I should first start with the disclaimer that from my secular progressive perspective, Christians and Satanists are merely two groups of superstitious LARPers fighting each other for memetic power and influence. Neither are worthy of sane consideration by respectable people, and this article is therefore not an endorsement of Satanism.
Christian theocrats, whether self-declared or latent, have been fired up by a display by the Satanic Temple inside the Iowa State Capitol. Iowa’s State House rules permit religious installations during the holidays, but this did not stop outraged Christians from calling for its removal with one man Michael Cassidy allegedly vandalising and savagely desecrating the display in a fit of theocratic rage, leaving the Baphomet statue in pieces.
Conservatives leapt to Cassidy’s defence with Ron DeSantis jumping on the Satanist-bashing bandwagon declaring that “Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a "religion" by the federal government.” He also pledged to contribute to Cassidy’s legal defence fund. TPUSA founder and leader Charlie Kirk said that he “stands with the Satan slayer” also pledging his financial support.
There are still some old-school Republicans who were against the embrace of theocratic silencing and wanton vandalism and thuggery, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds condemned the temple but stood up for the Satanist’s right to freedom of expression. “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the Nativity scene that will be on display ― the true reason for the season,” she said in a statement.
In an interview with CNN, co-founder of the Satanic Temple Lucien Greaves gave an impassioned defence of freedom of religion and the Open Society and showed America and indeed the world that Satanists are more sane and logical than the increasingly demented and often violent Christians who oppose them.
Since its founding in 2012, the Satanic Temple has been fighting against theocracy, lodging a series of legal challenges, including suing Indiana over the state’s extremist near-total abortion ban and upholding the right of school kids to have after-school Satan Clubs. Although the influence of the Satanic Temple remains small its endeavours in making sure America remains a secular nation cannot be questioned, which is more than can be said for Christian theocrats.
The pernicious influence of Christian theocracy is undeniable. One need look no further than the influence they have over state politics and the reproductive freedom of 25 million American women. Religious ideology is the main motivation for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the immediate kicking in of so-called "Heartbeat bills," which have forced women to continue with their pregnancy regardless of their wishes and regardless of the health of the child. Just last week, a woman in Texas had to fight in court to be able to go ahead with an abortion because the child would have Trisomy 18, a serious genetic condition that results in severe intellectual disability and malformation of organs. Only 10% of babies born with Trisomy 18 survive past 12 months. In the Christian theocrat’s mind, God wants that disabled baby to live just so the child can die within 12 months. Only a theocrat could turn such an unfortunate tragedy into a moral cause célèbre.
’s article regarding this issue does a better job of explaining how repulsive the pro-life position is to ordinary people, especially women and how the issue of abortion is becoming an albatross around the neck of Republican election hopes.I weighed into the discussion on X/Twitter saying:
My post received a predictably outraged response from Rightoid Twitter, I was accused of being a Reddit Refugee, Devil Worshipper and a Cringe Atheist. There were the more unhinged responses, including someone threatening to chain me up to a radiator while forcing me to watch my family be killed. But these are the arrows one must be expected to take when challenging sacred cows, especially those of the online Religious Right.
This entire episode is highly reminiscent of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s, in which the Christian Right was whipped up into a frenzy over unsubstantiated allegations of Satanic ritual abuse targeting children. Many of these conspiratorial beliefs regarding Satanism and child abuse being committed, especially by elites, persist today and have been given a new lease of life by the emergence of QAnon as well as Pizzagate. Both conspiracy theories play on decades-old tropes about depraved shadowy rituals committed by a disproportionately secular and progressive American elite.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1ceaa703-6855-4beb-83d4-6eb5ffad70d5_1268x713.png)
Why Satanists? They’re easy targets; when someone says "Satanism,” it immediately evokes images of Devil Worshippers wearing black cloaks and holding daggers, preparing to do something unspeakable. This therefore gives the theocrat an easy target; after all, who will stand up in defence of someone as reprehensible as a Satanist? Thankfully, we do not live under a theocratic government, and mainstream American culture is not held hostage by the moral sensibilities of religious zealots.
