I am a Satanist?

By Sandra

For years my son has put up with the fundy ways of his step mom. She calls him a Satan worshiper. He finally set her straight in this letter. I was so proud I wanted to share it.

---

Devil Worshiper. Seriously? Ha. That's pretty funny.

So I guess that in your mind, you picture me sitting around my house in a black cloak, sitting in a circle of candles on a pentagram in the floor and sipping the blood of some animal sacrifice, all while reading from some ancient spell book....and there I am, all spooky looking and chanting, giving praise to this little red guy with horns that has a pitchfork, which he uses of course to poke evil doers in the tushy.

That's hilarious.

I hate to spoil the fun, but no, I am not a devil worshiper. Before you label me, let's clear up a couple of misconceptions that you obviously have about me:

-In order to be a "devil worshiper", one must believe in a devil. If I was a devil worshiper, I would have to believe that somewhere in this vast universe, there is really a place filled with molten rocks and weeping lost souls that are being eternally tormented by a horned beast that wields farm equipment. Now what do you suppose the devil does with that pitchfork? I mean, obviously there must be alot of hay to be collected in hell...I mean, why else would he have a pitchfork? To be a fill-in actor for Green Acres? In all seriousness- that's just plain stupid.

-The devil is a fictional character dreamed up by some guy thousands of years ago to keep little kids from acting up and to create fear in adults who couldn't behave by themselves. Some people need fear to be civilized; I am not one of those people. I know right from wrong without having to have an imaginary half-man/half-goat or a bearded man floating in the clouds to instill fear in me. I am also content in embracing the real truth about the universe:

NO ONE KNOWS WHO CREATED IT, HOW IT IS GOING TO END, OR WHAT IT ALL MEANS. NO ONE.

Anyone that tells you that they DO know, such as religion or "self-help" cults is either lying to you to get your money, lying to you for political power or to oppress you, both, or just brainwashed and too scared to accept the fact that no one has developed the technology yet to calculate every possible item in the universe; much less tell you how it started, who made it, or why.

-To be a devil worshiper implies that I am a "worshiper." I don't worship. If there is something out there that made us and is watching us, I am betting that he didn't make us to lay around groveling on our knees for forgiveness, or to profusely thank him over and over again for what he has created. I mean, seriously, if you created people, would you really be that pompous to make your creations cower in fear, and constantly thank you for everything? If there is a god, I don't think he is a self-centered attention hog that wants constant praise and incessant cries of his name. That's just plain mean. So, no, I don't "worship." Worshiping is for slaves; I am no slave. So do I worship the devil? Of course not. Why would I waste one moment of my time giving my life to fictional character? I would never pray to Mickey Mouse, never give offerings to the Terminator, never fall to my knees and thank the Three Little Pigs for blessing me, and likewise, I would never worship ANY fake deity from any ancient or modern book. That means all of them. Worshiping ANYTHING at all signifies weakness, a fundamental lack of self-honesty, logic, and basic reasoning skills, and an inability to deal with the truth.

-Just like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, elves, Zeus, Odin, Thor, Jesus Christ, ghosts, psychics, little green men, fairies, Allah, specters, spooks, and many more... the devil is a fairy tale. I stopped believing in fairy tales when I was a kid. I only believe in real things- things that are verifiable, and tangible, and if not clearly visible, then detectable using spectrometry, remote sensing satellites, or any other known means of phenomena detection and analysis at the very least. I do not concern myself with books that were written over 2,000 years ago by primitive people (a talking snake in the garden of eden, a boat with ALL the animals on it, a talking bush on fire----sounds like a drug problem to me. And a virgin having a baby? No way, I had health in the 7th grade- I know where babies come from) nor do I believe in any of the goofy fairy tales of our own era, like real haunted houses, visions, or any other stupid, fake concepts that people develop to create a stir, to draw attention, or simply fool you. All of these myths are fun stories, especially the ones about Odin and Thor- they were pretty awesome, but they are just stories. Just like any story I read, I realize it is just a story, written by a guy just like me, except the guys that wrote them claimed to be "divinely inspired."

