A little side step

HHhhmmm.

I've just spent a goodly part of an hour reading up on the Church of Satan (which wasn't quite what I expected) and an interview with their High Priest.

Apparently, the Church of Satan doesn't believe in God or Satan, but rather, a set of principles. And the interview article was equally interesting. There were also certain things/sentiments expressed, which I also share.

Well, see the idea of the “God” comes from the oppressors, and it’s a way of controlling folks, by saying, “I have communication with this authority figure but you can't. I’m special.” That’s where priesthoods come in, but also governmental authorities and parties, let’s say the Communist Party or the Nazi Party at one point.

They have the key to the way the universe should exist, and everyone needs to be subservient to them and take what they say as holy writ whether they are actually claiming it is divine or not. That’s why so many of those fascist and totalitarian systems function like religions, because they put the leaders and whatever they wrote as some kind of scriptural authority that is not supposed to be debated or examined, but simply swallowed whole.

Now some people might come up with a religious belief that may counter an existing system that will help them feel better about their underdog status, and then sometimes that develops into a major religion and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is crushed and snuffed out. That’s natural to our species, that people have to find a way for dealing with their existence.

The Satanist, we look at our existence and say, “We’re not going to look for something outside of ourselves. We’re going to be proactive." We’ll go out there and try to make a change, and we’ll deal pragmatically with whatever life situations we have. So the Satanist, regardless of where he is living and under what kind of conditions, he is going to try to find a way to make his life as good as it can be based upon his own abilities and the world around him.

We don’t expect everybody in Satanism to be a genius, we expect people to take whatever they have by nature, and do the best with it. So in that sense, we challenge people who are our members; the only idealism we have is directed at ourselves.

We try to look at ourselves and try to realize what our potential possibly could be, what talents do we have. And then we try to take those, through whatever work is needed, to take those as far as we can.

I'm sorry if that was rather a long excerpt, but I wanted the entire context.

The concept of religion is rather a mixed bag for me. I realise some people need to have a godlike or father figure looking out for them. But I also realise a lot of people view religion as the "magical cure", instead of relying on themselves to make the first step.

So in some ways, I like having God out there for me. Or a Superior Being. Or some concept of a higher deity. In the deepest pit of our lonely human souls, it's comforting. Small miracles or abundance that happen every day are not coincidence. They are gifts that make life worth living. I still say "Thank you, Lord!" when my taxi comes quickly. lol.

But I also very firmly subscribe to the belief that you have the power to do something for yourself. You cannot pray to Someone Higher Up to strike lottery. You want money? Bloody work for it yourself. It's not going to drop from the sky. Nor is some fortune teller going to channel some angel and tell you what numbers to bet on.

And of course, from a religious perspective, Satan is the Father of Lies. So why shouldn't a high priest be persuasive? Seductively coherent and logical? Heh. What happens if this is all just clever reverse psycology?

I shared the articles at work and now it's really quiet. The girls are reading the articles. lol.

Interesting to think about, eh?