h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Satanism = what LaVey coined.

Devil worship = everything else.

What I can't understand, is the refusal to accept the intelligent logical theory over the violent, abusive and frankly mentally deficient one.

Surely it's better for something to be positive that stupid and violent.

But hey, what do I know...

LaVey Satanism = what LaVey coined.
Devil worship = everything else.
Satanism = either of the above.

LaVey's authority over matters linguistic is low, though his "Magick" helps some.

-Xanthia

"Anyone who uses magick, isn't." - The Devil's notebook.

Question - how can devil worship be a religion in itself? It's just another aspect of Christianity. Therefore "Satanism" is an inaccurate term. Not to mention bigoted - the history of the word is basically that of labelling (or "demonising") those who weren't conforming to scripture.

Devil worshippers abide by what? Catholic theology, Aleister Crowley and a ragged secondhand copy of the Necronomicon. There is no independant book that defines devil worship, just the reversal of Christianity.

Satan was not about the reversal of God's word. It was about his rebellion through the belief that God was wrong. Therefore, when devil worship is not about being Satan-like, like Christianity is about being Christ-like, how can it be Satanism?

Satan: 1)An angel who got to greedy and decided to kick God out and take his power.
2) An angel who exists to serve as The Accuser of man properly called HaSa'tan(The Accuser)
Lavey: A human who wanted to draw a lot of attention so picked the most shocking name he could think of for his cult.
Satanism: The worship of Satan
The Necronomicon: A badly written hoax that ripped off one of histories greatest Horror writers. Some thing few serious occultists, and even less real satanists have any thing to do with. Lavey's lackeys are far more partial to borrowing Lovecraft's inventions then any serious Satanist.

As to Satanism being a perversion of Christianity when did I deny that? Demonolatry has always been a perversion of conventional religion. The belief it must have some specific unique text while an extremely entertaining one is largely irrelevent. Modern demonolaters have a wealth of grimoires to choose from some of which are hundreds of years old. They make a concious choice to pick the forces of darkness over God. Lavey was a show man and picked a title because it bothered people. The rationalizations about Satan's role as advessary while highly entertraining could best be described as Satan for Dummies. Lavey had no real conception of the Judeo-Christian concept of Satan he just borrowed the word and invented his own nonsense from there. Devil worshipers may be perverting Christianity but at least they have some understanding of what they're perverting instead of just borrowing a few catchy phrases.

You can be an "-ism" without being an entirely seperate religion. Examples: Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Satanism.

I'm guessing that Presbyterianism and Catholicism have more in common with each other than they do with Satanism qua devil worship.