I don't worship the devil. So what if I listen to "Devil Music"? So what if I listen to ANY KIND OF MUSIC!!!!? It is just listening to music for crying out loud. Since when is that a crime? I mean, it is just a cd. It isn't a bomb, or a gun, or a torture device....it is a stinkin' cd; completely incapable of harming ANYONE EVER. Furthermore, the devil isn't real. The people who write "Devil Music" know that-- and they are all having a big laugh right now too. Why do you think they write "Devil Music"? Because they get a big kick out of how seriously people take mythology of course, and most importantly, to generate album sales. There is no such thing as bad publicity, and publicity gets you sales. Nothing sells more albums than for Bill O'Reilly to talk about how inappropriate an album is. The moment that some FoxNews reporter warns the parents about how "detrimental, evil, vile, and disgusting" an album is, that album instantly sells 1 million copies. You know, now that I think about it, they might be in on it---getting their piece of the cash by publicly denouncing a band, thereby getting them rich. Either way, despite any artist's motives in creating music, I just like music. I don't care which fake god or devil or boogeyman it represents, sings about, or promotes, or what brainwashed lunatic wrote it for that matter....I just love heavy music, and I will continue to listen to it and write it until the end of time. Any form of music that displays supreme musical skill, whether it be beauty, speed, complexity, heaviness, or otherwise, can talk about whatever it wants to and have anything it wants on its album cover. I listen to Christian bands too, you know. Like Living Sacrifice, Zao, Stretch Armstrong, and other really heavy bands that you would mistake as "Devil Music" no doubt. These bands are seriously heavy, fast, and chaotic- just like I like it- but they have Bible verses and New Testament stories for lyrics. Doesn't affect me at all; like I said, I just like music. I don't care who they are praising. They can praise Gomer Pyle for all I care.

But lets face the facts here. I read the bible. All of it. I actually attempted to believe it and follow it as a child. I am sure you remember...you told me that if I didn't quit taking 10% of my allowance and using it as tithes at church, you'd cut off my allowance. Twas then we argued about whether the bible tells you to tithe or not. You told me that at the Seventh Day Adventist church, you never did that, and that it wasn't explicitly instructed by god to do so. Well, if you want to believe Leviticus 27:30 and 32, 2 Chronicles 31:12, Malachi 3:8-10, Prov. 22:9, and many other verses, then you are supposed to tithe. According to the Malachi verse, failing to tithe is robbing from god. Well, I'm no scholar, well, um, yes I am,...er...well, let me just try that again. I am a scholar, and I say that god wants 10% of your earnings, and failing to do what god wants gets you put into hell. Christian lives are meant to be spent honoring god in every way that he has set forth in the bible. It says so very plainly throughout the bible, and to be a true Christian, you must obey the bible. Period. Just like the laws of the United States must be obeyed to stay out of jail, the laws of the bible must be obeyed to stay out of hell. You can't just pick and choose. Thus, you can give yourself partial credit for pulling me away from Christianity by forcing me to sin against God. It wasn't too long after that when I realized it was all a big dumb lie anyway, so don't take the last statement too seriously. I would have eventually deduced that it was all a bunch of lies anyway. In all honesty, if you ever actually read the bible, then you would realize that the god of the bible is a pretty messed up guy, and that maybe the "Devil Music" that I listen to isn't so bad after all. Get out your bible if you want, here's some really good ones:

Isaiah 45:7- "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

So, there you go. God made evil. About 1,000 times in the bible, it is made clear that "everything God does is good." So then, making evil is good. God did it, and you can't mess with that. I mean, if it wasn't good, then why did He make it? Just to mess with people? Whatever.

--In Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14 God allows murder, rape, and sexual slavery.

All the soldiers in Midian were instructed by Moses, who was guided by God of course, to kill all the women who had been with a man before, and to keep all the virgins for themselves. It gets worse:

Deuteronomy 22:28-29- "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."

So a guy can rape a girl, as long as he pays the father, and then the poor girl has to marry the rapist!?!? Sounds pretty Satanic to me. But, nope. That's not Satan...

There are tons of other verses where rape is okay, one of the worst being Exodus 21:7-11 where it tells that a girl sold into slavery will not be released at the same time as the male slaves. (Side Note- By the way, um, slavery is okay?? God seems to think so. Who are we to question him?) If the girl doesn't satisfy her captor, she can be bought back. Are you kidding?

