Let’s be honest here. If the Satanists weren’t being incredibly useful in undermining Christian hegemony in the US, we’d find this statue, and the mystical ideas behind it, repugnant.
But man, the Satanists are handy tools — they are great at exposing the hypocrisy behind local pious ‘separation of church and state’ defenses. I applaud them for that.
But I have to wonder…are atheists literally making a deal with the devil by ignoring the whole “let’s put up a statue of children worshipping an imaginary demon” thing? I knew a few Satanists way back when, and I’d say exactly the same thing about them I would about Baptists: generally nice people, but hoo boy, they really believed in some incredible bullshit. That they are serving the cause of highlighting conservative misappropriation of some good principles shouldn’t mean we stop questioning them.
Are this the clown satanists, who use satan the way we use the flying spaghetti monster?
I would have preferred something more H.R. Giger, myself.
PZ et al, we should collect money for a proper statue of one of the Elder Gods !!!!!
And we should start a rumour that people who touches it get bad dreams.
If I understand it correctly, the Satanic Temple, which is the organization behind this statue, are atheistic satanists, and not Anton LaVey mystical BS types.
Or, in other words, real-life trolls (for good of course).
And beauty… is in the mind of the beholder I guess. I would call the statue at a minimum ‘effective’.
Er, PZ, I assume you know it’s actually a gag, right?
If you want to understand The Satanic Temple, go read their website http://www.thesatanictemple.com
You’ll find out they’re 100% secular and clearly on the side of logic an reason. They are a terrific force against the people who want a theocracy in the U.S., and are doing far more good than dozens of atheist/agnostic blogs. The are a force to be reckoned with. GO SATANISTS, GO!
While you’re there, donate.
I’m a little confused. Pan putting the caduceus down his pants to prank Hermes is in character, I guess, but why does he have wings and the caduceus doesn’t?
There is the joke aspect, of course, but this is a $100,000, one ton, bronze statue. Dare I suggest that maybe the joke has been carried to an extreme?
I love what they’re doing. But I really wish they’d gone with a deity that’s prettier to look at…
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ee/37/2c/ee372cb853a2930336faeb12dbfcbc24.jpg
Beautifully lit… particularly at midnight when Jesus loses his power until dawn. Or until you clap your hands particularly loudly.
Umm …no, that’s Peter Pan in pantomime, sorry.
I am rapidly becoming of the opinion that “Satanist” is a pretty useless term. It encompasses such wide and varied range of philosophical and religious positions it’s actually pretty meaningless.
“I’m a Satanist”. OK. So, do you literally worship the Christian Devil? Or do you see him as a metaphorical avatar which embodies the selfishness and hedonism which are the truest expression of the human condition? Or is he some sort of metaphorical knowledge-bringer, and what you’re really worshipping is knowledge? Do you believe in LaVeyan mysticism? Or not? Or are you just an Atheist using the symbolism to troll the Christian Right?
It’s just got silly at this point. At least when someone says “I am a Christian”, you can be fairly sure they believe in a God who once came to Earth as a human avatar… “I am a Satanist” doesn’t even give you that kind of vague generality.
trolls (for good of course).
Bombing the village in order to save it, that kind of thing.
Pranking for righteousness. That’s a tough sell, but that’s the kind of thing some skeptico/atheists are adopting. It plays right into the hands of those who want to portray skeptics/atheists as mean/strident uh, now, satanist. I totally understand the sympathy, and I do think it’s funny, but in my world the satanists are on the other side of a pretty good-sized rift from me. They’re closer to the slymepit and the creepy stalkerish fringe than I’m comfortable being associated with.
Some people just don’t know how to spend their money wisely.
It is ugly as sin, funnily enough, but no, as far as I understand it, these people don’t believe in the sorts of nutty things Baptists believe in. They are atheists who employ Satan as a symbol of individualism and of course as a means to drive their point about freedom of religion home. Is it kind of silly? Sure, but I don’t really mind. It’s no more silly than a giant lump featuring the ten commandments or whatever, either. Personally, I hope the Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and Native Americans of various stripes and Scientologists and Wiccans etc. all dump their monuments along with Christian and Satanist ones in the same place, rendering the Christians’ attempt to display governmental favour for their religion utterly moot.
They’ve said that they consider satan to embody ultimate rebellion against the ultimate tyrant. The statue represents freedom and autonomy.
I’m not sure why some people think it’s an ugly statue. I think it’s a beautiful piece of work. I think the story & sentiment behind Michaelangelo’s David are stupid bullshit, but you don’t see me claiming the statue is ugly because of that. (Although poor Dave is ridiculously under-equipped)
#14, doublereed:
OK, so wouldn’t a statue of Ayn Rand been just as effective, and even more offensive?
@15 Artor
I think it’s ugly, period. I’m not drawing that from the story and sentiment behind it in my case. While I like statues made of metal generally better than ones made of stone, it looks weird to me: Giant head, tiny stick legs, way too many symbols/inverted pentagrams to be tasteful, the children should be removed as they make an already crowded sculpture even more overcrowded. The slab of metal used as a background doesn’t seem to fit stylistically (it’s minimalist, even modern, while the figure is much more old-fashioned in its look). Actually, scratch that: Keep the slab the same but make the figure itself more minimalist and modern, too, that might look cool.
