“I wonder what I’ll write about in my blog today—”

Check the local section of my Facebook and see that people are talking about how a cult is apparently operating here under the “guise” of a local church. You literally could not make this up if you tried. What seems to be the most hilarious about all of this is the fact that they have “enough” of a Facebook presence that people are leaving them negative reviews on Facebook about the cult’s interactions with various people as they attempt to recruit. So this is essentially helping them blow up on social media. I suppose this is actually something good about the reach that Facebook has, for all the negative things that you can say about it. (And this is the guy that I’m talking about, by the way. This is allegedly the founder of the cult or something. I am just now reading about it.) I just now saw all of this begin to “cross” my Facebook timeline.

In the interim, I’ve been looking for things to “pad” our gaming collection, especially since Bub’s birthday is at the very end of next month. So stumbling across this information was actually very surprising, if not a bit flabbergasting, because who honestly expects an actual cult to spring up in their town, regardless of the size? I know that I’ve joked that the hold that theistic religions have on some people is akin to the holds that cults have on some people, but now there seems to be an actual cult… in my city. Sure, it may not be geographically close to me since my city is not small, but now there seems to be an actual cult in my city.

You don’t ever see cults spring up in Satanism, although theists would probably actually regard Satanism as a cult (even though it is atheistic satanism, the complete rejection of theism, particularly Abrahamic theism).

One would think that merely ascribing to the tenets of atheistic satanism would be enough to make most people happy, but apparently it’s not. It’s as though there are competing factions, and getting more people to “pledge loyalty” to one or the other is a “prize to be won”, and that’s not something that I want very much (if anything at all) to do with. I chose the one that fell the most in line with the views that I already had, which I thought you were supposed to do with religion anyway, which is ironic because I didn’t choose an Abrahamic, theistic religion for that reason… you know, ones where you sometimes “have” to follow rules that you don’t agree with or see eye-to-eye on, and in some cases you have to confess your “sins” to a priest before you can be allowed to take the Eucharist, at least if you want to retain good standing within that denomination. So far, atheistic satanism just works with me because that is how I live my life anyway. There literally is no extra effort. And the fact that The Satanic Temple is so left-leaning is just an added bonus, heh.

One of the things that continues to bother me about religion is the fact that the one “character” in it that literally questions things is the one that is literally demonized in it. You are supposed to fear and rebuke this character. Very few people seem to put the pieces together on this due to an almost blind allegiance to it…

Not being allowed to question your deity, especially the Old Testament God, doesn’t sit right with me at all.

Truth be told, I’ve actually been looking into this for months, but I’ve had more time to look into it since we went into a global pandemic and have had to spend the better part of a month in quarantine. Over the course of my life I have never considered myself religious, but as the years have gone on I have seen my tolerance for religion (and the things that people have done, will do, and claim that they are willing to do in the name of it) progressively wane. I’ve also had the occasional friend who has self-identified as Satanist, which eventually got me looking more into it myself as the months went on and we had to socially distance, stay in our own homes, that sort of thing. My research began with the Church of Satan, which was (and is) the first federally and legally recognized church dedicated to atheistic Satanism. Truth be told, I don’t have anything against it, and if it were the only federally and legally recognized Satanist church I probably would have joined that one. But as I began to look further into Satanism, I eventually found The Satanic Temple, in no small part due to the friends that I would continue to make over social networking, especially those who said that their practice and tenets better fit how they lived their lives and viewed Satanism. As I came to read more about it, I came to agree with that myself. In addition to being a legally recognized religion, they also do leftist political activism, which is something that I do as an activist and advocate. I thought that them putting up Baphomet statues where and when Christians put up Ten Commandment statues was fair and fitting, and I am an extremely big supporter of the Protect Children Project and “After School Satan” (meant to counter the “Good News Club”, which is an after-school Christian… program of sorts many schools have).

So now I am an official member of The Satanic Temple, and I am looking into chapters.

The nearest chapter is several hours from me, so I am deliberating that one. I haven’t formally decided yet.

But this is a religious organization that does good, stands for good, and stands against theistic religion.

I really see nothing wrong with any of this given my detest for (Abrahamic), theistic religion. I honestly don’t.