Atheist VS Satanism VS Christianity v2(offensive content removed)

[kaneada]

richardhutnik said:

kaneada said:

richardhutnik said:

kaneada said:

TheEvilBanana said:

Warning: This is the truth and as I believe it, do not participate in this thread if you're easily offended or closed minded. The exchange of contradictory ideas is what keeps this thing called the search for knowledge going. This thread is for people who are open minded, logical, and don't deny facts. If you are christian, you can try to post in this thread, but if you are too offended and are just going to insult and blasheme my God and creator Satan, just please go away now.

Oh boy here we go...I say this with no disrespect, but you don't have the slightest clue what your talking about in relation to LeVayan Satanism. First of all, Anton wrote a book, one that embraced the carnal nature of human beings. To some of us, that book made perfect sense, because it resonated with something that we knew to be true all along, that human beings should not live in abstinence of their own desires and as a matter of fact are at their best when they are allowed to indudge their desires.

The problem with mindless engaging in one's own desires is that these desires end up resulting in bad consequences.  Lack of self-control causes harm, and to just give in is a problem.   Yes, it sounds nice, but then you face the hangover, the bill, or other consequences you need to clean up, or you leave for someone else to do.  Humans are carnal, but this carnality is finite.  

Mindless engaging? If the point of Satanism is to achieve self awareness and personal excellence then nothing you do is mindless...There is a difference between induldgence and compulsion. What you're describing is compulsive behavior.

Self-improvement doesn't come in, in indulging every impulse and desire one has.  Self-improvement comes through denial of some things, delaying gratification, and then working towards something larger.  It means making base desires subservient to things greater.  And the excellence needs to be recognized by others, not in a way that is people pleasing, and mere image, but has character.  

I will say that you have touched on something here though.  It can be hard to tell when engaging in indulgences isn't a compulsion.   Strong desires compel people to do things.  Now, to end up intellectually managing it, and engaging in the proper time, can violate this.  But, I was operating under the presumption that LaVey Satanism was opposed to Christian principles, so thus it would speak of engaging in indulgences now, and whenever, rather than practicing restraint, and aspiring for greater, beyond one's self.  If it doesn't do this, then I fail to see the actual difference, unless LeVay's Satanism is actually opposed to a faux image of real Christianity.

I disagree with several statements you've made; however, I don't think I am qualifying what an iduldgence is and what that means in Satanism very well, so allow me to try. It is "our" belief that Christianity teaches people to deny their emotional spectrum, to deny things such as desire, anger, pleasure, many of which lead to experiences that we believe are necessary to leading a gratifying life. Chrisitianity views certain carnal behaviors as impure with an exception of certain pre-defined conditions as defined in the Bible. We believe that those things should be indudged, but be indulged responsiblity hence to avoid the extreme of compulsive behavior.

We hold the contention that personal excellence is owed to the self, that the only person it must gratify is ourselves, whether it be an artistic endeavour, career growth, card collecting, whatever suits us. While you touch on a point very accurately, that sometimes there is little line between induldgence and compulsion, that is what we as Satanists aim to clairfy for ourselves, to better be aware of who we are as people, which in our view leads to self mastery. Once again, a Satanist doesn't view their beliefs as a religion, we don't pray to or worship any God, we are at heart athiest objectivists, but we view the idea of Satan as a representation of humanity as a carnal, materialistic being, that should be celebrated.

In some respects you're right, there are many views between Satanism and Chrisitianity that are similar, not everything is diametrically opposed. While we believe in touching on what some might call negative emotions, we also celebrate the idea's of love and togetherness. We do reject the Christian relgion as a false account of history, it doesn't mean we don't share some values with the core philosophy behind it. LaVey was against the parts of Christianity that asked that people denied aspects of themselves because they are viewed as negative human traits. However, there is not such thing as a Satanist that hadn't come to those conclusions before they were aware of Satanism. LaVey touched on something in his philosophy that all of us knew through our own observations to be true. I didn't read the Satantic Bible and get some nifty new idea's, I read something that resonated with my understanding of the world long before I was aware of its existence.

That being said the principle's of Satanism will only make sense to a certain subset of people, to anyone else it will seem like scary hocus pocus from a bunch of kooks that wish to trash everything that we as people of planet Earth find sacrisanct. I'm not advocating anything here, but there is plenty of interviews and books available that you may find helps you better understand our view of the world. It's completely up to you...if you want an objective view try the material on religious tolerance http://www.religioustolerance.org/

Edit: Last thing to consider is that Satanism is not a concrete set of rules, people who are Satanic interpret the beliefs different so don't be suprised if another LeVayan Satanist has another way of viewing those princples...