Sure.
A statue of Dick Cheney with horns, bat wings, and holding a pitchfork would be even better. And be not too far from the truth.
Which will be vandalized by xians as soon as they can get to it.
It’s guaranteed.
They vandalize atheist billboards all the time.
Virtually all of the Pagan art and temples and their books were destroyed by xians in the early centuries after they gained power. More than a few Pagans were also killed. Xianity is historically a very violent and intolerant religion.
PZed #16, Ayn Rand might work. Though there’s a risk people might take it seriously and start worshipping the statue and turning it into a religion. It would be like L Ron Hubbard’s little joke about Aliens getting waaay out of control. Oh, who am I kidding? Mano Singham pointed out both already happened.
That statue is awesome. Makes me want to break out the d20 and roll an awesome check.
#10: “At least when someone says “I am a Christian”, you can be fairly sure they believe in a God who once came to Earth as a human avatar…”
Most (non-evangelical) Americans will accept a pretty wide-range of beliefs as “Christian” if the people self-identify as Christian. As I understand Mormon beliefs, they think Jesus started out as a man, then became a god (a separate, unique god, not even part of the trinity). Yet, becasue Mormons self-identify as a Christian sect, most of us accept them as Christian.
Most people accept Thomas Jefferson was a Christian, and he didn’t believe Jesus was a god.
To that end, “Christian” is a pretty broad definition that might be better served by “Anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Jesus.” And that’s pretty far from what the Catholic Church was originally setup to promote, never mind the other early Jewish Christian sects.
Religions evolve and split, often to reflect the culture of the times. Why should Satanism be any different?
Heck, even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster already had a schism due to cultural shifts!
@16 PZ Myers
What are you talking about with being offensive? Look at the Seven Tenets over at their website. It has nothing to do with Objectivism in any way. The idea that Satan represents selfishness and hedonism is just not accurate. FFS, I would think Atheists of all people would be responsive to that considering we constantly call God an evil tyrant and have to fend off attacks that we’re hedonists.
Statue of Ayn Rand? Seriously, what is your problem?
Frankly, I like the look of the statue. It’s got a cool pagan feel to it.
To each her own, I guess. I think the statue is gorgeous.
@Doublereed #23
“I would think Atheists of all people would be responsive to that considering we constantly call God an evil tyrant and have to fend off attacks that we’re hedonists.”
Not really. We don’t believe that there is a god. We know that the tyrannical acts are done by people, not a god, no matter what those actors say.
Why give them any credit by assigning personality to something we say isn’t real?
@ kengi
I agree that “Christian” encompasses a very wide range of beliefs. I meant that you can at least be fairly certain that their belief encompasses that one core tenet. The debate about whether Mormons, pantheists and deists even count as Christians is precisely because they dispute the latter half of that core tenet. The word Satanist does not even denote a unifying core tenet.
reminds me a huge amount of the scene in Childhood’s End where the Overlord finally reveals himself, with (from memory) “a trusting human child on each knee”
@26 Thumper
I suggest the “core tenet” you state isn’t actually the core tenet of “Christianity” anymore precisely because most people consider sects which don’t adhere to that tenet to still be Christian. Yes, people debate if they count as Christian, but the fact remains that most people do count them as Christian.
Many evangelicals and charismatics don’t consider anyone other than themselves to be Christian. But just because there’s debate among small groups doesn’t mean most Americans think Catholics or Mormons aren’t Christian.
I honestly don’t think the tenet as you stated it can be supported given that Mormons and past deists are now widely accepted as being Christian. That’s why I now consider anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Jesus (as they understand it) to be a Christian.
Could the “central tenet” of Satanism be something similar? Anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Satan (as they understand it)? That could encompass even the atheist Satanists who commissioned this statue.
@25 ParaLess
Do I need to dig up a bunch of quotes from Atheists calling God an evil tyrant in a variety of sorts. Sure, we’re talking about God as a character of fiction, but so are the Satanists so there’s no difference there.
Like I just don’t see where there’s any disagreement whatsoever other than some here thinking “the statue is ugly.” That’s the pettiest of the petty.
But didn’t the christianists dream that goat up in the first place?
I think the statue is quite lovely, though I would prefer it without the thingy behind it. I doesn’t have tiny stick legs in a disproportionate way; deer, goats, and horses all have skinny legs that look almost too small to support their bodies. The head isn’t that large either; we’re just used to seeing tiny human heads with their flat faces so anything with a long muzzle is going to throw us off.
It’s a cool weird looking statue. As to the cost, may as well complain about the Robocop one (people did, actually) which is also pretty cool (though I think around 60k cheaper).
It is designed to be something that Christian theocrats would be willing to sacrifice the Ten Commandments statues to get rid of.
Marcus #11
Please go to The Satanic Temples website: http://www.thesatanictemple.com
and read what they’re about and what they’re trying to do. Perhaps it will give you a clearer understanding of their “temple”
They are one hell of a lot more useful than blogs when it comes to putting the theocrat’s feet to the fire.
Satan is apparently a Cub Scout.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_sign_and_salute#Cub_Scouts.27_two-finger_salute
But at least he’s chastely crossed his ankles to avoid upskirts.
