Devil Worship

 

In case you had not heard, the Temple of Satan is about to place a 'Satanic Monument' on the grounds of the Oklahoma State House.   Here is what it is supposed to look like:

According to the article linked to above, When the monument is finished, the Baphomet will rest on the block beneath the inverted pentagram. His lap will serve as a seat for children.
You may ask why this is happening.  The answer is because of conservative Christian stupidity.  For years, the Christian Right has failed to comprehend what "separation of Church and State" means.  Attempts to Christianize America's public space with crosses, nativity scenes, and Ten Commandments displays have been the bread and butter of conservative politicians and pundits since 1962.  In fact, the 'Satanic Monument' is a direct response to the erection -- not in 1950, but in 2012 -- of a Ten Commandments display which is also outside of the Oklahoma State House.  The Satanic Temple will place their monument directly next to the Christian one. 
In a democratic, pluralistic society, where Congress is not supposed to have respect to establishments of religion, it should be unthinkable for religious displays to proliferate in public space.  Although each citizen should be free to practice their religion in their own way, as they see fit, the government should strive for a neutral secularism in all of its affairs.  The culture of our nation should welcome all faiths equally and never appear to favor one over the other.

But loopholes have been found in this doctrine.  In Oklahoma, the Ten Commandments display went up on public space because a wealthy state representative build it with his own money and donated it to the State.  It seems that it never occurred to him that other religious people, from quite different persuasions, might also have the means and the desire to promote their peculiar ideologies: which of course is precisely the problem.

So now we are going to have an altar to Satan outside one of our nation's State Houses.  And that is not all: the Satanic Temple is prepared to fight this same religious turf war anywhere in the United States where Christian symbols are displayed on public land.  The Constitution is on their side.  The law is on their side.  Public opinion is even on their side.  This Satanic Monument has been entirely crowdfunded.

The stupidity of conservative, ethnocentric, nationalistic Christians has done us in. Always, they insist on their own narrow views!  They are deluded to think they can force the United States of America to be an officially Christian nation. They are perpetuating an undemocratic Christian privilege. They are being consummately unChristlike.  And it is because they have prostituted the faith of Jesus to the point of becoming religious bullies, that the door is now opened for Satan to have himself altars built all across America.

My friends, the ends do not justify the means.  I am all for pluralism, and all for democracy.  But it sickens me beyond words to know that altars to Satan are soon to be built in public spaces.  I lay the blame squarely upon every Christian who has ever parroted such slogans as "Put prayer back in schools!" or "We need God in America again!"  Congratulations, church of the Right: by crusading and browbeating people with your faith, rather than living your faith attractively, gracefully, and with love, you gave Satan the toehold he was looking for. 

 

 

In the ancient world, altars to the gods of a city-state were always in public spaces.  Whichever gods or goddesses were represented in the streets and law-houses were the ones thought to preside over that city-state.  So in a mystical way, giving Satan a monument outside of a state house does, in fact, give Satan influence.  Don't think it doesn't.

 

The Satanic Temple itself is not made up of people who believe in a supernatural being called Satan.  In interviews, the leader of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, has made that quite clear.  He says that they embrace "an atheistic philosophical framework that views “Satan” as a metaphorical construct by which we contextualize our works." But if you are breathing a sigh of relief at that statement, you shouldn't.  This "atheistic philosophical framework" is every bit as sinister, and every bit as much a problem as actual Devil worship.  It is rooted in the works of Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, as well as in the works of Ayn Rand, and in the work of Ragnar Redbeard, Might Is Right.

 

 

In a now famous interview conducted in 1989 by the televangelist Bob Larson, the High Priest (Nicholas Schreck) and High Priestess (Zeena LaVey) of the Church of Satan laid out the philosophy of LaVeyan Satanism bluntly.  In essence Satanism is social Darwinism.  Schreck praised Adolph Hitler as "an excellent black magician" in that interview.  He stated that he would have no feelings of compassion for starving people in Africa or suffering people in war-torn regions.  He believed only in the supremacy of the individual.  He advocated evoking Satan within so that the Satanist's will was dominant over all others.  He told the interviewer that he had no interest in converting people to Satanism however because, frankly, the Church of Satan "doesn't want the 'least of these,'.  "You keep them," he said.  "We are for the elite, we are for the 1%."

 

 

Lest there be any doubt, the Church of Satan's Web site has an article called "Satanism and Objectivism" which reiterates: "

The Satanic view sees as ethical the reality of domination of the weak by the strong." 

Also ethical in the Satanic view is "

the use of force to cause others to submit to the will of the stronger or cleverer individual" (italics mine). 

