You’d have to work in the “inbred hellbilly” bit somewhere 
A balance of power of course. Am I the only one here who has always seen God & Satan more as a pair of bitter divorced parents (God having full custody, Satan having visitation every other weekend and for weeks in the summer…), or perhaps more like the old CCCP and USA than purely the emodiment of good & evil?
As for the type of Satanism posted by Mr Splitfoot… Sounds all well & good, but I have to wonder (as a point of debate), if that hedonism would do us all that well, were it to be accepted as the culural norm?
To wit, on a macro scale, would it cause things to break down and enormous amounts of social friction that didn’t previously exist to occur, or would things run a lot smoother with this somewhat modified version of “The Golden Rule”…
Historically, Christian or otherwise, it’s the guy with the huge wallet & a lot of patience that keeps the whole ship from going to hell (no pun intended)…
Umm, this may sound like really stupid question, but here goes. Isn’t Satan, the devil, Lucifer etc, the same ‘person’? (Im afraid I have never been educated on anything related to religion and have never sought out information on it.)
Also, knowing absolutely nothing about Satan, what’s the story with him (nothing too detailed, I don’t want to bother anyone too much).
Zeena LaVey & Nikolas Schreck (sp?) now?
Os Guisness, a British C’tian philosopher on LaVeyan Satanism- “Ayn Randians in black robes”.
I think as far as a title for this belief system goes, Egoistic Hedonism works pretty well.
In essence you do what you want when you want, and don’t care how it affects anyone outside of your own circle of friends, nor could you be bothered with events that exist outside of your personal microcosm.
That, to me, perfectly describes an egoistic hedonist.
Satan may represent a balance of power, but I wouldn’t consider that something given to humanity.
I read the God-Satan relationship as more of the father and rebellious son type. Son rebels, Father kicks him out, son says “I’ll show him”, etc. Maybe that’s why I associate Satanism with teen-aged boys. I don’t know.
Are you serious? WOW!!!
What was he really like? I can imagine family reunions were fun-was he ever invited to any? Or like christenings or weddings?
:eek:
Has a nice ring to it, too. Maybe I’ll go with that from now on.
In Christian school (Baptist denomination) we * were * taught that pride was a sin. What they said was that all talent comes from God and is given to you to use in his service. Thus, having pride in an accomplishment is wrong. (It’s not your accomplishment: it’s God’s.) Pride in an ability was seen as being just as shallow as pride in beauty.
This sounds a lot like tribalism. Wouldn’t society fracture into small groups under such a belief system?
1 John 2
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
It seems that self-aggrandizing pride is the problem. I don’t think that a sense of satisfaction after a job well done is seen as a sin in Christianity.
Has anyone here read Dr. Elaine Pagel’s book, The Origin of Satan? (1995, Random House).
She offers some interesting insights into Christianity’s version of Satan. The character is very different from the one that appears in Jewish scripture. To simplify her statements, Between the time of the building of the 2nd Temple to the Roman occupation of Palestine, within the Jewish community there ere a small yet vocal group who excoriated their fellow Jews by identifying them with Satan. In the first century, C.E. this small yet vocal group took the unpleasant figure of Satan and twisted him into the evil, malevolent character better know to Christianity. They turned the prosecutor of God’s court into His antagonist and even His rival. These writings inturn influenced Mark and the other Gospel writers, giving us the version of Satan best known to Christianity.
Have you ever “called up” a demon?
Did you actually see them?
If so, do you realize you can make a million dollars by proving this?