That really is unfair, both towards this group of Satanists in particular, and most of the folks who self-identify that way in general. One of the key tenets most of them push forward, for instance, is that your body is completely yours–so they’re anti-rape, pro-contraception, pro-abortion rights, anti-death penalty and pro-LGBT. this puts them so far away from the slymepitters that the only way you can say you’re on the far side of the rift from them is to build a second rift.
I think it’s fair to argue that they aren’t as effective as they might be–that the statue was a wasteful exercise, or more provocative than profound. That’s a reasonable critique. But please don’t lump them in by association with the shitheads who have spent the last three-four years giving ‘atheism’ a bad name all over the internet.
I would have been happier if the statue were the spitting image of Ronald Reagan.
People, please. This is satire at its very best. It is attempting to be effective in the real world. From their website, “PLEASE SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS TO USE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS TO PROTECT WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.” Their caps.
I love what these folks are doing.
#33 is correct. The statue is intended to repulse. There would never be an acceptable statue to all parties involved, anyway. Its purpose was fulfilled in this way, though I understand the legislature in Oklahoma is carving out a christofascist exemption as we speak.
I also agree with #34 that atheist groups and organizations have been disappointing us for years. Too often their/our attempts are meek and/or incoherent, eg. American Atheists, CFI, and our “leaders” being Dawkins, Grothe, Harris, et al.
As I see it…
… the Satanic Temple guys are not trying to promote Satanism, they want to promote secularism – either the removal of religion from the public space or the neutrality of public space towards all religions / beliefs / non-beliefs.
(Direct, by-the-book) Atheists have tried that. But atheism is not in this way accepted as “equal” to Christianity. Pseudo-religions (the FSMs, the IPUs, the Discordians…) have tried that. But they can too easily been seen as a joke – not to be taken serious, as equals or as a thread.
But take something that Christians really do accept, really do believe in… and reject absolutely. Take that and promote it under the “religious liberty” agenda… and they will either choke or revolt.
I personally want more “ok, your ‘religious freedom’ means you can do [something]? Well, let me exercise that same ‘right’ in a way that is absurd or will show your hypocrisy on the matter”, not less.
IIRC the Satanic Temple has been threatening to put up that statue in several places, basically to prevent 10 commandments monuments from going up in public places. I’m sorry to hear that they’re actually putting the statue up somewhere, since it means they lost for once. I’m impressed they weren’t bluffing though.
Who paid for it, the city or the Satanic Temple?
The best way to object to such displays, if one feels like objecting, is to tell the officials involved with a space that there should be no religious displays at all. It’s fascinating to me that the powers that be in Detroit wanted their navity thing so badly they were willing to accommodate something that must seem utter abhorent.
Uh, no, because a lot of morons, err.. I mean libertarians would just praise it, and/or worship it, which totally failing to get the “atheist” part of the thing. Also… it would fundamentally undermine the whole “logic and reason” aspect behind the idea.
Personally.. I say we start a US branch of the Jedi order, and a Sith one two, each with their own competing statues. lol Jedi “is” a recognized religion in some places, after all. ;)
Didn’t Buffon observe, ~250 years ago, that having horns and cloven hooves marked Satan as an obligate herbivore?
Consider it an homage to vegetarianism – a lifestyle which, last I heard, includes our esteemed host.
The Satanist Temple is an atheist and secularist group.
They are doing an awesome troll and I love it.
https://news.vice.com/article/the-satanic-temple-is-suing-missouri-over-its-abortion-law
BTW, the statue is a nice piece of art and much, much better then a torture instrument with a dead man hanging from it.
I wish we could do the same in Australia, but the law here requires to hold actual supernatural belief.
http://thesatanictemple.com/
“Mary […] will be formally notifying her doctor that her deeply held beliefs would be violated if she is forced to receive inaccurate information as required by the State”
Notice that with this, the Satanic Temple is forcing the judge to decide whether the information in the booklet IS SUPPORTED BY SCIENCE.
They are no supernatural nuts.
They are trolling, and as @38 noted, trolling in support of women’s rights. I’ve seriously considered joining just for that reason!
1.
This statue and the effort to emplace it have no characteristics that support the “trolling” accusation that would not also support a “satire” hypothesis.
Twain (or Clemens if you prefer) wrote a brilliant satire about rip-off artists in the form of horologists. Money was spent to publish it and buy it. People paid to hear Twain/Clemens read it out loud in public performances. Amongst other outcomes, we can easily believe that Twain wished that people would stop getting ripped off by these jokers. But we can also believe that Twain had no hope of ending their scamming.
Was Twain trolling or engaging in satire?
How can the arguments you use in resolving this question vis-a-vis Twain help in determining whether this statue and the Satanists’ efforts are trolling or deployment of satire?
2.
If we’re going to go with old-timey pagan images, I prefer the ones with lots and lots of breasts. Equally effective in satire. More pleasant to look at. Better symbology (celebrate that which nourishes). And, if this really does happen to be trolling and not (primarily) satire, which do you think really pisses the theocrats off more – the representation of non-existent gods, or the celebration of power inherent in female bodies that actually exist?
:cough:Boobquake:cough:
Tits for the win.
if you wanted to make a statue to libertarianism the subject would have to be John Galt, surely.
the statue in question is rather tacky but that is not very surprising religious art is seldom very contemporary nor sophisticated.
