Comment

Comment by Brad on December 3, 2011 at 3:43pm

However, even without a "god", religions can be just as restricting and just as silly. As with "magic", reincarnation, karma, etc etc

Comment by Brad on December 3, 2011 at 3:42pm

well, "magic spell" garbage aside, a lot of his personal philosophies I just find interesting. On things like lust, anger and self interest. being your own "God". I just feel that one should not let these things own them or turn them into too big of a prick. Greed is just wanting more than you need. EXCESSIVE greed is when you don't give a fuck who you screw over to get something. It's about balance

Comment by Chris S on December 1, 2011 at 5:19pm

Please forgive my grammer and spelling below.

Comment by Chris S on December 1, 2011 at 5:01pm

I am by now mans an expert either. LaVey may very well have been a nutty Atheist making money off of crazy people pissed off at God. I've met a couple of people who follow his teaching and pratice his rituals. Which personally I find disgusting. Even if he didn't believe in his writtings some people do. Since people follow and beleive in his teachings as if it is real I beleive it should be considered a religon. Most if not all the worlds religons come their version of the dark side and both are equally frighting to me. That is my opinion anyway.

Comment by Brad on November 30, 2011 at 10:44pm

I didn't think he was a 'theist' because of the magic crap. I just thought the magic parts were silly, just as I think the same of atheistic Buddhists who believe in reincarnation. But I'm no expert.

Comment by Chris S on November 29, 2011 at 4:51pm

To comment on the LaVey comment that he was an atheist, I find that  a little hard to swallow because after reading The Satanic Bible and other books by him I find him telling people about placing curses on poeple and performing black masses. I believe he took this stuff serioulsy especially after he warned a woman to stay away from someone he placed a curse on. He may have started out as an atheist however I beleive in the end he bought into his own bullshit. I see to much of Aleister Crowely in his writings and he damn well believed his bullshit.

Comment by Brad on November 29, 2011 at 12:06pm

anyone who thinks that way........y'know.....when I hear things like "so you just believe nothing happens when you die", I fully understand the need to believe in something more, even if I find it silly mythology, however when it turns them into black and white generalization filled absolutist "thinkers" like it does with many of the more traditionalist sects, I have issue. I mean, these people, for example, are often the types who find out you have even one slightly left leaning view on ANYTHING, and automatically label you some "nazi commie socialist fag who wants to kill babies and help[ terrorists destroy America". Nothing even slightly open minded about them, and I blame their religion for doing this to them. The real world is full of shades of gray, not black and white. And even the idea of a place of never ending torment,which was NOT in the original Biblical texts to start with) sounds insane to me, and I can be a prick about punishment. (my idea to deal with shoplifting punks is chopping a finger off when  caught but even I wouldn't send my worst enemy to never ending fiery torture.) Basically, while fully understanding the need to believe in something more, it scares me that people can be made to believe ANYTHING as long as you add "God loves you" to the end of it. In summary, religion impedes critical thinking and THAT is 'evil' to me.

 

Also, to the below poster speaking of atheistic or metaphorical/LaVeyan Satanism. I love some of Anton LaVey's writings, but still, the guy was an asshole and kind of took things to the extremes at times. ("If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.”) I take the parts I like from it, still, but I would never be one to have my entire philosophies confined to one book. It just seems restrictive

Comment by Charles Corey Stewart on November 29, 2011 at 6:05am

Found this to be ... interesting way of putting it via urban dictionary

The satanic church was started in the 60's by Anton LaVey, so logic would follow that he would be able to define a satanist better than Oprah or whoever hosts Dateline or 20/20. A satanist doesn't believe in god or satan. A satanist is an atheist that believes people should be responsible for their actions. 

Satanism itself addresses problems it finds with Judeo-Christian beliefs. They find that telling one's children that they should behave correctly not because its the decent thing to do but because some ridiculous land of fire will make their 'afterlife' really shitty is poor parenting. 

The reason why satanists are thought of as scary people in black coats that sacrifice goats and abduct children springs from 2 sources. The first is sensationalist media outlets like Oprah and Dateline and 20/20 and all the daytime talk shows. 

The second is the real reason why people believe these shows and thats the tendency of Christians to need to find evil where it doesn't exist. Christians themselves tend to be egotistical (because they only follow their faith when convenient) and like to feel more pious and self-righteous by creating an evil boogeyman that doesn't exist so they can blame society's decay on them.

Christian douchebag: Yeah so this little kid has gone missing, its gotta be the Satanists. 

Non-idiot: Hmm, or it could be just a regular criminal. 

Christian douchebag: No! Satanists ruin everything. Satanists make me ignore my faith by beating the hell out of my wife and sleeping with my secretary! Its okay though, as long as I go to church a lot and tell god I'm sorry for beating up my wife I'm good. Loopholes are great.

Comment by roland707 on November 28, 2011 at 10:49pm

Atheists don't believe that christians are going to hell.

Comment by Chris S on November 28, 2011 at 7:59pm

Thanks for the responses, I was just curious about some of the experiences that some of you may have had.  The just seems to be the first thing people say when I tell them I'm an atheist. It just boggles my mind how they can come to that solution so quickly. It seems to be just a canned response. Then again so many things that believers say are just canned responses aren't they?

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