Satanism

What do you think of Satanism?
Is it good or bad?

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I've never understood it actually. If you believe in the existence of god why would you take sides with the "avowed enemy of mankind"?

Actually, wasn't there someone who said they were a Satanist communist, or did I dream that one up?

Depends, I guess. I won't say any religion is good, but I won't label it bad based on what kooky deity they choose.

What matters is their concrete "doctrine" and actions. I know some satanists have that whole fixation on evil, so that's messed up. There are those who are just supersticious and offer things to their deity in order to gain material advantages, and that's messed up too.

There are some "luciferians" who equate Satan to Prometheus, as basically a rebel god who is outcast by a more powerful, arrogant god. In this case, Satan is more earthly and I guess "friendlier", but... c'mon, it's still fairy tale stuff.

I vote other.

Satan is clearly the good guy in the story. If it weren't for him, we'd still be living in Eden, as unthinking, naive marionettes. Besides most Satanists are atheists and materialists anyway and just like to look at things through these allegories, basically turning the tables on Christianity; attacking it with its own categories, which is an awesome approach no matter what you think about the results. (This is my personal trauma showing itself. But what can I say.) So yeah, I'm perfectly okay with Satanism. The only thing that annoys me is this petty bourgeois ego fixation reminiscent of individual anarchism; Satanists have this annoying tendency of regarding themselves as lone, Hobbes-esque wolves which obviously hinders them from taking a class perspective (or actually, properly understanding any social issue at all because they reduce everything to direct personal competition and conflict without ever considering that society isn't just the sum total of a bunch of individuals, but consists of institutions first and foremost). But hell, that's still a hell of a lot better than every other religion besides Buddhism. Satanism rocks.

Mabool wrote:

Besides most Satanists are atheists and materialists anyway

Atheists perhaps. Definitely not materialists. Their magical beliefs are tantamount to saying a person with enough raw emotion could levitate the pentagon if they wanted to. The explanation for why we don't see this in real life is "satanists are too intelligent to waste their energy like that".

Mabool wrote:

Satan is clearly the good guy in the story. If it weren't for him, we'd still be living in Eden, as unthinking, naive marionettes.

We'd be in paradise, completely eliminating the need to think. That's kind of the point.

Mabool wrote:

, basically turning the tables on Christianity; attacking it with its own categories, which is an awesome approach no matter what you think about the results.

What exactly is awesome about it? All it demonstrates is a complete lack of creativity on the part of LaVey. "Hey let's throw inverted christian ethics in with a bastardized version of Randian objectivism and social darwanism along with some pseudo-occult technobabble and call it a religion. It's so original!"

Mabool wrote:

The only thing that annoys me is this petty bourgeois ego fixation reminiscent of individual anarchism; Satanists have this annoying tendency of regarding themselves as lone, Hobbes-esque wolves

That's the entire point of the religion; everything else is purely incidental or for flavor. If you've got a problem with that, you've got a problem with Satanism, pure and simple.

Mabool wrote:

which obviously hinders them from taking a class perspective (or actually, properly understanding any social issue at all because they reduce everything to direct personal competition and conflict without ever considering that society isn't just the sum total of a bunch of individuals, but consists of institutions first and foremost).

Mabool wrote:

But hell, that's still a hell of a lot better than every other religion besides Buddhism. Satanism rocks.

I'm really having trouble figuring out how you can say both of those things at the same time.

I say that it's okay.

I have a Satanic friend and at first I was a little put off by it but after getting to know him a little better, I've discovered that, just like other ideologies, there are the freaks and there are the balanced.

I've learned a bit about it, and obviously while I'm opposed to it ideologically, I don't see the harm.


I'd rather be in a room full of LaVeyan satanists than Christians or the like.

Voted I don't care. Just another bullshit religion: Who the Hell cares? .

Yes, LaVeyan Satanism is capitalistic and bourgeois (so it sucks)... But other religions are oturight feudal and patriarchal (so they suck more).

There are different kinds of Satanism. The Laveyan type, most people are familiar with, is non-theistic, and egotisticly self-centered. Essentially they feel that every person is one's own god/satan. But there is also the Satanic Reds, whom refer to themselves as being "dark deists", and seem to me to be a ceremonial form of collectivist anarchism. As Mikhail Bakunin wrote in "God And The State".

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"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge."