I love it that it is controversial
uncle frogy
Afaik, neither the LaVeyan satanists nor the Temple satanists do belief in a personal Satan to worship. What other flavors of satanism are there? The LaVeyan satanists are a little too self-centered to my taste, and appear to belief in magic. But the Temple satanists – reading their tenets, I think all of us are satanists.
No, because so far as I can see the Satanic Temple are categorically not libertarians.
As to the art – it actually looks a whole lot better than the Christian alternative. There isn’t really any cruelty to it the way there is to a lot of religious art.
Exactly as repugnant as the cross, the crescent of Islam, the shield of David, the …(repeat for every religion ever) and associated their respective ideas. So, sure I guess, but there’s no reason to single these out. I suspect there is a touch of an unconscious negative reaction simply because they are associated with demons, that is, beings that don’t exist that have been – there’s no other word for it – demonised by chrsitianity. Those mythical spirits might be awful, but then so too is the god of christianty… the difference is, his religion happens to be the dominant one, so the same people that demonised demons lionised god.
As an aside, I like the fact that to demonise something means to portray that thing as negative, with the common connotation that the portrayal is unfair.
No. Because demons don’t exist (which precludes the possibility of making a deal with them) and I am incredibly anal about the word ‘literally’.
Yea, I also don’t understand the “trolling” accusations. They’re being totally forthright with their beliefs. They argue in their FAQ that religious exemptions should not just be allowed to those with supernatural or superstitious beliefs.
They’re expressing their views with the symbol of baphomet. And they consider a symbol of bodily autonomy and freedom.
Like there’s nothing trolling about it that I can see.
But presumably that’s supposed to mean it’s inaccurate in relation to a (human) person who isn’t that bad, while a demon really is that bad (if it’s real). The idea generally isn’t that actual demons are regarded unfairly, that Satan really had some kind of moral high ground relative to the Christian god, etc.
I meant trolling in the sense that they are intentionally riling up xians. In this case by using their own arguments against them. Sorry for that confusion, I still see that as separate from the people who troll just to be jerks and I usually call it that. My bad.
They don’t worship any literal deity, they really are amazingly useful in pointing out the hypocrisy of the xian “freedom of religion” claims right now.
Unless the cristian you are speaking to is one of those wishy-washy ‘god is the ineffable essence of being’ types. See:
““I’m a Christian”. OK. So, do you literally worship the anthropomorphic God? Or do you see him as a metaphorical avatar which embodies the love and spirituality which are the truest expression of the human condition? Or is he some sort of metaphorical knowledge-bringer, and what you’re really worshipping is knowledge? Do you believe in Bible literalism? Or not?”
Easy.
#10 Marcus
What makes you doubt the sincerity of their belief? Or phrased another way, who are you to question it? Of course the beliefs are ridiculous, but then, so is a talking snake / wine to blood / resurrection / etc. etc. ad nauseum, so saying “no one could possibly believe this drivel” is not a useful measure of whether to take them at their word.
@Siggy #42 – It was paid for through a crowdfunding campaign that was started (irrc) when they were planning to place it by the 10 commandments thing in Oklahoma, after the attempt to remove it was shot down “because any other religion can do the same”.
As a more general comment, I believe they also anticipated impending vandalism by making it out of a material that’s not all that easy to destroy, and by making it with a cast, so that if it IS significantly damaged, they can simply pour out another.
It’s not so much an argument as an assertion. From their FAQ:
I don’t think you can support a claim that something that’s appropriately called a “religion” can be anything else. There are plenty of different ideologies you might have, but those aren’t religions unless (definitionally) they contain supernatural elements.
If they don’t actually believe a supernatural being called “Satan” exists, then it’s not a religious belief about Satan (for example). It’s not relevant how deeply held their beliefs or values are. I do think people can be very strongly influenced by art, fiction, metaphors, symbolism, etc., at an individual and social level (with communities and insitutions and traditions, etc.), but that doesn’t suffice for us to consider a book club or a fan club to be the same thing as a religion.
They shouldn’t want special privileges that others don’t have.
The point of religious freedom (in the context of things like the first amendment) isn’t that religions provide all of these wonderful valuable things that need to be secured in a society. (And the only problem with some of them, as this kind of Satanist implies, is that some religions add negative stuff, which can be surgically removed somehow while still calling it a religion.) The point is that the state should not impose a religion on people, or basically that it shouldn’t get mixed up in that at all. It goes along with the idea that people should be free to express themselves and assemble in all sorts of ways, and as a matter of fact there’s also no way to enforce what someone’s private beliefs are (and that wouldn’t be desirable even if it were possible). The state shouldn’t be saying, from my point of view as an atheist, that religions (generally) are these good things that need to be encouraged or given special support with exemptions, privileges, etc. — it should not be taking a position like that.
If christians (or jews, or muslims, or buddhists, etc.) can build temples or other symbols of their faith, it is only fair that some satanists (or worshipers of Enlil, Ptah, Júpiter, etc.) could erect a statue to his god of choice.
This is all like soccer: some like Team A, others like Team B.
@59 consciousness razor
But in order to make that claim you are asserting that Satanism isn’t a religion because it’s not supernatural. I don’t necessarily think that religions must definitionally be supernatural. And especially when it comes to law.
