Attention: read this.

[Serpens]

Reading the first few threads of this board, I can already tell that this place is plagued by pseudo-Satanists and other such pretenders. For information that you can be sure is valid, I suggest you all read and post here:

http://www.satannet.com/lttd/ubbthreads.php

as well as this board. Letters to the Devil is a board owned and moderated by real Satanists. If you aren't willing to read and study, you are not a Satanist, and I would appreciate it you and your ilk would kindly stop calling yourself Satanists; The Church of Satan has no room for the insecure, the stupid, or other pretenders that would cling on to the name of Satanist without having a grasp of our core values.

 

[Fluffy]

Serpens, I can understand that you would find it very annoying, offensive even, if a group of people decided to join your religion without any knowledge of it or any real sense of what it is about. Unfortunately, however, as far as I am aware, there is no copywright on the term "Satanist" and so anyone can call themselves a Satanist if they wish. All religions suffer from the problem that you are describing but there are ways of dealing with it other than labelling them as "pseudo-Satanists". I am uncertain of your feelings towards this method but an effective one is simply quoting the relevant passage from the relevant religious document that shows their beliefs up as not agreeing with the Satanist faith. Keep in mind that Satanism, like any religion, is totally open to interpretation so you will get differences in belief between followers.

On a slightly different topic, is the board you posted only open to Satanists or anyone willing to learn more about Satanism?

 

[Serpens]

Serpens, I can understand that you would find it very annoying, offensive even, if a group of people decided to join your religion without any knowledge of it or any real sense of what it is about. Unfortunately, however, as far as I am aware, there is no copywright on the term "Satanist" and so anyone can call themselves a Satanist if they wish. All religions suffer from the problem that you are describing but there are ways of dealing with it other than labelling them as "pseudo-Satanists". I am uncertain of your feelings towards this method but an effective one is simply quoting the relevant passage from the relevant religious document that shows their beliefs up as not agreeing with the Satanist faith. Keep in mind that Satanism, like any religion, is totally open to interpretation so you will get differences in belief between followers.

On a slightly different topic, is the board you posted only open to Satanists or anyone willing to learn more about Satanism?

Satanism as codified by Anton LaVey is not open to interpretation. It's philosophies are clear and precise.

[size=-1](Taken without permission from http://www.satanism101.com. If you are a Church of Satan official or a webmaster of the website from which I pulled this quote from, email me at [email protected] and I will be happy to remove this.)

"[/size][size=-1]Satanism, the first carnal religion in human history, was codified and established by Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) with the founding of the Church of Satan in 1966 C.E. (Year One). It is a religion and a philosophy based on man as he really is: a carnal being free from the fiction that is spirituality and one who champions total responsibility, pragmatism, and the here-and-now. Currently, the Church of Satan is headed by High Priest Peter H. Gilmore, High Priestess Peggy Nadramia, and Magistra Blanche Barton. Additional information on Church of Satan hierarchical structure, policies, updates, and more can be found at the CoS website.[/size]

[size=-1]Satanism has been referred to as an "unreligion" in the sense that it does not subscribe to the notion of an anthropomorphic deity and, by extension, some being who must be worshiped, its most common misconception. Others say that Satanism is challenging popular notions of how 'religion' is defined, not content with the dictates of Judeo-Christian strictures. Both are valid opinions. But for those who feel that deity worship and religion must be and always have been inextricably bound, it should be noted that Satanism's lack of deity belief and deity worship is not singular as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism (all considered religions the world over) also share this viewpoint. Also, the concept of a literal "Satan" which infiltrates people's lives and influences their decisionmaking is exclusively Christian, and decidedly not Satanic.[/size]

[size=-1]Satanism is further described as being a de facto personality type as, in the words of Anton LaVey, "Satanists are born, not made." To try is to lie. It takes a certain set of predispositions to accurately label oneself a Satanist, to naturally feel at home with all that Satanism entails. Satanism, as a philosophy, can be potentially taken and learned from by a large percentage of the population, but this does not make one a Satanist, but, perchance, Satanic. Qualities such as cowardice, insecurity, self-loathing, drug addiction, stupidity, constant life failures, unconditional niceness, and lack of direction (and there are MANY more) are clear indicators that the person in question and the title of Satanist are NOT compatible. For such a person, Satanism isn't a direct reflection of one's core (as it is with Satanists), it can only be a human improvement program at best, which is valid on that level only. This is one distinction that many, be they Satanic "hopeful" or earnest researcher, would be better off to recognize.[/size]

