More on the definitions of "Satanist" and "Pagan" - response to Chell

In the comments below Hrafnkell's post Are Satanists Pagans?, someone named Chell wrote:

From Diane's post:
"The vast majority do NOT simply accept Christian beliefs except for siding with the Other Guy."
To believe in the "Other Guy," don't you have to accept at least some Christian beliefs? Where is the line drawn on those beliefs, if at all? So for Satan to exist, Christianity must be correct.

Wrong. First, many Satanists are atheists who don't believe in any gods at all, but see Satan as only a symbol. Among theistic Satanists, who do revere Satan as a deity, there are many different theologies. For examples of some of these theologies, see What is Satanism?. See also The varieties of theistic ("traditional") Satanism.

And if it is, Pagan Gods must not be worshipped.

Since when were Satanists noted for retaining Christianity's prohibitions?

Chell has a blog of her own, called "Chell's Roost." In a post titled Is this even possible?, she wrote:

Christianity is considered a monotheistic religion. But a post on Hrafnkell’s blog, a blog linked from there, and some e-mail chitter chatter has me thinking about this. In Christianity, it is believed there is one God. Yet Christians might pray not only to Jesus, but to Mary or saints (some derived from Pagan Gods) the way they pray to God, and might even honor them the way a Pagan might honor a God. This, to me, smacks of worship. How can Jesus or Mary answer a prayer that they cannot hear? And is it not divinity that gives them the ability to hear and answer those who call on them? Even if their divinity comes from their “one” God, that of Pagan Gods does not. To call on a Pagan God, does one not have to first believe in that God, even if he has relabeled her a saint? So do Christians actually worship beyond one God?

First, not all Christians pray to saints. As a general rule, Protestants don't and Catholics do. Furthermore, Catholic theology makes a distinction between "dulia" and "latria." (See the online Catholic Encylcopedia article on dulia.)

My question here is about polytheism. Along with the question on Hrafnkell’s blog about the possibility of a Satanist being a Pagan, can a Christian be a Pagan? That seems a preposterous stretch, like asking if red can be green,

A more interesting question is what Chell thinks of the African diaspora religions and other similar hybrids of Christianity and non-Abrahamic religions. Also, what does Chell think of the Western occult tradition?

Gwydion Tiamat's precaution against hate crimes against Satanists and Pagans - P.S. to my response to Hrafnkell

In a comment beneath my previous post, "Are Satanists Pagans?" - response to Hrafnkell, Hrafnkell posted a link to the Washington Post article A Capital City With The Devil in the Details? by Dan Morse, Wednesday, April 9, 2008; Page C01.

The relevant part, on page 2 of the article, says:

The Washington Monument ... was described by Bay, the South Carolina author, as a filthy, phallic and satanic homage to the god Baal.

Unlikely, said an avowed Satanist from Laurel.

He agreed to meet at the Washington Monument recently, strolling up the Mall in a long black robe and passing through a throng of sun-drenched tourists. A government contracting employee, the 37-year-old spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his satanic name (Gwydion Tiamat). Friends' houses have been firebombed, he said, and they're just pagans.

A husband and father and the director of the East Coast office of the Brotherhood of Satan, he said "a couple of thousand" Satanists live in the Washington area. This is a group that is widely misunderstood, he said: Members don't sacrifice cats; they're not out to hurt people; they simply acknowledge that humans are carnal animals and enjoy the freedoms and indulgences that flow from that understanding. "Having a whole Sara Lee strawberry cheesecake, for example," he said.

And in one sense, he mused, while looking toward the Lincoln Memorial and the infinite regions beyond, McCain is right.

"Satan," said Tiamat, "is everywhere."

I find nothing here contradicting my earlier interpretation of Gwydion Tiamat's remark about his friends who were "just pagans." Again, it seems to me he's saying not that these particular friends of his were also Satanists, but that, if even his Pagan friends' houses got firebombed, then he, as a Satanist, would be in even more danger.

I seriously doubt his estimate of "a couple of thousand" Satanists living in the D.C. area. I think a couple hundred would be more like it, if that many.

There are, after all, far fewer Satanists than modern Pagans, even in anonymous media like Internet forums. I've seen estimates of between half a million and a million modern Pagans in the entire United States. I would not expect the number of Satanists to exceed 5% of the number of modern Pagans, which would give us a maximum of 50,000 Satanists in the entire U.S.A. More likely I would expect there to be between 10,000 and 20,000 Satanists in the entire U.S.A.