And neither do they, apparently.
But practically speaking what does that mean? It still sounds to me that as far as the law is concerned, it should make no such distinction. The government doesn’t get to say “you’re not supernatural enough” so what does it mean when you say that?
doublereed, #61:
Let me try to make it a little more explicit and concrete.
I’m an atheist, and I have no religion. I could join a Lord of the Rings fan club or something like that, thinking it’s a very important way for me to understand myself and the world and connect with other people (and so forth). If I felt so strongly about LOTR, that would all be true. I could certainly have a completely genuine ideology or worldview that’s centered on the ideas in the LOTR/Hobbit/Silmarillion books (and films, fan fiction, etc.), as well as form strong bonds with others who share views like mine, even though I believe LOTR is all a lot of fiction/mythology/etc. That’s something that, presumably, could have various positive effects for me and the rest of society — and besides more abstract benefits that only help me or my group, maybe we’d even form charities and scholarships and foundations and such that are inspired by these views and the community supporting them. None of that is what makes a thing a “religion.”
My fan club shouldn’t petition the government to be legally defined and recognized as a religion. And it shouldn’t get tax exemptions because it is so defined — while of course offshoots like charities should only get that if they meet the criteria of a charity and not those of a religion. The Star Wars fan club down the road which does all of the same things (or Trekkies or any arbitrary group whatsoever that could conceivably claim the privileged status of a “religion” in this way) shouldn’t be in competition with us over privileges like that. If they’re all genuinely on equal footing, there are no such privileges, and we would all pay our taxes accordingly (for example). And questions about whether those people over there sincerely believe in the Force (or whether they sincerely believe it has some kind of metaphorical significance) should not have anything to do with it, since at that stage in the game (when the public supports their charity, for example) reading people’s minds like that does not even enter into the picture. If their charity is fraudulent as a charity, then that’s an entirely different question which isn’t about the sincerity of the believers or the veridicality of their beliefs.
Also, as an atheist, I could participate in multiple different “clubs” or “societies” like that (which couldn’t consistently be entertained as metaphysical belief systems), and my identification with any or all of them would not be that of a religious adherent. I don’t think, if it were considered a religion, that would give me some kind of a right to erect statues of Frodo, Han Solo, Capt. Kirk, etc., in a courtyard or another public space. More generally, I don’t think such things should be encouraged over any of the billions of other cultural products/traditions which could serve all of the same functions that purportedly make actual religions so valuable to certain people.
I can maintain the fact that I’m in no religion while doing things like that, the government can’t tell me I’m in a religion (especially not with the kind of spurious arguments we’re considering), and the government shouldn’t be in the business of evaluating which cultural traditions are most suited to the job of providing “a sense of identity, culture, community, and shared values” by calling those more valuable ones the “religions” … and the less valuable ones, well who knows what it’s supposed call those or how/why it’s supposed to treat them differently. Prior to all that, we have many centuries of evidence to support the commonly understood conception of a religion (a supernatural belief system), and the government’s job is not to say which ones are right or best, nor is it the government’s job to broaden (or shrink) the criteria in order to create special privileges for specific cultural traditions.
I guess I also fail to see what is so rediculous about the statue. It was crowd funded, actually came into existence unlike a lot of crowd funded things, and will stick in the craw of every xtain who walks past it. Seems to me it’s doing its job of “separation of church and state is a good thing” pretty well.
I actually happen to like the way the statue looks, and I’m glad they had it casted with that level of detail so that it is really rather elegant (imho).
It doesn’t hurt that I’m aware of who the Satanist Temple is/are and quite like their work for women’s bodily autonomy.
I love satanic imagery, to me the statue looks very sweet
Crip Dyke @49
I read somewhere that they’re not breasts, they’re bull’s testicles.
Hi, PZ, I joined the Satanic Temple. I have my nice red membership card. Am I here to preach? Not at all. However, if you come to my community meeting, and you wish it to proceed under the auspices of our Lord, JC, then I do have the right to offer a Satanic invocation. If you stand outside our public school and offer the children kiddie bibles as they leave, then I will be there to offer some adorable coloring books of the Dark Master, and if you erect the 10 Commandments, (suggestions would be OK) outside a municipal building, then I will chip in to erect one of those inspiring statues beside it. The ACLU does its stuff, and the Temple does this stuff, lower impact, less costly, but with a dedication to the 1st Amendment.
This is a well made sculpture. Personally, I liked it better before the bronze was cast. The chest, in the final stage, looks over modeled and grotesque, unlike the clay sculpture.
The die is cast. Literally.
My first reaction was, Baphomet needs a few dozen sandwiches. He’s too thin and his ribs are showing. That Dark Lord thing must not pay very well.
Or maybe he has been tossing a lot of food the kids way. They look well fed.
PS I do hope they have surveillance cameras watching it. The inevitable xian terrorism (vandalism) will make a nice Youtube video.
I would say that the Satanic Temple is in a position to fight for freedom of religion in a way that atheists and atheist groups cannot. Because of their name, icons, and rituals, they can drive back Christian invasion of government (or occupation) by using the First Amendment to enter those same spaces.
That allows them to show the dishonesty of the “Everybody CAN do this, it’s just that nobody else IS doing it” justification for things like invocations and monuments. That’s a role that atheist groups can’t fill in this country precisely because atheist are NOT religions.
*are not part of a religion.
For purposes of First Amendment protection, Atheists are considered the equivalent of a religion by SCOTUS. That is a legal fiction that does not go over well. The Satanists fill the bill without the need for that legal fiction.
@62 consciousness razor
When I think of religious exemptions, I think of things like reasonable accommodations to prisoners to get kosher food or head coverings. I think naturalists should be offered the same accommodations if they are vegetarian, for instance.
Now this is different situation because it’s not accommodations but it’s the same principle. Whether or not something is religious is not up for the government to decide and they should not bother with such a question.
I care about the practicality of definitions. I care not if atheism is religious belief by definition or some nonsense like that.
Alteredstory:
I think we should distinguish between fighting to ensure their own group has religious privilege on the one hand, and fighting for freedom of (or from) religion on the other. If they want to be tax exempt (or offered other special treatment/status) on the basis that they are a religion, they have a very different idea of what church/state separation is supposed to mean than I do. The public isn’t obliged to believe any of their crap, nor is it obliged to do anything to support said crap. It makes no sense to me to say we’re fighting for the same thing in different ways. They want to be included as part of the inner circle, and I don’t want there to be an inner circle. It’s like a bunch of gangs fighting over turf. If others have to concede some piece of it to them in this scheme they both accept, that doesn’t get me closer to having no such thing at all. You should at least be able to see why dominant religions like Christian sects would be willing to accept another partner (however unlikely that partner looks), if that means they can maintain the status quo and enjoy some or all of the privileges they have now.
doublereed:
But that’s exactly what the Satanist Temple FAQ was doing.
If a religion provides no actual benefit to its members or the whole society, such as “a sense of identity, culture, community, and shared values,” which is supposed to be the reason for offering tax exemptions and other special treatment/status, but if it does involve beliefs that there are supernatural things, then that’s clearly a religion by any reasonable definition. Maybe not a good one or one that you would like, but it is one. If some other tradition or ideology does confer such benefits (as my examples were meant to describe), but doesn’t involve beliefs in the supernatural, that’s not a religion and nobody has any business claiming that it is. And that fact (whether or not it’s a religion) shouldn’t be the reason why a government is providing reasonable accommodations to anybody about anything, because it should be providing reasonable accommodations to non-religious people/practices/things as well as religious ones. That shouldn’t have been the metric at all, but if we’re going to be bringing up “religion” for any such reason, then you at least need some workable understanding of which things are religions and which aren’t. It can’t be that everything is a religion, or that defeats the purpose of accommodating them or privileging them somehow with respect to something else.
As a matter of fact, given the way our societies actually are, those other ideologies aren’t “free” in the way actual “supernatural religions” are (if you prefer that term), because most people (who are religious) in fact do assume that “supernatural religions” are the ones that deserve to be taken seriously as being possibly beneficial in the way I described, unlike LOTR or SW fan clubs for instance. And that’s not supported by anything except religions’ unnecessary and unreasonable and unhelpful dominance in our culture — that wouldn’t be the case if “supernatural religions” weren’t given an unfair advantage.
The actual statue is not quite as gorgeous as the plans made it out to be, but remember: context. Always, context. This statue alone would be an ugly, nasty thing. This statue, though, was never ever meant to be displayed alone.
Context!
Baphomet was *always* meant to be displayed as an all-or-nothing religious freedom monument, beside the decalogue (if and only if the decalogue had been approved by the local grand poobah).
Out of context, it was a pretty meh statue.
In context… It was and is gorgeous! http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2014/01/06/proposed-oklahoma-satanist-monument-is-really-quite-gorgeous/
consciousness razor #73
If only there were people out there doing things to show that the actualization of “religious privilege” in matters of legality and governance is an absurd, fuzzy, ill-defined, hypocritically, unjustly, and disproportionately Christian-centric practice in this country.
Oh, wait…
Wrong, they actually have the same idea; namely, that the only possible interpretation of religious separation is that the government must endorse either all religions or none, and they cannot pick and choose. Further, they have openly stated that the only sane interpretation is to endorse none, and they are working towards this goal by forcing the highly awkward debate noted by #75 tkreacher.
That’s two, not one, as should be immediately obvious and as you also imply in the next sentence. I can tell for myself what my own idea is, thank you, and theirs isn’t compatible with it.
If so, then the “debate” certainly doesn’t need to go that way. We don’t need to make things worse, so that people can see they were already bad and decide to make them better. We could just be more direct and honest about it to make things better, without the intervening step of making it worse and the weird assumption that it’s supposed to help somehow.
I, and they for that matter, openly stated that their goal is for no government endorsed religion. If that’s incompatible with your thought, then by all means enlighten.
This statue works as powerful advertising. As soon as I saw it I desperately needed to re-watch Christopher Lee in “The Devil Rides Out.”
From my experience, about 90% of Satanists are just atheists who like to troll Christians. The rest 10% are nuts.
@ Kengi #28
You’ve successfully convinced me that Christian is an equally useless term. It seems to me that both words denote perception, whether that be self perception or your perception of another, rather than giving any concrete indication of beliefs.
