Atheism and Satanism. A topic that should be simple enough to understand, but all too often gets mangled by people who don’t understand what one or both of the words mean. Get ready. It’s time for a Satansplain.
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Welcome to Satansplain. I am your host, Magister Bill M.
You know, there are some topics that come up again and again in Satanism, sometimes not only by the non-Satanists, but by Satanists themselves, too. And no matter how many times we try answering the topic, the questions keep coming up. Most often they keep coming up by people who, like most humans, are just intellectually lazy and don’t want to read up on the answers we’ve given millions of times. Other times though you’ll find people who THINK they understand, and then try to explain it, only to make the topic more confusing.
One of these topics is concerning atheism, and Satanism.
Now, if people really understood what those two terms mean, then I could end this show in about 30 seconds. Atheism means not having any belief in the existence of deity. Satanism is a religion that doesn’t believe in deities. Therefore, Satanists are atheists. There, done. Thanks for listening.
Unfortunately, no. There are people who don’t really understand what I just said or raise objections to it. And like I said, some people give their own explanations which *I* would have some disagreements with.
Church of Satan Magister Nemo, for example, wrote an article on this topic a while back. You can find it on the official Church of Satan website. That article is called “Simplifying Satanic Atheism”, and subtitled “My View”.
Personally though, I’ve always had some disagreements with what he wrote, or at least how he wrote it.
Now before I go any further, let me be clear: this episode isn’t some kind of attack on Magister Nemo. I have KNOWN Magister Nemo for a number of years. We’ve met in person a few times. We get along fine. We have respect for each other’s work. We DO have some big DISAGREEMENTS on some things. But even then, they’re not disagreements with Satanism itself. We’re both Magisters in the Church of Satan. We’re both SatanISTS. We are both in agreement with the fundamental principles of Satanism, as summarized in The Satanic Bible.
One of the reasons I mention all of this -- and this is just a point I want to make before we get into today’s topic --
There seems to be this catch-22 that I’ve seen some idiots try to put on the Church of Satan. If somebody like Magister and Nemo and I agree on something, and we say “Yes, this thing is part of Satanism, but this other you’re talking about, we would say is NOT Satanism”, then somebody whines, “Oh, you guys are a cult. You’re not allowed to disagree on anything.” But when we DO have disagreements on something, like politics for example, or whether there is any truth to this story about an allegedly haunted house, or whether this thing this celebrity in the news did was philosophically Satanic or not…when that happens, then somebody jeers, “Ooh, there’s a SCHISM in the Church of Satan”, or “Ooh, then you should accept MY version of Satanism too, which is based on worshiping the Pazuzu as a literal being and sacrificing animals to him.”
So there’s no winning either way with idiots like that. I realize that. We’re not a cult, but at the same time this isn’t a religion where anything goes.
So for the REST of you, who UNDERSTAND that. Who HAVE an IQ in the triple digits, let’s continue.
Magister Nemo does say right in the essay that what he wrote was HIS view. So in this episode of Satansplain I’m going to give you MY view on atheism and Satanism. What I’m going to do is talk through an essay of my OWN that I’ve had in the works for a while. Some of this may materialize as a new section of the Church of Satan dot com FAQ, namely a section for atheists. Reverend Jared Mammon and I were working on one a while back. It may get put on the site soon. We’ll see.
Here is my essay, the working title of which is, “On the COMPLICATION of Atheism”.
[or, COMPLICATING SATANIC ATHEISM]
Even if one has not picked up and read The Satanic Bible, a simple bit of research on the basics of the Church of Satan and Satanism quickly reveals that Satanism is a strictly non-theistic religion that views Satan only as a metaphor. As Satanists don’t believe in deities, this means Satanists are atheists.
This should be simple enough to understand. Alas, the same tiresome questions and inaccurate statements keep appearing on this topic.
[And I have categorized these questions and statements into three categories. Those categories are: Lunatic Lines, Loaded Lines, and Lost Lines. As you can imagine, these are the lines that I hear from lunatics like the QAnon believers, lines that AREN’T from lunatics but ARE from atheists and usually trolls, and finally the third category are lines that I hear from Satanists who perhaps understand Satanism but don’t understand what we mean when we say that Satanists are atheists.]
