"The Elitist Religion"

[Blowtus]

I think the issue you are having is with the grouping 'atheistic ideologies' - there is a pretty damn big spectrum of ideologies out there that are compatible with / include the notion of no deities. That Laveyan Satanism fits under the broad umbrella of what you term 'atheistic ideologies' does not equate it with atheism itself.

 

[Einherjar86]

the words as I use them would have me disagree.

It is 'selfish', but it's not, as you allude to, 'idolatry'---it's not a selfishness which neglects the most important thing, and treats something inferior as though it were that, rather, in this instance, it is proper to be selfish; oneself is the most important thing.

I think, though, that in a belief system where oneself is the most important thing, the idea of selfishness would become irrelevant. This came up in my other thread with the idea of greed. Selfishness is usually identified as a negative term. However, if one's belief system encourages "selfishness," then they would no longer have a need for the term; that, or they would alter its meaning. So selfishness, as we understand it, would become irrelevant.

Also, I think, as Seditious mentioned, that when you say 'it isn't selfish' you really mean 'it isn't *wrong*' if you don't believe in any higher form of judgement. I would suggest that it would not be wrong to the individual, but would of course still be wrong to others. To take the position that nothing is wrong if someone believes it is 'right' is a little too extremely relativist for me

Well, this is true; I was speaking strictly from a certain ideology's viewpoint. Of course it could still be regarded as "selfish" or "wrong" by other individuals. However, I also believe that in an ideology that encouraged selfishness, the term "selfish" would itself become irrelevant (much like the term "greed," which I mentioned in my thread on responsibility). Because selfishness carries a negative connotation, it would either disappear or its definition would alter. It has been considered a negative character flaw for so long now that an ideology that encouraged it would do better to simply nullify such a term rather than try and change its meaning.

Absolute justice can exist within such an ideology based on "selfish" individualism. First of all, I believe that within such an ideology, the term "selfish" would disappear. The question asked earlier has nothing to do with other ideologies challenging this one; so we can simply work within the confines of this ideology (Satanism). So, therefore we can simply ask "How is absolute justice defined within a system of individualism?" Well, now this seems much easier.

I think that this proves to be self-explanatory. While many people in today's American society would never call themselves "satanists" (gods, imagine the uproar that would cause) I believe that many come very close to fulfilling those original four criteria outlined by free_varg. Many young American families aren't religious but still operate functionally in society and are healthy contributors to their community, society and economy. I believe that those four criteria for Satanism are reflected in many families of America today. And while our society is far from implementing a policy of "absolute justice," I think we pride ourselves on at least striving to have one.

Essentially, I think that when defining things such as "Absolute Justice" within this ideology, you have to exclude the term "selfish." Individualism in itself is a "selfish" belief, as we understand the term. We have to try and view these ideas without our restricting moral limits and barriers. We have to be objective.

 

[TheBahggs]

i disagree... a religion like christianity is not merely a guide to living one's life... it entails believing that certain things are in fact real (i.e. the trinity, the resurrection of christ, etc.). i think the real difference between other religions and satanism is that other religions say "believe this it is true" while satanism says "hey life is meaningless, enjoy yourself and let's dress up in black capes and wear pentegrams and piss people off!"

Are you saying that other religions dont piss people off? I have never been more pissed off at anyone more than at the Christian missionary dicks who constantly condescend to you and imply that they are better because they belive the world is 5000 years old, gays are abominations and other idiotic ideas.

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Soviet tanks rolling into Eastern Europe were driven by an atheistic ideology, and so is the Jain monk that carefully sweeps insects out of his path. Atheism as a descriptive term is only relevant if you start with the base assumption that God exists. Not believing in 'God', Yahweh presumably, shouldn't be any kind of an indicator for a person or a group's ethics.

I think that this proves to be self-explanatory. While many people in today's American society would never call themselves "satanists" (gods, imagine the uproar that would cause) I believe that many come very close to fulfilling those original four criteria outlined by free_varg. Many young American families aren't religious but still operate functionally in society and are healthy contributors to their community, society and economy. I believe that those four criteria for Satanism are reflected in many families of America today. And while our society is far from implementing a policy of "absolute justice," I think we pride ourselves on at least striving to have one.

Satanism is based ultimately on the idea that we're animals and that we should do what makes us feel good. If you want to wallow in your own shit, go ahead. It's also based on revenge and mistrust. Satanism is incredibly juvenile, right down to the attention-whoring name. The whole thing is anti-thetical to secular liberalism. Why should we pay for highways out of our taxes? Why shoudn't we execute criminals for trivial crimes? If everyone lived according to LaVeyan Satanism we'd be living in caves.

