No, says atheists. Yes, says Christians. No, says Satanists. Yes, says Spiritual Satanists:
DOES SATAN EXIST?
Yes. He interacts with his Disciples and followers. Many of us have seen him, we have witnessed the so-called supernatural, and we have been given abilities way beyond that of the average person. When we ask, we get answers. Unlike other religions, where followers have to go searching for their gods, Satan/Lucifer comes to us. He lets us know of his presence.Demons, as opposed to all of the Christian lies, are friends of humanity. Demons, who are the Original Gods, give us much individual attention and protection, once a strong and trusted relationship is established. When we are close to, and under the protection of Satan, he gives us good Demons to work with. Their Sigils contain very important designs of alchemical symbols related to the opening of the soul.
Satan is not “evil,” nor is Satan responsible for the multitude of illnesses, diseases, or anything else that afflicts humanity. These afflictions are due to the removal and destruction of ancient knowledge that was replaced with the Christianity programs.
Satanism stands for the balance of spirituality with technology. Without this balance, civilizations eventually collapse.
Mmmm hmm, sure. What kind of abilities “way beyond the average person”? How does Satan interact? Anything on video? Can they show any of these things in an environment where trickery would be exposed?
Many Christians would eat this up, pointing to it as evidence of Satan’s existence. “See,” they’d say, “we know Satan exists because those people talk with him! They say so!”
But it’s just like any other religion where people say they talk to their deities or saints. They fool themselves or someone tricks them. It’s kinda sad, really.
Until they present some evidence of their communion with the Dark Lord, then it’s the same old bag of unsupportable claims. There’s nothing to see here; move along.
I’ve never understood this; if you want to worship “old gods”, why buy into the Christian propaganda by calling your gods “demons” or “Satan”?
Because they’re idiots who lack creativity?
They could at leasts be creative enough to shullfe the letter s around a bit, like the Santa worshippers.
Judging from the linked page, it’s because you really like the “Satanic” imagery that was promoted by 80s metal bands. Seriously – inverted pentagrams? red text on black background? I feel like I linked into a parody of a Jack Chick tract. :)
Slightly more seriously – why do any religions feel the need to build on/refute/incorporate/reject previous religious beliefs? Christianity pulled elements of Judaism and Greek religions into itself. Islam pulled elements of Christianity and Judaism into itself. LDS was built on a foundation of Christian mythology. Modern paganism tends to attach itself to earlier pagan religions. Only the “UFO” religions tend to be wholly unique creations (like the Raelians, or the Scientologists), and they tend to suffer from a “lack of legitimacy” that religions that can link themselves to older religious traditions don’t seem to suffer from as much (though any “new religion” that sprouts up tends to suffer from a “lack of legitimacy” unless the creator finds a way to call his religion a form of “non-denominational, evangelical Christian” – even when it has little linkage to previous versions of Christianity amounts to “we use the Bible” – and then it gets a pass.)
I want to think that this is a reaction against the Church of Satan more than it is a reaction against Christianity. It reads like a group of people found out that the “Church” doesn’t actually believe in demons and decided to take a “nu-uh, demons do so exist” and then built their own mythology around that. Since Satanism is a poke in the eye towards Christianity, any kind of offshoot of the Church of Satan is going to have a heavy Christian influence just by heritage.
…
Asked and answered.
People like an under dog story. Satan is the under dog of Christianity and when you actual examine the Christan Satan he is the one who comes out as a good guy (well, lesser evil (Job)). Combine that with LaVeyan satanism and well you get that crap.
But… but… Sigils. Surely sigils are real. We’ve all seen very important designs, right?
Does Satan exist? My goodness! Satan not only exists, he won a freakin’ Stanley Cup.
[Citation needed.]
Isn’t it obvious? No society has ever had this balance, and every society has eventually collapsed. Except for the ones that haven’t yet. But they will. Eventually.
+1
I wonder, do Spiritual Satanists ask Satan to be their valentine?
LOL. zzzzzzzzzzzzzing
He should at least be more fun then jesus.
They ask Santa.