Lunatic Lines
In extreme cases, I’ll see claims like the following, namely from either hardcore Christians or conspiracy theorists (often one and the same):
“You’re not really atheists, because I know you secretly believe God exists. In fact, to deny God is to presume he exists!”
“Atheists do not truly exist, because everybody worships something, whether it’s God, money, the state, or something else.”
“Sure, the Church of Satan may SAY they’re atheist, but that is just a front. When you reach the upper ranks of these Satanic groups, you find that they’re secretly illuminati devil worshipers.”
Accusations such as the ones above are so intellectually bankrupt and have been debunked so many times that I’m almost reluctant to give them any attention here at all. But let me get this over with so we can move on.
The first accusation, that atheists somehow secretly “know” that God exists, is just silly. If I’m unconvinced that a certain something exists, then I don’t believe in its existence. Furthermore, the “you secretly believe” accusation is no more convincing than saying a person who insists Santa Claus or Superman is fictional is likewise a secret believer who is in denial. The only reason we have an established term for somebody who doesn’t believe in the existence of God (“atheist”), and not one for somebody who doesn’t believe in the existence of Superman, is because we don’t see zealots for the latter. We are never approached for example by people making Lex Luthor will torture us if we don’t create a life around praise of Superman. Regarding the accusation of “everyone worships something”, this confusingly stretches the meaning of “worship” to include attention to things which even many God-believers may value as much as the average atheist.
Finally, there is the accusation of, “The atheism thing is just a front! These Satanists are secretly Illuminati devil worshipers when you get into the upper ranks!” Clearly, the people who believe this haven’t thought it through, as it begs so many questions. If the Church of Satan really wants devil worshipers, then how come devil worshipers who approach the organization are always turned away, while so many atheist applicants are let in? Why would the Church of Satan have spent the last 50-plus years reaffirming Satanism’s non-theistic worldview in so many books, articles, and interviews? Can we sincerely imagine a high-ranking, devout member of an ideological organization, Satanic or otherwise, being told to suddenly stop believing in what they deeply believe and instead start believing the opposite, without protest? For that matter, if Satanism is a “front” to hide devil worshipers from the public view, then who would think that names such as “Satanism” and “The Church of Satan” to be an effective disguise? Just a little bit of thinking reveals that these accusations make no sense. Of course, if conspiracy theorists were capable of critical thought at all, they probably wouldn’t be conspiracy theorists in the first place.
[So with THAT all out of the way, let’s move on to the LESS lunatic lines I hear about Satanism versus atheism.]
Loaded Lines and Lost Lines
Much more often however, I see loaded questions and claims like the following:
“How can you Satanists call yourselves atheists if you believe in Satan?”
[or…]
“Well the Church of Satan doesn’t believe in Satan, but there are other types of Satanists who do are Satan worshipers.”
“If you’re atheists, then you should just call yourselves atheists instead of Satanists.”
“How can you have a religion without deities?”
“Satanism is a type of atheism.”
“Satanism is just atheism with extra steps.”
“How can you be an atheist if you believe in magick?”
Finally, I’ve even seen some Satanists (or at least people calling themselves such, justifiably or not) say things which may indicate a misunderstanding of this topic:
“Well I’m a Satanist but I’m not an atheist, because to be an atheist you have to believe with absolute certainty that God doesn’t exist. I’m really an agnostic.”
“I’m a Satanist, but that makes me an I-theist, which means I am not an atheist. The ‘God’ I believe in is me.”
“Anton LaVey really believed in a literal Satan as a deity. The Church of Satan changed everything to atheism.”
“Anton LaVey was a deist and The Satanic Bible teaches deism, then after he died the Church of Satan threw that out and started teaching atheism.”
A common theme seen across all three of these categories is a misunderstanding of not only Satanism, but atheism as well. So before we go any further, let’s at least establish a working definition of the word “atheism”. Many atheists reading this article may already be all too familiar with the descriptions that follow. But for the sake of clarity, here we go:
What Atheism Is
Atheism is most often described as “the absence of a belief in deity”. The word means not having a belief in the existence of God nor other gods. That’s all it describes. Stated another way, if you do not believe in the existence of something you’d call a deity, then you’re an atheist.
