This is quite an amusing story and a perfect example of what Rush Limbaugh used to call "illustrating absurdity by being absurd." And I find it quite absurd and amusing that in 2018 this sort of a public kerfuffle still goes on. So the Satanic Temple in Arkansas wants to place a statue of the devil - OK, they call it "Baphomet" - in front of the state capitol if the Ten Commandments get placed there too. If one religion is to be favored, then, if the First Amendment is to have any value, all religions must be given the same equal treatment. The First Amendment, after all, is quite clear in its prohibition against the government favoring any one belief system that worships invisible magical beings over any other beliefs and their imaginary beings.
So, yeah, go ahead and put Baphomet up in government buildings if the deities and religious artifacts of other faiths are placed there. The Satanic Temple is absolutely right.
Actually these kinds of culture wars over the displays of religious symbols in government-run places are the most absurd of all. If you don't get to put your religious iconography on public display, it does not mean that you don't get to practice your faith in the privacy of your own home or have to somehow deny your faith in the privacy of your own thoughts. If you are a Christian or a Jew, you are NOT being oppressed just because you can't put the Ten Commandments up in a public building!
And no, this kind of a prank for the sake of attention by the Satanic Temple is not another sign of the End Times or the Apocalypse or the rise of the Antichrist or the New World Order or any of that nonsense. It's a prank and simple a prank by an organization which - guess what?! - doesn't believe in a literal Satan. As I discuss with my students in my Communication Ethics class when we examine "meta ethics" and various belief systems' views on the source of our sense of right and wrong, "Satanism" today is a form of radical social constructionism. It's a belief system that advocates a very extreme form of individualism and calls for the critical interrogation of ALL belief systems that seek to control people through arbitrary rules. They especially call for the critical interrogation of belief systems that seek to control by way of commandments coming from invisible, unprovable magical beings.
Oh, yeah, and the Satanic Temple also has one of its tenets arguing that "one should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason." Sounds pretty good to me.
By the end of that class session, usually many students find that there just might be a little bit of a Satanist in all of us.
At least when it comes to the First Amendment, the Satanists right now are spot on.
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Wecome to modern American education!! Let's sell Satan and attack God and our Savior on college campuses. If you don't think the End Times are here, then your ignorant and completely blinded. The next thing you WILL see will be the inferno of hell where you can enjoy Baphomet. You wanted to see his statue? You can see him forever in the pit.
ReplyDeleteWow! Just wow! It's time to pray for our children and the future of our children. This brainwashing of our children by evil must stop! 8 years of Obama and what do you get? I hope President Trump will help turn everything around when he takes our tax dollars away from communist satanic school systems and colleges that do nothing but corrupt and lie to America's kids. PRAY TO JESUS!
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone still think it's a good idea to donate to the so-called education system?? It hasn't been education in a long time!!! Take away their money and tear the whole rotten pervert system down!!! Then they can all prey to Satan when the so-called professors are out of the stret where they belong.
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