@ Anchor #30
Nope. It seems to have first been drawn in this form by Alphonse Louis Constant, a 19th century French occultist. It contained various occult and mystic symbols, all of which have their opposite represented (it’s normally depicted as intersex; this is the first image of Baphomet I’ve come across that doesn’t have breasts and a phallus of some kind), and was supposed to represent “the sum total of the universe”. The name itself first arose during the trials of the Templars as the name of the deity they were accused of worshipping, and seems to have been a corruption of the old-French “Mahomet” (Mohammed), though there are a couple of competing etymological theories.
I do not agree that religion must include something supernatural by definition. The ancient Greek gods were not supernatural; they were part of this world and made from the same material as anything and anybody else. They were only distinct from man because they were immortal and more powerful. Yet, belief in the Greek gods is still called religion.
I believe the saying is “The devil has the best musicians” not the best sculptors or casters
@ rietplum
Since when did “immortal” and “magic” count as natural?
@Thumper #84 – Not since the invention of science, but the Greek religion is much older than that. Humans could do magic too, you know. And humans could become gods. As I see it, something is supernatural if it is from outside the knowable universe, like Jahweh, who supposedly created the universe and all that is in it. The Greek gods did not create the universe. They helped to shape it, but they did not create it. They were creatures themselves.
So the Greek Gods weren’t supernatural because the Greeks considered all their powers to be perfectly possible within the laws of nature? By that logic, no religion anywhere is supernatural, since the people who first came up with them all thought they were perfectly possible.
I see two things where I think you have a point, but I’m afraid I still disagree.
Firstly:
Ditto ghosts, except for “helped to shape it”. They are supernatural (though would not have been considered so by our ancestors who genuinely believed in them).
Secondly:
I’m not sure how a belief in apotheosis makes something natural. Again, the fact they did not fully understand the laws of nature and thus firmly believed that something that is impossible was in fact possible does not mean their religion is not supernatural.
Good point.
The border between humans and gods in the ancient world was much more fuzzy than it is today.
1. The gods could breed with humans to produce children. Humans could become gods. The Roman emperors, Hercules, Achilles, etc..
2. This was even true in ancient Judaism. After all, god did *something* to the Virgin Mary and 9 months later, jesus was born. In the OT we have the Nephilim, both before and after the Big Boat Genocide. These were angel human hybrids. Although the bible doesn’t have much to say about them except that they were “heroes, mighty men of renown”, whatever that means.
3. It’s still true today. The Mormons believe Yahweh on Kolob was just a human who climbed the Celestial promotion ladder. Along with a near infinite number of other humans who are now gods. Jesus is the product of god and Mary breeding, a real flesh and blood human who is also on his way up in Magic Kingdom land.
And of course, you too will be a god if you give the Mormon church lots of money and believe their fictions.
“Supernatural” is a pretty slippery concept, especially when you start looking at historical beliefs. It only really makes any sense if you start with the assumption of naturalism. The ancient Greek gods are supernatural from a modern perspective but almost certainly weren’t regarded as supernatural by their own adherents. An ancient Greek simply wouldn’t have understood what you meant by the term, since they weren’t starting out with the necessary ontological framework.
Holms:
I thought it was already clear enough. As I said, “If they want to be tax exempt (or offered other special treatment/status) on the basis that they are a religion, they have a very different idea of what church/state separation is supposed to mean than I do.”
That’s true, and you don’t actually have any ground to tell me otherwise. If they don’t actually want things like that, then they shouldn’t be pursuing them, whether or not the goal is ultimately to sabotage the whole thing because they expect others will find Satanism too scary or unpalatable. I don’t think it’s likely that anyone will let the whole thing be sabotaged, but besides that, you could carry out this kind of reductio hypothetically, without actually granting them any special privileges (which they supposedly don’t “really” want) during the long and indeterminate interval when the political dispute sorts itself out, if it ever does. Then they wouldn’t be getting the special privileges that they asked for in bad faith, but which they supposedly didn’t want. That’s the sort of thing (other) religious groups want, so you’ll have to excuse me for not taking any of this seriously and not believing it’s the same thing as what I was thinking all along.
Dunc:
You can start wherever you want. If minds don’t consist of non-mental things (because material stuff is either mental itself or isn’t sufficient for a being with a mind), then supernaturalism is true. If not, then not. So, if humans have (or are) immaterial souls, for example, then humans are supernatural entities. There may be no point in talking about apotheosis if we’re supposedly like gods already, but some could think of an afterlife as sharing certain similarities with that, perhaps as shedding the non-spiritual parts that are left behind in nature. I didn’t define it in terms of gods, because that would be too narrowly focused on theistic religions to do us any good. I don’t want to labor the point, but there are lots of complications a supernaturalist might introduce to match their specific beliefs (or to avoid criticism of them), but the core of the idea is still there. I guess there’s nothing stopping the possibility that there’s some ambiguity in a few edge cases, but generally it’s not hard to determine whether something fits into a naturalistic picture or a supernaturalistic one.
