Satanic Sculpture at Illinois Statehouse.

[calebprime]

Well, what if it were The Flying Spaghetti Monster instead of Satanism? In other words, something that really does seem like a parody? Would Thermal have a point?

Satanism is in a weird area of belief, because odd as it may seem, many Satanists do take it seriously. As seriously as Christians.

 

[Thermal]

You stuck on the ideas that:

A) you have some sort of inherent right or ability to rank the sincerity of religions.

B) any of that matters even if you did.

Nobody here gets the point of your "ADMIT THEY ARE JUST PLAYING! ADMIT IT!" theatrics because we don't care because it doesn't make a difference.

Being able to differentiate satire from sincerity is not as complicated to most of us as you evidently find it. While you have no respect for sincere religious belief, and equate it to FSMs, I do have at least the respect for them as people to leave them alone when they are celebrating. I'm sure I'll see you pissing on a wedding cake somewhere.

BTW, under the Creed of the Church of the Swinging Johnson, you are discriminating against me as a minority religion. Your penance is to suck on this statuary.

 

[Senex]

The Satanic Temple has a website. No need to speculate that their beliefs are anything short of heroic.

A short interview with cofounder Lucien Graves that may answer some questions.

​

 

[Thermal]

And another strawman. Your repeated pretense at misunderstanding is quite amusing.

Dave

I have been arguing at least two major points. You say that I am 'dishonestly' claiming that I have been arguing only one. That is not true. Dishonest to say so, in fact, but I would leave that up to you to cite. I can't really repost every comment and give a commentary on its content.

Do I understand your criticism correctly?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Thermal,

Did Rosa Parks have to prove she really needed to get somewhere before sitting at the front of the bus? If Rosa Parks got on the bus specifically to get a seat to make a statement about unfairness in a system and didn't really need to get anywhere was she being "petty" or "insincere?"

 

[Dave Rogers]

I have been arguing at least two major points. You say that I am 'dishonestly' claiming that I have been arguing only one. That is not true. Dishonest to say so, in fact, but I would leave that up to you to cite.

Thermal, for six pages: yeah, these guys have every right in the world to do what they are doing.

There you go.

Dave

 

[Thermal]

If she put on cartoonish whiteface and claimed to be white and get the same treatment, your analogy would be apt

 

[JoeMorgue]

If she put on cartoonish whiteface and claimed to be white and get the same treatment, your analogy would be apt

 

[Thermal]

There you go.

Dave

Seriously? That has been your reason for calling me dishonest? One true statement that didn't include a half page of full disclosure contextual disclaimers and qualifiers?

Thanks so much.

 

[Thermal]

The context of snakey handy thingy is to flip off the revelers. This has been generally agreed. They get away with this by posing as a religion and claiming expression of religious freedom.

For Parks to be analogous, she would have to be posing as her oppressor and demanding the same treatment as whites, because well she's white too, see the totally sincere white skin?

 

[JoeMorgue]

You seem to have a lot of rules for how oppressed minorities are allowed to express their displeasure.

But beyond that I'm not grasping what the "white face" in your analogy is in the real world.

The Satanist put up their own symbols, not parodies of Christian symbols. You seem to think that pulling symbols from the same source so they are similar means they are copying Christianity.

The cross, the concept of Crucifixion... Christianity doesn't own those.

And this is even ignoring the elephant in the room that Christianity complaining about people "borrowing" it's imagery is... pretty high on the "Laugh at the Hypocrisy" scale, especially within the context of Christmas.

And even all of that is ignoring that even if they were just engaging in straight, unapologetic open mockery... you get to do that when you're oppressed. Sorry.

Even in your hypothetical version with white face and mockery I would strongly take you task if you felt the need to finger-wag Rosa Parks for not fighting oppression "nicely enough."

 

[Thermal]

JoeMorgue:

You're right. The Satanists totally did not lift anything from Christianity with satirical intent. No, sir. I was mistaken. They are totally for reals an oppressed religion. Yep, I see it now.

However, we have reached that point in the thread that I have come to recognize as The Pointless Point. You are not discussing this; you are ignoring the bulk of the responses and focusing on tangents. I am with a presumably straight face being called dishonest for not including a half page ******* position statement in each and every post. I have been here before. There is no discussion being had. Thanks, Thermal out.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I have been here before.

*Head desk* You've been here before because this is what you always do.

You're the one who splits hairs and then gets huffy and accuses other people of being pedantic when they want let you stay in the weeds.

Jesus you were so far in the weeds you were trying to argue that a Nativity Scene isn't religious.

Do a dramatic "Lookit me walking away" Diva exit if you must. It's just gonna happen again in the next thread if you don't learn anything.

 

[Thermal]

Dude, ******" seriously, what am I supposed to do? Argue this for another dozen pages?

Do you seriously argue that non religious people might own a nativity? That it might become just another piece of the decor? That even religious people might glance at it as just another plastic decoration?

Do you seriously think it is not coming to that?

Eta: and for some people, even many. Not all

Eta2: and I'm not splitting hairs, by any definition. My argument is straightforward. You want it to be a different one you are more comfortable with, so you can't make sense of mine

Eta the third: and I love the choices you leave me with. If I keep arguing, I won't drop my end of the rope. If I bow out, I'm a flouncing diva. Your mighty skepticism leaves me only with the choice or agreeing with you, or I am wrong. And you truly don't see the problem with that

 

[Minoosh]

Many key civil rights battles boiled down to planned incidents designed to provoke a reaction.