It's stupid through and through. The theistic satanists are fools, worshipping evil is well evil. The "rebel" satanists are worshipping the weaker god so that's dumb too. And the atheist satanists are self-demonizing and engaging in the most reactionary or Christian rhetoric. Voted "it's bad" as I would with any religious thread at this point but more so here because "satanism" is a Christian pejorative.

@Mabool: the snake was not Satan. That's just stupid christians drawing connections where there are none. The Snake was one of the several pagan deities that exist within Abrahamism. And iirc he's a representation of curiosity (which always leads to knowledge).

Dagoth Ur wrote:

It's stupid through and through. The theistic satanists are fools, worshipping evil is well evil. The "rebel" satanists are worshipping the weaker god so that's dumb too. And the atheist satanists are self-demonizing and engaging in the most reactionary or Christian rhetoric. Voted "it's bad" as I would with any religious thread at this point but more so here because "satanism" is a Christian pejoratitive.

Just to play devil's advocate, if you'll pardon the pun. 1. Just what is evil, and what makes it so. 2. I don't think that the theistic/ "rebel" satanist believe that the Abrahamic God actually exists. I think that to them the Devil is synonomous with the Deity. 3. Atheist satanists treat both Allah, and al Shaytan as being archetype. Now I'd rather be known for what I support than what I oppose. So I do not self identify as being a Satanist, but rather as a Deist. But if one is particularly against the tenets of the various Abrahamic faiths, by default that person can be considered to be a satanist, by definition.

1. It's not me defining these people as worshippers of "evil" but they themselves. 2. That doesn't make any sense. The Rebel God lost, case closed. 3. That's literal demonization. Engaging in this does nothing but making you easy for Abrahamistists to dismiss.

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Atheists perhaps. Definitely not materialists. Their magical beliefs are tantamount to saying a person with enough raw emotion could levitate the pentagon if they wanted to. The explanation for why we don't see this in real life is "satanists are too intelligent to waste their energy like that".

Uh-huh. None of the Satanists I've met ever thought they could work actual magic. Their "magic" consists of pick-up techniques, placebo, suggestion, symbolic rituals and meditation. They acknowledge this. They just like to call it magic. I'm sure there are some lunatics who believe that levitating the pentagon would be possible, but they're, well, lunatics. All in all though, the Satanists I've met seemed much, much more rational than anybody who believed in miracles.

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We'd be in paradise, completely eliminating the need to think. That's kind of the point.

Actually Jason already answered this one with his awesome Bakunin quote, which is awesome. I don't want to not think. I love thinking. Critique is the most beautiful thing I've ever encountered in life. (By contrast, submission to God was the worst.) And I will criticize the shit out of anybody who wants me to obey, as long as I live, and this is precisely why I'd hate to be in Eden. I wouldn't even need a snake, I'd eat the apple out of spite. No knowledge allowed? Well, frag you, God.

But if you think that "paradise" is "no thinking" and that this horrible scenario is actually something we should want, fine. But we'll have to agree to disagree then.

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What exactly is awesome about it? All it demonstrates is a complete lack of creativity on the part of LaVey. "Hey let's throw inverted christian ethics in with a bastardized version of Randian objectivism and social darwanism along with some pseudo-occult technobabble and call it a religion. It's so original!"

What's awesome about free jazz? I like it. I'm not going to get into a discussion on whether or not something is awesome, i.e. pleasurable.

What exactly do I like about it? It turns the categories that I grew up with against their original content that tormented me. For me, personally, Satanism is a beautiful story of freedom and emancipation. I was terribly afraid of an actual Satan for most of my life. To overcome that fear and to embrace Satan (metaphorically, that is to embrace rebellion and responsibility and freedom and independence and pride and insubordination) feels awesome.

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That's the entire point of the religion; everything else is purely incidental or for flavor. If you've got a problem with that, you've got a problem with Satanism, pure and simple.

The point of Christianity is that pleasure is bad. The Satanist antithesis is definitely a step forward. Of course that's not the final answer, but it is better than falling on your knees to ask God for forgiveness for being a human being with human thoughts and human desires.

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I'm really having trouble figuring out how you can say both of those things at the same time.

Just because somebody makes mistakes doesn't mean they can't be awesome like Carl Schmitt, who was a fascist political theorist and awesome.

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I'd rather be in a room full of LaVeyan satanists than Christians or the like.

This.

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Yes, LaVeyan Satanism is capitalistic and bourgeois (so it sucks)... But other religions are oturight feudal and patriarchal (so they suck more).