Didn’t Baudelaire tell us that the best evidence for Satan is that there’s no evidence for Satan? That’s my take on what he said, anyway.
That’s pretty much it – how do you argue with ‘logic’ like that?
To be fair, Christians really have given poor Satan a bad rap. He’s the fall guy for all the bad things their monster God allows to happen. I also don’t understand how Christians can believe in both a Trinitarian God and the Devil and not consider themselves polytheists (don’t even get me started on the Catholics and their saints/demigods).
That’s something I harp on from time to time. Even leaving aside Trinitarianism, by what definition of “god” would Satan not be a god? Stick him in the Greco/Roman, Babylonian, or Norse pantheon and he’d rank rather high.
But in comparison to an omnipotent, omniscient God even Odin and Zeus rank rather low. Satan’s power might be comparable to Zeus’s, but Zeus’s isn’t supposed to be comparable to God’s. Which I suspect is partly why Christians have always felt comfortable declaring that the gods of other cultures were actually Satan’s minions in disguise to mislead the pagans. Saying that one of Satan’s minions was the most powerful god in your particular pantheon is a nice bit of propaganda, since that means that Satan is even more powerful than your most powerful god, and God is even more powerful than that.
I’m not sure how Satan ranks any lower than Yahweh, though. Satan can apparently cause all manner of weather and geological effects, seduce humans into any action, can give a man an entire kingdom by sheer will, and (if horror films are to be believed) even create life. What can god do that the devil can’t?
“What can god do that the devil can’t?”
I smite entire civilzations on a whim. Let’s see satan do that!
Consign you to eternal torment or eternal happiness depending on how much he likes what you believe when you die?
Yeah, I agree, it’s kind of weird. Satan gets to have all kinds of power and God is kind of impotent in the world. Makes it easy to see why the early Gnostics thought that this world was governed by an evil god and the True God of Jesus had nothing to do with it at all.
Horror movies aside, though, I don’t think that Satan is supposed to be able to create life in any version of Christian theology that I’ve encountered. Subvert and corrupt it, yes, create it, no. That’s something that God can do that Satan can’t.
Well, Satan can do all kinds of things, but only because God allows him to. Because God loves us. Something about free will and fruit. It’s complicated.
:)
I also don’t understand how Christians can believe in both a Trinitarian God and the Devil and not consider themselves polytheists
Because polytheism was declared a heresy way back in the day so the word “three” was redefined to mean “one” so that the religion could be monotheistic. Trinitarianism isn’t supposed to make sense, it’s just supposed to be believed.
Christians, and Catholics in particular, have a deep mythology behind their idea of Satan/Lucifer (and can’t seem to agree on whether they are the same thing or not), which has always fascinated me. The whole Paradise Lost story of a war between rebelling angels under Lucifer and those loyal to god under Michael is taken by many to be factual doctrine without much scriptural support, and what I always wanted to know was how angels could fight each other in the first place. Are they mortal? Can their weapons harm each other? What did they have weapons for anyway, who were they expecting to invade heaven before they started fighting amongst themselves? And who in their right mind would even bother trying to defeat an omnipotent foe?
It seems to be that Satan/Lucifer must be as powerful as Yahweh, otherwise the story makes no sense. But if that’s true, then god isn’t the only god in town, and if god just decided to create Satan as a powerful adversary, then he must be more evil than the devil himself.
When asking about these things, the answer I would always get would be either “it’s a mystery” or “to test our faith”. Naturally these don’t answer anything, but at the time I accepted them as the best I was going to get. Now, though, from a more critical perspective I can see that they actually serve to undermine god further. The mystery of why god lets Satan exists simply affirms Satan’s power by acknowledging that for some reason or another god allows it, and the idea that the existence of evil is to test our faith implies that god is not omniscient enough to know the results of a test without performing it. Either way, some god.
It seems to be that Satan/Lucifer must be as powerful as Yahweh, otherwise the story makes no sense.
Eh. I always took it to be an indication of Lucifer’s hubris that he thought he could take on God and win and that it was never a question of who was going to win except in Lucifer’s mind. At least as far as the literary “Paradise Lost” story goes. As for Christian myths about Satan – well, they don’t make much sense if you think about them too much. But that’s true of a lot of things in Christian mythology/theology. You’re not supposed to think about them, you’re supposed to believe in them.
