Alonzo Fyfe

In my mind, this mis-identifies the problem. My issue with the satanists has nothing to do with the idea that they are disliked and if we associate with them we will be disliked, too.

It has to do with clearly communicating an idea.

As I see it, the situation with the satanists would be analogous to a group of Jewish atheists adopting the swastika as their symbol and Hitler as their alledged idol.

It may well be true that they have no fondness for the NAZI philosophy. But it is also true that they have selected a very poor way of communicating what they are really about.

It is, as I have said before, like getting permission to give a speech to a bunch of people and intentionally setting up the sound system and picking a language that almost nobody in the audience will understand.

Which is exactly what the American Atheists are doing by including satanists at this march. They have an opportunity to communicate an important set of ideas to the general public. But they have intentionally decided to confuse and garble that message and invite misunderstanding.

Contrast this to the "Agnostic Homosexuals" you mentioned, including agnostic homosexuals does NOT invite misunderstanding -- it does not garble and confuse the message.

There is a clear distinction between these two types of cases.

Novowels

Ah, you're right guys. Fuck the Satanists, it'll make our job of getting acceptance harder. Kick 'em to the curb. They're not REALLY one of us. They can just fend for themselves.

The saddest part isn't that we don't agree, it's that we are for some reason arguing about this. This isn't even the right thread for it. I was just commenting on how sad it was that there were horns getting locked over this in the NY Times. Bullshit posturing and knee-jerk reactions. We look 100x worse arguing about this than by simply having Satanists in the march.

I guess I was under the impression that this march was promoting the fact that there are nonbelievers in America that are patriots and good people. Good American men and women that identify themselves as Satanists and don't believe in God don't obscure this agenda in any way, as I see it. It must be that whole "Godless March on Washington" part. Not the "Godless and Palatable to the Christian Majority March on Washington" bit.

Isn't there a whole other thread we should be doing this on?

RichardMorey

I agree with you. The Satanists chose a really dumb name, and, frankly, I think the whole Satanism thing is silly.

But that is not the important issue. I don't think it should be up to me, nor you, nor anyone else to tell them they can't march with atheists because they have a dumb name. They have their name, and they have their reasons, and that's that. If they're godless, they should be able to march in the godless march.

Their name, though dumb, is tangential to the issue of godlessness.

Yes, this may cause bad PR, but forget about that. This was supposed to be about unity within the godless community, right?

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: RichardMorey ]

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: RichardMorey ]</p>

Bible Humper

If this was just a gathering for the sake of friendship, yeah. I thought that this march was actually meant to gain some understanding and respect for atheists from Joe America though...

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Splashing Colours Of Whimsy ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

Unfortunately, bad PR (in this case, coming just before the election), could be enough to give the Republicans control of the house or senate, or both. Which determines which judges gets appointed, which determines if the ACLU will be presenting its case to a judge who decides things according to the Constitution or the Bible.

Be that as it may, I think there comes a time when one has to simply accept things and move on. The satanists will be at the march. As such, there is not much to be gained by offering complaints about it here.

I do have a small preference for discussing things that I can change, rather than things I cannot.

excreationist

Krieger:
The primary definitions for "atheism" and "godless" you quoted were both the ones that we would use! i.e. a lack of belief in gods.

On the other hand, in all of the dictionaries I could find, they seemed to say that Satanism was about devil worship or being evil... and that was *all*.

Novowels:
While I'm a naturalist, and therefore do not believe in "majick" per se, I do not hold that as a part of my atheisim. (which is, simply, that I do not believe in any god/s.) You can have magic, or magick, or majick, or however you want to spell it without gods.
I think there would have to be some kind of intelligent creative force that makes "majick" work... even though this force mightn't have a personality, like a god would.

I don't care if the general public thinks agnostic = homosexual. Are we going to not allow gay agnostics to go to the march so they don't "enforce the stereotype?" We aren't going to get away with brushing Satanists off like we can sweep them under the rug.
The word "satanist" isn't a good description of what they are though. They *call* themselves satanists, but according to the dictionary, they're not. I think they choose that name just for the controversy it creates.

Last time I checked a Websters it gave the definition of atheist as "immoral" and "evil." But you know, we atheists shouldn't try to redefine that....
The main definition of atheist there is that they lack a belief in a god or gods! So one of the dictionary definitions does apply to us. I think that all dictionaries that have the meaning for atheist would have a definition that says they lack a belief in gods, though it may also say it means "immoral" or "evil". Just because a word has multiple meanings in a dictionary it doesn't mean it can't be used... although it can cause some confusion.
But in the case of Satanism, their new definition isn't even in most dictionaries!

Edit:
I accidently deleted the last bit of my message...
Anyway, I said something like:

I'm saying that they're not using the word properly, as it is defined by dictionaries.

A similar example might involve a group that wasn't well understood by the public... lets say they decided to call themselves "paedophiles", and they liked to have pictures of near-naked children on their websites, but they said that most of them aren't actually interested in having sex with children... I think it would be better for them to change their name than to try and educate the public about what their version of "paedophilia" means....

Many Satanists seem to view Satan as being the archetype of the questioning-self -

I wonder why... Perhaps it is because of the story in Genesis where the talking snake tricks Eve and Adam into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Note that it isn't about knowledge of all things - just knowledge about what is good and what is evil. In the story God is infinitely more powerful and the talking snake would have to be stupid to think that it was actually helping Adam and Eve.
In the gospels, Satan does things like personally possess Judas and betray Jesus so that Jesus gets killed and fulfils God's prophecies... (see Luke 22:3 and John 13:27)
And in the gospels Satan also tempts Jesus (in Mark he is called "Satan" but in Matthew and Luke he is called "the devil"). In Matthew 4:8-9 it says "...the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." (See also Luke 4:5-7)
And in the book of Job, Satan is a being who asks God for permission to massacre Job's loved ones, destroy his possessions and make bad sores appear all over his body.

So don't think the Satan character, even if it is twisted a lot, really is an archetypal questioning-self figure...

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

jayh

If true, this is absurd rationale on LaVey's part. To take the character that represents evil (not hedonism) from the group that invented the character and claim it represents something different is absurd. It's the Christians who get to decide what Satan means, they invented him.

Even atheists certainly don't represent ourselves as the opposite of Jesus... there are many concepts associated with the quasi historical character which we do accept as well... honesty, compassion, forgiveness... most of us are not opposed to that.

By his action LaVey essentially helped to discredit hedonism, not support it. If anything, hedonism is orthagonal to religion, not opposed to it.

jay

Ron Garrett

We'll be parodied, mocked, labeled and boiled down to being devil worshippers no matter what we do. Anyone ever see the media not go for the outrageous clips and soundbites? Anyone ever see the Christian right fail to demonize someone when it had the chance? There's no point to discuss it further. There's no point to exclude anyone. A low turnout will be seen as carte blanche to discount and opress us. We have to show, even if we don't like the company.

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Garrett ]</p>

Krieger

I agree.