LogFAQs > #974950435

I remember when I was going through a satanist phase, I was dabbling in philosophical satanism as a way of lampooning rigid, dogmatic Christianity that's baked into the foundation of western society. Call it being a contrarian, call it a thought exercise, I don't care. What eventually got me off of that ride was realising that the Satanic Temple was a dogshit org headed by an antisemite who was suing four former TST members for posting about antifa (despite Doug Mesner, the main head of the Satanic Temple, maintaining a pro-eugenics website and platforming a known KKK member), and subsequently learning that modern satanism was made up by a carnie using one of the foundational texts of the modern white supremacy movement.

I still fuck with the imagery and the general transgressive nature of it all, but I'm strictly against religious establishment - whether it's the Vatican aiding and abetting offending pedophiles, or the Satanic Temple being built on a legacy of hucksters and cozying uncomfortably close to neo-nazis. I don't begrudge what Christianity or Satanism means to the individual, but when you put another human being in a position of power to disseminate the principles of those viewpoints to other people, something extremely sick begins to form and it leads to abuse.

Though that relates more to satanism as a movement and attempted religion than any feelings towards "the devil". So here's my take on that: "the devil" was made up by people to contrast with "the lord", and neither really exist. What I think most represents the concept of "the devil" are groups and people who prey on the gullibility, impulsiveness and desperation of others to sell them a solution to a greater spiritual evil, often for their own gain. Whether it be ideological gain, ala stigmatizing and scapegoating another group of people out of prejudice, or physical gain in the form of monetary donations, "the devil" manifests in the form of a forced dichotomy that makes you The Good Guy and the other people The Bad Guy.

There is such thing as an informed opinion, and experts do exist on certain matters. The world isn't so subjective that you can substitute reality with your own delusions as a "free thinker", that's how you start believing that the world is flat and that other racial groups are inherently flawed compared to your own. "The devil" is a force that drives you towards those bad answers for some sort of gain for the people doing the misleading. It's something we created as a way to be cruel and selfish.

What do I think of Satan? I think his role in the story of Christianity is interesting, and that it can be extrapolated any number of ways for good or for bad. What do I think of "the devil"? I think "the devil" is just as likely to exist in the Vatican or in some huckster's dogshit megachurch in Utah as it is to exist in a hypocritical pseudo-religious establishment as the Satanic Temple.