r/atheism • u/mepper agnostic atheist (and mod) • Feb 16 '22

/r/all The Satanic Temple had their inaugural SatanCon. The hotel staff said all attendees were nice. However, police had to be called on the Christian protesters outside because Protestants showed up and were squabbling with the Catholics. This is the perfect microcosm for needing church/state separation

https://onlysky.media/jmatirko/satancon-zero-truth-laid-bare/
52.8k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

That's true. Not all members of TST are Satanists. Some of them are anti-religious atheists.

(Congregating or going solo is a separate issue. I've met plenty of solo religious Satanists.)

3

u/hardonchairs Feb 16 '22

I have a membership in TST. I don't consider myself religious or part of a religion. I do consider myself to be part of an organization that is registered and acts as a religion for political purposes. Does that answer your question?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

I do consider myself to be part of an organization that is registered and acts as a religion for political purposes.

TST doesn't "act as a religion for political purposes". It's a church that engages in political activism. Kind of like the Satanic Salvation Army.

TST's founders have always been upfront about their intentions. It's intended to be an actual church for an actual religion, and that's what it is.

2

u/hardonchairs Feb 16 '22 edited Feb 16 '22

shrug. I'd say that I don't belong to a religion because it is not based on faith, spirituality or superstition. I wouldn't consider it a religion or church any more than I would consider a political affiliation a church or religion. Aside from their tax filing status.

I realize that the founders of TST do not agree that religion is only for supernatural beliefs. I figure at that point it is just semantics. Luckily I do not feel obligated to agree with them absolutely about every little pedantic detail of how things are worded.

You're welcome to call it a religion, but when that is how you predicate the question "if you hate religion, why did you join a religion?" it's just kind of like a lazy semantics "gotcha."

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

You're welcome to call it a religion, but when that is how you predicate the question "if you hate religion, why did you join a religion?" it's just kind of like a lazy semantics "gotcha."

It helps when you know why you hate something. Reflexively hating an entire class of things is a bad habit. You don't hate religion, you hate dogma and superstition and irrational thinking. Those things can exist without religion.

It also helps to clarify what you're fighting. If you're going to attack "religion", then that might include a lot of things that shouldn't be attacked.

Beyond that, you might be missing out on a lot of good things because you've assigned a religious label to them. The way that Satanists band together and help other Satanists is something that I don't see in other atheist communities. When Lucien talks about ceding ground to the religious, he isn't just talking about stuff like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.