Satanic Temple objects to governor’s push for more religion in schools and says members could act as student chaplains
Dark messengers of satanism could soon be walking the hallways of Florida’s public schools, and it’s a consequence of hard-right governor Ron DeSantis’s push for more religion in education.
Members of the Satanic Temple say they are poised to act as volunteer chaplains under a state law that took effect this week opening campuses to “additional counseling and support to students” from outside organizations.
Although HB 931 leaves the implementation of chaplain programs to individual school districts, and only requires schools to list a volunteer’s religion “if any”, DeSantis has made clear its intent is to restore the tenets of Christianity to public education.
Without the bill, DeSantis said at its signing in April: “You’re basically saying that God has no place [on campus]. That’s wrong.”
The satanists see the law, which comes amid a vigorous theocratic drive into education by the religious right nationally, as an equal opportunity: if Christian chaplains are permitted access to students, often at the most vulnerable and impressionable stages of their lives, then so are they.
Why not?
Well, the only strong source for what could be satanic would be the various Abrahamic religious texts. I’m no expert, but I haven’t heard charity work being frequently associated with satanic principles in those pages.
You are letting Christians tell you what Satanists are instead of letting Satanists tell you what they are.
Except the Satanic Temple does not believe that a Satan exists.
While nothing stops them from adopting the name, it doesn’t mean we should suddenly ignore old sources on the topic.
So which Elves are allowed to exist? Tolkeins or Santa Clauses? Do we have to deny one because the other exists to someone else
Love it, thank you so much for the giggle.
As someone brought up initially in a primary RC school I always find the fact that while they had a top notch reputation for giving you a “better education” than general comprehensive schools really ironic because their science dept actually taught me, that there are no fairies in the sky and it’s actually where we end up, as Earth burps 🌨️
I for one welcome these chaplins, elves, and umpa lumpas in our RC schools. Gives a bit of diversity.
*typo
tbf, it is a common and valid complaint that so many people want elves to be tall now, when that runs contrary to their mythological history.
Elves being diminutive is actually the newer invention.
first season of american gods did a good job of talking about the gods to fairies demotion thing.
I didn’t say ignore old sources but at the same time i’m not sure what old source you are referring to. The Bible will not tell you anything about the satanic temple so I guess you mean something else?
I would say the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.
Well, like I said, I don’t know a lot about religious studies. If there are any sources about satanic doctrine provided by people that actually believe he is real, then those should be included as well.
So the burden of proof is now tied to people who actually believe in X entity existing (don’t move the goal post)? How does one validate that a source in this context (you cant, or there arent any)?
Thats the whole point, you cant philosophically prove anything.
Well, proving something that doesn’t actually exist being in favor of a specific doctrine would certainly be challenging. Generally with questions involving things like history, mythology or literature we would look to original source material for our answers though. I just don’t know enough about this specific topic to say if that is possible or not, you would need someone knowledgeable about religious studies I imagine.
Thats exactly it, you have flipped the burden of proof.
The group making the statement does not have the onus of providing proof that disproves their own statement. This goes for all logical statements. The proof of actual satanist doctrine (What that actually is and where in their dogma it resides) within the TST in a logical argument would be something that you would need to provide in this context. Otherwise the request is illogical and their point stands that they are as legit as any other religious entity until proven otherwise.
I would not consider the Abrahamic texts to be canon about Satanism. That’s like learning about Native American culture from Spanish conquistadors.
Considering Satan is a fiction, I’d say Satan can be whatever you want him to be. It doesn’t help that the Bible doesn’t actually explain what happened to cast Satan into Hell other than there being a war in Heaven. Pretty much all we get is Revelation 12:7-10.
Also, there’s Isaiah 45:7
So if God creates evil, what does Satan even do? Carry out his work for him? That seems to be what Twain thought when he wrote Letters from Earth. Seems as good a source as any.
This is probably also true for the Christian God. But let’s assume for the sake of discussion that the Bible is a factual account: the Book of Numbers already refers to the worship of the Semitic god Ba’al in the “ancient” people of Israel. Etymologically speaking, Ba’al is identical to what later became “Beelzebub”, one of the names of Satan; it is reported that the statues of Asherah (the wife of YHWH) and Ba’al were destroyed. Ultimately, according to the Bible, the followers of YHWH waged a “holy war” against the followers of the other gods and declared these gods to be the “Antichrist” by a mere act of speech.
It is not known whether the followers of Ba’al were really less merciful than those who later waged crusades.
The problem with treating the Bible as a factual account is nothing adds up in it. Saying Beelzebub is a “name of Satan” is really misleading and a result of later negotiation with the text. Just like the serpent in the garden of Eden wasn’t Satan until folks decided it was - there is no support for that in the text at all.
Satan is more like calling someone enemy - you can have lots of enemies without them all being the same entity.
Also I’m not sure how the “god” (Satan) that wanted humans to have freewill is the bad guy, when “God” for some reason was purposefully trying to keep humans as puppets (or play things) in his little garden. And then had to punish the humans as soon as they could do what they wanted instead of the story laid out for them.
Reminds me a lot of President Business from the Lego movie. He wants everything to be perfect but people keep doing whatever they want to and screwing it up, so he wants to use the “kragle” to “fix” the plan and make everything perfect again.
Ignorance and subservience is a key point of Christianity, and if you can stomach interacting with them long enough more will say it out loud than you’d think, especially anti vaxxers and other super right dinguses -
it boils down into “something something gods will,” science and knowledge are sinful, our poking around in the ways of the universe are the cause of all the ills in the world, and we should return to a time when all our information is disseminated exclusively by religious leaders.
Thats why, while there are of course more fantastical/“biblical” bands, a lot of black metal is actually more humanist and pro knowledge, pro living, pro freedom. Darkness, the left hand path, etc are just metaphors for rejecting blind faith and obedience.
I don’t consider the Abrahamic texts to be canon about Christianity. Well at least not any more.
If you want to go on the Hebrew side, ha-satan (the satan) means something like ‘the adversary’ and it’s arguably more of a title than a person. There are plenty of cases where actual charity would be against the pain the system is causing
You mean Lucifer? The light bringer?
Or maybe the serpent that only told Eve that there’s nothing stopping her from eating the fruit that would allow her to understand the difference between good and evil?
How many people did Satan kill in the Bible? And Yahweh?
Who’s the actual bad guy here?