I could go on with these forever. God tells people to kill their children, their parents, gay people, non-believers, pretty much anybody that doesn't follow all the rules. This includes the whole Sabbath day thing. All those Sundays when I wanted to go to church with my granny, but had to come home to do some kind of housework instead were blatant sins against god. You may as well have been buying me Cannibal Corpse or Judas Priest albums. There are more verses involving condoned murder and human sacrifice than I could ever list in a night. "Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death". (When Jesus comes back, brothers will kill brothers, and parents and children must kill each other!?!?!? That's REAL evil!) I am not supposed to listen to "devil music", but I can go to church, and bible school, and be considered perfectly normal, despite the fact that the bible is far more brutal, more twisted, and features more murder, rape, slavery, torture, and promotion of crimes against families and children than any album I have ever owned. You couldn't fit the bible's worth of evil onto one CD. Devil Music?----"Don't imagine that I came to bring peace on earth! No, rather a sword lf you love your father, mother, sister, brother, more than me, you are not worthy of being mine!!!" No, that wasn't Metallica, Slayer, or Ozzy....that was Jesus. Yep, the same prince of peace, all loving, love your neighbor guy. But don't be confused, he came with a sword to rip your family apart. And you thought my music was bad....

One final comparative analysis I would like to make involves my music versus yours. Case in point involves Metallica's "The Four Horsemen" and Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You." The Metallica song is a song about a fictional story- the story of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It is a tale of the return of the horsemen to bring judgment to the people of the world. This story is obviously a fictional story and is in no way harmful to anyone. The lyrics are not profane, nor do they encourage any wreckless behavior. Now, lets have a look at the Heart song. Whereas I was not allowed to listen to Metallica and White Zombie, the "devil music" that was written about fictional characters, I was allowed to listen to the Heart song. Not just allowed to; basically had the song shoved down my throat for over a year. I still know every word of that song. Funny thing is, that song is about the most inappropriate, sinful, unacceptable song for children to listen to. The song is about a woman who cheats on her husband with some guy she picks up on the side of the road, literally. She lets this guy hitch with her, and then they go to a hotel, even though she is supposedly "in love with another man", and she admits to getting together with him ONLY to have sex with him, and the chorus re-iterates the point like 8 times in the song. It is even the song title- "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You." She isn't talking about her husband, you know.

Now, in practical terms, I am not very likely to try to emulate any of the actions promoted by the Metallica song "The Four Horsemen." I see it being pretty unlikely that I will ride out of the sky on a horse wielding a giant hammer anytime soon. On the contrary, it is completely possible that an impressionable youth could misunderstand the celebration of extramarital lust and adultery that is promoted in the Heart song. I still, to this day, find that song to be one of the most offensive things about this argument against my music that has gone on for over a decade. That Heart song teaches little girls that it is okay to be a whore and that it is okay for them to pick up strangers on the side of the road if the stranger is handsome enough, then take this stranger back to a hotel room to "make love---love like strangers---alllll night loooooong" (that's what it said.) But I can't have an album that has the word "Shit" on it.

Now, allow me to really clarify the problem here. The problem isn't that I find the Heart song offensive. IT IS JUST A SONG. I was just making a point. The point is, a song is just a song. If you want to talk about Devil music, I am pretty sure that the Heart song is Satanic. If having sex with a total stranger to fulfill lust that your man at home can't satisfy ISN'T evil, then I don't know what is. But I don't really care. The real truth is that the music we enjoy is simply the music we enjoy. It doesn't actually affect any decisions we make, beliefs that we have, morals that we abide by---it simply serves to be something that we like to listen to. I like my music heavy, fast, and mean. That doesn't make me a devil worshiper. That makes me human. And hopefully, at this point, you see the point of the comparison.

Just because I listen to a song about demons doesn't make me a demon. Just because you listen to a song about whores doesn't make you a whore. It's that simple. I don't believe in fairy tales, and I certainly don't conduct my life around song lyrics, which is what you are implying be calling me a "devil worshiper" by listening to the music that I do. Believe it or not, I am a rational, intelligent, logical human being with the capacity for good ethics and kindness using my own decision making skills and critical thinking. I don't have to follow anyone else's goofy beliefs. I don't have to have an imaginary being, god or satan, to guide me through life. I am comfortable embracing the truth and realizing that life is unexplainable at this point. No one knows the answers, good or bad, and I am not about to swallow any fantasy story about it.

In closing, I hope you truly realize that I am not a Satanist. However, if it helps you to sleep at night, you can go ahead and believe that I am a devil worshiper, and I am fine with that too. I kinda get a kick out of it, lol.

So anyway, I gotta go. All these candles are going out in my "Black Magic Circle" and I can't really see the goblet of blood since it is getting so dark, so I have to hurry up and give the Invocation of Chthulhu before the moon passes before the wolf. Hail Satan!

Previous

Next