Satanic Temple display at Iowa Capitol destroyed by upset Christian man: "Michael Cassidy, 35, who was arrested by Iowa State Police and charged with criminal mischief"

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[–]NastyWetSmear 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (23 children)

"Man arrested for stopping literal Satan worship" makes a snappy article title as well.

I know, I know... This new, hippy, edgy "Church Of Satan" bullshit isn't actually Satan worshipers, they just purposefully took the name of Satan to make sure they could say: "Um, actually..." as many times as possible when describing their religion.

[–]In-the-clouds 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

Good news title....

When people are publicly associated with darkness, out of shame and confusion they do not want to admit they actually worship Satan. They say things like, "We don't actually believe in Satan." But people all over the world do the will of their father, the devil, whenever they do his will. They don't have to publicly confess their belief.... Their actions show whom they serve. But we that believe in Jesus the Christ, should be willing to publicly confess his name without embarrassment.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Judge a tree by the fruit it bares.

No satanist is vandalizing Christian displays. Neither are they taking away or freedoms.

It's obvious who the good and the evil area here.

[–]Oyveygoyim 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

And this is why women don't deserve rights

[–]Dregan-yea 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Judge a tree by the fruit it bares"

Isaiah 5:20

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

I don't think the Church of Satan really do believe in the devil. They are just edgy teens who want to pretend to be righteous and are specifically using the name because it lets them be contrarian and anger people. They exist to do little but go on the internet and say: "No, it's not like that...", like I said in my original post.

... And, without wanting to be too disrespectful, exactly like u/ActuallyNot keeps doing. Sorry, I know that's a call out, but you really did do the exact thing I said you guys do.

If the "Satanic Temple" was really only interested in guiding people towards morality and such, they wouldn't have chosen that name. It has nothing to do with the origin of the "religion"... If you can call a group who don't actually worship a deity a religion, and that's not me being snarky, I'm honestly not sure what the requirements to be called that are... it's only used so that people will conflate them with actual Satan worship. It was created a handful of years ago in an effort to get attention and start arguments on the internet while pretending to be some moral authority and spit virtue signaling. It's akin to those old adverts that went: "SEX!... Now that I have your attention, home heating packages."

When they founded their little joke group, they weren't innocently sitting there going: "Gosh, Satan would be a good figure head that people will instantly understand and respect. We could couch it as a metaphor for rejecting the idea of God, even though a great many other religions would agree with our tenants in most respects if we didn't focus our attention on rejecting them and using the name of the figure they use as the root of all evil... Golly, no confusion or incorrect assumptions could result from this simple choice of name and imagery!"... No, they were going: "Hur hur, fuck the Christians, man! My Dad wouldn't let me get a tattoo when I was 15, so this will really make him angry! Now we can go on the internet and tell people that our church isn't Satan worshipers while using Satanic images and constantly telling people to reject religion, but all our rules will be about being good to others. Man! So funny and cool."

I'm not religious... Sorry, u/In-the-Clouds... But I know a bullshit ploy by a bunch of modern kids to just try and annoy and bother people while trying to shield themselves with virtue when I see it. It's little different to the SJW's floating on social media, waiting for someone to say "Black American" so they can jump up and correct them ruthlessly while hiding behind a shield of modern identity nonsense. I get why that guy attacked the display - it was created to encourage people like him to attack it. The whole "religion" was created to encourage people like him to attack it. Both do little but make the common man roll his eyes and go back to what he was doing. They are both predictable and ludicrous.

[–]Hematomato 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I think you're both right and wrong.

Of course Satanism is an anti-Christian movement. Of course they didn't set out to choose "whatever god best leads us to a good and moral life" and decide that's Satan.

But when you talk to them, you find they aren't "edgy teens" doing it all "for the lulz." They're people whose lives and families were destroyed by strict adherence to Christianity. Who never had an authentic relationship with their parents, or who were flat-out disowned, or who experienced a childhood that left them isolated from all their peers, with nothing to show for it but flawed and confused moral lessons.

It's not "Hur hur, fuck the Christians, man." It's: Seriously, fuck Christianity.

[–]NastyWetSmear 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I'm not saying that there is 0% of them that have had some part of their life ruined by Christianity, but I feel very confident in saying that the majority have not, even if they come to you with a story saying that they have.

Even if I were to grant them the benefit of the doubt and assume there was some great wave of Judeo-Christian evils that spawned all these people, that wouldn't excuse the next steps taken specifically to be spiteful and hide behind morality, or more specifically, the founding of a pesudo-religious group specifically to tell their Catholic Dad to go to hell.

