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On April 30th 1966, Anton Szandor LaVey declared it to be Anno Satanas, year one of the satanic age. For those who have never heard of this religion, I'm going to attempt explaining it and I'll try to keep it short, sweet, and simple. Then I'll provide a couple of websites that I find very helpful and informative in hopes that you do too. 

I'll be talking about LaVeyan Satanism rather than traditional because I'm not very educated in the theistic views enough to really discuss it. So I'll be discussing the atheistic view. 

Satanism is a religion of the flesh. It revolves around a human being's carnal instinct and doesn't frown upon acting on those instincts. "Life-the great indulgence, death-the great abstinence; therefore, live life to the fullest here and now" is probably the best way to describe it in one sentence. It revolves around living life to the fullest and achieving happiness from within. Satanists don't believe in any afterlives such as Heaven or Hell, and we don't believe in any deities such as God or the devil. We believe we are our own gods. We worship ourselves for we have the strength to achieve our goals. We believe in our selves to pull through a situation instead of believing a god will pull us through something. If i need help with a personal situation, im going to get up off of my a** and make things right rather than just praying and hoping for things to fall into view. I'm not saying people who worship or believe in God are weak or unhappy, I'm just explaining how Satanists roll without offending others (at least trying not to offend others).

Why Satan? Because Satan is symbolic for a human being's natural nature and mentality. Satanism revolves around the "eye for an eye" mentality. Satan is also symbolic for a person's individuality. The Satanist can change up the religion to fit their own personal philosophy and it won't be frowned upon. Everyone is different and may not believe in the same things so it is A-OK to believe in only some parts of the religion. Satanism is meant to benefit the satanist. 

There is also a great deal of responsibility by taking up this religion. True satanism isn't about filling every instinct without regards to others. Just because one has a sexual/harmful desire towards somebody else doesn't mean one should fulfill that desire by murdering or raping somebody. That would lead to jailtime or worse. That prevents one from living life to the fullest because there's nothing cool about having to lay low from the cops or about spending years in isolation or prison. Even though satanism is about indulging in life, it's done with respect to other people who are affected. 
 
A common misconception about Satanism is ritual and what the satanist does during a ritual. I'm not very informed on rituals yet so I'll try and be as accurate as I can. The satanist doesn't summon demons from the underworld, kidnap virgins, or sacrifice either unborn or unbaptized babies. neutral However, I'm not very aware of what happens during a satanic ritual. I'll research that soon. 

One of my favorite parts in The Satanic Bible is the section about love and hate. Love is a very strong emotion. So strong that I don't want to waste it on people who either don't appreciate it or who are undeserving of it. If I said I loved everybody as a brother or sister (granted I don't even know them), then how would my best friends who I've known my entire life, know that I really love them more than just an acquaintance? What I'm trying to say is, I'm not going to go around saying to people who I don't even know that I love them, because truth is, I don't. Same thing on the topic of hate, hate is just as powerful as love. Hate is reserved for those who truly deserve it. For those who have personally gotten on my bad side. Basically, love and hate are two very strong and special emotions that should be saved for those who truly deserve them instead of just throwing them around to those who are unappreciative and undeserving. 

That's all for now, don't hesitate to discuss or debate or to add your opinion. I'm open to a good conversation. I'll add a couple informative and educational websites. The first one is the official church of Satan website and the next one is geared towards Theists and still very informative. 

http://www.churchofsatan.com/home.html

http://www.joyofsatan.org/

Oh...I don't think they're crazy, some people claim to be Satanists but have the completely wrong idea of what it really is. They are the uneducated.


Yes, it sounds at first like it's a selfish philosophy, but I disagree, I think it's "realistic" with respect to what I already believed from before. Of course other people won't find it realistic, but that's why everyone is different. As for Satanism being a reaction to what LaVey objected to, I only partly agree. I don't know much about the man as an individual but I think he noticed how supposedly "faithful" men would give into their natural carnal instinct. I wouldn't really call Satanism a backlash....I've heard the argument that Satanism was created to oppose Christianity but, hasn't te devil been around in older religion before Christianity even existed? And in those religions, wasn't the devil a different character of sorts? I'm just saying, I don't really think Satanism was created as a backlash to anything. But of course, I could be wrong.


Sure! That'd be really cool, this way people who are interested can easily find info. I wonder how many other atheists are in this guild who would be interested enough to search in a subforum like that..? Anyways, yes thank you, that'd be great.