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Quite a few people over the years, whilst fully accepting that I was an atheist, were puzzled as to why I extended that to Satanism. There's a variety of reasons for me. Firstly, whilst I'm not interested in theistic religion, I do like the 'religion' part of that phrase. The word 'religions' Latin root word is religiō which means an individual virtue of worship in mundane contexts; never as doctrine, practice, or actual source of knowledge. The ancient Roman's used it not in the context of a relation towards gods, but as a range of general emotions which arose from heightened attention. So to me a religion is a personal thing, practiced by an individual or as part of a group that concentrates on the self and the realities of life. No gods necessary. That way of seeing religion fits in very well with atheistic Satanism, which is comprised of a lot of fiercely individual people who in this one aspect of their lives come together.

I also don't have much time for theistic religions, particularly the 'big 3' Abrahamic ones (Islam, Christianity and Judaism). Learning about them as a child (In the UK, state schools are legally mandated to have Christian content/worship every day) it appalled me the amount of logical gymnastics people used to justify the hate and cruelties I saw exhibited in their religion in the name of what I saw as a petty, vainglorious, needy child of a diety. By the age of about 8 I knew I was an atheist but I also resented the fact I and my peers were repeatedly indoctrinated in this mess of contradictory, violent, difference-hating theism.

But at the same time, I also knew I quite liked the idea of community that an organised religion could offer. I just didn't know what my community was. Then when I was around 11 years old, I read John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost and I read these lines;

From their own mouths. All is not theirs it seems;
One fatal tree there stands, of Knowledge called,
Forbidden them to taste. Knowledge forbidden!
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? can it be sin to know?
Can it be death? and do they only stand
By ignorance? is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?⁠
Oh, fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruin! Hence I will excite their minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with design
To keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt
Equal with Gods. Aspiring to be such,
They taste and die: what likelier can ensue?

It is Lucifer who speaks these lines. In Milton's two pronged tale of the Fall of Satan and the Fall of Humanity, Satan learns of Adam and Eve and resolves to destroy them via knowledge in order to have a measure of revenge on god. Milton was a product of his time and wrote his epic as a cautionary tale but when I read those lines I saw:

Knowledge forbidden!
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? can it be sin to know?
Can it be death? and do they only stand
By ignorance? is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
...
Hence I will excite their minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with design
To keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt

And I thought, 'He's right! Why would a god make knowledge death? A sin?' I agreed with Milton's Satan that this was an envious command, made to keep humanity low. So now I had both words to put to my feelings and ideas and also a (literary but obviously non existent) figure to assign them too. Milton's Satan embodied that idea of Adversary, someone who stands against. And Milton's Satan didn't stand silently, he offered humanity knowledge, or at least knowledge of how to gain knowledge. Humanity by and large values knowledge. It's seeking after knowledge that has given us advancements (and, yes, detriments too) that have given us the potential and ability to live longer, be healthier, find out things about the Universe we live in. Milton's Satan, it seemed to me, gave us nothing less than the desire to pursue science, whereas god wanted us to stone people to death that didn't worship him and only him.

So, from that point on, I was both an atheist in the sense that I don't believe in gods, demons, ghosts or monsters but also a Satanist in order to not only passively not believe but also to be openly adversarial to beliefs that oppress people. For a very long time, I genuinely thought I was the only person who had this mix of atheism and Satanism but then I first found The Satanic Temple and then, when I found out just how problematic their leadership is, I walked away and then I eventually found The Global Order Of Satan, where there aren't awful people and the desire to effect change and help both ourselves as individuals and stand with people being oppressed is the core of our religion.

New album Weltende is out on the 28th July.

Apple has said planned changes to British surveillance laws could affect iPhone users’ privacy by forcing it to withdraw security features, which could ultimately lead to the closure of services such as FaceTime and iMessage in the UK.

A poll by YouGov(educational data starts on page 15) shows that Religious Education (RE) is seen as either 'not very important' or 'not important at all' by 58% of British people.

In the UK, RE is a mandatory subject and it's clear most people see it as increasingly irrelevant. Most of us who suffered through these lessons know they're not really about educating someone about religion, they're stealth christianity lessons. I can't recall one RE lesson as child where we discussed any other religion or the basis for religion at all.

I personally wouldn't mind RE if it were not just christian indoctrination under the guise of education. If pupils were taught about a wide range of religions and non-religions and non-theistic religions. At least it would be interesting then.

From their new album Eloah Burns Out, due September 29.

The vast majority of the money the Order generates, whether through the Shop or donations goes to good causes in one way or another. For example, the Daily Mail newspaper recently violated the copyright of our UK Order, which they settled. We regifted the money in it's entirety to MermaidsUK (one of the oldest Trans supporting charities in the UK) and The Sophie Lancaster Foundation (a charity tackling hate crimes in the UK) so if you buy something from us, it will go towards something good for real people in difficult situations. No Order members take any form of reimbursement or salary.

Our official site has an online shop which ships products all over the world (including The Vatican of course), so if you want to let people know how you feel about faith based arguments, or be open about your allegiance to Lilith or greet someone Satanically or annoy the locals with a well placed sticker then we have you covered :)

And your doggo too.

Alt text for image: A small dog curled up on a blanket wearing a wooly hat branded with the Sigil of Lilith.

Theyre coming to my area later this year apparently. I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the quality of service?

Also, the Linksys router they provide - can you manage your own DNS? Their documentation isn't clear.

Cheers :)

From the album Woe.

From the article:

"I know for a fact that Wikipedia operates under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which explicitly states that if you're going to use the data, you must give attribution. As far as search engines go, they can get away with it because linking back to a Wikipedia article on the same page as the search results is considered attribution.

But in the case of Brave, not only are they disregarding the license - they're also charging money for the data and then giving third parties "rights" to that data."

Full album premiering today.