Path: Supernews!supernews.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!jump.net!grunt.dejanews.com!not-for-mail Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 23:01:13 -0600 From: ondrejkd@genco.com Subject: Re: [Question] Is Satanism Pagan? What is Satanism?.... Newsgroups: alt.satanism,alt.pagan Message-ID: <865482641.28488@dejanews.com> Reply-To: vondraco@telerama.lm.com Organization: Deja News Usenet Posting Service To: depstein@shrike.depaul.edu References: <3394E115.753B@shrike.depaul.edu> X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Jun 05 03:50:42 1997 GMT X-Originating-IP-Addr: 206.4.42.2 (gen-world.genco.com) X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/3.01Gold (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4m) via proxy gateway CERN-HTTPD/3.0 libwww/2.17 X-Authenticated-Sender: ondrejkd@genco.com Lines: 95 Xref: Supernews alt.satanism:69637 alt.pagan:216074 > Agreed. However, how can someone who pays homage to deities/entities > other than Satan call themselves a Satanist? For instance, someone who > worships Ahriman instead of Ahura Mazda would be in a sect of Zoroaster, > not Xtainity/Satanism. That's a tricky question, and not nearly as straightforward as you might imagine. Personally, I'd be shy of calling anyone who "worshipped" an entity a Satanist. But, be that as it will. A person who chooses Ahriman as the symbol with which they most easily identify and emote, and uses "him" as the central figure in their self-work and magical rituals, could certainly choose to be identified as a Satanist if they so desired. Like Kerry, I think that the idea that a person chooses to label themselves such is an important factor. Don't get hung up on what a person "is" or "is not" -- we're not talking about what they *really* are, just what labels to hang on them. If someone wants to call themselves a Satanist, and you insist that they aren't one, then what you're really saying is that you don't think enough of that person to accept their own self-definition as valid, or that you think more highly enough of yourself to want to impose your own definitions on them. > I quote the Temple of Set's FAQ: > > Yes, and that is one of the ToS's FQA (Frequently Questioned Answers). I for one disagree with it, though I am a Setian. Letting all words have their "generally-accepted meanings" is pointless, in My mind, especially where questions of religion and metaphysics are concerned. The generally accepted meaning of such words as the Temple uses freely are rather different than what the Temple redefines them as. At the point that this FAQ came out, I believe that the Temple was contrasting itself with the Church of Satan and claiming that since the Temple really believed in Set/Satan and the Church did not, then the Setians were the only *REAL* Satanists here. The problem that I see is that the "Satan" that Setians (Myself included) believe in is not the Satan of generally-accepted beliefs. I do not think that most Setians "believe in" Set in the same way that Christians, for example, "believe in" Jesus. The distinction drawn in Temple writings between LHP and RHP is rather different from the origins of the terms as well. Hence, I see no need to insist on "believing in Satan" as a requirement to be a "Satanist," at least according to the generally-accepted definition of ALL those words. > In effect these people are practicing Egyptian flavoured Satanism as much as > a self-styled "Kemetic Wiccan" is not practicing Kemetic religion, but instead > is practicing the same Wicca as a Gardnerian, but using Isis and Osirus as the > names of the Deities. Again, that's a matter of opinion. If by "Kemetic religion" you mean religion as practiced in ancient Khem, then no -- of course you'd be right. If you're willing to accept their own self-definition of Kemetic religion as "my own interpretation of what I believe Wicca to be through what I know of Egyptian folklore," then I think that's an acceptable label. What it boils down to a personal level is that I really don't give a damn (sic) whether you accept My labels of Myself. You can make up whatever labels for Me that you want, including but by no means restricted to genius, asshole, dork, demigod, or lord. I don't really care. It's only when you start trying to convince *ME* that your labels are "really true" and that I *am* your labels, that I get a bit miffed. > Um...no, to my knowledge DePaul has no courses dealing with Satanism, > and I've never met Bob Larson. See below. Perhaps they should. Convey My offer to teach a course in Modern Occultism in America (for a modest fee) to the administration at DePaul. > Actually, I drew my information from the conversations I had with an old > friend of mine who had been a Satanist for many years (though I didn't > find this out until the last year or so that I knew him). We discussed > religion at length, both before and after I knew of his beliefs, and > helped eachother with various reasearch projects. Idiologically he fits > into the Church of Satan/Temple of Set crowd. We did not often agree :) I'm going to grant you the benefit of the doubt and assume that "idiologically" was an unintentional misspelling. ;-) But seriously, the CoS and ToS do have some rather serious differences in their ideologies, and probably wouldn't be happy being classed as being in the same crowd. In any case, thank you for your input. -- Regards, VonDraco -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet