I've been studying world religions.

[Professor Smooth]

I've been studying up on different world religions to get an idea of their different philosophies. As a writer, I find that using themes and symbols from different religions can make for some interesting fiction. To that end, I found something interesting in one of the smaller world religions. The nine basic rules of this religion are as follows.

This religion represents indulgence instead of abstinence!

This religion represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams!

This religion represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!

This religion represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!

This religion represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!

This religion represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!

This religion represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!

This religion represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

It also argues that Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!

As far as religions go, this one has some interesting theories, imo.

[sprunkner]

Yea.. Anton LaVey's particular brand of Satanism is pretty interesting as a cultural movement. Most people tend to think it's called Satanism for shock value rather than philosophy. But I wonder. It seems like LaVey was trying to humanize and deconstruct our notions of what constitutes "the adversary." In the process, he was able to take a few stabs at the hypocritical excesses of religion.

It's interesting to note the difference between calling yourself a Satanist and calling yourself a Christian. Calling yourself a Satanist almost immediately would shed light upon any good deeds you do, since you identify with the supposed enemy of good. Calling yourself a Christian would seem to be the opposite: people would notice when you do evil more easily. But it doesn't seem to work that way. Christians seem more comfortable, at times, with calling good evil and evil good, esp. in the case of tolerance from slavery to homosexuality. Satanists, on the other hand, seem to be more able to call a spade a spade. Since LaVey's Satanism doesn't seem to have quite caught on as a major religion, this may be because they aren't under as much societal pressure/scrutiny.