Satanism

Yesterday, I made strawberry pie in a mug. Which was awesome. And I totally wanna do it again in the near future because holy wow it was amazing! Aaaand since it was just one in a mug, I didn't gorge myself on it. Today, I'd like to talk about Satanism. I always thought it was like some weird religion where you sacrificed goats to the devil, but actually it's not even a religion; it's a philosophy - and mainly about self-worship as most (if not all) Satanists are atheists who believe in neither the supernatural, nor any gods, nor the devil. So yeah... it's not devil-worship. So that's cool. Someone I know started blogging about it recently and I read her posts which contained super interesting things... SUCH AS (and I'm borrowing from wikipedia here...): The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth (which are wonderful): 1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked. 2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them. 3. When in another's home, show them respect or else do not go there. 4. If a guest in your home annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy. 5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal. 6. Do not take that which does not belong to you, unless it is a burden to the other person and they cry out to be relieved. 7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained. 8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself. 9. Do not harm young children. 10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food. 11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them. I think numbers 4 and 11 go a little bit far, but the rest of them are pretty dandy. The nine satanic sins are also interesting. They are - stupidity, pretentiousness, solipsism, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness of past orthodoxies, conterproductive pride, and lack of aesthetics. I can really get behind stupidity as being the worst sin of all. I'm going to borrow something from someone's blog on the 7 deadly sins in relation to Satanism, as well...

The seven deadly sins of the Christian Church are: greed, pride, envy, anger, gluttony, lust, and sloth. Satanism advocates indulging in each of these “sins” as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification. A Satanist knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that he wants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favour upon the possessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambition - and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished. Gluttony is simply eating more than you need to keep yourself alive. When you have overeaten to the point of obesity, another sin - pride - will motivate you to regain an appearance that will renew your self-respect. Anyone who buys an article of clothing for a purpose other than covering his body and protecting it from the elements is guilty of pride. It must be pointed out to these destroyers of labels that one or many articles they themselves are westing are not necessary to keep them warm. There is not a person on this earth who is completely devoid if ornamentation. The Satanist points out that any ornamentation of the scoffer’s body shows that he, too, is guilty of pride. Regardless of how verbose the cynic may be in his intellectual description of how free he is, he is still wearing the elements of pride. Being reluctant to get up in the morning is to be guilty of sloth, and if you lie in bed long enough you may find yourself committing yet another son - lust. To have the faintest stirring of sexual desire is to be guilty of lust. In order to unsure the propagation of humanity, nature made lust the second most powerful instinct, the first being self-preservation. Realising this, the Christian Church made fornication the “Original Sin.” In this way they made sure nobody would escape sin. Your very state of being is as a result of sin - the Original sin! The strongest instinct in every living thing is self-preservation, which brings us to the last of the seven deadly sins - anger. Is it not our instinct for self-preservation that is aroused when someone harms us, when we become angry enough to protect ourselves from further attack? A Satanist practises the motto, “If a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him on the other!” Let no wrong go undressed. Be as a lion in the path - be dangerous even in defeat!

It's interesting and generally true, I find. I have always found religion in general to be quite creepy and deeply unsettling. I find they serve no purpose in the modern world of science. Why do people need to follow archaic black and white rules on how to be a good person? Many of these are irrelevant. For example, Leviticus is mostly dedicated to dictating how to live one's life and what rules to follow, such as don't shave ever, don't associate with women on their periods, and don't wear anything that has blended fibres. How ridiculous are those? What has that to do with modern living? Perhaps it was relevant two-thousand years ago... but not anymore. As such, why on earth would you follow other "rules" in the bible? They weren't meant for people to pick and choose. Follow all, or follow none. And now that it's all so irrelevant, why are people still obsessed with it? Honestly, I believe that religions were first created to help teach people as well as explain things that were not yet explainable by science. Now, however, they have become obsolete and I believe they are just a way to control people and get their money. I mean, yes, sure, lovely they're also to form a sense of community for people, but like. Can't you do something other than worship mythology? If the Norse gods and Roman gods and Greek gods are so false and mythological, what on earth makes you and your religions so special?