Ask a Satanist

Dr.S this is a pretty interesting religion (if i can even call it that). I have read through your responses and it seems like satanism is something that has become part of you. My question is a simple one. How did you become a satanist, what made you take that leap of faith and begin to acknowledge yourself as a satanist?

Isn’t Satan, or the Devil, nothing more than our internal rationalizations to do evil, to value our self-worth as greater than that of others? And isn’t rationalization nothing more than the process of lying…even to ourselves if necessary?

Are you using Satan as an adversarial opponent to the gods of traditional religions? If so, for what purpose?

I know you said this

but,

how do you explain yourself when people accuse you of being satan worshipper (with all the stereotypes in mind)?

Would you compare Lucifer to Prometheus?

It wasn’t so much of a leap of faith as it was a process of recognizing myself in the words of LaVey, and later the foundational material behind those words. As it was a reflection of how I already thought, it was more of a crystallization than a shift of gears. An avenue to pursue how I already thought, and a description of how I already lived. Taking the label was more of a matter of self honesty than anything else.

Well, in a sense, yes! If you define evil as those things our collective masters tell us we MUST NOT DO, the devil is certainly an apt representative of freeing oneself from those mental chains. Who decides what evil is. You? Me? Allah? Who decides ultimately, if not the self?

And why should any healthy person not value their own life as primary? Self preservation is the highest law, after all.

Yes, deity oriented religious constructs are a good example of ‘truth’ flowing down from the masters to slaves, but there are many others. Government, media, advertisers, various political and social interests pushing shit like ‘political correctness’ in all its various manifestations, social mores defining how we should think, speak, and behave. Satan also extends his interests to these things :wink:

Depends on the context I guess. If I were in a business situation, they wouldn’t know to begin with. If it was a friend or someone I gave a shit about, I would explain what Satanism is really about. If it was some random person, I may just embrace the role, or tell them to fuck off…depending on my mood. :slight_smile:

As for lucifer and prometheus, I guess you could compare the two light bringers…but I don’t really place that high a value on mythology aside from the use of archetype and metaphor, where it is often useful.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it philosophy.

I will remind the thread visitors of two rules that exists within the Religion forum:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=169044#p2090563

Because I did not notice this previously, I will not take recourse at this time, but further breach of these rules will result in reflexive consequence as per the outlined rules of the forum.
To be clear, that means warnings will begin to be issued.

There is no need to address this post’s content. Doing so will not result in any change of this decree.

I do not. I define evil as immoral acts, specifically the violation by any sentient being of the rights of another sentient being to their life, liberty and property through force or fraud. (All else is individually determined virtue.)

How so, given that the Devil, our temptation to misuse force or deception, is an onerous example of a liar and deceiver?

Unbiased, objective reason defines it as I’ve done above–based on the assumption that life is of value and sentient life is of ultimate value.

“Primary”? You missed what I said (intentionally?). We carry our own weight, and look out for #1…among our fellow creatures with the same/equal rights as ours.

Throw religion out the window. All’s they’ve done is confuse the issue of morality by tacking on a lot of self-serving bs.

BTW, the pursuit of Truth is the highest law. Truth, knowledge, justice, love and beauty. Anything else is a human generated lie.

Yes, deity oriented religious constructs are a good example of ‘truth’ flowing down from the masters to slaves, but there are many others. Government, media, advertisers, various political and social interests pushing shit like ‘political correctness’ in all its various manifestations, social mores defining how we should think, speak, and behave. Satan also extends his interests to these things :wink:

What is Satanism really about for you? And if you lie or misrepresent yourself to anyone, that’s got to come back and cause problems for your credibility. Once someone determines you will lie, how can they believe anything you say?

Ok, good for you.

The difference between use and misuse when it comes to force or deception is a matter of individual perspective.

Unbiased? That would mean ALL life, not just human life (including plant life) is of value.Cows are sentient. Ultimate value? One might wonder what you had for dinner last night.

If you, as I suspect you do, mean ‘human’ life, on what do you base this special pleading? Tasking it back a step though, why is life of value, and what do you even mean by ultimate value?

Anyhow, treat these questions as rhetorical for the purpose of contrast…jets just say I do not think there is such thing as value outside of the mind where it rests and is created. Things don’t ‘have’ value, things are given value. Rather, we project value onto things.

No I read everything you said. There is no such thing as equality or rights, unless they are backed by force. As such, instances of both arise at the whim of those with the most force…either social or military.

Strangely enough, truth, justice, love, and beauty are all linguistic constructs, and purely man made. All living things, though, will do whatever they can to survive.

Does that mean you don’t get to watch nude nubile virgins dance round a fire and then wantonly desecrate their virtue, because I’m only in on religions that do that.

I should become a druid really.

And more seriously why do you bother, wouldn’t just being an atheist be the same thing?

It always puzzles me to see people define their whole Weltanschauung off of one particular superstition that they happen to disagree with. I see no point in joining those ranks. So no…not the same thing at all. The fact that there are no external deities in Satanism is about as important as the fact there are no gummy bears in whole wheat bread.

Hey Dr. S., how’ve you been…?

Very banal questions:

(1) How long have you been a satanist…?
(2) How did you get into it…?
(3) Of what benefit has it been to you, in the sense of practicality, and I suppose, personal perspective…?

Morality is not negotiable. It is wrong to murder, enslave or steal. To say or imply otherwise is to commit fraud.

“Cows are sentient”?–in the conscious but not in the self-awareness senses of the term.

We are the only creatures on this world (you may argue a few rare borderline exceptions) with the ability to project our self-awareness into the “shoes” of another, and thereby feel the result of what we are about to do to them from their point of view. In a word, we have the capacity for empathy, from that we have the ability to judge right from wrong–which most people would agree with even without assuming the equality of human rights.

And we are apparenly the only creatures able to do so.

Whether human rights are enforced or violated, they still exist, as deduced from the assumption. Who has a greater right to their life than other? I guess the greatest evil from Satan is that “he” justifies the double standard.

“Truth”’ is the overarching term for the four aspects of it that followed. Yes the last 3 are man made, but knowledge, the one you left out, is objective by definition.

Morality is subjective.

Hello Mr. Rasa. It’s been a while, but as I do recall you were one of the more reasonable ones.

1:20 years since I adopted the label.

2:I ran into a Satanist that made a lot of sense, so I ordered the Satanic Bible and read it. I found the philosophy therin to be mostly a crystallization of how I already thought and felt. I felt adopting the label, in addition to being stimulating, was the intellectually honest thing to do.

3:Satanism is essentially a psychological process of working towards autodeification. It is a very empowering ride. Even so, Satanist is more of a description than anything so I’m pretty sure I’d be exactly where I am had I never done it. I would still be the same creature.

All well and good, but let’s try to stay on topic :wink:

I’m just going to die in the end, why should I treat myself as a god? If I ascribe that much value to my life, there’s even more reason to dread death.

what’s the difference between satanism and atheism?

God bless
-hth

Satanism is a religion for spoiled children, atheism isn’t.

It’s all about me, me, me, me …

Violation of Religion Rule 3.

One Warning Issued.
-TheStumps

Also, with this whole bottom up thing, how do you get passed the concept of birth? Do you deny your own birth?

If everything must be tested, how do you get passed the fact of the concept of self?

If the self is important then why do you love your self?

If realization of your beliefs is external to self, then you should do nothing until you die.

If you love desire then how are you evil? -if you are not evil then how may you be bottom-up?

If your goal is not to grow satanism, then how did you learn of it?

If satanism by definition has rebels then it is irrational.

If ideas in satanism are hard to understand, then satanism is hard to understand.

If satanism is hard to understand then it is not rational.

If satanism is not rational then why do you live?

Is life not rational?

Why is satanism not the majority?

If satanism is not the majority, then it is weak.

Therefore, if one’s purpose is to grow satanism, they are weak.

Do you accept being weak?

Do you think you are strong in a certain way?

If this way is not the majority then you are lonely.

Depression is due to a lack of intelligence.

God bless
-hth

In the words of laVey “Life is like a party. Nobody wants to leave a good party” With that said, even if one is to choose to milk this life for all it is worth, I see no reason to dread death. I don’t remember any sort of discomfort or unpleasantness before I was conceived, and I expect more of the same once I am gone.

Value, on the other hand, is always internally and subjectively manufactured. People value all sorts of things that are mutually exclusive to each other. You can choose to project this highest sense of value onto a screen, and name it god, allah, humanity, or government, but it remains an external projection of an internal manifestation. Realizing this, you can choose how much value, or none at all, to give to your own self. From the Satanic point of view, the world springs forth from phenomenal experience, and at the primacy of this is always the self.

Atheism is a lack of belief in deities, while Satanism is a system of philosophy centred on the age old adversarial current that is behind innovation and change. The word ‘atheism’ is insufficient, as it doesn’t describe what Satanism IS, but rather one insignificant detail about what it isn’t.

Wow, you must be some sort of philosophical genius. Why don’t you tell us more… ](*,)