Florida governor Rick Scott has some new allies who thoroughly approve of his plan to allow prayers in public schools if the student body votes to approve: Satanists. It’s annoying that people constantly confuse atheists and Satanists, when they’re nothing alike philosophically.
They have a press release explaining their position. It turns out that Satanism is one of those liberal religions.
[We believe] that God is supernatural and thus outside of the sphere of the physical. God’s perfection means that he cannot interact with the imperfect corporeal realm. Because God cannot intervene in the material world, He created Satan to preside over the universe as His proxy. Satan has the compassion and wisdom of an angel. Although Satan is subordinate to God, he is mankind’s only conduit to the dominion beyond the physical. In addition, only Satan can hear our prayers and only Satan can respond. While God is beyond human comprehension, Satan desires to be known and knowable. Only in this way can there be justice and can life have meaning.
It’s still all bullshit.
34 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
Brett McCoy
11 January 2013 at 12:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Anton Lavey, who founded the Church of Satan, made no secret he borrowed a lot from Ayn Rand and her philosophy of ‘rational self-interest’ from her book The Virtue of Selfishness. Likewise, the Republicans revere Rand also.
Rob Grigjanis
11 January 2013 at 12:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, no, Prof Myers. Satanists are Libertarians holding flashlights under their chins.
Barklikeadog
11 January 2013 at 12:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bwahaha…Satanic children…. Bwahaha…
That ought to sink that bill real fast.
Gnumann+, Radfem shotgunner of inhuman concepts
11 January 2013 at 12:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All Satanists are not the same. Not every self-proclaimed Satanist is Laveyan. But since they are either ideologically self-absorbed or blithering idiots, all groups seems to mesh well with the republicans.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle
11 January 2013 at 12:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
BWAHAHAAHAA. Delicious. Even if the “Satanists” are being serious, and not performing delightful social satire, it’s still wonderful.
raven
11 January 2013 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The LeVoy satanists are all atheists.
AFAICT, he just wrote his book because he need money and saw what Elron Hubbard managed to do with his books.
raven
11 January 2013 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Satanists more or less don’t exist.
There are a few people who call themselves that but they aren’t really that convincing.
The closest we have though, are the fundie xians. I tried to tell them apart from satantists and couldn’t do it.
1. They worship a Sky Monster god.
2. Fundie-ism is based on hate and lies.
3. Hypocrisy is a key sacrament.
4. They practice human child sacrifice by medical withholding and torture murder.
Unfortunately, not only are fundies real, there are a lot of them and we all pay a steep price.
steve oberski
11 January 2013 at 1:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Then she should have no problem staying out of the classroom.
robinjohnson
11 January 2013 at 1:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Who’d have thought that being completely powerless made you more perfect than someone who can actually do stuff?
Gregory in Seattle
11 January 2013 at 1:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Raven #7 – Actually, there are a lot of different groups that embrace the name Satanist, and there is a lot of variation in their beliefs.
The Church of Satan is atheistic, and holds that there is no god higher than the self. They and related groups follow LaVey’s “Satantic Bible.”
The Temple of Set is an esoteric group that follows a left-hand path, meaning they seek self-improvement by violating societal norms. The deities their rituals invoke include “divine enemies” from many different traditions, including Set, Apep, Satan and Angra Mainyu.
Luciferianism is a set of Gnostic traditions which hold that the god worshipped in the Abrahamic traditions is the Demiurge, who created the world to ensnare, demean and enslave pure spirits. Lucifer — literally Bringer of Light — is a savior fighting against the snares of the material world.
And there are people who are genuine, backwards-Latin Black Mass Christian heretics.
raven
11 January 2013 at 1:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Florida group calls themselves satanists. But their satan is a good angel that is god’s appointed ruler of the universe. It’s not at all like the xian idea of satan, really just sharing the same name.
There might be a very few of these. Or not.
