okay I understand everyone's modern definition of Satanism but why are they claiming a title that has traditionally been defined as the source of sorrow and eternal suffering and fire and eternal punishment?
It's one part reclaiming and one part stirring up controversy. Normalizing the idea that demonic Satan doesn't exist and it's our own faults and sins to blame while also getting free publicity whenever the Christians get mad and talk about Satanism on the news.
There's another tradition called Romantic Satanism which was a 19th-century literary movement. It's basically what happens when a bunch of post-Enlightenment writers go "Hey, what if Satan was actually the good guy?"
Around this time was a lot of rebellion against both monarchy and the church, and they felt some kinship with the rebel of the story, not the despotic deity he was opposing. (God's actions in the Old Testament would be considered horrifying if they were carried out by a human.)
Modern Satanism's myth of Satan is a kind of reinterpretation or re-imagining, like a feminist retelling of a princess fairy tale.
It’s mostly reclaiming a title that zealots use for anyone they don’t like. We take what they call us and make it a positive force for change and justice.
I think it also depends on how ppl understand the concept of the word "satanism". I am an atheist and used to live in a asia country, we don't use any word like satan like you said "to define as the source of sorrow..." And I don't think we even have that word in native language. We have something else comparable to that but still what I want to say is that Satanism may sound bad to you but for others ppl It's not.
To ppl who doesn't have any prejudice against Satanism, the Satanic temple does indeed provide good causes, especially even more now given how bad others religions are (I don't want to name them but I am sure we know who)
My "higher power" is myself. I don't believe that Satan is real. He's a mythic figure that I draw inspiration from. He stood up to a tyrant who's the most powerful force in the universe, got thrown into Hell, and just stood up and said, "Okay, I'll make my kingdom here."
Satanists don't really believe in Satan. The Satanic Temple is basically the religious embodiment of the ACLU. They're currently raising funds for The Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic. They also run After School Satan in schools that have religious based after school programs.
The Church of Satan is an outlier and shouldn't be counted.
Pearls Before Swine has become one of my all-time favorite mainstream comic strips. Stephan Pastis is both a comic genius and an insightful commentator. This is one of my favorites:
Also, he's constantly putting himself down with his own characters, which I love.
That's not really what most of them are theoretically about, but many of their followers treat it as such. I don't accredit that to religion though, I think some people are simply going to try to opress others regardless of whatever reasoning they use. There are bad people and good people in every population, and blaming the actions of those bad people on their larger group is (usually) to be avoided.
Imagine a nascent nomadic cult of a fictional kingdom called Canaan, grown and composed of the downtrodden of its society, that when the kingdom begins to encounter problems beyond its control because it does not know how to or cannot treat them, like plagues and disease, the cult begins blaming the rest of society for not worshiping their god, El, enough nor in the right way by their real name, and begin eulogizing killing the rest of society off in extremely violent ways after they manage to survive the plague and disease due to their seclusion.
Imagine then how no one would ever want to admit to being a Canaan because of the risk of getting persecuted when the cult begins to conquer territory, and imagine this happening to such an extent that even the members of the cult, now a full-fledged religion due to its conquests and expansion, denies any relation to said society, making up a story instead about coming from some far off kingdom like Egypt that most people in the region would know of but would not really know the specifics about. It would sound similar enough to already preexisting mythos.
Imagine if this sort of attitude didn't just persist into the "modern" world, but involved offsprings of that very same cult holding power and influence in governments throughout the world. It would be a testament to a cultural unwillingness to overcome its own collective ego and overextended fictional narratives to recognize its flawed conception.
Ah, but see, if you don't call him by his real name, wackytoodlerpops, you are committing blasphemy by worshipping a false idol. Ergo, free grounds for some chop chop in my cult, at least until we get to the religious stage and actually have to establish a stable society which has to consider things like trade from and mingling with the outside world. That's sort of why Scientology has had to tone down on its fair game policy.
Imagine if this sort of attitude didn't just persist into the "modern" world, but involved offsprings of that very same cult holding power and influence in governments throughout the world. It would be a testament to a cultural unwillingness to overcome its own collective ego and overextended fictional narratives to recognize its flawed conception.
I would say its a testament to the fact that humanity isn't so stupid they will opress the followers of a peaceful religion for crimes their ancestors supposedly commited.
That's a lot of pseudo-intellectual nonsense to mask your obvious antisemitism. The way you snake around your point and avoid naming the religion you are condemning would almost be impressive were it not so awful.
I feel like I'm the only person who actually bothered to read that and didn't just mindlessly upvote it.
I think it's pretty clear not only what religion I'm referring to, but what branched off sects and eventually separate religions I'm referring to. I think it pretty much has a lot to do with being an atheist, although I guess you consider those the ultimate antisemites as well for seeing the world outside of a fictional religious shell.
Which peaceful religion are you referring to? I'm having trouble seeing through all the blood.
Not only are you not the only person, you are the norm of this sad trend.
I mean the trouble is most religions have been used to spread peace and war. The problem is not religion, it's just the tool. The ruling class will pick up another tool of propoganda to convince the oppressed to act outside their best interests. Feeling smug about being unreligous leaves you vulnerable to alternative methods.
Racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia, and ageism all serve to divide us whether on a religious or "scientific" basis. No matter the justification we must examine what the end goal of all methods of social control is.
To my understanding at least one religion promotes peace through unified belief (more or less) where the only way the religion is peaceful and loving is if you're a part of the religion. If you believe something different, you're a heretic and must die, for peace.
IDK, killing people in the name of peace seems counterintuitive. There are times that you need to kill warmongers to promote peace, but killing them for peace because their sky friend is different than your sky friend seems like it's a bad philosophy.
I've been aware of this for a while and I have yet to be told I'm wrong, or have anyone provide evidence that I don't understand what it says. I have, however had people verify the concept to me several times. I'm always on edge around people of that religion because if they're being told that people from other religions, and people who won't accept their sky friend as the one true sky friend, should be killed. I'm almost never sure if they're going to try to kill someone to progress their religion by removing heretics. I just can't relax while people from that religion are present because of this. Unless I know them pretty well and know that they reject that philosophy.
Due to this, I'm kind of opposed to "religion is fine as long as it's believers are peaceful" and I'm more in favor of the concept that all religions should be disbanded as a relic of an era where we couldn't comprehend a lot of things that science has since explained away.
I don't subscribe to any religion because they can't all be correct, if any are, and because there's no differentiating information that lends any scientific validity to any one religion, and in the absence of a "God" giving some kind of indicator as to which one is correct, I'm forced to assume that with the plethora of conflicting ideologies, that none of them are correct. I have to believe that if there is a God who wants you to believe and obey one specific set of beliefs, that (s)he would make some kind of effort to clarify which one is correct; this leads me to think that either God doesn't exist, or doesn't care. Given that, I just try not to be a "bad person" and live a moral life, and if I die and find out there is a God, and (s)he wants humanity to believe a certain set of gospel, then I'll have some not so nice words to say to them. Until then, as long as no further information is available about what "God" may actually want us to do, I'll continue down this path indefinitely, and trying to be nice to my fellow man whenever possible, not because they deserve it, but simply because I want to be treated nicely as a person and not promote the suffering that is already far too common in humanity.
Its just an excuse to in group/out group. Controlling people with religion wields a tremendous amount if power. Weaponizing climate change denial is another example