stop trying to "expose the hypocrisy of the right". that only works if your opponent is beholden to reality and has shame. that's not been what matters to them for over a decade now. you "expose their hypocrisy", and they'll just say "okay" and kill you anyway. they're openly, nakedly terroristic christian ethnonationalists. they believe any evil they commit is good because god is on their side. if this was a chess match, the right has already flipped the board over and pulled out a gun and the left is trying to argue that bishops aren't allowed to move vertically.
Pointing out the hypocrisy is extremely useful for convincing open minded individuals who are listening to the arguement. Specifically the next generation.
The Satanic Temple actually takes action to challenge laws, like when they commissioned a statue of Baphomet to be displayed at the Oklahoma state capitol after a monument of the 10 commandments was installed there. After a court case the monument was removed.
I donated to The Satanic Temple last month and encourage others to do the same. Given that my donation was used exactly as I’d intended (highlighting hypocrisy), I’ll be turning on recurring donations when I get home.
No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.
I don't remember where, but I saw a debate over the validity of the Satanic Temple. And one uber religious guy said something like "well if you don't believe in an actual Satan who does?"
To which the other guys just deadpan dropped "Christians".
Still don't quite understand what the first guy was going for there.
but I am leaning towards anyone who has a negative opinion of the Satanic Temple also being a fucking moron.
It's not that easy - I underwent the same kind of brainwashing when I was a kid (I grew up in Apartheid-South Africa) where everything from the peace-symbol to soccer to underwear that wasn't made from 100% cotton was hysterically painted as "satanic..." and I'm being quite literal.
It's difficult to undo all that - no matter how smart you happen to be.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Fool proof method for arguing with fascists: apply their logic to them.
They think their beliefs are universal. But the second you characterize them as the out-group of a violent in-group, they'll quickly qualify their statements. Be a rhetorical mirror to their misanthropic, suspicious, hateful worldview.
There was a book about authoritarian personalities I was reading a while ago that was fascinating and depressing. It had a study that showed right wing authoritarians are also willing to hunt down themselves
Suppose the federal government, some time in the future, passed a law outlawing various religious cults. Government officials then stated that the law would only be effective if it were vigorously enforced at the local level and appealed to everyone to aid in the fight against these cults.
[...]
Who can ’em be? Nearly everybody, it turns out. I started with a proposition to outlaw Communists and found authoritarian followers would be relatively likely to join that posse. Ditto for persecuting homosexuals, and ditto for religious cults, “radicals” and journalists the government did not like. So I tried to organize a posse that liberals would join, to go after the Ku Klux Klan. But high RWAs crowded out everyone else for that job too. Then I offered as targets the very right-wing Canadian Social Credit Party, the Confederation of Regions Party, and the mainstream Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. These were the parties of choice for most authoritarian followers at the time, yet high RWAs proved more willing to persecute even the movements they liked than did others.
Finally, just to take this to its ludicrous extreme, I asked for reactions to a “law to eliminate right-wing authoritarians.” (I told the subjects that right-wing authoritarians are people who are so submissive to authority, so aggressive in the name of authority, and so conventional that they may pose a threat to democratic rule.) RWA scale scores did not connect as solidly with joining this posse as they had in the other cases. Surely some of the high RWAs realized that if they supported this law, they were being the very pople whom the law would persecute, and the posse should therefore put itself in jail. But not all of them realized this, for authoritarian followers still favored, more than others did, a law to persecute themselves. You can almost hear the circuits clanking shut in their brains: “If the government says these people are dangerous, then they’ve got to be stopped.”
This stunt used to work with the Bush-era (Jr. or Sr.) Republicans. They actually believed in the constitution, they didn't like thinking of themselves as hypocrites. They took pride in having a system of beliefs that was supported by logic. They believed in debates, and thought that their ideas would win.
The MAGA Republicans have clearly abandoned all of that. They don't care about logic. They don't care about the constitution. What matters is their fear. What matters is their interpretation of their religion. What matters is their strongman. It's a fascist movement.
Putting up a satan-inspired display only convinces them that they're right to be afraid, and that they truly are fighting against evil, and that they need their strongman to root out that evil. I still think it's important to push back, even if it only encourages the fascists. But, it's not helpful in the way it used to be when the other side was capable of being embarrassed by hypocrisy.