I’ve only heard of one. He was brought into a psychiatric lockup facility after his family got scared. This poor guy believed that the war in heaven was over. Satan won and is now ruling the world. He is a schizophrenic and refuses to take his medication.
Tony the Queer Shoop (proud supporter of Radical Feminism)
11 January 2013 at 1:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Perhaps Satanists need to endorse other bills. Personhood amendments. Anti abortion bills. Discriminatory anti gay legislation.
pinkey
11 January 2013 at 1:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you assume that “not conservative” means “liberal”, and you ignore all the liberal Christians, then it stands to reason that all Christians are conservative. Given that, it naturally follows that if you aren’t Christian, you’re not conservative.
Therfore, all non-Christian religions are liberal.
Easy.
Gregory in Seattle
11 January 2013 at 1:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Raven #11 – I’ve heard of a guy back in the 80s who went on a killing and cannibal spree after God told him to eat flesh and drink blood at a Roman Catholic mass. If a person is already mentally unstable, pretty much anything can set them off.
Once you exclude the wanna-be Goth kids rebelling against their parents and the heavy metal bands adding shock value to their “music”, I suspect that there are few orthodox Satanists. but they do exist. You can pick just about belief system — even deliberately fictional ones like Tolkein’s Valar, Heinlein’s Church of All Worlds or Butler’s Earthseed — and find people who genuinely hold to that system.
evilisgood
11 January 2013 at 1:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Satanists I know are all atheists. This sounds like satire. It’s hilarious!
Gnumann+, Radfem shotgunner of inhuman concepts
11 January 2013 at 1:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Arguably, they’re ego-theistic.
Dalillama, Schmott Guy
11 January 2013 at 1:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Yezidi have a similar beleif with an Islamic flavor, and refer to their tute;ary as Malek Nous. In reality, though, Lavaeyan Satanists are the vast, vast majority of people who call themselves Satanists. The Temple of Set is tiny, and Gnosticism and Black Mass types are so vanishingly rare that they may as well not exist; there are more Lobjan speakers.
Sastra
11 January 2013 at 2:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Years ago, I read an interesting book/long essay written by a former Laveyan Satanist who had been quite prominent in the movement. It was his considered opinion that Anton Lavey had deliberately written his Satanic Bible ambiguously, so that it could be read as either atheistic, or as New Age-y/spiritual. Thus, people with either view could join — as well as people who liked to flip-flop between each view, consciously or not. (On this, see Greta Christina’s great post When Anyone is Watching.)
What this meant was that there really wasn’t a right way or wrong way to interpret Satanism. Lavey contradicted himself on purpose — and the writer thought doing this displayed contempt for his followers, not some principled stance. He was pissed off.
That’s probably because the former Satanist writer had been an atheist arguing that people who thought Satanists believed in the supernatural were misinterpreting Lavey Satanism. If he had been a Satanist who DID believe in the supernatural, my guess based on New Agers is that he would have thought it was wonderful that people could just adopt the religion any way they wanted! Yay, diversity!
michaelolsen
11 January 2013 at 2:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually, it’s Satanists and Libertarians. All the Satanists I’ve heard about or met, are BIG Ayn Rand fans. I even guessed it once, before they told me. This young couple wih a newborn, they explained their satanist philosophy. And I said that it sounded like something Rand would say. Their eyes lit up and they said “Yes! yes, exactly!”. I looked at their kid, and instead of seeing Rosemary’s baby, I saw a child with a worse future.
psocoptera
11 January 2013 at 2:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gregory in Seattle – what, no Bokononism?
I heard a satanist on the radio one weekend, but it was the same stupid religious drivel. Turns out, many satanist are boring, so I turned it the radio back to our local rock station.
lclane2
11 January 2013 at 3:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Satanism is popular among teen agers. After years of religious indoctrination who wouldn’t be excited to discover the Satanic Bible in the local library?