The renewed Satanic Panic also coincided with a gay sex scandal in the Senate, where 24-year-old staffer Aiden Maese-Czeropski was filmed having anal sex with another man in the Senate hearing room while also posing for pictures in a jockstrap.
My initial reaction was shock. Shock, that the first documented case of gay anal sex within the Senate did not involve a Republican. My thoughts then moved onto concerns regarding decorum within the hallowed halls of the Temple of Democracy and how this compares with the shocking events of Jan 6th. Although certainly inappropriate, it is only fitting that this occurred within the Senate, which is the beating heart of a progressive and tolerant superpower that the United States embodies. Although an indecent act, this incident can rightly be interpreted as a moral re-consecration of Congress after the terrible events of Jan 6th and shows us just how far America has come in its fight against religiously motivated homophobia. Americans should congratulate themselves that they have come this far.
Many secular right-leaning people have made the argument that both the statue of Baphomet in Iowa’s State Capitol and the gay sex incident in the Senate are a sign of societal decline. Others have said that the Satanic display is inappropriate and should therefore not be displayed in government buildings, yet none have made the secular argument as to why. If religious displays are to be permitted then what difference does it make whether it’s a Buddha statue, a nativity scene or a statue of Lucifer?
Indeed, secular right-wing author and commentator Neema Parvini
went further and made the argument that those who are standing up for the freedom of expression of Satanists are actually Satan worshippers themselves!None are willing to face the cold hard reality that their motivation for engaging in this dialectic comes down to residual Christian social conditioning which persists in them, even though they themselves are not Christian. Those who deal in such rhetoric should examine their own anti-Satan biases and come to the clear and obvious conclusion that it does not stand up to reason and logic. There is absolutely no meaningful difference between a statue of Baphomet and a statue of the Virgin Mary. Both are legitimate expressions of religious belief.
Although not legally impactful the case of Tennessee v. Scopes (1925), often called the Scopes Monkey Trial attracted a tremendous amount of media attention not just within America but around the world. Over 200 newspaper reporters and 22 telegraphers were present reporting on every moment with thousands of miles of telegraph lines being erected for the purpose of reporting on the trial. The controversy centred around high school teacher John T. Scopes who was accused of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law which prevented public school teachers from denying creationism. Although the outcome resulted in Scopes having to pay a fine of $100 it was a seminal cultural moment in the fight for progress and showed more intelligent Americans the problems with religious fundamentalism.
In 1960 the trial was fictionalised in Stanley Kramer’s film “Inherit the Wind” which further helped the fight for a secular society. By that time the American people were firmly turning against Christian fundamentalism and were increasingly embracing science. The 1960s resulted in a series of legal challenges which reached the Supreme Court. Some of the most important being Engel v. Vitale (1962), Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) and Epperson v. Arkansas (1968).
The Butler Act was eventually repealed in 1967 after the tide had decisively turned against fundamentalists, with the aforementioned Epperson v. Arkansas finally determining the law unconstitutional.
America has a long and extensive history of fighting against religious fundamentalism with many generations fighting for progress but unfortunately, some are willing to throw away this progress.
The fundamentalists were right: religion cannot survive modernity. The tremendous forces of the Enlightenment and modern science laid waste to Christian dogma, leaving behind the secularised husk of Christian morality, which eventually morphed into Wokeism. The atheists’ failure, especially the New Atheists’ failure to question some of the more problematic egalitarian moral assumptions of Christianity was due to their own lack of foresight and courage to question irrational beliefs that were and are still taboo. But I digress; this topic is worthy of an article itself. Needless to say, the forces of secularisation and rationalism still have a long way to go in fighting back against all forms of superstition, and it will take honesty, bravery, and more sacred cow slaughtering to get there.