[size=-1]It must be stressed that critically reading The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey is tantamount to understanding at least the basics of Satanism. It is the definitive tome of Satanism and cannot be avoided if accurate knowledge of Satanism is desired. As supplement (read: not replacement), perusing some of the Satanic magazines published by Church of Satan members and officials will lend some insight into Satanism in motion, as a productive model. And of course, websites published by these same folks (including myself) are also useful. Conversely, we do not officially advocate chat rooms and message boards as viable sources of Satanic information. [/size]

[size=-1]Membership in the Church of Satan is completely voluntary and not required in order to be a Satanist. [/size]-Magister Paradise"

 

[Fluffy]

I take offense to people misreprenting the Church of Satan. People claiming to hold some kind of title in a forum called "LaVey Satanism" are misrepresenting the entire religion and its philosophies.

And you probably have every right to since it is you and the Church of Satan who will suffer from the bad press that these people will bring your religion. Yet what if they felt exactly the same way about you and felt that you were misrepresenting THEIR religion? An outsider has no compulsion to side with either because in their eyes both of you have the right to your own beliefs and even spread them if you wish to. Can you imagine the outcry if a Christian joined this board and decided to denounce every other Christian member as being false and a pseudo-Christian?

In the end its just as silly as the Wiccans who get annoyed at Satanists for using the term witch because it is misrepresenting a religion who didn't even coin the term.

You'll find that people who wish to get the wrong idea of Satanism need no encourgagement by what you call pseudo-Satanists and those who don't will be unaffected.

 

[Serpens]

To further the cause of civility on this multireligious forum, I will say that I understand your point.

The Satanist part of me is angry for the negative views people on the internet give the Church of Satan. But, I realize that this is not a forum of Church of Satan members, and I have been treating it as such. So, while I still disagree with you, I will promise you as I already have the admin to be civil.

 

[Fluffy]

Lol I only just noticed.

Now that is a very comprehensive little history there and is exactly the type of thing which is effective against spreading misinformation. I especially loved the third paragraph. Would you say that a Satanist who accepted the belief in a deity is not a true Satanist then?

Satanism has been referred to as an "unreligion" in the sense that it does not subscribe to the notion of an anthropomorphic deity

http://www.theistic-satanism.org/

The Satanist part of me is angry for the negative views people on the internet give the Church of Satan. But, I realize that this is not a forum of Church of Satan members, and I have been treating it as such. So, while I still disagree with you, I will promise you as I already have the admin to be civil.

Well that has certainly earnt my respect in 5 seconds flat . Few people are ready to do such a thing.

 

[Serpens]

Lol I only just noticed.
Would you say that a Satanist who accepted the belief in a deity is not a true Satanist then? http://www.theistic-satanism.org/

In these sense that the person who believes in a deity is not a cantidate for The Church of Satan, yes.

Members of the Church of Satan refer to themselves as "true" Satanists for a number of reasons:

1. For ages, the term "Satanist" was used to describe those who went against established religion, or as a way to demonize people who were not a part of the dominant religion. The first instance of a completely codified religion called "Satanism" by its founder is the Church of Satan. Theistic Satanism seems to be nothing more than a form of inverse Christianity.
2. Satanism is a legally recognized religion by the United States. Theistic Satanism is not. This is not relevent in deciding who is the "real" Satanic religion, but it is a valid thing to bring up.
3. It's obvious that someone who fully subscribes to a particular philosophy believes that their philosophy is "true": Satanism is no different.

 

[Fluffy]

Yeah I think I can go along with all of that. The legality and better organisation of the Church of Satan Satanists as opposed to other Satanists definitely leans in their favour.

 

[Scott1]

Well that has certainly earnt my respect in 5 seconds flat . Few people are ready to do such a thing.

Mine too....

 

[TrueQ]

Yeah, he gets a couple golden stars in my book for that post, too. It even washed clean his previous remark, "If you aren't willing to read and study, you are not a Satanist, and I would appreciate it you and your ilk would kindly stop calling yourself", which really got my hackles up.

