(May 15, 2019 at 4:04 pm)EgoDeath Wrote:(May 15, 2019 at 6:32 am)prhill Wrote: Wow the excuses you keep making. I have provided endless sources for you and you admit you wont even look into them. These are the highest ranking members that believe these things not a few low rank members. Yes technically they are atheists as they dont believe in a god but they still believe they can change reality with magic, and believe in ghosts and a spirit world and reincarnation and pseudoscience, etc
Excuses? Give me some links and I'd be happy to look at them. On one end you say they are atheists, but then you say they believe in supernatural beings? Yet, the CoS website states explicitly that Satanic philosophy has nothing to do with supernatural beings. I don't know how else I can explain it to you, Satanism is an atheistic philosophy, period. And even if some members of the CoS said they believe in summoning demons, I'd highly doubt the sincerity of those claims. You seem to miss over and over the tongue-in-cheek sort of showmanship often employed by Satanists - it's something LaVey did frequently, even though he was undoubtedly an atheist.
If you're not even willing to admit you may be overlooking that, this conversation doesn't need to continue. I know several people, in real life, who consider themselves Satanists and I've never heard anyone say they believe in demons or summoning spirits. Sounds like nonsense to me.
(May 15, 2019 at 7:58 am)Belaqua Wrote: A useful source that might be less self-regarding than the site of a particular sect:
Satanism, Magic and Mysticism in Fin-de-siècle France; R. Ziegler
on Amazon here
Maybe you're using the term Satanist in a very specific sense, to refer only to a certain type who claim that they are the true Satanists and those who came before don't deserve the title. This would be in keeping with different versions of other religions who say they are the true and only group that deserve the title, while their predecessors and competitors are fakes.
I'm using it in the way that the sources I refer to above use it: more generally for groups of people who worship Satan. Of course there are variations, but I'm not devoted enough to one flavor to deny others use of the title.
That some author refers to obscure occult practices in France as "Satanism" doesn't make it so. Satanism was not a thing until LaVey created it as a philosophy. I don't know how many times I can repeat this. No one before LaVey called themselves "Satanists." It was a term that was used similar to "Pagans" or "heretics," almost exclusively by Christians.
I gave you ALL the sources and these members are TOP ranking members who believe in magic healing people, killing people, making girls lust for them, they believe in spirit guides, demons, reincarnation, pseudoscience. Facts are facts. Ignoring them does not make them not true.
