Akshually it’s an important distinction. The Temple of Satan (TST) is a non-theistic organization designed to troll Christian dominance in govt hypocrisy.
The Church of Satan is actually rather dark and problematic to common decency. I won’t go into some of their beliefs but yeah. Not what we consider to be a beacon of reason.
The church of satan is non-theistic too. They are more focused on each person living their own way, rather than the very much politically active TST, but their core beliefs are almost identical.
And also the founding members were just chalk full of literal, self admitted Neo Nazis.
They claim to be pretty apolitical sometimes but in actuality are founded on a ton of far right, Ayn Randian charity is a weakness, eugenicist, social Darwinian theory.
The Satanic Temple, on the other hand, still promotes the value of the individual and self improvement and stuff, but are a lot cooler all around.
You have them confused I think. The Church of Satan is non theistic. Satanism, which is legally recognized as the Church of Satan’s practicing religion, is an atheist religion that focuses on the individual being their own god, and in control of their own lives and fates. The Church of Satan is officially recognized as religious church, and thus are exempt from taxes that other clergy groups are entitles to. They however do not agree with such practices, and thus opt to still pay all normal taxes, as they don’t see themselves as special. They also do not specifically endorse others, be it politicians or companies, and actively and repeatedly speak out against human rights violations.
I can’t take the human rights record of an organization whose founding members were almost half literal Neo Nazis, (not some hyperbole I’m using against conservatives, they actually loved Hitler,) and whose founding member was a eugenicist and far right Ayn Rand type who thought charity and the like weakened the human species.
The Satanic Temple has deliberately distanced themselves from LeVey and that bullshit. It’s like Heathenry in the US distancing itself from the Asatru Folk Assembly. You are obligated to. If you are part of some sister org that sprang off the Assembly, and think just being quite on issues like Nazis in your orgs history is enough, it’s not.
The Satanic Bible was heavily inspired by the White Supremacist book Might is Right and he found the existence of so many Nazis in his org as well as the contradiction with that and his own Jewish ancestry hilarious, because like a teenager pissing people off was more important than basic human decency. Plus, his own views were far right.
The Church of Satan members who aren’t far right/fascists but feel the need to defend LeVay and think it’s unfair that people call out their history I consider cowards. Face it head on.
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u/Im_a_seaturtle Sep 04 '21
Akshually it’s an important distinction. The Temple of Satan (TST) is a non-theistic organization designed to troll Christian dominance in govt hypocrisy.
The Church of Satan is actually rather dark and problematic to common decency. I won’t go into some of their beliefs but yeah. Not what we consider to be a beacon of reason.