 

“Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy," the Church of Satan's Web site goes on to say. "Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful.”

"Satanism is a “brutal” as well as a selfish philosophy," the Web site admits.  "We do not hold, as do the Objectivists that the universe is “benevolent.” Satanists view the world as neutral, beyond the concepts of benevolent or treacherous, good or evil. Satanism enables the Satanist to codify his life beyond the ethical and metaphysical straightjacket which Objectivism unfortunately offers.”

So let me get this straight: Satanism is a religion for the 1% which teaches that there is no ethical or moral reason to behave with compassion toward your fellow man?  And this is a philosophy which we are comfortable commemorating outside a State House in a nation which is supposed to be democratic?  It seems to me that by straining at a gnat, we have swallowed a camel.  Many liberals are tickled to death that this Satanic Monument is going up because they want to sock it to the conservative Christians.  And yet the philosophy of Satanism is antithetical to democratic views.  It is straight from the devil himself!  The ends do not justify the means here.  We have been deceived by the Father of Lies.  The entire Church and State debate has been a ruse to distract Christians and to channel our energies away from doing good.  All the while our own actions as the body of Christ have served only to pave the way for Satanic altars to be built.  This is a black magic conspiracy to win the Dark Lord an advantage.

Lest I be accused of unfairly criticizing the Satanic Temple, I do need to add that the Satanic Temple is a different institution than the Church of Satan discussed above.  In fact, Lucien Greaves has suggested that he wants to update LaVey's philosophy.  "Social Darwinism, interpreted in brutal, strictly self-interested terms, is counter-productive," he says.  "We do better when we work in groups, where altruism and compassion are rewarded..."   This is a nod toward the common values of our society, and it makes for good PR.   "That said, however," he continues, "I believe in a system that runs meritocratically."   He goes on to say that revenge is a natural impulse and should be the basis of our justice system. 

The fact remains that the Satanic Temple is connected ideologically to the Church of Satan, to Ayn Rand, to Social Darwinism, and via Social Darwinism to Adolph Hitler, to black magic, and yes, I believe, to Satan himself.  Lucien Greaves of the Satanic Temple was asked to write an introduction to the book Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard (and also to illustrate it), which was one of Anton LaVey's favorite books and which is heavily borrowed from in The Satanic Bible. The person who asked him to write that introduction was Shane Bugbee, a High Priest in the Church of Satan, himself appointed by Anton LaVey.  The Satanic Temple appears friendlier and worldlier.  It has "renounced supernaturalism," but then again, simply watching the 1989 interview with Nicholas Schreck and Zeena LaVey will show you that the Church of Satan back then was also willing to consider Satan an "archetype" rather than a literal being.  It matters very little whether they consider Satan to be an actual being or not.  If they are giving him honor and if they are promoting that philosophy of selfishness, brutality, and greed, they are in fact worshiping the Devil.

So where do we go from here?  It seems there is little to be done to prevent the Satanic altars from being built across America now.  God help us!  Unchristlike Christians have done it to themselves, have brought the demonic influence down upon us.  I believe we can expect the Prince of the Power of the Air to use his newfound influence to spawn even more destructive, oligarchic, plutocratic policies than before.  I suspect somewhere amongst the 1%, the elite for whom the Satanist religion was founded (according to Nicholas Schreck), there is a black magician rejoicing that his Dark Master has found a backdoor loophole way of erecting his monuments on public lawns.  I suspect that the fight for a peaceful, more humane world has transcended the political and social arenas now and will need to be fought on a supernatural plane.  YES, I believe in the supernatural and in a literal devil, and in angels and demons and magic.  YES, there is more here than meets the eye.  We have a hell of a fight on our hands now. 

"We staged a rally in support of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s passage of Senate Bill 98, a bill that essentially allowed for prayer in school," said Lucien Greaves. "While many groups were upset and offended that Scott was advancing a conservative Christian agenda, we staged a Satanic rally thanking Rick Scott for endorsing a bill that allowed Satanism in schools, ensuring that children who might otherwise never learn of the Satanic creed could be exposed to it in the classroom."

My one Prayer is that, as children are now increasingly going to be exposed to the Satanic creed, they will also be exposed to a genuine display of Christianity.  One which does not bully or insist on its own views, one which "does not behave itself unseemly," does not "seek its own advantage," is not proud or puffed up, which is not provoked and does not always think evil of others (in case you missed it these are descriptions of how Christians should love according to 1 Corinthians 13).  I pray that in an America which is about to become increasingly more Satanic, the philosophy of kindness, benevolence, charity and compassion will also find a strong voice somehow.