Open letter to atheists, re: Godless March on America

Apparently, my endorsement of the Godless March on America is causing a bit of a controversy, so I'll take the time here to quell the myths. Now, the first part to recognize is that when I signed up, Ellen Johnson, (who is running this whole thing), asked me about my beliefs, and even though she obviously hates the fact that I use the term "Satanist" to describe myself, she still knew that I was a disbeliever in the existence of a metaphysical being called "God". I told her that the point of the Godless March on America was to show that atheists have a rational disbelief in God, and that atheists are intelligent, thoughtful, and good people altogether. If my approval of the event was causing problems, simply remove me from the list. She refused to do so because she believed that any organization which does not believe in God deserves to be heard. So, I didn't sneak up and plant my org on there, she choose to put it there, and leave it there.

Next up, some atheists have expressed concern about Satanists showing up and waving baphomets, pentagrams, and other occult paraphenalia. I can't speak for all Satanists, but anyone under my org will not be doing so. I could imagine that a few Christians would be more than happy to derail the atheist agenda by posing as Satanic atheists, but I give my word that no one under this org will do so. I've talked to Ellen Johnson, and this march on Washington is specifically to call attention to atheism as a viable disbelief, not to Satanism, Humanism, Objectivism, Nihilism, or any other sub-compartment of atheism. I respect that, and will not in any way attempt to portray Satanism. I was asked to portray atheism in a positive light, that, and that alone, is my goal.

Let's also take some time to clarify a few things. Not all atheists are Satanists, and not all Satanists are atheists. Some have a deistic conception of Satanism, (Satan as the "unmoveable mover"), some have a perception of Satan as the dark energy which binds things, some have a definition of Satan as the archetype of the questioning-self, and some have the unfortunate belief that Satan is the one and the same out of the Bible. I don't really consider them Satanists, I consider them Christians playing on the other end of the football field. Same stadium, same cheerleaders, different helmets.

Let me make another point also. The strength of atheism lies in its diversity. In one book outlined by either Jeffrey Jay Lowder or Richard Carrier, (I found it browsing through infidels.org), a critic of atheism responds that atheism is the same belief as nihilism, which whomever was reviewing it refuted. You cannot define atheism to a particular philosophy, a particular moral standard, or a particular political party. There has been attempts in the scientific community to preserve "pure" plant groups that have not been genetically mutated. Why? Because newer fruits, vegetables, and trees are cross-bred together, so that they all share the same genetic strain. If a disease comes which attacks this genetic strain, there will be mass starvation. Because there is no diversity, it sets itself up for weakness.

Another erroneous concept which seems to be found is that atheism is de facto "freethinkers". I've met plenty of atheists who are not freethinkers, and this goes by the definition that Bertrand Russell set forth, (1):

'The expression "free thought" is often used as if it meant merely opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy. But this is only a symptom of free thought, frequent, but invariable. "Free thought" means thinking freely--as freely, at least, as is possible for a human being. The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things; the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man’s emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker. A man is not to be denied this title because he happens, on some point, to agree with the theologians of his country. An Arab who, starting from the first principles of human reason, is able to deduce that the Koran was not created, but existed eternally in heaven, may be counted as a free thinker, provided he is willing to listen to counter arguments and subject his ratiocination to critical scrutiny. ... What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he find a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.'

Some atheists have expressed sentiments regarding our use of occult iconography. Let me explain it all:

The demons come from the "Lesser Key of King Solomon", a pseudopigraphy supposedly coming from the Great King of Israel. It's not particularly associated with Satanism, the Ordo Templi Orientis, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and several other groups use it. Crowley was of the opinion that the demons of the Lesser Key were psychological manifestations of inward repression which can be commanded by someone with proper knowledge and experience, but who's he to say?

The pentagram has been around since 2,500 BCE at the earliest known dating, and ostensibly can be traced further back than that. The baphomet, at least according to Kenneth Grant, comes from the words "Bapho Mithras", son of Mithra. What does the infamous baphomet represent? The body of a woman represents fertility, the candle on its head represents a symbol of revelation, and the four candles represent the four elements, (earth/wind/fire/water), and intelligence.