But if that’s true, then god isn’t the only god in town, and if god just decided to create Satan as a powerful adversary, then he must be more evil than the devil himself.
A consistent Christian theology would recognize this fact. IME, most Christian theologies aren’t terribly consistent.
The mystery of why god lets Satan exists simply affirms Satan’s power by acknowledging that for some reason or another god allows it, and the idea that the existence of evil is to test our faith implies that god is not omniscient enough to know the results of a test without performing it. Either way, some god.
This is exactly right. The story of God testing Job made sense to the guy who came up with it because he didn’t view his God as particularly good or omniscient – just someone who should be obeyed because he was powerful. That story doesn’t make a bit of sense if it’s applied to an omniscient God who knows the results before things happen. But the whole “God is testing us” meme comes right from Job.
Everybody is looking for possessions, little girls puking pea soup, evil spirits, etc., while the true evils of the world — wars, addictive drugs, abuse, hatred of one’s fellow man, etc., are seldom, if ever, attributed to a malignant spirit, but instead, are correctly attributed to bad humans.
There are no spirits — good or evil. Good and evil are attributes inherent to and defined by the most advanced species of ape.
Doesn’t the CoS say you have to believe in Satan if you reached some goal with the help of Magick? Or was that only with Crowley?
Satan was a relatively minor figure in Judaism until the Christians got a hold of him.
I flipped through a Satanists bible once – my university bookshop had an awesome world religion section :D. The message I got out of it was kinda… different. Full of ideas like “no point feeling bad about lust, you’re an animal, deal with it and move on” and “don’t turn the other check, coz then you’ll just get slapped again. Slap back!”
I’ve read many worse philosophies.
Atheistic Satanism isn’t so bad.
What’s so wrong with an ideology like “Do no harm unto others unless they harm you”?
It’s certainly not as bad as it is made out to be, but that particular idea, to not harm others unless they harm you, is morally dubious. What if someone harms you by accident, or harms you because they thought you harmed them first, or you are mistaken about them being the one to harm you, or you, acting as judge and jury (itself a bit of a problem) lose your temper and go a bit far in retribution. To go into situations with a mentality of “it’s ok to harm others IF x conditions are met” requires that you either have sufficient control and knowledge to apportion harm perfectly or you accept collateral damage as an inevitability.
The ideology is a bit more complex that that one sentence;)
And besides that, no ideology, philosophy or general rule set should ever be followed without common sense.
As a Satanist, I’m laughing my ass off at this silliness — “Spiritual Satanism”?? What a fucking crock! Delusional fools….
(And I have no problem with retribution — I just prefer watching the poor fools self-destruct, rather than get… personally involved.)
I’m not surprised to read what your state of being is upon reading “this silliness”. What you need to realize is that “Satan” is laughing at you as you self-destruct. There is nothing “Satan” can do that I cannot undo. Reply to me, Without Morals & DecencyKitty donn50@yahoo.com
I guarantee I have more morals and decency in one claw than you will EVER have, you delusional twit. Now BEGONE, as you are not worth my time.
And have a nice day!
Sounds suspiciously like the Golden Rule to me…
Anton LaVey borrowed many of his ideas from Aleister Crowley, though he refined them into a quasi-religion that had Set-Typhon as its central focus, using the Thelemic Do What Thou Wilt as a given. I think Mr. LaVey saw the Word of the Aeon, “Indulgence,” only as an antedote to the Puritanical Christer faith that allowed LaVey a vacuum that had to be filled. Anton knew what Hamlet did: Nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so.
Daniel, I read through that entire website, the whole thing. You owe me a damn pie.
I have some peanut butter pie in my fridge, come over any time…
can i haz address?
Satan is one of the most misunderstood characters in mythology.
But the one thing that can be said about him is that he represents intelligence.
