Yes or no- was Russia officially an atheist nation from 1917 until the collapse of the Soviet Union?
Yeah.
Yes or no- was organized religion reduced to almost nothing in Russua in that time?
Yeah.
SINCE the fall of the Soviet Union, anything goes. Many religious groups, Christian and otherwise, both mainstream and off-the-wall have been recruiting there, with mixed success.
Fact remains, Russia is a mighty secularized nation, as are most of its former satellites. And it’s still the most populous nation in Europe.
So, any study that does NOT include it is guilty of cherry picking, which is unforgivable.
As I understand it, Satan is “limited” to inflicting torture beyond measure upon countless souls for eternity. And, of course, to providing countless bribes, explanations, cultural pressure, evidence, and earthly rewards to lure unsuspecting souls to their doom, such that few manage to resist.
Out of curiosity: what would it look like if Satan were without limits?
What could be more appropriate than a zombie thread about Christianity?
Let’s say a person really buys into the whole Christian belief system and they’re really big on sin. They believe sin is everywhere and it’s virtually impossible to avoid - no matter how hard you try to live a good life, you’re going to fail. And they don’t take a liberal view on mercy and forgiveness. So eternal damnation is the lot of pretty much everyone.
So a person in this situation might decide if they’re going to spend eternity suffering in Hell anyway, they might as well enjoy their time on Earth. They’d sell their soul to Satan for whatever secular rewards they can get, knowing they’re going to end up in Hell but figuring they at least got something out of it first.
As we can read from that, Satanists – LaVeyan Satanists, at any rate* – do not really worship (or believe in the existence of) Satan. They worship themselves, and Satan is but the pet-name they give their own egos. Satanism is not simply inverted Christianity – where Christians are enjoined to love and do good, Satanists are not enjoined to hate or do evil. Satanism is partly inverted Christianity, in that it rejects humility and substitutes pride as a value, rejects self-denial and substitutes self-indulgence as a value. Another difference is that, unlike Christianity, Satanism does not claim to be for everybody, but only for an elite of bold, fierce souls. Anton Szandor LaVey once described his Church of Satan as “Objectivism with mysticism added.”
This is what I came to say… My definition of “worship” is attributing power over yourself to a mystical being… The people who spend the most time promoting the power of Satan are Christians.
The good thing about zombies is that occasionally you discover a response to one of your posts that you missed the first time around. Ignorance fought!
The common take is that Satan offers them power to rule over others. Hell is not always taken as a place of constant equalized torment, but you can have a person suffer for you if you can rule over them. This ties in very nicely to the concept of reincarnation, the promise to come back as someone important and powerful by basically sucking life from those under you. I believe the Zodiac killer held such beliefs.
Another aspect is that some are deceived into worshiping by mistaking Satan for God, in Revelation Jesus reveals a temple as a synagog of Satan. Such as one is made to believe that a being that requires rules that have punishments and discrimination and require worship and a percent of income is a god worth worshiping, because they are told that is god they do.
According to medieval stories, yes. The folks who burned witches always had stories of powers that the witches had used, which they had received by entering into a pact with the devil. Causing cows stop giving milk, people to sicken, and babies to be stillborn were popular. So was flying while sitting on a sieve (later a broom) and being able to escape churchmen by throwing a spool of thread out of a window and being pulled after it.
YMMV but his point of view was that Satan was misunderstood and that God was truely the evil one. Satan wasn’t a nice guy but he was one that demanded and acted to get the power that he deserved and not be subserviant to God.
He worshipped Satan because he thought that he (personally) was superior to almost all people and he wanted his proper place of power over them. By worshipping Satan and showing you were strong you would have more status/power over others in the afterlife as well as help attaining power in this life.
He was a scary individual. He tended to lump people into 3 types…superior to him, inferior to him or equal to him. Only people he considered equal to him were relatively safe around him and that was what he considered me. I tried to limit my time with him but, because of circumstances had to spend some time around him.
Basically a belief in complete ‘freedom’ to do what you wish…even if that is harmful to those around you.