The Norwegian Black Metallers grow up

This past week, the Village Voice published Peter Beste and the Many Shades of Black Metal by Annie Fischer, June 3, 2008, a review of True Norwegian Black Metal, a large-format coffee-table book of photos by Peter Beste, published by Vice Books.

Back in the 1990's, the Norwegian Black Metal scene was notorious for murders and church-burnings. (See various pages linked in the section on Maniacal musicians in my article Tabloid prophecy fulfillers: Satanism's real-life criminal fringe: How should law-abiding Satanists respond? on my website Against Satanic Panics.)

The Village Voice quotes Beste as saying:

"In comparison to the early behavior, they aren't terribly violent anymore," he says. "They maintain similar [political and social] views, but they just . . . well, I think they mostly just kind of grew up. They saw that burning churches didn't really serve a purpose — if anything, it made the Christian community stronger. To rid Norway of Christianity . . . it's just not a realistic goal."

I'm glad they now realize that burning or otherwise vandalizing churches serves no valid purpose whatsoever. Indeed, if the point is to attack Christianity, it's completely counterproductive even in terms of that goal, for exactly the reason Beste mentioned: It just makes the Christian community stronger, if anything. I too made that very same point several years ago in my article The purpose of blasphemy in Satanism on my Theistic Satanism website.

Private rites of blasphemy can be a good catharsis. But there is no good reason to destroy or damage other people's property in the name of Satan or Satanism.

"Are Satanists Pagans?" - response to Hrafnkell

On a Google/Blogger blog called "A Heathen's Day," Hrafnkell wrote a post titled Are Satanists Pagans?, which begins as follows:

The claim made by David Bay, of Cutting Edge Ministries, that the Washington Monument is "a filthy, phallic and satanic homage to the god Baal" is rightfully dismissed by Gwydion Tiamat, a self-professed Satanist. He wisely chose not to go by his given name because, as he says, friends' houses "have been firebombed." And anyway, as he says, "they're just pagans."[1]

Footnote [1] refers to "Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, May 10, 2008, "D.C.: The devil's City?" by Dan Morse. Originally published in the Washington Post" - an offline source, apparently. Anyhow, Hrafnkell goes on to say:

My jaw dropped. Satanists are Pagans?

Are they?

Did Gwydion Tiamat say his friends were Satanists? Or did he perhaps mean to say something like, "Look what happened to my friends who not even Satanists, but just Pagans. All the more so am I in similar danger, as a Satanist"?

Since the source is apparently offline, I can't easily look up the original context to see what was actually meant. Oh, well.

Next, Hrafnkell goes on for a while with the usual Pagan spiel about how Satanism is not Pagan.

Hrafnkell, please read my article What is Satanism? . Note especially the following:

There are many kinds of Satanists.

For most of the past forty years, the most public Satanist spokespeople have been atheistic symbolic Satanists, who do not believe in or worship Satan as a literal entity, but who regard Satan as a symbol of independence, pride, individual ambition, etc. The best-known symbolic Satanist organization is the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey.

There is now a growing movement of theistic Satanists, who do believe in and revere Satan as a deity.

There are many kinds of theistic Satanists. The vast majority do NOT simply accept Christian beliefs except for siding with the Other Guy. The beliefs of most theistic Satanists are based on sources other than just Christianity.

...

Many theistic Satanists are polytheistic and regard both Satan and the Christian "God" as just two of the many gods. Some believe that all the gods, including both Satan and the Christian “God,” are really just very advanced extraterrestrial humanoids. Others are polytheistic in a more traditional spiritual sense.

Hrafnkell, please see also the following articles of mine:

• A Critique of Wiccan and Other Neo-Pagan Disclaimers About Satanism


• Satan and "Evil" in Christianity (and Satanism)


• Is Satanism a "Christian heresy"? Is Satanism "Abrahamic"?


• Is Satanism "Pagan"?


• Isaac Bonewits and "dualism"

I would suggest that you also read other pages in the section To Wiccans and other Pagans and occultists on my Theistic Satanism site. Most of it is addressed to Wiccans, but much of it is relevant to Heathens and other hard-polytheists too.