And that’s what makes them Satanists!
Crowley wasn’t a Satanist.
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So… Satanists are Hipsters who have perhaps taken irony a tad too far?
That’s not what I said… of course christanity does not have a lock on theism… my point was that LaVey specifically chose that symbolism because of his aversion to Christanity in the US, which is the biggest religion in the country… Of course I didn’t mean that Christians were the only theists. Honestly, does such a minor point need that kind of clarification?
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Ask them, not me. I doubt they’d see it that way, though. To be fair, I don’t think they are really being ironic in the same way, if they are at all being ironic.
Although I’ve known a few “muahaha” satanists, who really got into the darkness in their heart stuff, most of them are not into the “I am evil muahaha” stuff. I think you’re thinking of the 80s Satanic panic version of Satanists…
He was an epic troll though.
Deliberately ignoring all the debate over what satanists, or these satanists, may or may not be… This is very much an “I’ve been waiting for it to happen” item.
I was just expecting the KKK to get there first. And in fact I seem to remember hearing that one group thereof did try to do the highway-sponsor thing… but that they were too disfunctional to actually get anyone to go out and do the road maintenance they’d signed up for so it was taken away from them again. Hopefully whoever arranged this on behalf of satanism is more serious even if they aren’t solemn.
(Letting contentious groups sign up as road sponsors might become an invitation to littering, I’m glad I don’t have to get involved in that decision.)
Actually, what I really want to see is a group of satanists/neopagans/FSM followers demand equal time in the school prayer debate. The athame cuts both ways… (Of course it does; it’s double-edged.)
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Satanists are a tremendously fractuous lot. There’s basically nothing they all have in common other than calling themselves “satanists”. You have groups that are theists, deists, atheists and agnostics. Some believe in supernatural forces (personified or otherwise), others don’t. Some are basically just glorified hedonists, others are acetic. As for the “look at me”… most satanists don’t really advertise their affiliation. They have solid camps favouring just about any form of moral/ethical system you’d care to name.
ill get your coat 
Buddhists are not (as a rule) atheists, Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. Many Buddhists believe in deities, I’m sure some are atheists.
I think it’s when steam shoots out of your ears.
unless you are specifically attempting to undermine the all pervasive, de-facto theocracy that permeates every aspect of your social life whether you like it or not.
Also, as alluded to previously, there’s already a great deal of mangling and re-appropriation of memes dating back thousands of years within this context and paying homage to that whilst simultaneously confusing and annoying those who would probably call you Satanic anyway seems like good fun.
Seems like swell, harmless fun to me.
That’s debatable, but you’re not really wrong. Crowley mentions “my Satanism” on at least one occasion, and he describes himself as serving Satan a number of times; but he tried every religion under the sun at one time or another and incorporated bits of all of them, so defining the man by any one passage of his work is problematic. On the whole he did not identify himself as a Satanist, but he has been a strong influence on various strains of modern Satanism, so I don’t think it’s wrong to mention him in that context.
Sure, I get freaking the norms. It was a popular pastime at sci-fi cons when I was a teenager (and I presume still is). But at some point you’ve gotta grow up and stop defining yourself in opposition to something else, stop basing your tastes solely on what would piss off your homeroom teacher the most. Stop being that guy who only listens to metal because his parents hate it, y’know? It limits you, and that’s terribly unfortunate for an ideology so concerned with escaping the chains of society.
As long as you define yourself in opposition to Christianity, you’re still letting them control you. Don’t waste energy caring what the uptights think. Just be yourself.
I’m not defining myself in opposition to Christianity. I enjoy pissing bigoted Christians off, but that’s a pleasant side effect, not the main reason why I chose to identify as Satanist. (The main reasons are mostly that I practice a bit too much ritual magic to call myself an atheist, and I do think that pride is an important, positive thing, provided you don’t shove it down other peoples’ throats. I agree with more of the tenets of Satanism than I agree with those of other religion, though I do have issues with some of them - but the good thing about Satanism is that nobody will preach to you that you’re Doing It Wrong.)
I agree with you that defining yourself purely in opposition to something is silly and somewhat immature - but what if you listen to metal because you genuinely like it, and also get an extra kick out of it because your neighbours disapprove?
This is basically my way of counteracting the influence of countless people who bullied me for being weird when I was a kid. It doesn’t really hurt anyone, and I don’t use it to define myself, but it definitely makes me feel good. I don’t see it as immature. I’ve grown past the stage of being permanently angry for having been bullied, but I do still have that little flash of pride whenever someone boring disapproves of me. I usually live my life away from the type of people who would disapprove of me anyway, so it’s not that common an occurence.
And just as a last thing, there is no “still letting them control me” - I wasn’t raised a Christian. My family is fiercely secular and I’ve never really felt the influence of Christianity on my life.
I can’t really speak for all Satanists - there’s really a lot of different beliefs under the Satanism umbrella, and I’m atypical even in that regard, because I tend to not take myself nearly as seriously as most Satanists seem to. As mentioned in a previous comment I mostly use that term because it’s a good way of defining my love of being opposed to normality and my non-theistic but definitely religious point of view. It’s not really “I’m evil muahaha” as much as “fuck the norms muahaha also let’s have some ritual sex because yay ritual sex”. It is somewhat immature, but as I mentioned, it’s not the primary way I choose to identify, it’s something of a secondary element because I don’t think the label “atheist” really works for me.
But as I said I’m not exactly the most typical Satanist out there.
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Can I declare myself a satinist?
(And of course you’ve all heard about the dyslexic spellcaster who sold his soul to Santa.)
Man, I’m just being corrected all over the place on this thread aren’t I? 
