Satanic Temple Unveils Baphomet Statue For Oklahoma

[Knight Captain Kerr]

If you enjoyed that, than you may also like this:

To some people, this "yes, even if you're gay, we'll let you give us money"-sticker is bullying. Of Christians.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/05/01/the-twisted-logic-has-ruptured-my-brain/

I find it worrying that stores would even have to put up stickers like that in the first place.

 

[LordMonty]

I am a little disurbed by this. But whatever, we English seem blandly neureal on the whole religion thing anyhow.

 

[Flutterguy]

I want one.

Interesting to see Escapist using Vice articles. Only two journalism sites I look at regularly anymore :s

 

[Trooper924]

As a Christian, I fully support this. I mean, look at it! It'd be crime not to put up on display somewhere--heck, I'd put it up in my church if I thought I could get away with it.

 

[Gorrath]

Those dumb religious nuts in the US don't realize that freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom of Christianity and no other religion. And they seem to live in this bubble where religion in America is somehow under attack? So I fuckin' love this idea.

But you know what I'd really like to see? A Muslim statue. It would piss them off so much their heads would explode!

Depending on what the statue was, it might piss off the Muslims too! But seriously,Christianity is under attack in the U.S. There is a tremendous movement trying to force it back into the box in which it belongs. It's under attacked because it has far over stepped its bounds. This is not to say that these over reaches are representative of all Christians, but of Christian belief and influence in this country as a whole. Back in the 50s we reacted so strongly to "godless" communism that we broke many of our own rules about church-state separation. Many are now fighting Chrstianity in order to return it to the bonds and restrictions it is supposed to occupy. Christians are not wrong to categorize this movement as an attack, but they are wrong to categorize it as an unfair one.

 

[Flutterguy]

You know, I've been reading up on Satanism for a while now, and honestly it's tenets and beliefs are much more appealing than any other religion, at least in my opinion.

I'd imagine it being significantly more popular if it didn't have all the historic baggage. A man looks at a upside down pentagram and instantly thinks "evil".

Their views are more realistic, yet they choose to call it 'satanism' because they are secretly attention whores. Which means they lose most credibility to me. I'll stick to my homebrew ideology I've dubbed 'rational hedonism'.

 

[RA92]

To some people, this "yes, even if you're gay, we'll let you give us money"-sticker is bullying. Of Christians.

But that's unfair and wrong. Because these people don't speak for Christians, they only speak for their own, narrow group. Please don't let people like that speak for you, if you are a Christian.

Source:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/05/01/the-twisted-logic-has-ruptured-my-brain/

I... I could not process that for a while. Usually I can understand the reason for bigotry, be it upbringing or zealotry... but this just beyond anything comprehensible. Being inclusive now counts as bullying.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Satanic Temple Unveils Baphomet Statue For Oklahoma

Destroy one and two will arise - that sounds rather appropriate, doesn't it?

Source: Vice [http://www.vice.com/read/heres-the-first-look-at-the-new-satanic-monument-being-built-for-oklahomas-statehouse]

Permalink

Oh crap! They're members of HYDRA! Those guys are everywhere!
Interestingly enough, Marvel does have a snake-themed group of Devil-worshipers and white supremacists called The Sons of the Serpent. Not to be confused with the Serpent Society, as Daredevil & Elektra joked about.

Those dumb religious nuts in the US don't realize that freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom of Christianity and no other religion. And they seem to live in this bubble where religion in America is somehow under attack? So I fuckin' love this idea.

But you know what I'd really like to see? A Muslim statue. It would piss them off so much their heads would explode!

If you mean a statue of Mohammed, there's no way they'd do that. Islamic law forbids showing what he may have looked like. Even if he looks like an ordinary Arabic man who just happens to shoot fire from his hands, as South Park showed us.

 

[Fappy]

Aw man, I want one! Baphomet has always been one of my favorite mythological/theological (whatever) figures. I'm such a crappy catholic, lol.

 

[Tanis]

I love it when R-Wing Christians try and legislate their religion, as if we're some kind of theocracy, , only for other religions to use said legislation for their own religions.

Also:
I thought Lucifer (Morning Star) was pre-fall and Satan was post-fall?

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

The thing about it is that all they have to do is instead claim what the 10 Commandments are and then it won't be an issue any more. What are they? They are base historical teachings that are the foundation for modern day law.

Except that isn't. The Code of Hammurabi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi] dates back a solid 500 years before the Bible's Old Testament [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law#History]. The Sumerians predated this by 500 years with their own legal code. And the Egyptians go back a further 800 years from that with their legal code (arguably the first known of today).