The Jewish letters around it spell "LVTHN", or Leviathan, which is used metaphorically in the Bible, (and literally), as representing the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, which were superior to the Israelite army. Thus, my recognition of it is "LVTHN" is another way of saying "mighty". 93 is used by the Ordo Templi Orientis as the Gemetrical combination of two words which both equal 93, Agape and Thelema, or "Love" and "Law". "666" is an ancient pagan number representing the Sun, and I present two medallions from that era which verify that:

http://www.satan4u.8m.com/history/666.html

The Sun represents Tiphereth in Kabbalah, (Qabalah), which is the source of manifestation and identified with Apollo. In Walter Pater's "Greek Studies" we learn that:

'Apollo, the "spiritual form" of sunbeams, easily becomes exclusively ethical -- the "spiritual form" of inward or intellectual light, in all its manifestations. He represents all those specially European ideas, of a resonable polity; of the sanity of soul and body.. his religion is a sort of embodied equity, its aim being the realization of fair reason and just consideration of the truth of things everywhere.'

I know, it's hideously diabolical, imagine what Christians would say if they found out all these diabolical mentionings of "Love", "Law", and "intellectual light". This iconography was not exclusive to Christianity, a good deal of it is completely independant of Christianity, and my interpretation of them does not derive from Christianity.

The game atheists love to play with me I call "Musical Chairs". Here's how it works. In one argument I had, an atheist tells me, on his apparently wonderous study of occultism, that since all people, (his words), equate Satanism to the worship of Satan, my interpretation is wrong. This would remind me of Anton Lavey's statement: "It's strange people ask Christians about Satanism. You wouldn't ask Hitler about the joys of a Honnakuh."

I pointed out to him that many people on that same forum did not share those ideas, and hence, it was dangerous to use such phrases. So, this chair has to get pulled out the game. The next one? Most people, (which he claims is how he meant it anyway), equate Satanism with the worship of Satan. Yes, and most people also believe in an afterlife, I fail to see the significance of that. Regardless, the appeal to "most" is one which is rejected because no one has ever done a study on what "most" people think, in addition to it being irrelevant. Let's do a study on what "most" people perceive atheism to be and see what that gets us. Here's one example:

"I'm glad you stopped by and gave your side of the story, but, the fact remains that at least 95% of xtians believe Satanists are devil worshippers."

I'm interested in what study that was conducted under. Here's what my sources tell me. From Barna Research Online, an American Christian research group:

The only difference between how I view Satan and 58% of Christians is that I see Satan as an archetype of the questioning-self. I point out numerous times that psychologically scapegoating something onto an externalized object is dangerous and unhealthy.

Typically, this will go on and on and on and on and on, until finally, someone quits playing the game. It reminds me of what of J. A. Schumpeter said, "The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." Rather than actually find out anything about what they are attempting to portray against, they choose to use stuff like that, which I can obviously not defend against. How do you want me to defend against a vague and ambiguous statement like that?

Here's another gem:

"Yes, that's the point. The people we are trying to talk to are not going to put any effort into understanding us."

In which case, any attempt to talk or inform is useless. Let's follow this argument in a syllogistic fashion:

  1. We are talking to people.
  2. The people will not listen to us.
  3. Therefore, the talking to people is useless.

By that logic, the entire Godless march is useless. Whenever you try predicting what other people think based upon your own perceptions, it's called "projection". When you say, "Other people will think", what you really mean to say it "I think". Here's the textbook definition of it:

"The process of ascribing unwittingly one's beliefs, values and other subjective processes to others."

This reminds me of my 1SG in military camp. Whenever he would ask us why something went wrong, someone would invariably say something like "We messed up..." At which point, he would jump at them and say, "Don't ever say WE MESSED UP! Take some responsiblity and say 'I MESSED UP!'" His point was that people always like to shift the blame, "Yeah, I understand it, but there's people out there who don't." There's also people out there who don't understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it doesn't invalidate it.

Note that "unwittingly" is part of the definition, anyone who's guilty of it is the last to know. There are people who do want to know, and are capable of knowing, and to paint over a whole population with one large sweep of the brush is a fatal mistake.