And this.

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@Mabool: the snake was not Satan. That's just stupid christians drawing connections where there are none. The Snake was one of the several pagan deities that exist within Abrahamism. And iirc he's a representation of curiosity (which always leads to knowledge).

There was no snake. The point of mythology is to interpret it however you want to. Stop acting like there's some sort of canonical Abrahamism. The snake in Christianity is Satan. I don't care if non-Christians have a different opinion because then that's just a different snake.

Yeah but it was never Satan, in any version outside the poorly constructed worldview of christians who don't pay attention when they're reading the bible. Point to where the bible explicitly connects the snake and Satan and I'll shut up. The Snake isn't even necessarily portrayed as a negative creature, nor is the casting out of paradise a necessarily negative event.

Btw do you enjoy demonization? And for what purpose?

I don't care about what the Bible says, I care about what Christians believe. Why should I give a frag about the Bible? Why do you give a frag about the bible? That's absurd.

Define demonization.

You just made a big deal about the snake being Satan teaching us how to think, now you don't care? Using Satan at all is buying into the Christians worldview and culture. That's not movement forward, there is no synthesis to be found there.

Re: demonization: it's the long Christian tradition of turning anything non-Christian into demons or Satan. Think Beelzebub, Abaddon, etc. I see no reason to self-engage in such things for the same reason I don't engage in agitprop.

Mabool wrote:

Uh-huh. None of the Satanists I've met ever thought they could work actual magic.

And all of the satanists I've met have. And I'm talking Laveyan satanists, not theistic satanists. But I'm talking about Satanism, not any individual Satanist. And the former holds that it is possible to affect the world through acts of raw emotion.

Mabool wrote:

. I don't want to not think. I love thinking. Critique is the most beautiful thing I've ever encountered in life. (By contrast, submission to God was the worst.) And I will criticize the shit out of anybody who wants me to obey, as long as I live, and this is precisely why I'd hate to be in Eden.

By that logic, you owe your mother a favor for not aborting you in the womb. The point being, you wouldn't miss your life if you didn't have it, so you don't really owe your mother anything. You like the ability to think because you have it, and you can't conceive of not having it. If you didn't have it, you wouldn't miss it and you wouldn't envy it if you saw it. Upholding critical thought as something "beautiful" in and of itself doesn't make much sense.

Mabool wrote:

But if you think that "paradise" is "no thinking" and that this horrible scenario is actually something we should want, fine. But we'll have to agree to disagree then.

I never said "paradise is not thinking". What I said was there's no point in upholding the ability to think over lacking that ability when it isn't necessary.

Mabool wrote:

I wouldn't even need a snake, I'd eat the apple out of spite. No knowledge allowed? Well, frag you, God.

If you're thinking that already, there's not much point in eating the apple.

Mabool wrote:

Actually Jason already answered this one with his awesome Bakunin quote, which is awesome.

The only thing that quote says is that Bakunin was under the same delusion as LaVey, that the mythical Satan represented the productive and "free" qualities inherent in humanity.

Mabool wrote:

What's awesome about free jazz? I like it. I'm not going to get into a discussion on whether or not something is awesome, i.e. pleasurable.

If you don't want to defend your position, whatever.

The only reason I ask is because it seems the only thing you like about Satanism is the fact that it mocks Christianity and you have some kind of pathological fear of that particular religion. Everything else you say seems to be confounded by that.

Mabool wrote:

The point of Christianity is that pleasure is bad.

Since when?

Mabool wrote:

The Satanist antithesis is definitely a step forward.

Hardly. I fail to see how ethical egotism is progressive in any sense. Especially since it always appeals to primitivist arguments to "the human animal". Besides, they're still firmly in the Christian worldview by accepting their cosmology, even if it is only so they can play the bad guy.

Mabool wrote:

Just because somebody makes mistakes doesn't mean they can't be awesome like Carl Schmitt, who was a fascist political theorist and awesome.

I fail to see how making something the entire point of your constructed religion is "a mistake".

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Yes, LaVeyan Satanism is capitalistic and bourgeois (so it sucks)... But other religions are oturight feudal and patriarchal (so they suck more).

People still can't seem to separate religion from institutions. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. don't support any particular political or economic form; it's only their churches that do.

Satanism explicitly favors Lassiez-Faire capitalism as the only sensible economic order. Really, satanism is the only religion I've ever encountered that was actually incompatible with Communism, and yet the anti-theists here have an overwhelmingly apathetic reaction to it. I just don't get that.