The bushes stoked fear as well. Remember when they went after the gays? Oh how about blacks getting free from prison? Willie Horton. That's all they know. Hit them as hard as you can with hypocrisy in their face over and over. Then they will learn when something similar happens to them.
The same way members of the Church of Satan are Satanists. What your probably thinking of is Devil Worship which is different. You can actually go to either of these organizations websites and they should be able to give you a good overview.
The same way that most Americans say "praise Jesus", I guess. Sure, the latter case might actually believe in Jesus, but they're not worshiping him according to his beliefs.
The satanic Temple is the same in reverse: they don't believe in Satan, but they believe hat following certain tenets make you a better person.
Edit: On a related note, I look forward to the day that voice to text can handle such "complicated" words as "tenets". FFS.
I don't understand the part about not censoring calls for genocide. I feel like calling for the death of a group of people should not be covered under free speech. There's obviously a limit to free speech and this seems like a good example.
On the other hand, I don't write see what uni presidents can be expected to do about something that is or should clearly be handled by govt authorities.
Maybe a tangent, but the mythology of Satan isn’t associated with any moral or ethical being. Per my understanding of the standard myths around Satan, he wants literal murder and destruction of humanity. I don’t understand why reasonable or serious people (those uninterested in shock tactics) would care about associating themselves with the symbology or character of Satan. Is this any different from associating yourself with any other literal mass murder wanting entity? For example, Church of School Shooters?
I get that the idea is to expose the silliness in organized religion, but associating yourselves with an entity that represents destructive tendencies or desires is equally silly.
I’ve no opinion on the Satan display, it’s just people arguing over symbols. When those symbols prevent someone’s self actualization, then it’s something to worry about.
Some view Satan as a symbol for the rebellion against tyranny and questioning authority. His questioning of the Christian God is admirable in my opinion. Christians seem to use him as a warning for what happens if you question them but I don't see him as a destructive character, quite the opposite in some ways.
Religious people are not all fanatics, or all opposed to the self actualization of others, so adopting symbology that they would find abhorrent does not win favors or friends. In fact, religious zealots get some sort of existential validation by the existence of Church of Satan etc. I think choosing a symbol associated with destructive ideas is not good marketing if you’re aiming for people who aren’t angsty about religion, or biased against people of faith. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to let people be themselves, including have faith. The problem is that we’ve forgotten that separation of faith and state is needed for civil discourse and social harmony.
I get that the idea is to expose the silliness in organized religion, but associating yourselves with an entity that represents destructive tendencies or desires is equally silly.
Many religions have gods raped and murdered. And we see them all over the place. There's literally a smash hit game called Hades. Holy Hell, we literally named a planet after it.
Okay? So what’s the point? Hades is equally unreasonable for associating with as a rational or civil person. If you want people to think you have good judgment I don’t think associating with symbols that represent murder and destruction makes sense. The problem is that Satan’s myth is all about destruction, whereas the same cannot be said for God. If you’re retconning Satan then that’s a different story I suppose.
Satanism stems from an enlightenment era conception of Satan, not the medieval.
In the satanic temple's case they also adopt some of the more classic imagery as a way to push against Christianity when it oversteps its bounds. The more grotesque image of satan eorks perfectly for this as it's much easier to show the hypocrisy with than any other I've encountered.
Side note: as far as i know, god is the only character in the bible that already has, and has promised to again destroy the world. Satan (which translates to the accuser or adversary) has mostly just questioned god and tested peoples faith.
So cutting away the popular notions from centuries later actually puts satan in a much more favorable light.
It sounds like you need to actually read up on the history and tenets of The Satanic Temple. The name is ironic, poking fun at the pearl-clutching American Christofascists and calling them out on out their hypocrisy.
What did the serpent do? He never told anyone to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (also, can we stop for a second to recognize how awful it is that god was so against humans learning the difference between good and evil? The fuck??), he just describes it, and Eve eats it. As far as I remember, he never directly tells her to eat it.
Who destroyed all life on earth with a flood (lol right).
Who is the one that slaughtered Job's family, and ruined his life, over a wager? Satan certainly never had that kind of power.
You should look into what the Bible actually has to say about Lucifer/Satan, compared to what your cultural understanding of the character might be.