Get it? Basically it's an adorning replica that appreciates the basis for laws against murder, theft, false testimony, and so on. That's where our modern day laws come from and that's why they fit so appropriately without being simply labeled as a "a religious relic".

Except it isn't [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history#European_laws]. US law is descends from English law, which, in turn, descends from Roman law, which, in turn, descends from Greek notions of what would be referred to as law, which had little, if any, influence from the Middle East. To claim some genealogical link is absurd, especially when better links already exist.

If Oklahoma were to use this explanation for reasoning behind those sitting there, they can totally get away with it without giving in to a bunch of Satan worshipers trying to find a loophole to place a nutter statue in the lawn.

And if they forwarded this argument, than the suing party would just start calling legal scholars, historians, and archaeologists to the stand to demonstrate the clear attempt to mislead the public and court rather than satanists to demonstrate a bona fide faith.

 

[Colt47]

Those dumb religious nuts in the US don't realize that freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom of Christianity and no other religion. And they seem to live in this bubble where religion in America is somehow under attack? So I fuckin' love this idea.

But you know what I'd really like to see? A Muslim statue. It would piss them off so much their heads would explode!

I don't know, I think the Baphomet statue and the fact the founder picked a name that can start forest fires with some Christian groups is probably enough as is. =)

Captcha "Carnival goes live". Yes Captcha, it certainly has.

 

[Scribblesense]

Hypocrites, all of them. The Ten Commandments shouldn't be allowed in the courthouse, it's not even a question. But using imagery created to attack common beliefs as a way to fight back against a faith you don't believe in because of the way it attacked common beliefs is a special kind of stupid.

Religion is supposed to make the world better by making people better, and though it often falls short of that goal, creating a religion to counter-proselytize dominant beliefs in an attempt to undermine, eliminate, and/or deconstruct said beliefs is trading an ass for a donkey. Mocking the ignorant won't change them, and is a self-destructive platform with which to forward your agenda with.

This gesture helps no one.

 

[ike42]

The intereting thing about Satanism is that is rose from the ashes of a Christian discrediting of pagan iconography. The goat-headed God is a left over from the nature worshiping pagan and Druidic religions that dominated Europe in the pre-chrsitian era. Think less the devil and more the spirit of the forest from Princess Mononoke. These religions presented a problem for medieval Christians and so came the Genocide and forcible conversion of pagans, the killing of the druids and the casting of their gods and iconography as devil worship and witchcraft. It was the cultural purging of the religion that came before and a concerted smear campaign to paint them as having been evil.

Satanism was an embracing of that outcast status of earlier pagan icons. It's ironic that things that make Christians uncomfortable are actually the remnants of their faith destroying and insulting an earlier faith, the last clues left of a cultural cleansing.

Ironically enough though, a lot of cathedrals throughout Europe built in the middle ages actually have a lot of pagan imagery, especially in the UK where you'd be hard pressed not to find several carvings of the Green Man among them, which is often seen as a symbol of pagan nature worship. But there's a whole convoluted history about that, interestingly enough, I don't believe the Green Man exists in any American churches and would go a long way to explain the differing views of religion, with many in American seeming too (hey I'm British I only know what I read and hear about your country) view it as an all or nothing system where as in Europe there seems to be much more of a "live and let live" attitude.

What do you expect from an entire country who idolizes a boat lot of fanatical puritans? They came to 'the new world' because they thought it was a place they could practice their more conservative, discrimination based version of Christianity. Many people think the puritans left because of discrimination, this is true but in the reverse; they left because Europe was too liberal and open to the beliefs of others. Check the history if you don't believe me.

I'll thank you to kindly not say that my entire country idolizes the puritans on the Mayflower. If you knew about American history you would know that our true founding fathers that are idolized were actually deists and only loosly affiliated with a church at all. In fact, Thomas Jefferson (who wrote the declaration of independance) took it a step further and edited his own version of the bible removing all refferences to magic/miracles. My point is that while there were fanatical puritans involved in settling America, the great men who we hold up tended to lean towards a much more secular society.

 

[Tiamat666]

Just for the record, there is actually already [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuente_del_%C3%81ngel_Ca%C3%ADdo"]a monument to the fallen angel[/a] in the Spanish capital, Madrid. There is some debate about whether this angel represents Lucifer, ergo, "The Devil" or not. But it does stand at 666 meters above sea level. I kid you not.