Mabool wrote:

There was no snake. The point of mythology is to interpret it however you want to.

This. In the absence of any primary sources, no one interpretation of a Biblical allegory can be favored over another for any other reason than personal preference. Some people interpret the snake as Satan and some don't. LaVey did, so that the interpretation we have to work with.

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You just made a big deal about the snake being Satan teaching us how to think, now you don't care?

The snake being satan teaching us how to think = what Christians believe = what I care about = not what the Bible says.

Duh. There is no contradiction.

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Using Satan at all is buying into the Christians worldview and culture.

lol no. Believing that Satan is an actual fallen angel who actually exists and does bad things to people because he's so angry at an actual God would be buying into the Christians worldview. Using the concept to show how Christianity is evil is ... well, using their own categories to criticize them. I already said that. I like that. If you don't, that's fine to me, but I grew up with these categories and therefore I like to see them put to good use, as it were. It's like a sentimental thing for me.

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That's not movement forward, there is no synthesis to be found there.

Oh yeah? Christianity attacking the ego (I'm a terrible sinner and I can't help it) is the thesis, Satanism reclaiming and exalting the ego (I am my own God) is an antithesis. The synthesis consists in recognizing that both positions are based on an illusion, and overcoming this illusion(anatta).

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Re: demonization: it's the long Christian tradition of turning anything non-Christian into demons or Satan. Think Beelzebub, Abaddon, etc.

Satan is a Christian category that encompasses everything non-Christian. Of course atheism is satanic to a Christian. Of course a Christian would think that my opinions on everything are satanic. It's fun to make it easier for them to come to that conclusion by using their lingo, by saying that Satan is the good guy and that the snake and original sin are awesome because they mean freedom and that I'd love to go to hell i.e. be separated from their God forever because their paradise sounds terrible to me and that therefore "salvation" definitely isn't anything I want or need and Jesus can blow me. Yeah, I like saying that to Christians because that's often the only way for them to understand me. I've been in lots of discussions about things like the existence of God or the afterlife and such things, but after a while I noticed that all of these discussions miss the point. It's much easier to make my case by explaining, in concepts that they understand, that even if they were right, I still wouldn't want to be a Christian, and that therefore they're wasting their time by trying to sell me their bullshit about how the Earth's axis somehow proves the existence of their creator God.

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I see no reason to self-engage in such things for the same reason I don't engage in agitprop.

But you should.

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And all of the satanists I've met have. And I'm talking Laveyan satanists, not theistic satanists. But I'm talking about Satanism, not any individual Satanist. And the former holds that it is possible to affect the world through acts of raw emotion.

That must be a regional variation then. The Satanists I know would say that emotion can change your behavior in a magical way and give you success in what you do. But be assured that I don't respect belief in metaphysical crap like actual magic or "affecting the world through acts of emotion" (wow, that's a nice definition for idealism).

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By that logic, you owe your mother a favor for not aborting you in the womb. The point being, you wouldn't miss your life if you didn't have it, so you don't really owe your mother anything. You like the ability to think because you have it, and you can't conceive of not having it.

Well that's absurd. There isn't enough criticial thinking in the world. This is why Fox News and the Pope are successful. I can easily conceive of the absence of critical thought, I just have to remember the way I used to think about things when I was a kid. I can also witness it by entering a church.

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If you didn't have it, you wouldn't miss it and you wouldn't envy it if you saw it. Upholding critical thought as something "beautiful" in and of itself doesn't make much sense.

True, animals don't want to be people. But people know that they're better than animals.

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I never said "paradise is not thinking". What I said was there's no point in upholding the ability to think over lacking that ability when it isn't necessary.

Name a condition that makes thinking a necessary ability (necessary for what?)

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If you're thinking that already, there's not much point in eating the apple.

Yeah I admit that imagining myself as I am in a pre-Fall situation is quite absurd.

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The only reason I ask is because it seems the only thing you like about Satanism is the fact that it mocks Christianity and you have some kind of pathological fear of that particular religion. Everything else you say seems to be confounded by that.

You know that's funny because all the fear in my life disappeared when I left Christianity. I'm not afraid of it, I have a personal grudge with it. But I'd like to know why you interpret that as fear.

And no, I also like other things about Satanism: Its life-affirming attitude, its opposition to servility and what it calles the nine satanic sins and the way it leads morality ad absurdum by telling you to do what thou wilt.