The very same impulses behind witch burnings and inquisitions are behind this outrage. The paranoia, the magical thinking, the Manichean absolute good versus absolute evil, the invocation of religious dogma, the discarding of reason and rationality, and the unleashing of all the worst impulses of human nature.
Unlike Europeans, Americans still have a long way to go in vanquishing theocratic thinking from their political life and fully embracing secular modernity. Although the power is slowly but surely moving away from Christianity and religion more generally in the United States, with organised religion declining faster than anyone predicted. This can only be a positive sign in the move towards secular modernity. However, in the meantime, Americans must fight and secular-minded people of all nationalities must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our American brothers and sisters in this fight for progress.
As I made clear on X/Twitter, Satanists are indeed the first line of defence against theocratic governance. Their persecution is there to warn us that the spasms of ignorance and superstition still exist, and we as a civilised society must constantly fight against these forces of reactionary ignorance. Attacks on them are attacks on pluralism and progress itself. Secular conservatives like
would be willing to turn a blind eye to these theocratic impulses so long as Wokeness is defeated, but in my view, even if this were successful, it would only be trading one set of sacred cows and taboos with another. The enemies of progress are numerous, but we must never waver in our commitment to pluralism. We must never be willing to throw away the achievements of modernity.It's about time the American Right stopped taking Christian objections to freedom of religion seriously and arrested this ugly trend of embracing theocracy. It's time to leave behind the boogeyman of Satan. It's time to join modernity.
I believe
put it best; we must embrace the Better Demons of Our Nature if we are to preserve the Open Society.Let us part with a quote from the late great Kemal Atatürk:
“My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.”
I would like to add also the total failure of Theocrats standing their ground even dialectically to science and secularism. They think they can get points labeling science, atheism or progress in general as "new religions". Ok, let's say science or atheism are religions as well as christianity: the logical answer would be "Ok, and?". Religious people labeling things they don't like as a religion think to be supersmart, when in reality they are just mocking themselves. Why in fact, if you consider yourself a religious person use the "religious" label as a pejorative? Do you think acting like this to serve your own interests? No, dude, you are just admitting religious is an intrinsecally bad thing, and you have owned yourself. Congratulation, genius!
Btw, let's go back serious again and moreover let's give us a bit of satisfation to religious fundamentalists and admit progress is the new religion. If we see that from a historical prespective we see religions are always been cyclical phenomena. Before Christianity there was paganism, and before paganism there were several prehistoric cults. A question always fascinated me was: why the romans after a certain time decided to embrace Christianity and repudiate their ancestral cults till to ban and persecute whoever didn’t want to bend to the new God? Many historians retain Christianity won because the s.c. “paganism” had nothing more to offer to the men of Its age. Since I’m not a historian myself I cannot say if this is the true, but I have no doubt that can be the most logical and plausible reason. And then now we should ask? Why people are abandoning Christiniaty and embracing science and secularism in a para-religious way? Well, for the same reason ancient Romans abandoned paganism for Christianity, because it has nothing to offer anymore. And so the cycle goes, the hmanity discover new gods and embrace new faith. We can calli t “rationality”, “progress”, even “satanism” if we want, but as a famous quote from a famous movie says: if theocrats want to know why people prefer venereting Baphomet or Pfizer instead of Jesus and Mary they have just to look in the mirror.
You plainly don't know what "theocracy" is. Iran is a theocracy, because it has a Council of Guardians. The US is not, because religious office does not come with political office. The US didn't require Satanists to not have a theocracy, we have been that way from the beginning and the very First Amendment prohibits any laws establishing a religion (thus avoiding issues like the Scottish Covenanters switching sides in the English Civil War in hopes of Presbyterianism being established, although England itself was caesaropapist rather than theocractic since it was political office that implied religious office). Kim Reynolds (who, again, does not hold office by virtue of a position in any church) has a reasonable take.