But I want to make it clear again that the thing I don’t want governments doing is making (probably misguided) decisions about this, so that “religions” get something or don’t get something out of the deal. There should be (and already are) criteria for what counts legally as a charity, and that is the sort of case when a government should be considering tax exemptions or other forms of public support, because it privately augments what the public should be doing for itself in the form of government programs/services. They don’t need to be committing to (or even attempting) claims like I just discussed above in order to do that. You simply find out whether the thing is operating within the bounds of the law generally and that it satisfies the conditions of a charity (if that’s what it is). And if religions are doing something else, like running a company, hospital, school, scholarship fund, research foundation, whatever, then you do all the same things and don’t give any preferences for or against organizations that do or don’t count as a “religion” (by the criteria serious and thoughtful person would actually use), because you aren’t making any such distinctions in order to decide how the individual/organization ought to be treated — and you have no other reason for making such distinctions. You should be using other criteria to decide those things, which apply to everyone, because it’s supposed to be a free and equal and secular society.
There was nothing in the article or video you cited that would even suggest that the children are worshiping Baphomet. To me it looks far more as though the children are in awe (the same as I would be) to see a giant goat-headed guy with wings. I doubt that I would have any more compulsion to worship that than I would to worship an opabinia. I guess ugly is a matter of taste.
@Dunc #88 – You said it more clear than I did.
@consciousness razor #89 – In Greek mythology I doubt if you should call souls supernatural. Souls do not ascend in some metaphysical heaven, but descend into Hades, which is a place on earth that may even be visited temporarily by the living.
It depends on which ancient Greeks you ask.
I thought you would mention their ideas about “pneuma” (souls), since that’s air, or maybe some kind of extra special fancy air. And if that were how things really are, that’s definitely in line with naturalism. You could then have beliefs about it which wouldn’t be religious beliefs. But none of that’s the case.
Or you might say they had a naturalistic concept of an afterlife. To the extent it’s a claim about reality, then of course people make claims about the natural world as well as any supernatural elements they have beliefs about. You’re also not describing the entirety of ancient Greek religion(s) here. But I don’t see how it’s a problem for my view, if it’s the case that religious (and non-religious) people generally make all sorts of pseudo-scientific claims. The problem then isn’t necessarily that they’re supernaturalistic, because it may also be that they’re simply false claims about nature. We get that too, of course, and not just in religions. But there still are only those two possibilities about the way the world is, and it makes a very clean and useful dividing line, because one side is filled to the brim with falsehoods and absurdities.
If “immaterial souls” were real, what would be supernatural about them?
Only if you already have the concept of “natural” vs “supernatural”. If you believe that ghosts are a perfect normal and entirely real part of the natural world in exactly the same way that the wind is, there’s nothing “supernatural” about them.
It’s not hard to determine whether something is natural or supernatural if you have an ontological framework which makes that distinction. My point is that there are other possible ontological frameworks in which the distinction simply doesn’t exist, and from that point of view, the question can’t even be asked.
@ Dunc #88 and rietplum
I understand that, but whether or not they considered them to be natural or not is immaterial. Natural and possible are defined words with meanings, and I do not agree that the Greek concept of a god meets those definitions, whether they thought they did or not. The fact they had a flawed understanding of nature and possibility is not a supporting argument.
For example, mediaeval Europeans thought it perfectly natural that the sun should orbit the Earth. We now know that not only would this be unnatural but completely impossible. They were wrong, and so were the Greeks.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing that they were wrong, I’m just pointing out that “supernatural” is as slippery a concept as “religion”, so any attempt to define “religion” by saying it must include a “supernatural” component doesn’t really help. People who disagree about what counts as a religion may well also disagree about what counts as supernatural.
I kinda like it. It looks like a boss character from a horror video game like The Evil Within.
Dunc:
The fact that they are supposedly mind-like entities which don’t reduce to non-mind-like entities. That would be case whether or not they are real.
My mind works the way it does because my brain is in certain arrangements of non-mental stuff. There are in fact atoms (or excitations of physical fields which produce atoms and atomic structures, if you prefer), and in fact those atoms don’t themselves have minds or mental properties. If it were the case that, when you go all the way down to the “bottom,” there are just freestanding irreducible mental things out of which my mind (or any mind) were made, then naturalism would be false. But it isn’t in fact the case that it’s mental “turtles all the way down” — that isn’t a fundamental and irreducible feature of reality.
No, “natural” is not a synonym for “real” or “normal.” You could logically make a specific and substantive falsifiable claim about the real world: that mental things don’t reduce to non-mental things. The fact that it’s false (because there aren’t souls, because minds do reduce to non-mental things) doesn’t mean that a priori we could’ve concluded reality must be that way by definition. That’s something you figure out by actually learning from experience, about the way reality actually is. What you can learn is that minds are the results of brain processes, which are arrangements/relationships of non-mental things.
Don’t blame me for introducing the belief that there exist immaterial souls. That’s a framework that in fact many people do use, and we can ask coherent questions about whether or not it’s a true belief about the world, as well as what it means to say it’s a true belief about the world.
@Rumleech, #83:
Best musicians? Feh.
I submit to you two crucial pieces of evidence that you may have overlooked:
1. The Karate Kid wasn’t only a prodigy at martial arts. Although… you have to watch the conclusion as a separate clip.
and
2. It turns out that Charlie Daniels has testified that he has some evidence on this matter.
Though some suggest that “Charlie Daniels” is the pseudonym of a minnesota biologist who modestly hides his famous visage under the famous Charlie Daniels hat.