Some kids want to hang up some death metal posters in their room and tell everyone how their song, "Corpse Fucker Nazi Angel" is an allegory about being in love with someone and doing anything to make them happy. Some kids want to join the local branch of the church of Satan and tell everyone their tenants are about love and acceptance and equality. Anyone who has been on the earth for more than 5 mins knows what it really is: It's someone hoping for a reaction. Nothing more, nothing less. Kids slapping on black boots with spikes in the hope that Mum and Dad will finally yell at them so they can feel oppressed.

[–]Hematomato 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I'm not saying that there is 0% of them that have had some part of their life ruined by Christianity, but I feel very confident in saying that the majority have not, even if they come to you with a story saying that they have.

"Life ruined" is always hyperbolic - where there's life, there's hope. But growing up in the '90s I saw it so many times. Something like half my friends couldn't even have more than a superficial conversation with their parents. Could never just be their genuine selves with them. They felt like they'd just lost their parents to a mind-virus. One of them got abandoned by her dad because "God wanted him to minister to a prostitute in Las Vegas." One of them got a fire-and-brimstone sermon from his mom every time he tried to play a video game or Magic: The Gathering with his friends. More than one of them have dads who are simply sexist because they say that's the way God made the world: women serve men. A couple of them were gay, and you can imagine how that turned out in the mid-90s.

There are a lot of people with plenty of reason to hate Christianity. Because they think it's just the natural human need to love your family more than anything. And along comes this Christian religion with passages like Luke 14:26 in it, that say: No. Hate your family. Hate everything and everyone except Jesus, or you cannot be his disciple. Nothing matters but Jesus.

And that's pretty much how their parents "raised" them. Jesus first, and if you don't agree, get the fuck out of my house and never look back.

Some kids want to hang up some death metal posters in their room and tell everyone how their song, "Corpse Fucker Nazi Angel" is an allegory about being in love with someone and doing anything to make them happy.

It's funny how dated this sentence struck me. Kids haven't listened to death metal since, like, before 9/11. It's completely out of style. These days, death metal concerts are usually 50 year olds playing to 40 year olds. Kids today who want to freak out their conservative parents are way more likely to be into something like Lil Nas X. That is, if they're into music at all - music fandom itself is kinda out of style.

Of course, a lot of those old death metal fans are the kids who became Satanists. It's just that, well, they're not teenagers anymore. They're middle-aged now, and they still think that Satan is the best spiritual metaphor for freedom from the kind of religious control that's incompatible with family, rationality, or even love.

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't buy for a second that you know "So many" people who have had their lives ruined. I believe you know people looking to blame something so they don't have to take responsibility for things, and that you know some people who have shitty parents, but to suggest that Christianity is some source of that, as opposed to the very nature of some people being shit, is ridiculous. In fact, to look to Christianity as the source on stories like: "My Dad said God wants him to minister to a hooker in Vegas" and see: "This is Christianity's fault!" as opposed to: "My Dad is a slime ball who wants to bang whores and will use anything to justify that" or "My Dad has a mental illness and thinks he hears the voice of God" is just... It's like blaming artists for people eating lead based paints.

The Death Metal metaphor was meant to link to the idea of using Satanic imagery to upset your parents, sorry, not to suggest I thought there were tonnes of kids running around now looking for Slayer posters. :D

Anyway, enough of me shitting on people making up religions to make other people angry. Both those people and the people who let them get under their skin deserve each other. As with all things kids do to try and get attention - giving it attention isn't the cure. I'm turning this thread into some kind of Church Of Satan review thread.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Is Christianity the source of my friend's dad's decision to run off to Vegas? Obviously it's not like it says in the Bible that you should leave your kid and run off to Vegas to "save" a hooker's soul.

But it's what gave him the justification to do it. It's what let him believe that his decision was unquestionably right and there was no room for any other perspective or discussion.

And that's a pattern I've seen a lot of times in my life. "Jesus is more important than anything, Jesus is more important than family, and Jesus says (whatever they decided Jesus says, which is rarely even remotely Biblical.)"

Right now my sister-in-law's family is crumbling because her dad has decided Jesus wants to save her from... the vaccine. Apparently it's not just an mRNA vaccine, it's the Mark of the Beast. And, naturally, since Jesus is more important than her, he's treating her like absolute shit.

It's easy enough for me to see where Satanism finds fertile ground. Matthew 18 encourages Christians to have minds like little children. Genesis 3 tells the tale of how God cast us out of paradise for being tempted into seeking the knowledge of good and evil. All over the world, people with shitty dads said: yeah, I'm backing the god who tells us that we have brains and perhaps ought to use them, over the one who, you know, took away my family.