Look at any of the mistrusted mythic people, i.e. Loki, eve’s tempter, vulcan, merlin (all usually associated with satan).
now look at the trusted characters, i.e. thor or hercules, king Arthur
one set uses the intellect to solve problems and in many cases confound the second set.
The second set are big muscle guys with a hammer or sword, and solve problems by beating them to death.
One reason the ‘tempter of eve’ is considered Satan is because it did one of the worse things ever… It told eve to think about what g0d said and realize g0d lied. The fruit of the tree was the tree of knowledge of good & evil and Life & death. Only g0d knew about them before, now we do because of satan…so g0d and his minions are really pissed about that.
You should check out the Melinda Snodgrass book Edge of Reason. I think the sequel just came out, too.
The Dark Lord? You mean like Voldermort?
XD
What a hoot! It has just enough authentic occult lore, just enough free-thinking, and just enough Nietzsche to hold the attention, but when Nemo yells “Dive” and the submarine stoops to glimpse interdimensional, intergalactic channels and such, it all gets pretty tedious. Surprised they forgot to bring up the Cainite gnostics and still-extant Yezidi Cult, which both upend everything sacred and profane: Jehovah is Satan and vice-versa. The trouble with the thesis is that its dualistic view differs from Christeranity’s not a whit. Both have to have their very own boogieman. These so-called spiritual Satanists are yet in the thrall of superstition and delusion. Science and reason tell us that there are no gods, demons, djinn and so forth. The web site author must also believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Bill Maher would add talking snakes.
the site is amusing….and uses some of my favorite arguments against christianity…otherwise..I will read more of it later…lol.
Like astrology, satanism is a useful idiot detector. If only fundies actually believed that “Satan is the lord of this world,” and that they should withdraw from worldly activities, such as politics.
Every deistic religion is an idiot detector. “Spiritual Satanism” is no exception.
I talk to the Dark Lord. Only he usually likes to be called Voldemort.
I appeal to the intellect of the readers of this site. Whether you choose to call yourself Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, Jewish or whatever, you KNOW there is but One Source from which we all spring. There have been many prophets that have visited the inhabitants of this world but we have paid attention to a few of them. Even those who have said to follow the teachings of the wise ones have allowed themselves to be overcome by the pleasures of the flesh, all but a few. Anyway, when the former Archangel, Lucifer, was cast from Paradise, he took a third of the Heavenly Host with him. Lucifer knew then and he knows now he is nothing compared to the One, True God. Lucifer’s plan all along was to prove we mortals are worth nothing and so far, we’ve proven him correct. Lucifer instructed a few of his lackeys to different cultures of the world, assume the forms of perfect humans and perform simple feats that would be taken as miracles. The fallen angels would be thought of as “gods”. Lucifer’s plan to draw “us” away from the One, True God was put into motion and made a success by us! The Teachings of Our God have been twisted by translation over the years that we don’t know where we come from, let alone the Name Of Our God. If you look at the teachings of Jesus and Muhammed, is that what we are practicing today? Malcolm Shabazz realized the Truth and was slain before he could reveal what he learned. By controlling the thoughts of the most decadant society known to man, Lucifer taught the Romans to twist Jesus’ Lessons, omit important Books of the Bible, create a false religion and instill his image as the Face of Jesus! Everything I’m saying is true, just read the information that is made available to you and search and research the ideas that’ve been kicking around in your head for awhile. I’d love someone to prove me wrong, but it can’t be done.
I appeal to the intellect of the readers of this site. Whether you choose to call yourself Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, Jewish or whatever, you KNOW there is but One Source from which we all spring.
You’re appealing to something, but that thing is not called “intellect”.
Thankfully, we are atheists, thus we “know” no such thing. Neither do you, though you believe otherwise.
Which only makes sense if you think angels and archangels exist. They don’t.
And that, I suppose, includes Jesus, who is also thought as god? Why are their miracles satanic and not Jesus’s? Because the book says so?
Why should that even matter? And if it does, why doesn’t God simply annihilate Satan rather than punish “us” for it?
“when the former Archangel, Lucifer, was cast from Paradise, he took a third of the Heavenly Host with him.”
Citation needed.
http://www.exposingchristianity.com