 

[Einherjar86]

Satanism is based ultimately on the idea that we're animals and that we should do what makes us feel good. If you want to wallow in your own shit, go ahead. It's also based on revenge and mistrust. Satanism is incredibly juvenile, right down to the attention-whoring name. The whole thing is anti-thetical to secular liberalism. Why should we pay for highways out of our taxes? Why shoudn't we execute criminals for trivial crimes? If everyone lived according to LaVeyan Satanism we'd be living in caves.

You should pay for highways out of your taxes because it benefits you in the long run. We shouldn't execute criminals for trivial crimes; they should be given sentences that match their offense. This is justice; I don't see what the problem is. As far as the four criteria that free_varg outlined go, many Americans do live closely by the ideology of Satanism. I wouldn't say it's based on mistrust, but rather skepticism. One should question everything. In my opinion, that's the most mature ideology. Satanism might mean living for oneself and doing whatever makes one feel pleasure; but surely practicing Satanists don't blindly go through life seeking immediate, gratuitous pleasure. They look ahead to things that will benefit them in the future, and plan accordingly. Behaving naturally, humans will not "wallow in their own shit." Most humans feel the desire to achieve and assert themselves. Satanism doesn't encourage sitting on your ass all day and doing nothing because it makes you feel good; many people don't feel good doing this. The main activities (I believe) that Satanism doesn't condemn are things like fornication, drug use, alcohol consumption, etc. which are things that many branches of Christianity frown upon. Satanism sees nothing wrong with these pleasures and encourages its followers to pursue such means of pleasure. I, personally, think you're taking Satanism's allowance of self-gratification too far and too unrealistically.

 

[Blowtus]

Essentially, I think that when defining things such as "Absolute Justice" within this ideology, you have to exclude the term "selfish." Individualism in itself is a "selfish" belief, as we understand the term. We have to try and view these ideas without our restricting moral limits and barriers. We have to be objective.

I guess it just seems kinda odd that someone truly 'selfish' (and not merely 'selfish' because they believed it brought about the best conditions for everyone) would have a concern with 'absolute justice.'

 

[Seditious]

I wanted to know if they actually had a God, or if they take the Christian image of Satan as their God. Because that would be crazy

So it's just atheism basically right?

Like some forms of Buddhism, Lavayan Satanism (the schoolboy version we're talking about) is atheistic. Philanthropy is often atheistic, but we would be hard pressed to say 'giving other people money for nothing in return is atheism', it's not atheism, it's just something an atheist could do.

theism is 'belief in a god or gods', atheism, depending on the definition, would have a person either say, "I hold the belief that there are no gods", or "I have no belief in any gods" - 'unicorns don't exist' or 'I don't personally happen to believe in any unicorns myself'... you would not say 'so, Christianity is basically aunicornism, right?' ...there are no unicorns involved in Christianity, that makes it aunicornistic... but that's it, that's a useless thing to know. No one says 'oh, you don't believe in unicorns, I guess you worship the trinity and pray to the holy spirit, eh?' ...a-theism, a-unicornism, these things are not belief systems, those are words which connote a single idea.

Can anyone provide a reliable link to what true satanism actually is because no one has bothered explaining the reasons why it is counted as a religion?

Satanism which would have 'Satan' as -existing-, would mean believing in the Christian canon. I don't think there are any people who believe in 'Satan' who aren't Christians---I've never heard of any 'satanists' who are this type.

The kind we're talking about is just some idiots little 'ideas for how to live a better life' which he marketed with Satan as his logo, a symbol for freedom from traditional Christian values. It is a religion because it makes faith claims, claims it cannot validate, mere assertions you can either take or leave. It makes no attempt to be worth adhering to, it's merely something if you're already thus inclined you might like to identify as.

 

[Einherjar86]

I guess it just seems kinda odd that someone truly 'selfish' (and not merely 'selfish' because they believed it brought about the best conditions for everyone) would have a concern with 'absolute justice.'

Well, it was The Poona of Peshwa who claimed that Satanism is "selfish." Personally, I don't think it is, and I never claimed that it was a selfish ideology. I think that it is highly individualistic, but that's it. Absolute justice would be a concern because individuals still have concerns for their own safety and well-being. Absolute justice would help individuals to achieve safety. I don't see Satanism as an ideology that condones immediate fulfillment of pleasure in pointless, gratuitous means (unfortunately, I think it's interpreted in this way sometimes). I see it as a highly individualistic ideology that doesn't condemn most physical pleasures that the Church does. However, it doesn't discourage its believers from planning ahead or acting rationally. Rather, it encourages them to act in ways that best befit them. In most cases, this would mean embracing a system of absolute justice.

 

[Seditious]

I think, though, that in a belief system where oneself is the most important thing, the idea of selfishness would become irrelevant. This came up in my other thread with the idea of greed. Selfishness is usually identified as a negative term. However, if one's belief system encourages "selfishness," then they would no longer have a need for the term; that, or they would alter its meaning. So selfishness, as we understand it, would become irrelevant.

I disagree, with an eye toward Ayn Rand---we merely remove the stigma. We don't stop calling people gay, we reframe the whole issue and the word gay loses its cultural recognition as a bad thing, as negative. Selfish is an accurate word to use, just like 'not a Christian'... Christian in some dictionaries is synonymous with 'good'... you're no longer bad/heretic/immoral/etc. for not being a Christian (at least, outside the perspective of certain American communities), all we'll do is drop the negative connotations attached to the word.

while our society is far from implementing a policy of "absolute justice," I think we pride ourselves on at least striving to have one.

My claim regarding such a topic would be that such a pursuit is done in conflict with radical individualism. A sort of 'have my cake and eat it too' situation, like how we (not us, but the idiot mass of our societies) want people who sell drugs to people who want drugs to go to jail, but people who drive a little too fast and could possibly kill someone... well hey, I'm in a rush for work, just give me a little ticket which I can pay off a few bucks a week, no harm done. We want a double standard which preserves what we want... we ultimately contradict such a principle when we try to make it function in society (we don't have to, I'm saying that the majority just happen to be so unprincipled as to do so ...which is selfish, and perfectly ok. my disgust with this is solely that it is hypocrisy, as they wish to use their rights to arbitrary selfishness to harm others who do the same, and pat themselves on the back in self-righteous absolutist morality at the same time).

 

[Seditious]

i disagree... a religion like christianity is not merely a guide to living one's life... it entails believing that certain things are in fact real (i.e. the trinity, the resurrection of christ, etc.)

agreed.

Seriously, anyone who cuts their foreskin off because 'that's just a good way of living life' would probably garner a lot more attention than someone who does it, or whose parents do it to them, for the mundane reason that God demands it so. (I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to do it, just that such appear to be rarities)

 

[Seditious]

I guess it just seems kinda odd that someone truly 'selfish' (and not merely 'selfish' because they believed it brought about the best conditions for everyone) would have a concern with 'absolute justice.'

I want to agree, but there is a loophole.

the best time to define absolute justice would have been days ago, but now would be the second best...

if selfishness is actually absolute justice (as we would say idolatry is righteousness since there is no god of whom our idolatry is wronging), then, hey, by definition the rightly selfish person is concerned with absolute justice, it just so happens that true justice according to that persons' principles is very remote from justice as conceived today.

I doubt such is what the original poster to use the word meant, I just through that out there in order to dismiss it.

I think he should clarify his meaning of it now.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Are you saying that other religions dont piss people off? I have never been more pissed off at anyone more than at the Christian missionary dicks who constantly condescend to you and imply that they are better because they belive the world is 5000 years old, gays are abominations and other idiotic ideas.

no... i was being humorous... christian's piss people off because they are CERTAIN that their beliefs are true and their beliefs encourage them to 'share' their beliefs with others... satanists on the other hand thrive off of socially unnacceptable imagery and such and hence whether they admit it or not are trying to provoke people...

 

[Einherjar86]

I disagree, with an eye toward Ayn Rand---we merely remove the stigma. We don't stop calling people gay, we reframe the whole issue and the word gay loses its cultural recognition as a bad thing, as negative. Selfish is an accurate word to use, just like 'not a Christian'... Christian in some dictionaries is synonymous with 'good'... you're no longer bad/heretic/immoral/etc. for not being a Christian (at least, outside the perspective of certain American communities), all we'll do is drop the negative connotations attached to the word.

I see what you're saying. However, I feel that removing the stigma wouldn't work because of the hundreds of years of recognition and emotional responses that are commonly tied with vocabulary. In one of my earlier posts I said how two options were present; the complete obliteration of the term, or the alteration of its meaning. I also said that, considering the difficulty of altering a word's meaning among an entire population who identify with it, it would be more efficient to simply ban the word altogether. I believe that a term like "selfish" would disappear because it would be impossible for people separate their emotions from the earlier connotations associated with the term. In a society that encouraged what we might believe to be "selfish," the members of that society would merely state that they were being "individualistic." Negative terms such as "selfish," "self-centered," or "egoism" would not be used because of the emotional weight that they carry. Even a word such as ambitious would be dangerous because of its sometimes negative associations. Because of this, the society would develop/adopt/perpetuate new terms (or old terms that might be more appropriate) with more positive emotional qualities: "self-concerned," "motivated," "self-preservation," "independent," "individualism," etc.

I realize that the following is somewhat of a negative comparison; however, I believe that this destruction/creation of terminologies is similar to Orwell's theories of language in 1984. The entire idea of Newspeak is similar to what I have outlined.

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Liberalism itself is based on the idea that people are rational and will act in their own best interests within the limits of the law. If you redefine Satanism to mean 'secular humanism', which is what you're describing when you take away the magic, the fascistic undertones, the drama, and the bald heads/goatees, then you're really taking away its relevance as a term.