Here's my beef in a nutshell. In my view, truth is subjective and malleable, everything is true. The truth changes with every person you talk to and you'll only ever be able to comprehend a sliver of it using just one belief set. People who try and comprehend all of it like that tend to wind up fanatically trapped into just one way of thinking, which often causes them to trivialize and demonize people working with different worldviews. Listen to an angry Satanist complain about Christian hypocrisy, and you know they aren't thinking from a Christian's point of view. Listen to a devout Christian decry the evils of Satanist straying from God's plan, and you'll know they aren't thinking from the Satanic point of view. And the same goes for other, less-polarizing instances. Thus, by proclaiming oneself or one's organization as the one 'True' anything, you put yourself in danger of succumbing to fanaticism, and becoming trapped in a philosophy.

Also, as Fluffy said, parts of the LaVeyan philosophy cause me no end of troubles. The Book of Fire leaps to mind, try and live a nice leisurely life when everyone around thinks you're a bloody-minded, cynical ******* with delusions of grandeur. And it seems I've had to apologize to members of just about every culture for that list of Satanic names in the Book of Air that just stole deities from every pantheon in existence. I find that non-Satanists don't really come off of the Church of Satan website full of warm fuzzies, either.

Ah well, peace and love, ya know. Only a nutjob fanatic would deny that its practical to give different philosophies different names. So hey! Y'all Church of Satan Satanists can have the 'Satanist' title, and I'll content myself with a different one. So long as you folk don't start up with that 'One true religion' talk! It makes we other denominations feel trivialized.

 

[Ormiston]

Reading the first few threads of this board, I can already tell that this place is plagued by pseudo-Satanists and other such pretenders. For information that you can be sure is valid, I suggest you all read and post here:

http://www.satannet.com/lttd/ubbthreads.php

as well as this board. Letters to the Devil is a board owned and moderated by real Satanists. If you aren't willing to read and study, you are not a Satanist, and I would appreciate it you and your ilk would kindly stop calling yourself Satanists; The Church of Satan has no room for the insecure, the stupid, or other pretenders that would cling on to the name of Satanist without having a grasp of our core values.

So Satanists don't trust each other? Now that's unexpected.

 

[Cr0wley]

You'll never convince me, or the general public, that your particular belief system is the one and only "true" form of Satanism. If you want a word that refers uniquely to your own specific belief system, coin a new word and register it as a trademark. You can't do that with the word "Satanism."

http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/dvera/varieties/FAQ-TS.html

Satanism is open to interpretation, like it or not. Every belief system evolves, changes and gets new philosophies. But unfortunately for you, Satanism was around way before LaVey was even born. I respect your views, but don't force them on others. You'll become no better than the Christian belief that we're opposing.

 

[Serpens]

http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/dvera/varieties/FAQ-TS.html

Satanism is open to interpretation, like it or not. Every belief system evolves, changes and gets new philosophies. But unfortunately for you, Satanism was around way before LaVey was even born. I respect your views, but don't force them on others. You'll become no better than the Christian belief that we're opposing.

The name "Satanism" was around before LaVey, but a codefied philosophy did not exist until LaVey created it.

 

[Cr0wley]

The name "Satanism" was around before LaVey, but a codefied philosophy did not exist until LaVey created it.

So you're saying that just because someone codefied the word that others must stop using it. I find that unfair. LaVeyan Satanists don't even believe in Satan, so why are you clinging to the word? The Satanic Bible should have been the philosophy of clearing the name of Satan, not just a hand-guide to self imporvement. Why not just call it "The LaVeyan Bible"?

I like the Satanic Bible, I like Anton LaVey, but I find it amusing how LaVeyans are yelling at us Thiestic Satanists and Luciferians to stop using "their" word.

 

[Serpens]

So you're saying that just because someone codefied the word that others must stop using it. I find that unfair. LaVeyan Satanists don't even believe in Satan, so why are you clinging to the word? The Satanic Bible should have been the philosophy of clearing the name of Satan, not just a hand-guide to self imporvement. Why not just call it "The LaVeyan Bible"?

"I have termed my thought Satanism because it is most stimulating under that name. Self-discipline and motivation are effected more easily under stimulating conditions. Satanism means 'the opposition' and epitomizes all symbols of nonconformity. In other words, the reason it's called Satanism is that it's fun, it's accurate, and it's productive" -Anton Szandor LaVey,

satanism has been around since "white-light" religions have been using it as negative reinforcement to keep its members faithful, but Satanism wasn't around until 1966.

I like the Satanic Bible, I like Anton LaVey, but I find it amusing how LaVeyans are yelling at us Thiestic Satanists and Luciferians to stop using "their" word.

Theistic Satanists ARE Luciferians

We certainly realize that we do not hold monopoly over the name Satan. We just wish that people would diffentiate between the two vastly different religions.