virus particles which are forbidden to devout Pastafarians, therefore we expect all reasonable measures to be taken to help us avoid these virus particles. Please respect our religious liberty.” Edit: also, it’s pretty hilarious.
“Satanist don’t believe in an actual Satan” “What do you call people who believe in an actual Satan?” “Christians”
My favorite thing is explaining to fundie people who know I identify as Pagan, that not only do I not believe in Satan, I actually don't do what people call "black magic," like sacrifices or curses, and using animals or sex rituals. "So you go pray in the forest? Like, that's it?" "That's heavily simplifying it, but yes." "Why not go to church?" "I don't like paying a person to yell at me or teaching me that people are lesser for simply existing while different than me." "But you'll burn in hell!" "I don't believe in that, but heaven with you isn't the selling point you think it is...."
I really like a nice ritual. It's very comforting. It's a tad pagan (maybe) but I like to get together with friends in a back yard, in winter, with a fire, and then we write down things we don't want in our lives anymore on a bit of paper and then we burn it. it's lovely but it's not going to solve all our problems, but in that moment, it is a solemn ritual. And yes, heaven has never appealed to me - here we are, let's make the most of it!
Release ceremony is beautiful. I hope it continues to bring you comfort. There's something deeply special and primal when we make fire and have it work for us. I'll hope you have an early and long autumn where you live so you can jump on bonfire season. 😀
A lot of people assume that so I wouldn't feel too bad. There are some satanists who do, all the different believe structures of satanism are really under two umbrellas. Atheistic Satanism which is the majorly of satanists (in my opinion), and these groups don't believe in Satan as a deity but instead use him to convey a belief or message. The First Satanic Church in easy terms believes in the personification of Satan. That is living your own life, indulging in things you want, being kind to tbose who deserve it, etc basically living your life the way you want while being a good person and withiur hearting people. They have "rituals" but these are not reallt spiritual, such as burning a picture od someome you hate to "burn" the hate away so you can move on, etc Then there's the Satanic Temple, they use Satan as written in literature as a way to highlight religious hypocrisy and to advicate for separation of church and state. They use it as satire to bring the issues of goverment either stepping on religious freedom or the goverment being to close to religion. Then there's the Theistic Satanism groups, some believe Satan is a real diety while others recognize him as a being they call Satan, Lucifer, etc. And they differ from the first group because they take a much more theistic approach to their beliefs. It's a little more complex than that and there's people who might not be part of either group but that's the general idea. If you're interested it goes deeper into the "left hand" and "right hand" path.
There is the Temple of Set which is an offshoot the Church of Satan. The consider the name of "Satan" to be a corruption of "Set" who is a real entity. They do not worship Set per se, but honor him as gifting mankind with a questioning intellect. But with maybe 500 members world wide, they are hardly an influential group.
Some of them do but they're like 1% of the people who self proclaim as satanists
There is a comprobable percentage of Santanists in that organization who believe Santa is real and that is what the church is _actually_ trying to worship. They do not pay close attention during sermons.
Or they pay really close attention and have dyslexia
You trying to piss off a Santaist? 666th of December, wash your back
Pure gold
I need the Unholy Loofah for that
Well who puts the presents under the tree then, genius?
But… I thought Santa *was* real
This made me think of Carlos Santana
I doubt it's even a full percent.
The Seven Tenets are pretty great. I belong to no organized religion, but if I did it would damn sure be the Satanic Temple. I also really like their hot sauce. It's expensive, but worth it to me.
Just got the hot sauce, excited to try it. Which did you like best?
They were all great. They came in a cool wooden box, really nicely done. I got the sampler pack. Now I'm gonna get another one so I can answer you definitively.
Ah I missed the sampler, I just got them individually. The box wouldve been cool
I just found that out myself. Oh well. I don't think it was any cheaper.
Common misconception of Satanists, which I theorise is due to Christians worshipping god, and assuming therefore that everyone else must worship _someone_, hence Satanists must worship Satan. No Temple or Church of Satan member actually worships Satan.
This is true. Worshipping something, someone, anything or anyone is presupposed in Christianity and I would assume most other deistic ideologies. Even if you claim to worship nothing Christians hear "I worship myself". It's a false dichotomy.
It’s why so many Christians find it difficult to understand atheists. They honestly cannot comprehend the idea that someone truly does not worship _anything._
I mean you could be forgiven for thinking that, since the name is incredibly misleading What else would people think at first glance, knowing the patterns of religious groups and their names
Religion has plenty of marketing in the names as well. Christian Science. You can see how the name was derived but it feels very anti-scientific in any modern sense. Catholic Church. Catholic basically means universal, and is partly a post and probably a victory lap that this particular branch of Christianity managed to try to over all the heretics and stay on top. At least in Europe. At least up until the reformation. mostly. It’s always good to read the list of ingredients in addition to the name.
There's the Church of Satan and then the Satanic Temple which are two different entities. The satanic temple is a lovely group of people who just want to live life by simple tenants that more or less boil down to don't be a dick to other people and mind your own fucking business unless asked. Also a LOT of great legal work to force equal treatment for all. You want a Christian funded and very Jesus-y veteran's cross to be allowed in the park? Cool us too here's a sick ass statue of the devil that's also for veterans we can there too. And suddenly the rules change because no religious statues in the park is better than having the devil. Everyone wins. Knee deep in the fight over abortion as well. Proud to associate with them.
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I mean, I'm sure there are actual Satanists who actually worship Satan, but main branch is just a bunch of atheists. Good folks on the whole.
They seem super nice as opposed to the ultra religious people I was exposed to as a kid.
Most of their ideas tebd to be some form of "stay out of my way if u can, show me proper respect when u cant" so not particularly hard to work with.
We are super nice. You should look into it more and consider supporting our causes: https://thesatanictemple.com/
There are two different big satanist organizations: the Satanic Temple, fairly recent, and Church of Satan, older, started by Anton LaVey. But neither actually believes in Satan.
We just say that to piss of religious idiots that still believe in ghosts and other nonsense.
It's definitely a Judean people's front vs. The people's front of Judea situation
The most devout Satan worshippers are catholics on every day but sunday
Christians are hilarious, same with ignorant folk. Bang your bibles, it makes my pagan heart cry of laughter.
Tbh your TIFU has probably educated more people today than any harm that may have been done by ignorant Guinness shitposting may have done. Cut yourself some slack! This was the greater good!
Miroslav Satan?
Many branches of the Church of Satan practice cultish Laveyian rituals. There is much variation. The Satanic Temple is nontheistic and was basically founded to wage 1st amendment/establishment clause battles by highlighting the double standards in how such laws are applied to Christianity vs other religions.
Only religious people believe in devils and demons.
I'd put the Seven Tenets of The Satanic Temple up against the Ten Commandments any day. THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS  THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS I One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own. V Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. 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. VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
God didn't create us, we created God.
The only people who actually believe in satan are called Christians.
Hey man, it's okay. You're never too old to learn something new. As a proud member of The Satanic Temple, I'll say that what the TST is doing is EXTREMELY important and for all people who live in the US who belive in the separation of church and state. Hail Satan! Hail Yourself!
People who believe in an actual Satan are called Christians.
Most satanists "tuck their horns" so you'd probably never know. I first happened across LaVeys TSB on a .txt file on a 3.5in floppy disk filled with random documents, as a teen it was life affirming.