Source: Iben Thranholm
In the US, explicitly satanic groups have begun drawing attention to themselves in the context of public governmental ceremonies.
Just this month, a member of the so-called Satanic Temple was allowed to make an opening prayer to Lucifer at a local council meeting in Alaska.
Assembly members stood around in a circle while the Satanist asked them to “embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge.” She then ended the surreal prayer with the words, “Hail Satan.”
Thoughtfully, meeting attendees were reminded that they did not have to participate in the opening ritual.
The Satanic Temple (TST) is a fairly new organization. Founded in 2013, it fights for political change by pointing out the ostensibly preferential treatment Christianity enjoys in politics. TST has seven chapters in the USA and Europe, and claims a membership of 100,000.
One of the group’s objectives is to embed Lucifer in the public school system by establishing afternoon clubs, adoringly dubbed “After School Satan”, which is TST’s response to a Supreme Court ruling allowing evangelical programs to operate in schools.
Currently nine clubs are listed under the program, including in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Washington DC. The clubs will focus on “rationalism, free inquiry … and fun”, according to a promotional video.
TST itself emphasizes that it seeks to implement “After School Satan” in locations where active Christian children’s clubs operate.
TST said it is “not interested in operating After School Satan clubs in school districts that are not already hosting the Good News Club.”
The Temple is attempting to present a challenge to the Good News Club, an interdenominational Christian program for five to 12-year-olds, operating in over 3,500 public schools across the country.
The Christian club’s curriculum was designed by the Child Evangelism Fellowship and includes Bible studies and workshops.
A spokesperson for TST, Lucien Greaves, said the controversial clubs will give children other alternatives than the Good News Club, which he claimed instills children “with a fear of Hell and God’s wrath.”
TST also aims to place demonic books on the shelves in the libraries of public schools, as well as having satanic prayers recited at high school games. It is, however, somewhat ironic that the Satanists’ intention is currently to get children to stop fearing hell, which runs counter to Christian teaching.
Satanists are of the opinion that Christianity has had too much influence on American society, but this must be because they have not kept up to date on the latest research. Or that they are governed by a different factor than reason.
But it seems that Europe may also be heading in the wrong religious direction. In June, several European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, were present at a bizarre ritual in connection with the opening of the world’s longest tunnel, the new Gotthard tunnel, in Switzerland this past June.
The ceremony is performed by masked men dressed in grass costumes, fallen angels descending from the ceiling and a man with a goat’s head, whom the other performers in the ceremony appear to worship. The opening ritual has subsequently been interpreted as depicting satanic scenes from hell.
More than one publication, and certainly more conspiracy theorists, slammed the dark performance “Satanic.”
A disturbing trend
According to The Pew Research Center, religious “nones”, a category that includes atheists, agnostics, and the “nothing in particular” group, make up 23 per cent of US adults, up from 16 per cent in 2007.
This group is growing as a percentage of the US population. At the same time, they are becoming increasingly secular, Pew reports, “a trend that also makes the US public overall less religious,” according to surveys made as part of the Religious Landscape Study.
But there is more to the story. To begin with, this group is not uniformly nonreligious. Most of them say they believe in God, and about a third says religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.
Seventy percent of those born between 1990 and 1996 with no religious affiliation say religion is not important in their lives. A similar share also report they seldom or never pray and 42 percent say they do not believe in God, according to the Pew study.
Obviously, most of the “nones” do not reject faith in “something”, and this often means that they seek some form of spirituality outside a traditional affiliation. Like Satanists also do. But why would one use Satan, a spiritual entity, as figurehead if the aim of their struggle is rationality and freedom from religion?
The perception of secular society as nonreligious is quite simply a delusion, as Lesslie Newbigin states in his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, in which he also points to a revival of ancient heathen religions, in opposition to Christianity.
The paradox is that the religions that have attempted to embrace rationalism perish in modernity, while those that embrace the supernatural elements revive.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
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Interesting article.
I am 62 years old. I became a Satanist in my mid 20’s.
You fail to realize that, not all of us are atheist or, solely secular. There are two fundamental types of the modern Satanic; the LaVeyans_ following in the footsteps of Anton LaVey. They don’t believe in an actual devil. Satan is just a symbol to them. They are the atheist who stress, rationality and free thought ( they claim).
The second half of modern Satanism is theistic Satanism, which does believe in an “actual devil’, one that they/we call God.
I am a theistic Satanist and my dark faith is everything to me.
It’s a very long story but the short of it is, I found myself in a world of trouble in my youth and neither Jesus or, Freud could help me. Satan saved my ass (and please, don’t insult my intelligence by presuming to tell me, you know better than me what my experience was).
The point of all of this is: in the right hands, heart, and mind, the Satanic can be _and is_a valid expression of religious experience. Like most things in life, it depends on the individual.
You wonder how Satanism can be an expression of the spirit? My friend, you really lack imagination.
I and my brothers and sisters have many reasons. Here’s one you can try on for size.
I call myself an “Old School’ Satanist. By that, I mean, Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God and the Devil are not enemies. Darkness serves the light. What changed all of that?
Christianity did.
A war in Heaven, you say? Guess who started it? I’ll give you one clue: it wasn’t us.
And it’s a war Christianity continues to fight, getting in people’s faces and trying to cram Jesus down their throats. I imagine they miss the good ole days when they could kill us and get away with it.
God of love? Where? Who?
Your article provided me with a bit of information I didn’t know. I had heard of the Temple Of Satan offering after school programs to kids in elementary school and I thought it was a bit much (a Satanic coloring book! Lol!). I didn’t know that it was in response to the Christians being allowed to do this. That changes everything and it’s exactly what I meant in the previous paragraph.That is really dirty pool, seeking to preempt innocent minds and fill them with all that nonsense as if there are no alternatives.
I tell you something that you may not believe. Most Satanist don’t raise their kids to be Satanist. They raise them with an awareness that there are many religions in the world and it is up to them to choose one or, to have none. I know one Satanist who tells her kids that Santa Clause is just a myth but don’t spoil it for other kids.
But of course, mainstream, so called “Christian society” will readily accept some pimply face kid who kills his girl friend in some, Satanic fantasy as a “Satanist” while the real satanist passes you by, unnoticed in the street.
Who are the real Satanist? Those of us who are not pimply faced kids.
P.S.: “Just this month, a member of the so-called Satanic Temple…” Wow. disrespectful much? The “so-called” Temple, is not its name,
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