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

As I said, I think I'll leave the talk of Satanism and various things branded by Satan Brands Inc there, but I don't think it's fair to say that someone who wants to run off with a lady of the night saying it was God that told him to do it makes Christianity a problem. Someone that way inclined would have said it was his moral duty, or that Allah told him to do it, or that she was his long lost daughter, or that he was on a business trip and she was his secretary. It wouldn't have mattered. Anyone blaming Christianity for something that scumbags who happen to be Christians do is missing the forest for the trees. That's like blaming video games for violence when some idiot kid shoots up a school and then says: "Terrorists Win!" into a Facebook Livestream while doing it.

As much as you claim to have seen that pattern, I've been surrounded by Christians and never seen it. Anecdotal evidence is easy to dismiss that way. I can just as easily tell you that the finest and most upstanding citizens I've ever known were all Christians. Is it true?... I dunno, I don't do a censes of religions of people I know, but it's just something you can say without evidence.

There are a lot of people on this very webpage who, removing Jesus, would agree with your Sister In Laws father. They don't trust the vaccines either. It doesn't have anything to do with a lot of Saidit people being religions and much more to do with them being a little paranoid and antigovernmental mandates.

You can also cheery pick Bible quotes all day if you want. I don't know much about the Bible, but it'll only take me 30 seconds on DuckDuckGo to find quotes that contradict it. I instantly get a page saying it has 16 verses about having a strong mind. In fact, the top result is just a quote:

2 Timothy 1:7 (AMPC) “I refuse give in to my fears. For God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind!”

And then quotes about understanding good and evil...

Isaiah 5:20-21 "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil"

That's easy to do. The Bible is such a huge collection of various little moral passion plays that you can pretty much find any lesson or morality you want to find. Only someone who has already made up their mind about it would pick a few verses and walk away saying: "See? See?? They want you to do X, and that's bad!"... It doesn't take a genius to look at Matthew 18 and see that it's talking about being as innocent and wholesome as a child and helping children and not about being naïve and stupid. You're trying very hard to hate on Christians, and that's a waste of your time, because they really aren't anything special and aren't any source of great modern problems.

[–]In-the-clouds 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You made an effort here, so you deserve a response.

Regarding your claim that Satanists are a bunch of teens that do not really believe in Satan, I refer you to the founder of the "church of Satan", Anton LeVey. He was an older man and confessed to working with demons, while rejecting the protection of Jesus Christ. If he were protected by the Lord, then how could he work with demons? So he had to distance himself from God's protection in order to work with demons. He did not appear to be joking. And he was not a teen.

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

No, see, you've fallen prey to their bullshit... And make no mistake, it's on purpose to make people like you confused so that you accuse them of the wrong thing so they can say: "See?! SEE?! They just want to hate us!"

This isn't the LaVeyan Satanism brand of Satan worship, this is the "Temple of Satan", which is a modern group who pretend to have no connection to Satan in the demonic sense while using the name "Satan" with the specific goal to make you think they are evil demon worshipers so you get upset while touting love, peace and unity so they can claim you're wrong. They are the: "You don't get it, Mum! This is serious! It's not just a phase! This rap song is about community!" of demi-religious groups.

[–]In-the-clouds 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Is there a spiritual kingdom? Is there a purpose to life (a test you need to pass)? Is there a continuation of our existence after the death of the physical body? Those that think this short, physical life is it are the ones who are deceived. Of course Satan and his minions don't want you to believe they exist.... unless you want to serve them.... and willingly become their slave. But for the rest of us, they want to be hidden in the darkness so the light does not expose them. If people would wake up and see the spiritual kingdom is real, they would seriously reconsider how they are living their lives. The good news is that there are also angels.

[–]NastyWetSmear 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

None of that has any relevance to what I said. They aren't trying to deceive the world into thinking they don't worship Satan, they are trying to convince you they do so that you'll be mad and write hateful things about them, kick down their little displays, get angry at them. They are kids who want attention and they are happiest when it's bad attention so they can hide behind their supposed tenants of understanding and brotherhood and try and make you look a fool... They are, in essence, a church of social justice, claiming everyone is attacking them and they only want peace while they walk around taunting reasonable people by making it appear they worship a demon.

Satan, in this case, is a carrot, while their rules about loving everyone is a box, a stick and some string. They want you to reach your hand in to grab the carrot so they can yank the stick out with the string and trap you. That's all. Just ignore it.

[–]In-the-clouds 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The article the OP linked to said:

Satanists are generally atheists and not worship Satan

Poor wording.... but the author of the article is trying to cause the reader to think that Satanists do not actually believe in any god and do not worship Satan. So there is a deception going on here regarding what they actually believe.

I do agree with your point that the enemy is trying to get us to fight physically. It is a trap, as you imply. When we resort to fighting physically, we lose. The flesh is no match for the spirit.

