I am certain that I am digging my argument’s own grave by appealing to common sense but a common sense approach would seem to be that if one seeks to establish an after school club it should be based on something to which one holds, something that someone actually believes and not upon something to which they do not hold, in which they do not believe.
The Satanic Temple (about which you can learn here) claims that they do not believe in Satan—as an actual, personal being. Thus, they are a Temple to Satan which does not worship Satan and thus, is not a Temple—actually, it is a temple devoted to its members self-worship since they claim to be Atheists and Atheism is inherently auto-theistic—for example, they state, “we believe in personal autonomy.”
As I noted in The Satanic Temple’s Lucien Greaves aka Doug Mesner unmasked, Greaves/Mesner is the Temple’s co-founder and stated, “The Satanic Temple was actually conceived of…as a ‘poison pill’ in the Church/State debate…While the original thinking was that the Satanic Temple needed to hold to some belief in a supernatural entity known as ‘Satan,’ none of us truly believed that…we all do truly believe in and wholeheartedly embrace: an atheistic philosophical framework that views ‘Satan’ as a metaphorical construct by which we contextualize our works.”
So—assuming that the Satanic Temple has any way of promulgating and ensuring the ethic of truth telling—the Satanic Temple are the Atheistic Temple. Now, there is a common misconception to the affect that all Satanists are Atheists but there is no way to simply paint with a (witch’s) broom and generalize all Satanists are such. For example, such is claimed of Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan and yet, when his girlfriend Jane Mansfield’s son was mauled by a lion, LaVey and his co-religionists gatherer in order to petition their “brother Satan” as a personal being for healing.
So, as per their own context, when we hear of the Satanic Temple we should think of them as The Metaphorical Construct by Which they Contextualize their Atheist Activism Works Temple. And what is their work? Well, for one they support the form of human child sacrifice known as “abortion.” Yet, my focus hereinafter will be that which Greaves/Mesner emphasized which is their function as “a ‘poison pill’ in the Church/State debate.”
In VIDEO: Interview with a Satanist – Satanic Temple and after school programs I noted that “the Satanists admit that they are not interested in spreading their message for its own sake but with the motivation of Christianity-busting. Their goal is to shut down Christianity and seek to do it by pretending to be concerned with equal time.” Hereinafter I will prove time and time again, via their own words, that since this is the goal of the Satanic Temple then the after schools Satanic Club is premised on anti-Christian activism and not on Satanism—which commonsensically is what a Satanic group should be teaching.
HOME PAGE
The very home page of the After School Satan program states upfront that it is “A Campaign of The Satanic Temple” and “Donate to Help Us Counter Evangelism In Schools” (emphasis added for emphasis) so it is an evangelistic campaign to counter evangelism—go figure—yet, there is the premise.
The same page states, “It’s important that children be given an opportunity to realize that the evangelical materials now creeping into their schools are representative of but one religious opinion amongst many.” Well, Atheism is not creeping into schools but is allowed right in to the front door essentially inscripturated within textbooks (see Protecting the Science Classroom).
They take specific aim at the “the Good News Clubs focus on indoctrination, instilling them with a fear of Hell and God’s wrath” which may possibly be a slightly biased characterization, and they stated that, that club “pollute[s] the schools’ mental environment.”1. In supposed contradistinction we are told that “After School Satan Clubs will focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us. We prefer to give children an appreciation of the natural wonders surrounding them, not a fear of everlasting other-worldly horrors.” So now, why not establish After School Rationalism and Scientific Basis Clubs rather than a Satanic Club? Well, we have been told: this is not about rationalism and science but about shutting down Christianity. Be sure to note that this is where it gets messy since these are Atheists who claim to want to inform children about rationalism upon a scientific basis for appreciating the natural wonders surrounding them. Well, their “science” classes are already an Atheist catechism so that this is already in place. In any case, there are, at least, two issues here: 1) this denoted Atheism’s tendency towards neo-Paganism (see here) as they replace awe in God with awe in nature and 2) why should we assume that biased anti-Christian Atheists are qualified to teach children rationalism and science?
Yet, they specifically address this issue by stating, “No, this program wouldn’t be ‘better’ if we merely called ourselves Humanists. We are Satanists. That is how we identify, and it is how we’ll continue to identify. It makes no difference who does or does not choose to recognize an atheistic Satanic philosophy as a legitimate religion”—and, by the way, yes: they just affirmed that Atheism is a religion.
The page also includes a Q&A with the Q being “Is Satanism in schools legal?” and the A being “Yes” and they appeal to a Supreme Court ruling “Good News Club v. Milford Central School” which ruled against discrimination against religious speech and emphasizes that “Christian evangelicals — particularly the Child Evangelism Fellowship — have taken advantage of this ruling.” Ironically, they also emphasize that “it is illegal for the schools to discriminate against specific religions” even though discriminating against specific religions is the very premise upon which the Satanic Club is premised.
CORRECTIONS
They also have a Corrections page which “issues preemptive corrections to inevitable false claims” and so they seek to be “perfectly clear about the nature of our after school program.” Point one is what? You guessed it: something to do with Christianity, “Satanists are not being granted any special privileges that are being denied to Christians. A popular persecution narrative is being sold by evangelical bloviators” which is ironic as a styled premise of the Satanic Temple is to promulgate a popular persecution narrative being sold by Satanist-Atheist bloviators.
