Mastodawn

MicroWave Dec 15, 2023

Uproar as after-school Satan club forms at Tennessee elementary school

https://lemmy.world/post/9594849

Uproar as after-school Satan club forms at Tennessee elementary school - Lemmy.World

Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced. The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district. The ASSC is a federally recognized nonprofit organization and national after-school program with local chapters across the US. The club is associated with the Satanic Temple, though it claims it is secular and “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”. The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead Satan is used as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.

The number of adults in the US that think Satan is a literal being is way too fucking high.

It started as an editor replacing ‘adversary’ in the place of what was probably the goddess Anat appealing the head of the pantheon to kill the son of the protagonist like in the earlier Canaanite A Tale of Aqhat as an intro into what was an adaptation of the also earlier Babylonian Theodicy.

But we couldn’t have a polytheistic holdover, so suddenly there was a supernatural adversary in a story.

Which in turn spawned fanfiction during the prophet ages where they referred to the supernatural adversary of Job.

Then Hellenistic ideas around Hades (both the place and figure) get added into the mix, and we get the Enochian literature about fallen angels, and later Dante’s Inferno.

Then King James messes up translating Isaiah and the Latin for the morning star (Lucifer) gets mistaken for a proper name, tying the supernatural adversary as being one of the Enochian fallen angels. And we get Million’s Paradise Lost.

It’s all just mistranslations and fanfiction.

And yet millions of people believe it’s actually a thing so much so that they freak out at the idea of any references to it as literally being dangerous.

In 2022. An age filled with things beyond the wildest imagination of those in antiquity dreaming up miracles and wonders.

We’re so beyond fucked as a species.

cultsuperstar Dec 16, 2023

Well you can’t believe Satan is real without believing God is real, and that number is too high too.

DragonTypeWyvern Dec 16, 2023

Observe:

I just did it.

All I did was was choose to believe a different version of the fairy tale.

For what’s it worth, it was a take on the “The Throne Is Empty” mythos, fucking Metatron, always lyin’

CoolMatt Dec 16, 2023

I understood some of these words.

But that was fun to read

guldukat Dec 16, 2023

It is 2023

BoastfulDaedra Dec 16, 2023

STOP MAKING IT WORSE.

Pat_Riot Dec 16, 2023

It’ll be 2024 in like a couple of weeks

kromem Dec 16, 2023

💀

m4xie Dec 16, 2023

It’s 2024 in a few weeks…

phx Dec 16, 2023

To those people, if there’s no Devil then it means all the bad stuff in their heads and hearts is just them. All the temptations are them. All the hatred, including self-hatred is them. There’s no Devil that made them do it or think it, no external tempter or defiler to resist. They can’t take that.

Lionel Dec 16, 2023

There is no way you expect the average person to know this.

kromem Dec 16, 2023

I expect the average person to know that there isn’t a supernatural evil being controlling the bad things that happen in the world.

perviouslyiner Dec 16, 2023

Milton’s*

kromem Dec 16, 2023

Thx. Phone autocorrect is a pita.

banneryear1868 Dec 16, 2023

Could say similar things about the monotheistic Christian God who seems to have originated in Cannanite polytheism. At some level everything is “made up” though and that doesn’t prevent it from having power. Just look at race for instance.