The problem I have with 'satanic' selfishness is that the individual becomes the be all and end all of one's own existence, which I really think is a recipe for misery.

 

[Einherjar86]

There are Satanists who reject the practice of rituals and "bald heads/ goatees." The ideas behind Satanism are simple; a rejection of Christian condemnation of a quest of worldly pleasure (i.e. premarital sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.). There are sects that engage in ritualistic practices and fascism, but these are the immature ones that you complained about earlier. People are perfectly capable of calling themselves "Satanists" and still contributing to and being worthwhile members of society. You're only viewing it in its most stereotypical sense.

Satanism, in a sense, is modern liberalism. This doesn't take away its relevance as a term. Many people identify with the figure of Lucifer; cast down from Heaven, an outcast, alone in hell. When people can't accept or understand the religion forced upon them, they seek another means of worship. The term is called "Satanism" because its practitioners identify and understand the figure of Lucifer more than they can the Christian God, not because of ritual sacrifice and goatees. These practices were created to garner attention. The truth of Satanism doesn't lie in such practices, but in the identification with the figure of Lucifer. This goes as far back as Milton. It's the reason so many people identify with and enjoy Paradise Lost moreso than Paradise Regained. In Milton's time, of course, readers were supposed to read Paradise Lost and loathe Lucifer but love the figure of God. Of course this is absurd, because Lucifer is in many ways the most human character in the poem. William Blake's reinterpretation of Milton is, I believe, the beginnings of Satanism. I'm definitely not calling Blake a Satanist, because he believed in God; but he did not identify with or agree with the Church. He believed that humans cannot live a perfect life, and shouldn't strive to do so. This, in many ways, is the concept of Satanism.

EDIT: this is a specific form of Satanism that I'm speaking of called Luciferianism; but it proves that Satanism doesn't have to be what you describe it to be.

 

[Nixuz]

All I know is I dated a goth stripper who looked like Betty Page and she considered herself a Satanist.
Apparently it's like a "Get Out of Being A Whore" card.
I told her she could shove all of LaVey's books up her ass, along with most of the cocks in the tri-state area, as I don't care what some goofy asshole says.
Satanism...a half-assed philosophy masquerading as a religion.

 

[OldScratch]

All I know is I dated a goth stripper who looked like Betty Page and she considered herself a Satanist.
Apparently it's like a "Get Out of Being A Whore" card.
I told her she could shove all of LaVey's books up her ass, along with most of the cocks in the tri-state area, as I don't care what some goofy asshole says.
Satanism...a half-assed philosophy masquerading as a religion.

Really...:Smug:?

 

[Eligos]

All I know is I dated a goth stripper who looked like Betty Page and she considered herself a Satanist.
Apparently it's like a "Get Out of Being A Whore" card.
I told her she could shove all of LaVey's books up her ass, along with most of the cocks in the tri-state area, as I don't care what some goofy asshole says.
Satanism...a half-assed philosophy masquerading as a religion.

Satanism existed before Anton LaVey. That's why his sect is called "Modern Satanism". Personally, I practice Traditional Satanism, which has been in practice for at least a millenium and a half, based on my research of Islamic history. It stemmed from the Middle East, and was simply an individualistic approach to life on the occult, with primary focus on the Left Hand Path principles: justice, vengeance, passion, etc.

Modern Satanism bothers me because it is organized, has priests and bishops, and orients itself like Christianity even though it claims to focus upon the individual and not the collective. Satanism should not be taught, but discovered inwardly.

So sure, this whore you dated found justification for her actions; however, since the morality of Satanism is left to the individual, you cannot group all of us together based on the actions of one Satanist. She felt that she was doing nothing wrong. Maybe the consequences of her actions will lead to the eventual changing of her mind. Just remember that ideally, Satanists develop their morals over time, with experience.

 

[derek]

Why be a Satanist at all then? Seems that the decision to be one betrays a certain desire to be part of a quasi-organised religious group.

 

[trappedinaconer]

Of all religions & value systems, the 'true' satanism that you refer to probably comes closest to my own personal views.
That said, I'd never consider myself a satanist any more than than I would a christian or buddhist, because I reserve the right at any time to change my views & opinions on things.
A large part of my distaste for any religion is that in subscribing to it, & labelling oneself as a follower, you can unwittingly modify your behaviour to fit in with its ideals.

Like he originally stated Satanism as he described isn't even a religion, but a satirical representation of Christianity. Therefor by just being yourself and living life in a healthy way your being yourself which is all satanism is really about. Unless it makes you happy to mock what modern Christianity is based upon at its focal point, then its your choice to join a satanist church. But you don't need to be a satanist. Just be you. Labels tend to confuse most people not associated with them anyways.