Next, I got an appeal to authority. If you're going to appeal to an authority, use a solid one. Do not use Webster's dictionary to define something which requires extensive study such as a religion, a philosophy, an organization, a political idea, etc. A dictionary is made to convey the most information to the most general audience, (i.e. the least common denominator), with the least amount of words. Therefore, its definition of "Marxism" is going to be a little less than adequate, as will objectivism, nihilism, or any other such philosophy. If you're going to define something which requires specialists attention, use a specialist book. For starters, try "Satanism Today" by James R Lewis.

Onto other comments, one wrote that:

1)Go somewhere that people congregate
2)Introduce yourself to a group of these common Joes
3)Inform them that you are a Satanist, especially before you explain "LeVayian philosophy".

Actually, I've had this happen more than once. I didn't introduce myself and say "Hey, I'm a Satanist!", as I find anyone who introduces themselves by their religion to be more than a little quirky, but people have questioned me about my beliefs in groups before, and I've told them. Most thought the philosophy is fairly rational, but I wonder how many people walk up to large groups of people and go "Hey, I'm an atheist!" I don't believe in forcefully ramming my philosophy down the throats of people, and it's beyond me why anyone would think that it is a wonderful idea to do so.

Another person said "I live in Toronto and what about The Vampire sex club, everyone associates it with Satanism and black mass". I think by "everyone", he just means himself, as the actual name of the bar is "The Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar", unless there's another goth-bar he knows of in the same area. Concerning this though, if someone doesn't understand the difference between a goth-bar and Satanism, I have nothing to say to them.

If you want me to apologize for the fact that most Americans are lazy, well then, shove off. That's not my responsibility, nor do I have a desire to make it so. All I say is that I am promoting something different, if you take a look around, you can find what it is. If you don't have the desire or ability to do so, that's beyond me, and beyond anyone to make you do so.

The overall point being that I'm not going to the Godless March wearing a baphomet shirt and waving around a banner that says, "Ave Satana, Rege Satana, Hail Infidels." In fact, judging by the discussions, most people seem rather disappointed rather than relieved that I won't do that, nor will anyone in my org. The atheists are correct, however, in their statement that those who do not want to learn, will never learn. What can I do about that? What does anyone rationally expect me to do about that? If studies such as these:

Science News, July 17, 2002, Page 60. Summary

Article reports that Catholic Priests and Biships are not the only ones guilty of sexual abuse of chidren, but also Nuns, Protestant Ministers, Rabbis, Native Healers and authority figures in all other religious groups. They also commit all forms of abuse in addition to this, like withholding medical care and inflicting physical punishments. This occurs in an article about sexual predators in Science News.

"In contrast, the surveys uncovered NO child abuse by satanic cults, a practice that received much publicity a few years ago: 'More children are abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan' sociologist Betty Bottoms contends."

Go unnoticed by the ill-equipped public, exactly what am I supposed to do? I can lead a horse to water, I can't make it drink. It's also interesting to note that you can lead a horse to water, only to watch it jump in and drown itself.

So, let me come full circle. I'm going there to represent atheism in a logical, objective way. You can either squabble about this, or accept it and move on. For the record though, many atheists have openly expressed good sentiments about what my org is trying to do, and for that, I cannot thank them enough. You can't judge people by saying "your typical Christian", "your typical atheist", or "your typical Satanist", because such labels are misleading and inappropriate. I'll state for the sake of posterity that I've met many liberal Christians I've enjoyed the company of, and many Satanists I couldn't stand. Some atheists I've met were witty, entertaining, and great to be around. Some were annoying twits who believed they knew everything. Someone who thinks they know everything, regardless of being Satanic, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist, is annoying. That's how life is, you can't judge based upon labels. As my favorite catch-phrase goes "C'est la vie", or "Life's like that."

1: Bertrand Russell, "The Value of Free Thought" Bertrand Russell on God and Religion (ed. Al Seckel, Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986), pp. 239-40. I found this thanks to Jeffrey Jay Lowder, and as such, if you order it here it credits the infidels website.