The Satanic Temple masterfully trolls Christians in Texas.

Courtesy of Dead State:   

The Satanic Temple is known for their masterful trolling of Christians. This time they’re going after “sadists” in Three Rivers, Texas. Why? Because last summer, the city’s public school district voted to allow paddling as a form of punishment for children. 

Now Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves says that school administrators who think hitting kids is okay need to be replaced, and that sentiment was reflected in a billboard put up by the Temple in Three Rivers. 

The billboard reads: “Our Religion Doesn’t Believe in Hitting Children.” 

“Hopefully, our billboard will give pause to passersby who will be forced to confront the fact that the school district is being operated by depraved and ignorant sadists who have no business being in education,” Greaves said, according to Patheos. “The billboard should be a wakeup call that the school district trustees, who voted 6 – 0 for corporal punishment, need to be replaced by competent and humane members of the community who have children’s best interests at heart.”

One of the Satanic Temple's tenets is that no one is allowed to cause bodily harm to another, which would already make them morally superior to fundamentalist Christians. 

Satanist wins legal victory against Missouri's draconian anti-abortion laws.

Courtesy of World Religion News:  

An anonymous Missouri woman, identified only as Mary Doe in public court documents, has won a significant legal victory in Western District Court of Appeals in her aim to show that her religious beliefs are being violated by state abortion laws. The court said that her constitutional challenge presented a disputed right which includes reasonable space for disagreement and fair doubt as well. Mary Doe is also an adherent of Satanism. 

Doe, an adherent of The Satanic Temple, argued her religion does not harbor the belief that conception is the beginning of life. The prerequisites, due to this belief, for an abortion procedure in Missouri are directly violating her religious freedom. The latter is protected by First Amendment. Her suit names Josh Hawley, the Missouri Attorney General, and Governor Eric Greitens. Incidentally, Doe's claims were at first thrown out by Cole County Circuit Court. She then appealed the decision. 

The Satanic organization regards Satan as a personal autonomy symbol. It promotes 'rational inquiry' and compassion. The Satanists argue that the abortion restrictions imposed by Missouri, including the state's informed consent law along with the compulsory waiting period of 72 hours violate religious belief of one of the organization's members. The complaint against Missouri was filed by the Satanists in May 2015. 

Oh come on, you have to love this!

Using a religious freedom argument to defeat abortion laws informed by a primitive religious world view is almost too sweet to believe.

And before any of the slack jawed morons come over here and get their panties in a twist over the fact that this woman identifies as a Satanist, remember that the Satanic Temple is really a free thinkers group who shroud themselves in religious trappings in order to defeat these archaic laws drawn up by religious nutjobs.

Since you all enjoyed the recent story about the Satanic Temple I decided to bring you another one.

Courtesy of News OK:  

The Satanic Temple, a group of nonbelievers who push for the further separation of church and state, wants evangelical Christianity out of public schools. But since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Christian student groups in 2001, the Satanists want their place in schools, too. 

The group launched "After School Satan," a program that's also a protest against popular, evangelical Christian Good News Clubs. The Satanic Temple plans to contact every school district where the Good News Clubs are active or have been present before, The Washington Post reported. 

"The group's plan for public schoolchildren isn't actually about promoting worship of the devil. The Satanic Temple doesn't espouse a belief in the existence of a supernatural being that other religions identify solemnly as Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub," the article said. 

Instead, the group will focus on science, literature and art projects and assure participants that religious practice isn't essential to being a good person. 

"We think it's important for kids to be able to see multiple points of view, to reason things through, to have empathy and feelings of benevolence for their fellow human beings," said the head of Satanic Temple's Utah chapter to The Washington Post.

Okay now does everybody get it?

The Satanic Temple really has NOTHING to do with Satanism and instead is simply an organization who uses Satanism to troll Christians.

Specifically those Christian who try to shove their religion down the throats of our children by proselytizing in public schools, or demanding that we allow them to place their superstitious icons and statues in the public square.

While I was fun watching the knew jerk reactions the other day, I was a little disheartened to realize that we really have some of the dumbest trolls on the internet.