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Since when?

Since I, and many others, experienced it like that. You were asking for my position, right?

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Hardly. I fail to see how ethical egotism is progressive in any sense.

Note that I didn't call it progressive, I said it was a step forward from Christianity. It achieves that by simply allowing you, even telling you to do what thou wilt. Individualism is better than servility. I mean the most rational attitude (the synthesis, if you want) is recognizing that the entire egoism-altruism dichotomy is stupid.

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I fail to see how making something the entire point of your constructed religion is "a mistake".

The entire religion is a mistake. But an awesome one.

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Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. don't support any particular political or economic form; it's only their churches that do.

Satanism explicitly favors Lassiez-Faire capitalism as the only sensible economic order. Really, satanism is the only religion I've ever encountered that was actually incompatible with Communism, and yet the anti-theists here have an overwhelmingly apathetic reaction to it. I just don't get that.

KlassWar wasn't talking about support for an economic form. I'm pretty sure he meant that the Abrahamic religions are products of a feudalist (actually, more like a slaveholding) economy and therefore confined to an extremely primitive worldview, whereas Satanism is a product of bourgeois society and therefore inherently more progressive. It's a good point. Laissez-faire capitalism is a million times more progressive than slaveholding, and a capitalist mentality is a million times more progressive than a slave mentality.

Mabool wrote:

That must be a regional variation then.

That's sensible. I'd imagine how Satanism actually manifests has a lot to do with how Christianity manifests socially in the particular area.

Mabool wrote:

The Satanists I know would say that emotion can change your behavior in a magical way and give you success in what you do

But even that's idealist thinking after a fashion.

Mabool wrote:

Well that's absurd. There isn't enough criticial thinking in the world. This is why Fox News and the Pope are successful. I can easily conceive of the absence of critical thought, I just have to remember the way I used to think about things when I was a kid. I can also witness it by entering a church.

How is that a counterpoint to what I said? There's not enough critical thinking in a world with where critical thinking exists, but if it didn't who would care?

Mabool wrote:

Name a condition that makes thinking a necessary ability (necessary for what?)

Necessary to survive. Humans are extraordinarily maladapted to survive in any world where adversity is common place without the usage of mental faculties.

Mabool wrote:

I'm not afraid of it, I have a personal grudge with it. But I'd like to know why you interpret that as fear.

You've called a fear before. And what is a personal grudge against an abstract concept if not fear of that concept?

Mabool wrote:

Since I, and many others, experienced it like that. You were asking for my position, right?

Not in this instance. You were making a generalization. There's a difference between "Christianity says pleasure is bad" and "When I was a Christian, I believed that pleasure was bad".

Mabool wrote:

You know that's funny because all the fear in my life disappeared when I left Christianity.

You fear absolutely nothing now? I find that hard to believe.

Mabool wrote:

Note that I didn't call it progressive, I said it was a step forward from Christianity.

There's not really a relevant difference, is there?

Mabool wrote:

It achieves that by simply allowing you, even telling you to do what thou wilt.

Believing you need to be "allowed" is rather slavish, isn't it? I

I'm just making light of it. Don't take that seriously.

Mabool wrote:

I mean the most rational attitude (the synthesis, if you want) is recognizing that the entire egoism-altruism dichotomy is stupid.

Rejecting the dichotomy wholesale doesn't seem much more rational than either or the other. In truth, neither is more rational than the other. Each has a valid justification, its just that egoism is based on ideal conditions rather than real ones.

Mabool wrote:

I'm pretty sure he meant that the Abrahamic religions are products of a feudalist (actually, more like a slaveholding) economy and therefore confined to an extremely primitive worldview, whereas Satanism is a product of bourgeois society and therefore inherently more progressive.

I sincerely doubt that's what he meant. But assuming he did, there's still the same problem. Those religions are not static. They may have been formed in a feudal society, but they've evolved alongside society, always attempting to justify the prevailing the economic order.

Satanism is reactionary and intentionally regressive. So I'm not seeing how it is more progressive. In fact, I see every reason why it's less so. It was formulated to be static.

Mabool wrote:

The entire religion is a mistake. But an awesome one.

I still don't get it.

The ones i've met have been wannabe bourgeois lifestyle-anarchists.

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The ones i've met have been wannabe bourgeois lifestyle-anarchists.

This. Satanists tend to be athiests who take it to the extreme and want to feel like rebels. They're like hipsters, if you really think about it.