Your thoughts on Satanism and the petition for a Satanic statue.

[Cecelia]

Esq, as others have said here, that statue was meant to be provocative/satirical. If they had chosen some other random creature to be their symbol, it wouldn't be offensive, which is why they chose what they did.

Consider what the Ten Commandments mean to others of other religions when one of the Ten Commandments (the first one in fact) is "thou shalt have no other gods before me".  Consider for a moment what that simple commandment means to people of other faiths, or no faith at all.

With that one commandment, the Abrahamic faiths assert their truthfulness and dominance over other faiths and lackthereof. 

You compare the statue to the Nazi symbol -- but the Nazis were a hate group who actually oppressed the Jews in horrific ways.  The same can be said of the KKK.  The Satanic Temple has not oppressed Christians.  Some Christians actually threatened and called to destroy the statues (it's unveiling was made secret to prevent that).  Of course some Christians were tolerant.

The Satanic Temple's version of Satan is not the same as the Christian version of Satan as far as I understand it.  It should also be remembered that one man's villain is another man's hero.  If TST were a group that hated Christians, rather than spend all the money they did on their symbol, they would have simply destroyed the ten commandment monuments instead.  They aren't burning down churches, they aren't destroying monuments (which again, some Christian Pastors threatened to do), they aren't even looking to put their statue somewhere as the sole symbol.  They merely want to put it up as a contrast to Christianity.  I don't believe you can really compare their symbol to the symbol of the Nazis, the KKK or other groups that have perpetrated horrible crimes against groups.