Rutee Katreya
11 January 2013 at 3:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Much like Christians’ version of Satan is nothing like the original JEwish version.
raven
11 January 2013 at 3:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Much like the xian’s versions of god.
The god in the bible evolves and quite rapidly. From a humanoid tribal god among many gods to the current mess of ineffable god hiding behind the Big Bang or the fundie Sky Monster, in triplicate sometimes.
Satan evolves too. He started out as god’s buddy in Job and zigzagged around. He didn’t really get going until the New Testament when someone(s) added in some Greek and Zoroastrian philosophy.
sumdum
11 January 2013 at 4:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A group of satanists giving some organisation a Judas kiss ? You don’t say. :P
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
11 January 2013 at 4:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Maybe contempt for his followers was a principled stance for Lavey.
WMDKitty (Always growing and learning)
11 January 2013 at 4:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Heh. Heh heh. Having gone through a Satanist phase, I can say that it’s pretty much the same shit in a different wrapper. It has some useful bits, and I still hold to a few of the basic principles (do not abuse or harm children or animals (duh); as a guest, you respect the “lair” of your host (basic good manners!)), but have moved on in my journey. A trip down a Path that keeps coming round to cats, cats, cats…
sadunlap
11 January 2013 at 4:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But it’s such sublime bullshit – and enormously entertaining.
a3kr0n
11 January 2013 at 4:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So my parents have been lying to me all my life telling me that God hears my prayers?
goddamnit!
miller
11 January 2013 at 6:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wait, that doesn’t sound like LaVeyan Satanism at all. Maybe it’s some other kind of Satanism?
dantelevel9
11 January 2013 at 6:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If God “cannot interact with the imperfect corporeal realm” that must mean that Satan is Jesus’ father. Finally, it all makes perfect sense to me now! I get it, I really, really get it. Phew. And here I thought I was going to the grave thinking that Jesus was nothing but a Jewish children’s story that got seriously out of hand.
buddhabuck
11 January 2013 at 7:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The theology espoused didn’t sound like any form of Satanism I’ve seen before (LaVey, Temple of Set, etc). So I went looking for them in Wikipedia. No mention the “The Satanic Temple”. A Google search didn’t turn up anything except the press release and derivatives, not even the website they linked to in the press release.
Finally, Google searching for their spokesperson Lucien Greaves, I found a listing on “Actors Access” for a “breakdown”(casting call) dated 1/7/2013 for a feature film titled “The Satanic Temple”, a non-union job with Lucien Greaves listed as the casting director. If you’re interested, the job is Florida, and starts the 24th.
So either (a) this is a publicity stunt to promote a movie which hasn’t started filming yet, (b) this is a “real” church looking for actors to convert under false pretenses, or (c) this is an attempt to scuttle the bill, and needs actors to make videos of services/rituals to provide a level of verisimilitude.
raven
11 January 2013 at 10:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh. You mean a Fake Church.
How do you tell a Fake Church from a Real Church?
To outsiders they all look about equally Real. Which isn’t saying much. The difference between the real gods and the fake gods.
anchor
12 January 2013 at 12:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“God’s perfection means that he cannot interact with the imperfect corporeal realm.”
So obviously all that praying from so many, those expecting intervention or some miracle to find refuge or assistance in the event of circumstances beyond their control – hermetically imprisoned as they are within the ‘imperfect corporeal real – really doesn’t do anything.
Neither can that laughing-stock of an ‘omnipotent’ or ‘perfect’ being even begin to create anything that at once requires it to stoop to creating an entire universe of imperfection as well as having to deal with all the imperfect silly bits such as empassioned pleas and solicitations from believers who are basically cowards in the harsh face of life and wish to avoid the Big D.
Well, now, whad’ya know. Here they’ve admitted that God in all His Almighty Perfection couldn’t deign to do anything for us poor slobs even if He wanted to…let alone bother to create an “imperfect corporeal realm”.
If elementary logic makes sense, why should this “imperfect corporeal realm” even contain it?
bradleybetts
14 January 2013 at 7:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Haha :) Fantastic; I bet he wasn’t expecting that! That’s that bill sunk then :) next!