Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.
The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.
The ASSC is a federally recognized nonprofit organization and national after-school program with local chapters across the US. The club is associated with the Satanic Temple, though it claims it is secular and “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”.
The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead Satan is used as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.
It seems like a lot of effort to create a situation with little upside and most certainly, 100% chance of blowback. If you want Christian Nationalist riled up and mobilized, then this is how you do it.
Yeah, we really ought to just ignore them and let them do whatever they want.
/s
I’m cool with banning satan shit if we ban all other religious shit in politics and law. Fuck your imaginary friends.
Thats a complicated thing to say because the ST functions as a real religion in the US which is the basis for why they’re able to challenge things in court. If they didn’t qualify as a sincere religion their mission wouldn’t work, and that “sincerely held” qualification is actually challenged in some cases. Recently this qualification became an even bigger deal when people claimed they had religious beliefs against vaccination. In the past its been applied to people challenging the draft on behalf of sincerely held religious beliefs.
I don’t think they’re a religion like Christianity though, maybe a pseudoreligion or civil religion.
The Satanic Temple is an atheistic organization that uses Satan metaphorically, mostly to troll Christians.
DO YOU WORSHIP SATAN?
No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.
https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/faq
As you can see from this uproar, it works quite well too.
That is the exact goal of The Satanic Temple. They would be incredibly happy to have their own symbols removed, as it would mean all religious symbols would be removed from government institutions. They are trying to scare Christians into voting against their own legislation, basically.
The first amendment in the constitution makes it so the government has to give equal rights to all religions, so the Christians can’t remove the Satanic symbols without also voting to remove their own.
Obviously a red herring. The Devil went down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal.
Satanists: No no no we don’t actually worship Satan. We just picked that name to be antagonistic towards christians.
Christians: That’s creepy either way.
Satanists: SEE? SEE? I told you they would complain.
Satanists: We picked the name to bring attention to all the things you can get away with if you call yourself a religion
Conservative: I’m not listening! THEY WORSHIP THE DEVIL!
Satanists: See? It’s working.
The “After-school Humanist Club” would not be having articles written about it.
Things you can get away with such as starting a club? That’s never been against the rules.
So why are people concerned that The Satanic Temple is starting a club? Are they concerned that they are indoctrinating children and teaching them about Satan? Because that’s the After School Christian Club doing that.
If the founders didn’t just want to stir the pot, they would call the club “free-will humanitarian anti-authority club”.
After a bit of prodding ChatGPT suggests: “Free Spirits for Global Empowerment and Liberty” (FSGEL), which is a million time better then invoking satan, just to get on people’s nervs.
I don’t quite understand, Satan is a contentious figure in Christianity (and maybe other Abrahamic religions? idk, not knowledgeable about it) and it’s reasonable to be worried or concerned as an adult about what interests the youth might have. And it really seems the opposition is simply speaking platitudes. They haven’t demonstrated 1. it is not a faith, and 2. it causes harm. The folks who are opposed surely can’t have their preferred beliefs determine the beliefs of others in areas where it’s clear there is not immediate harm.
Sorry, I don’t understand your post. Who are you arguing for? Who are “the folks who are opposed”? Those opposed to the ASS-Club?
Missing from the article is this group’s primary, unstated motive: they only attempt to create such clubs in schools that actively promote similar, religious clubs. This tactic only works in schools that have previously demonstrated their intent to promote religion.
Any school can insulate themselves from this tactic by not becoming a church.
Isn’t pot-stirring the whole point?
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Highlights religious indoctrination doesn’t really belong in schools. I can’t really speak to the organization ASSC and what they do, but that’s the point of including Satan in school. Trying to make a club for (just an example here) your Jedi church doesn’t have the same punch because Jedi haven’t been a part of culture for hundreds/thousands of years. Maybe I’m off base here, but it’s easier to make a legal argument in court that your religion is real if it’s been a part of culture for a while.
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Gives kids who are athiest/nonreligious an outlet away from all the christian stuff. Christianity can feel very oppressive in school, depending on the location. Calling it the “free spirit” club or atheist club isn’t enough. Christians tend to go out and find non-believers to bother, so designing your club as a big metaphorical middle finger can help with that. It’ll keep the young evangelists out, and it’s a reasonable outlet for feeling rebellious.