 

[razer17]

The thing about it is that all they have to do is instead claim what the 10 Commandments are and then it won't be an issue any more. What are they? They are base historical teachings that are the foundation for modern day law. Get it? Basically it's an adorning replica that appreciates the basis for laws against murder, theft, false testimony, and so on. That's where our modern day laws come from and that's why they fit so appropriately without being simply labeled as a "a religious relic". If Oklahoma were to use this explanation for reasoning behind those sitting there, they can totally get away with it without giving in to a bunch of Satan worshipers trying to find a loophole to place a nutter statue in the lawn.

Of the 10 commandments, 3 are still relevant today. And don't kill is 6th on the list.

And calling it a nutter statue is kind of silly. The satanists have no more and no less evidence of the veracity of their beliefs than do Christians or Muslims. What makes one religion nuts whilst another is totally sane?

 

[Something Amyss]

If you enjoyed that, then you may also like this:

To some people, this "yes, even if you're gay, we'll let you give us money"-sticker is bullying. Of Christians.

I'm familiar with that. There's also been a claim that anti-bullying laws unfairly discriminate against Christians because....I don't know. I guess attacking gays is a Christian value, in their minds? I bring it up because of the rest of this:

But that's unfair and wrong. Because these people don't speak for Christians, they only speak for their own, narrow group. Please don't let people like that speak for you, if you are a Christian.

In my college years, my public speaking course required us to make multiple persuasive speeches. One of the ones I did was same-sex marriage, a big deal at the time in the state of Massachusetts because we/they were on the fiftieth or sixtieth attempt to ban same-sex marriages in the state. Well, it's over a decade later and we know how that turned out. In fact, it's almost the 10 year anniversary of same-sex marriage in the state.

Anyway, one of the students argues with me in front of the class that homosexuality is an affront to Christians. That's when my professor stepped in and was all "O RLY?"

My professor, you see, is not just a Christian, but a minister. Now, his branch of Christianity (I forget which it is) still didn't allow gays to marry within the church, but they were open to homosexuals and even gays within the congregation.

...In fact, he had been the one who suggested I use the topic. And he was pro-same-sex marriage, because he knew that what happened in a civil sense had nothing to do with the church.

Anyway, I loved that epic smackdown and thought I would relate it because it's pertinent. When people say being anti-gay is a Christian value, they don't represent every Christian. I'd have trouble saying they represent a majority of Christians in the US, but I don't have the numbers on that.

The intereting thing about Satanism is that is rose from the ashes of a Christian discrediting of pagan iconography. The goat-headed God is a left over from the nature worshiping pagan and Druidic religions that dominated Europe in the pre-chrsitian era.

Is it really irony, though, since the Christian faith assimilated so much of the pagan culture either through compromise or comodification?

But you know what I'd really like to see? A Muslim statue. It would piss them off so much their heads would explode!

The "Ground Zero" Mosque came close.

I find it worrying that stores would even have to put up stickers like that in the first place.

Several states have proposed religious "freedom" laws. That's what led to this. I find it even more troubling that two states proposed laws that would allow medical and police services to turn you down if you were gay.

The thing about it is that all they have to do is instead claim what the 10 Commandments are and then it won't be an issue any more. What are they? They are base historical teachings that are the foundation for modern day law. Get it? Basically it's an adorning replica that appreciates the basis for laws against murder, theft, false testimony, and so on. That's where our modern day laws come from and that's why they fit so appropriately without being simply labeled as a "a religious relic". If Oklahoma were to use this explanation for reasoning behind those sitting there, they can totally get away with it without giving in to a bunch of Satan worshipers trying to find a loophole to place a nutter statue in the lawn.

Of course, the Ten Commandments (these and the final ones, along with the rest of the ones in the book) are covenants with God and specific groups. Beyond that, they include things like honouring the Sabbath, honouring your parents, forbidding graven images, and holding no Gods before Yahweh.

These are not the foundation of modern law. Just because they coincide with some elements of modern law (and even things like "false witness" don't work like you claim they do) doesn't make them a legal foundation. And someone else already pointed out that Hammurabi's code and the Egyptian laws are the more accurate foundations, so I won't go there.

If you mean a statue of Mohammed, there's no way they'd do that. Islamic law forbids showing what he may have looked like.

Not entirely true. That's neither a universal belief nor a traditional one. There are historical depictions of Muhammad by Muslims, and Shia are not against the depiction.

Then again, the Old Testament technically forbids art, period.....

Also:
I thought Lucifer (Morning Star) was pre-fall and Satan was post-fall?

They have issues with canon. Many fanworks have been released to try and rectify things, but there's no true answer.