They also specify that “our in-school activities are legitimized and necessitated by the pre-existing activities of evangelical groups” (added emphasis) which, yet again, means that their premise is anti-Christian activism. In fact, they stated that “the Good News Clubs served to create the need for After School Satan Clubs” and that “The Evangelical Liberty Counsel Opened Door to Satanism in Public Schools” (more on this below).
Yet, they assert that “This should not be contextualized as a battle of Satanists against Christians” with the reasoning being that they are specifically seeking to counter the Child Evangelism Fellowship and “The CEF does not represent the whole of American Christians” and they refer to the CEF as “an insidious organization.”
They, once again, admit that “we are intentionally and pointedly placing After School Satan Clubs in schools where proselytizing evangelicals have established clubs.”
They also state that they view themselves as a “counter-balance” to “demonstrate that there are opposing religious beliefs held by responsible, respectable, moral people who live productive lives without the burden of superstitious fear” which may be the case but they must provide a premise upon which to even defined “moral” before they self-identify as such.
They state, “We are not interested in converting children to Satanism”—whatever “Satanism” means to them at any given time—and that “As Satanists, we believe that science is the best arbiter of truth”—whatever “science” means to them at any given time (for example, actual evidence or Atheist-evolutionist-worldview-philosophical interpretation of evidence?). THE LIBERTY COUNSEL
The Liberty Counsel page is the one that emphasizes that, like all activist-militant Atheists, the Satanic Temple has no original ideas but is merely an oppose, oppose, oppose victimhood scheme. Thus, “The Evangelical Liberty Counsel Opened Door to Satanism in Public Schools” so that the Satanic Temple sat by, did nothing, and simply walked through the open door—and now seeks to close it for all if they themselves are denied entry.
Yet again they note, “To be clear, the pre-existing presence of evangelical after school clubs not only established a precedent for which school districts must now accept Satanic groups, but the evangelical after school clubs have created the need for Satanic after school clubs to offer a contrasting balance to student’s extracurricular activities.”
They refer to the Child Evangelism Fellowship’s “odious, mindless indoctrination gangs” who “assault students with anti-intellectual guilt-instilling superstitions regarding eternal damnation, thereby impressing upon children a terrified blind doctrinal obedience to an imaginary spiritual dictator.”
Here again they emphasize that “our curriculum will focus on free inquiry, rationalism, and scientific understanding” which, as I have proven time and again, is Atheist-speak for Atheistic indoctrination.
They state, “we feel that our presence in schools that are burdened with the loathsome stink of the Good News Clubs serves an anti-indoctrination function” and “we are grateful to the Liberty Counsel for opening the doors of public schools to our After School Satan Clubs.”
FIND A CLUB
Basically, the entire After School Satan site is an anti-Christian forum and every section expresses this thus, no, not even the find a club is free of such prejudice, “parents are concerned about encroachments by proselytizing evangelicals in their public schools.” They also noted something upon which I have already touched above, “one doesn’t need to submit to superstition in order to be a good person” and when one gets to define “good” for themselves then one can simply self-identify as being “good” and be done with it.
They, once again, emphasize that “Our goal, ultimately, is to place an ASSC in every school where the Good News Clubs, or other proselytizing religious groups, have established a presence.”
FAQ
Here are some key statements from the FAQ page.
Once again they emphasize that their “Clubs are based upon a uniform syllabus that emphasizes a scientific, rationalist, non-superstitious world view” with “non-superstitious world view” meaning that they are preaching Atheism. This, they state, is over and against “the twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubs.”
In fact, “The Satanic Temple is not interested in operating After School Satan Clubs in school districts that are not already hosting the Good News Club. However, The Satanic Temple ultimately intends to have After School Satan Clubs operating in every school district where the Good News Club is represented.”
One question is “So Scientific Rationalism is a religion?” the answer to which is “No, Satanism is a religion that endorses scientific rationalism as our best model for understanding the natural world” which goes to prove that they interpret actual hard science via an Atheistic worldview-philosophy and then claim that the actual science results in Atheism.
They re-emphasize that that they seek to counteract “once religion invades schools, as The Good News Clubs have.”
DONATE
No, not even the Donate to ASSC page is safe. Of course, it would not be since asking for donations is a perfect time to play the victim card. Thus, they want money “to counter evangelical proselytizing in public schools…organized fundamentalist Christian organizations.”
They state that “these theocrats are persistently eroding the line of separation of Church and State” and as in other pages, they demonstrate that they do not understand that issue of “separation of Church and State.”
ATHEIST VS. SATANIST?
Lastly, since the Satanic Temple has no original ideas but merely follows in the steps of Christian orgs, likewise, Dan Barker’s anti-Christian support group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), has noted that “The Satanic Temple has announced that it will be distributing literature” in public schools (Satanic Temple in public schools along with pedophilia and bloody murder: that was in 2014 AD) which was “on the heels of FFRF’s victory” in being allowed to “distribute literature after an evangelical Christian organization distributed bibles in the schools.” Yet, the “FFRF does not believe that satanists or Christians or even atheists should be distributing literature to public school students.”
And so, I come full circle ending where I began by repeating my common sense approach would seem to be that if one seeks to establish an after school club it should be based on something to which one holds, something that someone actually believes and not upon something to which someone does not hold, in which they do not believe.
For this same reason, I previously wrote Why Atheist and Satanic display in Boca Raton should NOT be allowed.
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