Originally posted by Villain
thus the name "satanist", for Satan is seen (symbolically - many satanists of this kind are actually atheists) as the first anarchist, the one who opposed God himself (again only in symbolical sense).
Actually, a lot of Satanists claim to draw their "metaphorical representative" Satan character from pre-christian pagan influences, which is interesting to me, because from what I know the specific name "Satan" is christian in origin, although I may be incorrect on this point. In fact, come to think of it, I'm oddly confident that I am. Can anyone clarify this?
Mostly, a Satanist is one who opposes christianity (be it actively or more often passive aggressively) and manipulates society to his will/desire for his own gain, and this is how notible satanist musicians such as (I suppose ex-?)Emperor's Ihsahn and Ulver's Garm and Erik have defined it (I'm obviously taking great paraphrasing liberties) in past interviews I have read (to keep the discussion somewhat "music topical").
Originally posted by saturnix
any person or organization purporting their alleged "satanism," be it religion OR philosophy, are only buying into a cesspool of faulty logic.
Heheheheheh. You mean like Christianity? I don't recall any Satanists denying evolution... or saying the planet is only a few thousand years old... or basing any beliefs upon blind faith... or giving a list of rules and forgiving those who break them because they simply asked for it/repented...
Originally posted by saturnix
TRUE evil...
Hahahaha! Ohhh... this is great. They don't follow my religion, but what they side with is TRUE evil because my religion (which they think is a load of shit) SAYS it's TRUE evil. Funny stuff. It overlooks the whole inherent subjectivity of morality (whether transcultural parallels can be inferred or not, just in case EVIL drifts along in here and feels like taking up old points with me). I think God is evil in his hypocrisy and Satan's sense of morality is biased against and the negative connotations thereof unexplained ("he is evil because he opposed God, and because we say so") in the fairy tale that is the bible.
Of course, you'll say that if they actually believe in the existence of the deity Satan then they must believe in christian doctrine as well, and otherwise it makes no sense, but you fail to realize that christian doctrine is simply based on mythology and really nothing more. I can counter this in two ways, that 1) they can interpret myths differently than the bible tells them to and be no less "correct", as we're dealing with a lot of ideas and some written opinions/historical interpretations/fiction rather than facts, and (hypothetically, if I am correct in aforementioned points) 2) That the character of Satan is pre-christian in origin and therefore does not conform to the chronological sequence of said mythology (i.e. Satan came from God). In this scenario, the character Satan was borrowed for a big cameo appearance in a new story.
As for LaVey, he took basically existing Agnostic Existentialist ideals, threw in a little mysticism, some propaganda, and wrapped it all into a sarcastic Religion-mocking religion, which, much like Dada art, is doomed to failure in and of itself. It's amusing, though, and I respect the man's flair for his business and ability to make a living doing something he enjoyed, basically by manipulating situations to his advantage using his knowledge of humanity. What else can I say than that it is very Satanic?
That was a fun little rant.
Ta ta, everybody.
- Hoser
P.S. I enjoy how those who are religious can seemingly totally discount all other religions. Maybe in a perfect universe, the "correctness" of a religion's opinions on the afterlife could depend upon those beliefs, purely relative to the individual, so that the Agnostics freely rejoin the endless cycle of the matter of the universe while Chrisitans are eternally smited by big-ass thunderbolts, perpetually thrown at them by a pissed off Zeus. Hehehe.