From The Guardian:

In shorter words, Miss Rosa Parks's decision to stay in a forward seat was the first move in a planned boycott of the bus company and the city law, a campaign organised long before by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and run by a young, bland, handsome black parson, name of Martin Luther King Jr, who while I was in Montgomery, flew in from Atlanta twice a week to buy little vans for use by the boycotters.

In this way, she took a planned stance to spark the conversation. And it's been that way in a number of "equal protection"-type incidents. Why? Because it works. It gets attention. It also occasionally backfires as in "Plessy vs. Ferguson" when an octoroon sat in a whites-only car but lost the ensuing civil case, helping perpetuate the "one single drop" rule for decades to come.

To assume that the Church of Satan performed this act solely to annoy Christians is to deny a more serious motive: To highlight possible injustices when one group is give preference over another. Yeah, if you think it's designed solely to spit in the face of Christians, you'll disapprove. But one could also claim that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat solely to annoy white people, and dismiss her move as a manipulative stunt.

 

[Shadowdweller]

The rationale is exactly the same: 'We have the right of religious expression to do this and you can't stop us'. That is exactly, precisely what the Satanic dudes are claiming.

No. Even if we presume the rationale/motivation of both groups is the same (which is wrong, but not what I talking about), the actions taken in response to that rationale/motivation are hugely different between the groups.

The thing is, they are not a religious group. They put up a comic book pretense of being one in order to put themselves on an equal playing field with legitimate religions, and thus advance their philosophy.

Also wrong. They ARE a religious group - just one that believes in a metaphorical rather than supposedly concrete deific entity. Compare to Buddhism.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

From my very first post here, I have opined that these guys have every right go do what they are doing, but that they are just being dicks.

If I understand your position, it is that:

The majority of Christians put up their decorations to show their joy and sincerity in their beliefs, and not to be exclusive of, or put down other religions.

The Satanists, on the other hand, have made up a set of beliefs and imagery out of whole cloth. These beliefs are not designed to represent their actual beliefs, but specifically to give the finger to Christians.

And although you have no problem with their right to do so and would actually defend that right, you think they are actually hurting their cause by being dicks by purposely taking a dump in the punchbowl, as it were.

If that's a fair representation of your position, then I largely agree.

All except the part about them hurting their own cause. I think that some people will certainly feel that way, but perhaps not all. And I think that's the reason to do it, and to do it this situation.

Christians (some at least) have been taking advantage of being the dominate belief in this country. Deliberately or not they have been trampling on the rights of minority beliefs to a greater or lessor extant since the beginning. They've assumed they always had the right to use public property for their religious purposes but have fought against others. They've assumed their holidays should be the government's holidays and have fought against others. They've assumed their prayers should be used in government meetings and fought against others. And so on. This may be better in recent years (I believe it is) but it does still go on.

The Satanists are trying to point out this continuing suppression of minority rights. And there is no "good" time to do it. When was the good time to sit at the front of the bus? When was the good time to sue for marriage equality? When was the good time to march and protest for equality in housing, jobs, and education?

You do it when you can get some eyeballs on it and then hope you get at least some people thinking. And that will always be a bad time in someone's eyes. But hopefully not all.

 

[Elagabalus]

Being able to differentiate satire from sincerity is not as complicated to most of us as you evidently find it. While you have no respect for sincere religious belief, and equate it to FSMs, I do have at least the respect for them as people to leave them alone when they are celebrating. I'm sure I'll see you pissing on a wedding cake somewhere.

BTW, under the Creed of the Church of the Swinging Johnson, you are discriminating against me as a minority religion. Your penance is to suck on this statuary.

I empathize, Thermal. I really do*. It's the same with me and The ******* Flying Spaghetti Monster! One gaze upon his noodily appendage has convinced me that he's really just a cephalopod masquerading as plate of spaghetti and worse still, he's been boiled in the same pot for at least three days! No fake pasta god of mine is going to be anything but Al Dente!






*I would humbly suggest that if you wait another 15 days or so the stridency of this thread would probably come down a notch or two. I have noticed that this time of the year traditionally gets the ISF'ers all riled up ... for some reason

 

[TragicMonkey]

If they'd really wanted to be 'dicks' they'd have put up a Nativity scene showing actual realistic childbirth, which in most cases does involve the mother involuntarily defecating. One theory holds that this is beneficial to the baby by transferring desirable intestinal flora. Birth is not, however, a particularly dignified process, and a frank depiction of their god undergoing it would likely be found objectionable even by the most devout of his followers. A historically realistic depiction of Mary and Joseph's physical appearances would likewise be similarly unwelcomed, considering their probable age difference and the changes in grooming standards and advances in dentisty since then. Add in the appearance and odors of a manger and we can safely conclude that a Nativity scene could, if done with realism, be far more offensive to the devout than the display these Satanists chose.

 

[Elagabalus]

The Satanic Temple has a website. No need to speculate that their beliefs are anything short of heroic.

A short interview with cofounder Lucien Graves that may answer some questions.

​

Lucien Graves? Cute. That's gotta' be a stage name.

...Satanism is in a weird area of belief, because odd as it may seem, many Satanists do take it seriously. As seriously as Christians.

Agreed. However, from the links, it appears that this particular sect of Satanism does not.