When Jesus was on the cross, he did not hate the people who crucified him and who mocked him. Instead he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." My choice is to pray, to realize the people that set up the displays are deceived, and to stand back and let God determine the judgement. The way to victory is through the Spirit of God, which is love, truth, and power.

[–]NastyWetSmear 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think, if more religious people like you just ignored them and prayed for them, they'd eventually go away when they weren't getting the attention they wanted. There will always be someone yelling at them, though, so they'll live off the scraps of value they find in that.

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Man arrested for stopping literal Satan worship" makes a snappy article title as well.

Lacks accuracy.

This new, hippy, edgy "Church Of Satan"

This display was the satanic temple, not the church of Satan. The satanic temple is the one with the stronger ethical basis, encouraging benevolence and empathy.

just purposefully took the name of Satan to make sure they could say: "Um, actually..." as many times as possible when describing their religion.

It's more useful than that. When the state pays for Christian bigotry, eroding the constitutional separation of church and state, the satanic temple steps up for the same rights. The Constitution becomes important to the christofascists much more suddenly than if the temple had some other name.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

most constitutionally-informed saidit user

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Plot twist you don't have to go to a temple to worship the devil. Doing what you want instead of what God wants, is worshipping the devil ... and that's what the satanists claim to be all about (do what you like, don't hurt anyone else)

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

No, that's what Alesiter Crowley and his fellow sex fiend nut jobs decided was the law of Satan, and even then the "Don't hurt anyone else" was only added to make the rest seem more palatable afterwards. Again, another shield of virtue to pretend like their occult orgies weren't just ways to fuck each other and spit in the face of society... "No, no. We're just free now! It's all about self improvement, honest!"

I don't think Lucifer has any official, Bible-esque works for anyone to reference. Worshiping Satan is, in essence, an oxymoron: He's meant to be the enemy of God, stuck in hell, where souls who break the laws of God go to when they die to be removed from his sight, until the end of the world when he'll climb up, ruin the earth and then, according to a totally non-biased source, lose the fight against God again anyway... Worshiping him means he doesn't have to do anything, you've essentially already assigned your soul to him in the process.

It's like people who want to sell their souls to demons for things: By trying to summon a demon for something, you've already, in essence, "Turned your back on God and his law", so the demons will already see you in hell when you die... Why bother with anything else?

Now, as we've all seen this conversation play out a million times, someone should now pop up to bring up the most archaic and outdated uses of the word "Demon" and "Satan" and pretend that the modern churches dedicated to Satan somehow were relying on those to be the correct interpretation, even though the primary modern source for the word is the Bible and Dozens of other, more suitable, less confrontational and directly pointed words and names could have been used to achieve the same thing.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You're overthinking things. God has a way he wants you to be. If you don't be that way, whether you proclaim it or not, you are doing the work of the literallydevil.

[–]NastyWetSmear 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's essentially what I said: Worshiping the devil, if you are accepting a Judeo-Christian devil, automatically means that the devil has no reason to offer you anything or do anything. According to the law of the creature you accept by proxy, you're going to hell anyway.

[–]In-the-clouds 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Military men are good at destroying things. Should the military next be sent door to door beheading all the displays of Santa Claus? Satan Claws?

I cannot recommend the act of destroying competing holiday displays. That will not bring people to freely accept the mercy and grace of our God and Savior. Instead, it will breed hatred and vengeance. And already the Satanists plan a lawsuit.... to get revenge. Where does all this end? When we fight with our hands, we lose. When we fight with the Spirit of God, we win. And the victory has already been won.... at the cross. The King defeated Satan there, when he purchased the lost souls and redeemed them from the god of this world, so they may return to God the Father.

My recommendation is that people pray to God for him to destroy the works of the devil. We should love everyone, even our enemies, so they will be touched by kindness and repent from their wicked ways and become our friends and friends to God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

And already the Satanists plan a lawsuit.... to get revenge.

No, to discourage nutcases destroying things belonging to other people, and to recover some of the costs of the vandalized art.

We should love everyone, even our enemies, so they will be touched by kindness and repent from their wicked ways

As the satanic temple treats Christians.

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

we love you, so we are going to set up something we know you will find extremely offensive

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We respect and empathise with everyone, so if one group will set up installations that focus exclusively on one religion, we will go out of our way to work for a more inclusive society. Sometimes that means holding up a mirror.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Dear diary,

Today, u/In-the-clouds was right about something

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good. I was hoping someone in the area would show himself to be based. The court case should be an easy out on religious grounds unless his lawyer is retarded.

[–]hfxB0oyA 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

While i understand the need for the Satanists to exercise their free speech, this guy was doing the same.

[–]IkeConn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Checkmate christians.