Satanic clubs, whose members do not worship the devil, usually formed in response to presence of religious groups in schools

Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.

The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.

The ASSC is a federally recognized nonprofit organization and national after-school program with local chapters across the US. The club is associated with the Satanic Temple, though it claims it is secular and “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”.

The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead Satan is used as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.

  • nicetriangle@kbin.social
    137·
    10 months ago

    The outrage these assholes are feeling is what the rest of us feel every time we see them trying to force their dogma into every facet of society.

      • Welt@lazysoci.al
        01·
        10 months ago

        Way to miss the point and misunderstand it in terms of polarized politics. There is no “ours” and “theirs”.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Not everything is a debate with multiple valid points of view. The notion that your right to a belief somehow encompasses a right to inflict that belief on everybody else isn’t an ideological position; it’s a declaration of violence.

          Fuck dishonest moral relativism. 2+2=4 and one person’s religious freedom ends where another person’s begins. Those are facts, not opinions, and if you disagree you’re just wrong.

  • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    963·
    10 months ago

    The number of adults in the US that think Satan is a literal being is way too fucking high.

    It started as an editor using ‘adversary’ in the place of what was probably the goddess Anat appealing the head of the pantheon to kill the son of the protagonist like in the earlier Canaanite A Tale of Aqhat as an intro into what was an adaptation of the also earlier Babylonian Theodicy in Job.

    But we couldn’t have a polytheistic holdover, so suddenly there was a supernatural ‘adversary’ (‘Satan’) in a story.

    Which in turn spawned fanfiction during the prophet ages where they referred to the supernatural adversary of Job.

    Then Hellenistic ideas around Hades (both the place and figure) get added into the mix, and we get the Enochian literature about fallen angels, where the guided katabasis influenced Virgil which later informs Dante’s Inferno.

    Then King James messes up translating Isaiah and the Latin for the morning star (Lucifer) gets mistaken for a proper name, further tying the supernatural adversary to being one of the Enochian fallen angels. And we get Milton’s Paradise Lost.

    It’s all just mistranslations and fanfiction.

    And yet millions of people believe it’s actually a thing so much so that they freak out at the idea of any references to it as literally being dangerous.

    In 2022.

    An age filled with things beyond the wildest imagination of those in antiquity dreaming up miracles and wonders.

    We’re so beyond fucked as a species.

  • Pratai@lemmy.ca
    76·
    10 months ago

    It would be sad how badly these idiots fail to see the irony when it’s spelled out for them if it wasn’t so funny.

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      10 months ago

      It’s a bit frustrating that it doesn’t make any of them actually reflect on their hypocrisy though. They just double down on the hypocrisy with no questions asked.

      • Facebones@reddthat.com
        3·
        10 months ago

        I’ve been saying it for years, through even the most liberal of us attacking me for it -

        It’s because this is and always has been the point and the end goal.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
      13·
      10 months ago

      You can’t use your technicalities to push your way around and do what you want! That’s our whole thing, man!

  • El_guapazo@lemmy.world
    62·
    10 months ago

    Conservatives always want to have a free “marketplace of ideas” until it’s something they fear.

  • rayyy@lemmy.world
    591·
    10 months ago

    Of course Tennessee Christians are outraged. The after School Satan Club is most likely way more Christian than they are so there’s stiff competition.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    58·
    10 months ago

    The uproar is the point.

    The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.

    But somehow conservative Christians believe that there are huge swaths of people who agree that their religion is 100% correct but worship the weak bad guy character.

    (Which is not to mention that there are actually multiple bad guys who got combined, Satan and Lucifer and The Snake were originally different people)

    • flipht@kbin.social
      55·
      10 months ago

      This is a long standing joke - what do you call someone who believes in Satan?

      A Christian.

    • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
      151·
      10 months ago

      God is omniscient and thus knew exactly what Lucifer would do. Angels don’t have free will. Lucifer did exactly what God intended. God wanted Man to have free will. Free will requires the choice between good and evil. Man is the “bad guy” as well as the “good guy”.

      • dewritoninja@pawb.social
        24·
        10 months ago

        If god is omniscient they would know exactly what everyone is going to choose, nullifying free will entirely

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
          41·
          10 months ago

          This is a great example of why I don’t believe free will is a coherent concept outside of religion. It’s basically a perk that negates God’s omniscience as it applies to you, but if you don’t believe in God, it’s meaningless.

        • TigrisMorte@kbin.social
          2·
          10 months ago

          Ah, but that is the point, until Man chose it hadn’t happened, it is the precognition paradox. Until the event occurs, what is known is all the possibilities.

          • Girru00@lemmy.world
            31·
            10 months ago

            That’s… just like your opinion man.

            Then god isnt omnipotent, cause you know, it lacks the power of whats actually to come and is only good at knowing all the hypotheticals. Or may be lacks omnicience, but one could argue that knowing all the possibilities counts.

            All that matters is that its lacking something, when it shouldnt

        • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          10 months ago

          If there exists a being that experiences time the same way we experience space, do we have any less free will just because the being can continue knowing about it before it happened? The person is making the choice, not the being that knows about the choice.