Satanism

[Baron Of Hell]

Maybe he doesn't believe in a christian god but instead in one of the other ones that don't have a satan and guides humans by reincarnation.

[ezed]

It's easy, remove yourself from all you learned and think and rationalize and realize if there is a God and he is as powerful as what we would believe and he had a favorite angel who tried to fuck him ..... would he be bothered with the whole hell thing. No he'd throw him in the trash and make a new angel. We conjured up this good and evil thing to keep us from eliminating the species. And the titular heads of all religions ran with it, seeing a chance to make some coin and achieve some power.

When you die, if there is no God, will you know it? No.

[ezed]

you may be right, we'll find out when we die, .....or won't

[MacShreach]

who said anything about Christianity? its funny that whenever "God" is mentioned, Christianity is automatically mentioned as well...there was religion long before the Anglo-Saxons...

in the Sumerian theology, which is the oldest organized theology known to man, Anu was the most high (God) and Tiamat would more than likely be considered the devil, whom was slain by Marduk...there is always an "evil" to foil the "good"...

The most likely model for "the Devil" is the Celtic god Cernnunos, who is more or less the same character as Pan and several others. Cernnunos has stag's legs and antlers and is a god of woodland and the hunt. He is also the god who guards the doorway to the Otherworld. (Which is where you go when you die, in that mythology.) I've attached a pic of Cernnunos.

Cernnunos is not an evil or malefic deity but is instead an integral element of the process of fertility. One of his roles is to mate with the Mother Goddess, (the earth, roughly) and so ensure the continuation of all life. Gods in Celtic mythology are not really "good" or "bad" in the dualistic way that monotheists see things. Celtic gods were either for you or against you depending on how you treated them and how they felt, and they were not all-powerful in the personal way the Christian God is. The Christian God is an emperor who rules over every aspect of the lives of all people, while the Celtic gods are powers apart from us, sometimes taking a part in our lives but more often ignoring us or getting on with their own ploys. The Mother Goddess, BTW, is by far the oldest deity we know of.

Most early Christian concerns about devil-worship and the centuries of literal witch-hunts and persecution of little old ladies, had to do with the persistence of belief in the older, Celtic religious system. Identifying as "the Devil" a god whom most peasants and country folk ("pagan" just means "countryman") looked to as an ally was a method of driving people towards Christianity, that's all.

Christianity used many devices to market itself, from straightforward torture and killing of those who would niot convert, to appropriating their gods and adding them to Christian mythology. Mary (Jesus mother) is a classic Celtic triple-goddess. She had no significant role in Christian belief until it was decided at the Synod of Ephesus in 436 IIRC that unless she was promoted, then the multitudes of Celtic mother-goddess worshippers simply would not convert to Christianity.

Christianity, at least in its Catholic form is paganism adapted to serve the needs of the Roman Empire. Ask yourself who is the successor to the Emperors of Rome, living today. As a result of this many formative Protestant thinkers, for example John Knox, saw Catholicism as idolatrous devil-worship, a view which was to persist and amplify from the Renaissance onwards, at least in the largely Protestant Northern Europe.

(The Pilgrim Fathers, of course, were "non-conformist." They were protestants but they refused to accept the Church of England, which they did not regard as a Protestant Church at all-- and they were right; Henry the VIIIth simply took over the existing structures and theology of the Catholic Church in England and declared himself head; it was done for political, not religious reasons. However refusal to accept the Church of England was to refuse to accept Henry as the spiritual leader. That was treason, punishable by death.)

Satanism per se, however, is something newer. It is in fact a relatively modern perversion of Christianity, rather than a precursor to it, which started to gather ground amongst intellectual dissidents in Europe in the 19thC. Alastair Crowleigh was a well-known "prophet" of this. As such it sits alongside Spiritualism and other movements of the era, which were formed when the new freedom of the age made it possible to explore alternative religious belief without taking the real risk of being burned alive. Anyway, that is why Satanists use the upside-down cross etc, the reversal of all things Christian. It's a protest movement more than a religion.

Unfortunately many people, mainly in my experience, Christians and related monotheists, conflate the earlier Celtic and pagan religions with this later invention. I suppose for them, being monotheistic and dualistic in their thinking, you're either right or wrong, and if you ain't Christian, you're gonna burn anyway, so who cares what you call yourself?

Anyway, here's yer man. Terrifying, what?

[Daebo]

I think jamiejesus has finally found his soulmate...and I wish you both all the best...but maybe you two should consider putting down that crack pipe every now and then...

I don't smoke crack i stay on that fyia azz herb all day everyday beside she hasn't found her soulmate.

Its a known fact i already know hell exist if there isn't no devil why do these people still kill eachother up like animals the devil presents is all around us don't b fooled.

[chefmike]

I think jamiejesus has finally found his soulmate...and I wish you both all the best...but maybe you two should consider putting down that crack pipe every now and then...

I don't smoke crack i stay on that fyia azz herb all day everyday beside she hasn't found her soulmate.

just remember that you need to exhale, mon...

[Whitey]

Just to clear things up:

Most LaVey Satanists are atheist. The whole thing is a fancy charade, incorporating ritual and a theology(same as any religion)... but in a way that mocks Christianity by using the inverse of every symbol they cherish.

Also, the Cardinal Sin of Satanism is Stupidity. Sounds good to me.

[suckseed]

I guess it's fun to pretend you know ANYTHING about the nature of the universe. As the esteemed philosopher Steve Walsh said, "If I claim to be a wise man...it surely means that I don't know." IMHO, satanism is goth + a backstory. Whee!

[ezed]

I don't smoke crack i stay on that fyia azz herb all day everyday beside she hasn't found her soulmate.

Its a known fact i already know hell exist if there isn't no devil why do these people still kill eachother up like animals the devil presents is all around us don't b fooled.

Because they really are animals and find it conveinient to blame it on a devil. Us Humans, think of our selves as "special". As a species, we aren't there yet. If we keep blaming human faults on God or the Devil, it will take longer to evolve. We are special olympians on the ladder of intelligent life. Until we admit that, we won't advance to the next rung.

"The devil/god made me do it"....no, you decided to do it. You got free will, but find it conveinient to blame it on the unseen. "I am perfect, I could never contemplate such an act myself". Sounds like the predator who walks into the kitchen of what he thougth was a 12 year old boy and runs into a "Dateline" camera.

Cut the crap, stop blaming something else for you actions. It will be the down fall of the human race. TAKE FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY!!!!!!

[hondarobot]

There is no "Satan". It's an absurd concept. Why would an "Ultimate Intelligence" have a need to create a hypothetical challenge to itself?

If there is a higher purpose to existence, it's not restricted to this pretty little rock we live on. If there is "evil" at our level of comprehension, it's our fear of asking "why?"

On the other hand, I've dealt with "ghosts" on occasion, which never seemed "evil" to me, but freaked me out. I will leave it at that.

Weird world we live in. Hehe.