The meaning of the word “atheism” becomes more obvious when you break down the word itself into its prefix, root, and suffix. The prefix “a” means “without”. The “T-H-E” in the middle of the word is derived from the Greek “theos”, meaning a god or goddess. And finally the suffix “ism” denotes a belief, practice, or essence of something. So “atheism” is literally “without deity belief”.
Likewise, we have the word theism which means “belief in a deity”. Other prefixes we could add to this are “mono” to get monotheism, which means belief in one deity, or for example “poly” to get polytheism, which means belief in multiple deities.
What Atheism Is Not
First of all, note that the antonym of the word atheism is theism. It is not “religion”. The words atheism and theism each address one and only one issue: belief in the existence of deity. Saying “I’m an atheist” or “I’m a theist” tells you nothing more about a person than whether or not they believe in any deities. Neither word tells you anything about that person’s general view of religion, their view of science, whether or not they have belief in other supernatural notions such as an afterlife or auras, how skeptical of a thinker they are, what ethics code they may follow, their political views, economic views, nor other personal convictions. Again, when somebody says “I am atheist”, the only thing you can really conclude is that the person doesn’t believe in any deities.
Note that atheism is not a religion. Atheists may be quick to point this out, but many times for the wrong reasons. The reason why atheism isn’t a religion is the same reason why theism isn’t a religion either: these terms only describe where one stands on the issue of deity exists. You need a lot more than once stance on one issue to define an entire belief system.
One particularly annoying phrase I keep hearing is, “Calling atheism a religion is like saying ‘bald’ is a hair color!” This is a bad analogy, as it presumes that atheism means the absence of religion. Again, what atheism means is simply not having a belief in the existence of any deities. There are plenty of people who don’t happen to subscribe to any particular religion, but would say that they believe in God and thus definitely aren’t atheists. There are also some atheists who also happen to practice a non-theistic religion, and thus can’t be described as having no religion. The topic of non-theistic religions, of which Satanism is just one example, will be discussed in more detail later.
Another popular mistake is to think that “atheism” must strictly mean an assertive, disbelief in deity. That is, claiming as fact that God does not exist. Very few people would be atheist by this definition. As stated earlier, atheism by definition means simply not having a belief in a deity, not necessarily asserting that deities don’t exist. Some people make the mistake of conflating these two concepts, but there is a difference between rejecting the claim “X is true” and making the claim “X is false”. For example, if I receive a letter in the mail claiming I can become a millionaire if I just invest a little money in the sender’s special stock system, then being unconvinced that their offer is legitimate is not the same thing as claiming with certainty that it’s a total hoax.
The outright assertion that gods don’t exist is often referred to as “antitheism”, using the prefix “anti” to mean “against”. Earlier sources may refer to it as “strong atheism” or “gnostic atheism”. Of course, such antitheists would still be atheists by definition. After all, they don’t believe in deities. But certainly not all atheists are antitheists.
The Myth of the Agnosticism Escape Clause
Likewise, many people who incorrectly believe that “atheism” can only refer to this antitheism, also incorrectly think that “agnosticism” represents some sort of half-way point or third alternative to theism and atheism. They may therefore argue that since one can’t be 100% certain of God’s existence or non-existence, that rejection of both extremes is the only intellectually honest position, and identify themselves as “agnostics”. The reality is that belief in deity is a binary position: either you believe in the existence of something that you’d consider to be a deity, or you do not hold such a belief. Even if a person claims “I don’t know whether or not God exists” or “I can’t tell you whether or not God exists, because I haven’t gotten a good definition of ‘God’ yet”, this still implies that the existence of a deity is not something that they believe. This still makes them atheists, not theists. Agnosticism cannot therefore be some sort of third option.
