Hail Satan!!!

I'm atheist, but in all honesty, if you look up the satanic 10 commandments, bias aside, I think they're way better in general than the Christian 10, but also better morally speaking as well, and for anyone not familiar, Google the satanic version, you may not agree with me, but I don't think you'd all together disagree either

It is amazing how you can work people into a tizzy of irrational hysteria by just naming the organization "Satanic Temple".

Per their own website, they do not actually believe in Satan at all.

Downloadable informational pamphplet at:

https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us

I think they're wonderful.

Nessie

Fuck yeah, bring that desert heat, Satan.

Red velvet Cake is Satan's dessert of choice

So this actually gave me the idea to have a convention of my own, it's gonna be called the "say tan con" just a large gathering of people who are big fans of saying the word tan, and we're gonna have this huge meet up and just say the word tan, over and over and over, not gonna have any print advertisements for it, 100% video and audio only, which will essentially be just me and 1 or 2 other people talking about the event, and when it gets protested or people get angry, I CANT WAIT to give my interview to the local news station defending this event by saying things like:

Idk why people are so angry over this, it's one of the most innocent things you could possibly participate in and what were trying to do here harms absolutely nothing and no one, honestly I don't see how anybody would even think that was any kind of a possibility in the 1st place, because I'm sorry but you're a stupid idiot if you think this

Look we're just trying to say the things we love to say, literally nothing else, how is that harmful? Seriously nothing we're saying here is harmful in ANY context what so ever, nor does it go against any kind of values or morals, unless you're seriously that uncomfortable or bothered by the heat aspect, and of course the potential long term effects, but unless you over do it I wouldn't worry about it at all tbh

Why are ppl getting so angry? Nothing we're trying to say here effects them in any way, I don't even see how it could, it's never caused a single instance of anything even slightly negative in the entirety of human history, and if you can find an instance of this, it's made up, because nothing we're trying to say here is anything but an absolute truth and innocence that has literally never even been argued that its anything other than that

And then when they find out the entire time I was only taking about everyone meeting up just to say the word "tan" ad nauseum, and wasn't referring to satan/Satanism in all the above statements, I'm pretty sure that troll job will rival any other troll job in history, and I will be the real skankhunt42 lol

The Satanic Temple movement reminds me in many ways of the Church of the SubGenius, which began near me in Dallas, Texas in the late 70's or early 80's. The Dallas area is widely known as hosting the highest concentration of weird and/or scammy (my opinion) televangelists on planet earth. In hindsight, it seems inevitable that the Church of the SubGenius would eventually arise as a reaction to the televangelists, as the local population is a heady mix of ultra-conservative True Believers and very liberal (mostly young) folks who are deeply annoyed (at times, alarmed) by the True Believers.

Both Temple and Church are, to more or less degree, "parody religions" that play off the excesses of the mainstream faiths, to great effect. The irony of the Satanic Temple, as Loch Ness points out, is that they don't actually believe that Satan exists, but use the concept as a tool to attack religious hypocrisy. These folks are much more serious-minded in approach, but the SubGenius people in my opinion had been very effective with their over-the-top bizarre satire on all things religious, holding up a funhouse mirror to contemporary religious and social issues. But the Church was not activist in public outreach on the issues, largely due to its refusal to take itself seriously and its satirical grounding, while the Temple is to be lauded in my opinion for its efforts in the areas of education and advocacy against the abuses by certain organized faith groups.

The Church of the SubGenius, while it was based in Dallas and at its peak, used to hold "Devivals" at various clubs around town (and had a weekly radio show), and I truly regret never making the effort to attend one. The Church eventually had spinoff groups in various cities around the U.S. and had an influence and following among the college crowd and artists. I recall a good friend in the San Francisco area sending me snapshots he had taken where folks in his area were tagging objects and buildings with images of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, the Church's figurehead.

Here's a SubGenius "recruitment video" which gives a pretty good feel for what the Church was/is about, in 62 seconds of hilarious visuals and Rev. Ivan Stang's over-the-top "sermon" style. This *had* to have riled up the evangelicals to no end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt9MP70ODNw

For those of you into "found art"-type work, their 'Book of the SubGenius' is an absolutely amazing blend of sometimes hilarious text rants illustrated with the most intense use I've ever seen of 1940's-60's black-and-white newspaper clip art. Their 'zines were something of an underground phenomenon when McGraw-Hill published a compilation of them in 1983, and gained the Church a lot of fans at the time. I've lost my first edition copy, unfortunately:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_SubGenius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius

"The Church of the SubGenius: Eternal Salvation or Triple Your Money Back!"

Fascinating discussion by Ivan Stang on the Church, its purpose and its founding, recorded in 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq665DIDljA

Its not an opinion, televangelists ARE scam artists and liars, I rank them only above p*dos, r*pists and m*rderers on the worst people ever list, so p is the lowest, r just above them, m just above and televangelists BARELY rank above m*rderers to me, there's a few very rare instances that you can justify and defend m*rder, you can't justify anything they do, they scam and lie to the elderly and vulnerable to take their money by using religion as a smoke screen to get away with it, AND not paying taxes on this money at that, I mean I'm atheist, but I don't actively try to "attack" religion or religious people or anything like that, but televangelists...nah they're pieces of shit that need to be called out and exposed as often as possible

I'm definitely a fan of the church of subgenius. I just recently picked up the official Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as I'm quite interested in the tenets of that religion. So far though, the religion I identify with the closest, is Discordianism. Fnord!

I started loving the Satanic Temple back when they were suing Christians for trying to force things like the 10 commandments on government property. I am so sick of Christians playing the discrimination card or the war card, but then turning around and doing the exact same thing to non-Christians. I watched the documentary Hail Satan, I think it is on Netflix. Highly recommend for the content and because it addresses a lot of what the Satanic Temple is about. I laugh hard when I see some of the stuff they are doing and that people do to them. There was an organization around Christmas time last year that sent out articles of deportation against the Satanic Temple members. The head of the Temple tried many times to get a hold of the head of that organization with some hilarious results. I like that there are organizations like this out there keeping religions in check so they are not overbearing. Granted there is so much overbearing, but still. Also, making abortion a religious ritual to combat the shit in Texas is amazing.