The Washington Post article starts out as follows:

Presidential candidate John McCain keeps calling Washington the city of Satan. Turns out he's not alone.

"McCain was right," said David Bay, speaking by phone from Lexington, S.C., where as director of Cutting Edge Ministries he has long asserted that Washington's streets are positioned to usher in Lucifer as "the ultimate master of Government Center."

...

Using Dupont and Logan circles as northern points, Bay instructs, you can trace various interlocking streets to form a demonic pentagram, one that bores directly into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

This is followed by a brief summary of typical anti-Masonic claims, followed by a brief retort from a Mason.

"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.

Laurie Cabot, "expert" on "non-traditional faiths"? - blooper on animal sacrifice

The news story What washed up on the Keansburg beach? by Alyssa Passeggio (Bayshore Courier, New Jersey, U.S.A., May 9, 2008) reports the discovery of animal remains along Keansburg beach, including (1) garbage bags of headless chickens and (2) bones and hooves of deer, goat, or sheep. Cops think these are animal sacrifices and have arrested two Aborishas (Santeria practitioners).

The news story mentions a similar finding last year, on which Laurie Cabot (a well-known modern Pagan Witch) is paraphrased as blaming "a ritual performed by individuals practicing Santeria, San Paulo, Voodon or Satanism."

It's possible she was misquoted. But, if Laurie Cabot really did say "Satanism" or even "Devil worship," then she's utterly wrong.

The vast majority of Satanists, even most theistic Satanists, staunchly reject the idea of animal sacrifice. (See Animal sacrifice and Satanism on my page about Animal Sacrifice on my Theistic Satanism site.)

And the small minority of today's theistic Satanists who perform animal sacrifices would be unlikely to sacrifice chickens, sheep, and goats in particular, for reasons I explain here in my longer post on my LiveJournal blog: Laurie Cabot - willfully ignorant about Satanist views on animal sacrifice?

Anyhow, I also question the cops' claim that the recent New Jersey incident, in particular, has anything to do with a Santeria sacrifice. Garbage bags seem like a very non-traditional - and not very reverent - way to dispose of a sacrifice.

Full-blown alleged SRA case in Italy

For at least the past few years, there has apparently been quite a bit of hysteria in Italy about "Satanism". But I was not aware of any full-blown "Satanic Ritual Abuse" allegations over there until just now:

• "Grandmothers arrested over 'satanic sex abuse'"
  by Richard Owen
  Rome, April 25, 2007
  Times Online (U.K.)

Like nearly all such cases, this one is blatantly fishy. The above article starts off as follows:

Three women teachers were among six people arrested today accused of sedating and sexually abusing children as young as 3 at a school near Rome.

The teachers — two of whom are grandmothers who had taught at the school and at Sunday school for decades — are said to have taken part in the repeated abuse of 15 children aged 3 and 5 for a year, filming them in sexual acts with satanic overtones at the teachers’ homes and in a wood.

Had there ever been any complaints about these teachers before, during their many decades of teaching? If not, it is conceivably possible that one old grandmother could suddenly start molesting kids in her old age, but two of them at the same school? I suppose that's possible too, but seems very unlikely to me.

The alleged abuse — in the town of Rignano Flaminio, 25 miles (40km) north of Rome — came to light when some of the children began describing their “games” to their parents. They drew pictures of a “man in black” who wore a hood and drank his own blood, and said they had played a game in which “a wolf chases a squirrel and eats it”.

So far, this sounds like a game that the kids could perhaps have come up with on their own, depending on what kinds of TV shows they had been watching. Kids can indeed have very gruesome imaginations.

However:

They were warned that if they told their parents about the “games”, they would be “taken away from their mothers by devils”. If the truth were to come out and they were asked who had taught them to perform sexual acts, they were to say “my father”.

How was this information elicited from the kids, I wonder? Was care taken to avoid asking the kids too many leading questions? In many alleged multiple-victim, multiple-offender (MVMO) child sexual abuse cases, there have turned out to be serious problems with the way the kids were questioned.

The parents also reported bruising and swelling around their children’s genital areas and that they had returned home from school in a confused state. Police say that the children were given tranquillisers and told they were sweets.

Assuming this is accurate, this does sound as if someone abused the kids. But it seems to me most likely that the questioning got out of hand, implicating innocent people as well as the truly guilty.

The article quotes a local priest and a former teacher at the school voicing skepticism about the charges against the teachers. But, amongst many other people in town, a lynch mob mentality is prevailing.

Thanks to iteration_x for mentioning this story in the "Satanic news" community on LiveJournal.