Satan Being The Church's Best Friend

Satanic Statement Number 9: Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years! (Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible, 1969).

This is something to think about.  Remember my blog posts on personal responsibility and rock/metal music?  Satan is the one to scapegoat when they’re caught committing injustices and Satan is used to scare youth away from certain types of music.  These are tactics used by the church and used by their followers.  Blame Satan and utilize him for the needs of the church.

It all comes down to using Satan as a fear-mongering control tool.  For thousands of years, Satan was used as a control device and a fear tactic by the Christian church in order to keep their followers in line.  The threat of eternity in hell with a demonic being who’d torture you for eternity was used to scare people into avoiding being human and living their lives the way they wanted to.  I remember all those years my mother telling me that Satan lurked in many corners of everyday life just waiting to get you to do “bad things.”

Without Satan, the Christians have no tool for controlling the weak and the ignorant.  Churches wouldn’t exist without their control device.  Anton LaVey confirms this in The Satanic Bible where he says that “without a devil to point their fingers at, religionists of the right-hand path would have nothing with which to threaten their followers” (p. 55).  LaVey drives his point further when he states that “Satan...was invented by the formulators of every religion on the face of the earth for only one purpose—to preside over man’s so-called wicked activities and situations here on earth” (p.62).  As noted in this quote, the figure of Satan exists in many spiritual religions and he was used as a fear-mongering tool in many cultures around the world, and Christianity wasn’t the only religion to do this.

Not only was Satan used as a tool during church hours but he would also be used as a tool of control OUTSIDE of the church.  Once the church plants their seeds of fear into people, they made sure that they’re able to control people’s thoughts and activities when they’re out and about their business and even in their homes.

Before Satan got his official infernal names and stereotypical anthropomorphic looks, he was known as Pan, a symbol of fertility.  It wasn’t until the years went by when he was given a new name and look in order for the church to scare people.  The place known as “Hell” didn’t even get its name in the Christian Bible until after Dante’s Inferno.  The church just continued to find more ways to use a fictional being and mythical place to control the masses.

We Satanists know that there is no Satan, no hell, no afterlife.   Instead, we turn around and reclaim Satan for what he’s supposed to be: a symbol of the adversary, the opposer, the accuser.  We see Satan as a symbol of individualism, pride, free-thinking, and overall ultimate freedom.  The threats of the spiritual religions don’t work on us for these many reasons.

You take away and reclaim Satan back from the church and other right-hand religions, they will have nothing; they are powerless.  The more people realize this, the sooner Christianity and spiritual religions will become obsolete.  But until that happens, these religions should acknowledge that they owe Satan many thanks for being able to exist for thousands of years.

Hail Satan!

-Manny

References

LaVey, A. S. (1969).  The Satanic Bible.  Avon Books.