All anybody had to do was Google the Satanic Temple to realize that they were wasting perfectly good freakouts and pants wetting.

By the way check out the video they are using to promote their after school programs.

Now see I kind of want to go now.

Satanism comes out of the closet in Alaska.

Baphomet

Courtesy of RT:

The mundanity of a local council meeting in Alaska was astonishingly broken when a decision to open up the forum to all religions resulted in a Satanist presenting the opening prayer – to Lucifer. 

When the local government of Kenai Borough decided to welcome other faiths to their assemblies they probably didn’t envisage opening up their doors to the Lord of Darkness. 

On Tuesday, Iris Fontana – reportedly a member of the Satanic Temple organization that views Satan as a symbol for rebellion and rational inquiry – gave the assembly invocation usually reserved for pastors. 

Meeting attendees were reminded that they did not have to participate in the opening ritual.

And look, there's a video.

You know I was somewhat less than thrilled when the Satanic Temple first came along in 2014.

I thought they might negatively impact Atheism, and just be kind of silly.

However I have to admit that many of their public events have been inspired, and they have done a great job of demonstrating how intrusive certain religious rituals and religious icons are in the public arena.

I know you probably read the title and thought this had something to do with Sarah Palin.

But I think we can all agree that the Satanic Temple is a force for good, while Sarah Palin is an evil sorceress who practices the dark arts, sacrifices children, and feeds on hate and negativity.

Perhaps somebody should erect a statue of Baphomet somewhere near her property.

Just a reminder that the tenets of the Satanic Temple are far more instructive and moral than the Ten Commandments.

There are seven fundamental tenets. 

• One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason. 
• The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. 
• One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. 
• The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own. 
• Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs. 
• People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused. 
• Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word

By now I'm sure that most of you realize that the Satanic Temple really has very little to do with Satan, and actually exists mostly to troll Christians.

I actually enjoy much of their work, and I might think about joining them if I were not already dedicated to repairing the reputation of Atheists instead.

The Satanic Temple came up with a rather unique way to weed out potential protesters before the unveiling of their Baphomet statue.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist: 

According to TST spokesperson Lucien Greaves, attendees for the event had to go through the following process: 

1) Show up at the location stated on the e-ticket. 
2) Go through a security checkpoint there. 
3) Sign a contract transferring their souls to Satan. 
4) Get the real location for the event, which was miles away. 

It worked. The event went off without a hitch.

Here is a link to the actual soul transferring agreement.

Okay you have to admit that is pretty damn inventive.

It also makes one wonder just how many people self identified as non-religious would be willing to sign a contract like this. After all superstitions run deep.

The Satanic Temple thinks that they have found a way to make the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision work for them as well.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

 In a statement, the Satanic Temple said that it will use the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision to exempt its believers from state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material. 

Informed consent or “right to know” laws state that women seeking elective abortions be provided with information about alternatives to the procedure, often couched in language that attempts to personify the fetus. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 states currently have informed consent laws, and of those, 33 require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus. 

In some states, that information consists of pro-life propaganda that links abortion to a higher incidence of breast and ovarian cancers, or discusses “post-abortion syndrome,” a mental condition not recognized by any major medical or psychiatric organization. 

Because the Satanic Temple bases its belief “regarding personal health…on the best scientific understanding of the world, regardless of the religious or political beliefs of others,” it claims that state-mandated information with no basis in scientific fact violates its “religious” beliefs. 

Spokesperson Lucien Greaves said that the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision bolsters their case. “While we feel we have a strong case for an exemption regardless of the Hobby Lobby ruling,” he said, “the Supreme Court has decided that religious beliefs are so sacrosanct that they can even trump scientific fact. This was made clear when they allowed Hobby Lobby to claim certain contraceptives were abortifacients, which in fact they are not.”

Seems fair to me.  Not to mention fairly brilliant.

I wonder if this kind of thing might lead to a substantial increase in the number of women turning to Satanism? And just imagine how fundamentalist heads will start exploding if it does!