The term “agnosticism” was first coined by T.H. Huxley in the 19th century, and in short it’s the claim that the existence of nature and deity is unknown and unknowable (“agnostic” = “a” + “gnosis” = “without” “knowledge”). Remember that theism and atheism address belief, not knowledge. As agnosticism addresses knowledge, not belief, agnosticism is not mutually exclusive with atheism. A person who does not believe in a deity (atheism), but additionally does not claim to know for certainty that deities don’t exist (agnosticism), would be appropriately described as an “agnostic atheist”. This is why one of the aforementioned synonyms of an antitheist (an atheist who additionally makes the assertive claim that gods do not exist) is “gnostic atheist”. Likewise, a person who believes in a deity but asserts that he or she can’t know for sure that said deity exists is an “agnostic theist”, and finally somebody who claims to know that God exists would be a “gnostic theist”. When you hear somebody say simply, “I’m an agnostic”, what it typically means is, “I’m an atheist with a vocabulary problem.”
One final note about agnosticism and gnosticism: the “gnosticism” (lowercase “g”) in this context should not be confused with “Gnosticism” (capital “G”). The latter refers to a particular set of religious beliefs from the first century C.E., rooted largely in a number of Judeo-Christian beliefs, details of which are well beyond the scope of this article. Again, this other use of the word “Gnostic” is obviously not what is meant when we’re talking about terms like “gnostic-theist” and “gnostic-atheist”.
Besides agnosticism, there are other “isms” which sometimes get misused as an attempt to avoid the labels of “atheist” or “theist”. For example, I have seen some people claim to be neither theist nor atheist, but instead “apatheist”, which means they either don’t care one way or another about the God question, or believe that nobody can come up with a good enough definition to let them know whether they believe or reject the idea. But again, this means they currently do not hold a belief in anything that they’d consider to be a deity, thus they are still atheists by definition. There are also other “ism” for beliefs about God that do not match the traditional western view of God as a personal god, such as pantheism or deism. But as these are different ways to believe in the existence of a deity, they still fall into the category of theism.
Satanism’s Answer to “The God Question”
The concept of deity is obviously a central topic to most religions. So when learning about any particular religion, it is common to first ask how that religion views “God”, for lack of a better term. Does this religion believe only one god to exist, or many? Or does it simply not address the issue at all, finding it not important? If the religion says a god or gods exist, In what sense is he (or she, or it, or they) said to “exist”, exactly? Does the religion have sacred writings describing what this god allegedly did, what he’s like, or what he wants? Is this god described as having a sort of reasoned way of thinking, not unlike humans? What sort of role does he play in human affairs? Or did he just create the universe and then leave us to our own devices? Are there rewards for obeying this deity? Any consequences for not?
The Satanic Bible wastes little time addressing the whole “God” topic, addressing it head-on in the first two chapters of the book’s philosophical section, The Book of Lucifer. The first two chapters of this section are respectively titled “Wanted: God — Dead or Alive” and “The God You Save May Be Yourself”.
The first of these chapters points out how the interpretations and claims about “God” have been ridiculously varied throughout different times and different cultures, with some descriptions even being self-contradictory. On the more abstract side, “God” is just a personification some humans slap on notions such as fate, existence, love, consciousness, or the perceived forces of nature. But whether people choose to call selected life events “acts of God”, “the hand of fate”, or by no name at all (read: atheism), the question is wholly irrelevant to Satanism. As the book explicitly states, “Man has always created his gods, rather than his gods creating him.” Furthermore,“The Satanist realizes that man, and the action and reaction of the universe, are responsible for everything, and doesn’t mislead himself into thinking that someone cares.”
Satanists however cast a skeptical view on people who, despite understandably rejecting the supernatural claims of Christianity and other spiritual religions, still try to retain the religion’s other dogma. The given example is the notion of “Christian Atheists” (atheists who pride themselves on practicing “Christ-like” behavior), which despite being an oxymoron was still the name of a movement at the time. As for what Satanists do in fact believe and practice when it comes to ethics, that topic is addressed in later chapters.
The second chapter then takes all of this to the philosophically Satanic conclusion of realizing that there is no carnal versus spiritual world, but rather only the carnal, and it is our own biological brains which have allowed us to create concepts such as “gods” or “spirituality” in the first place. The Satanist views oneself as the one who matters the most at the end of the day, and the one most responsible for how his or her own life turns out. In this sense, the true “god” of the Satanist is the self: the one whom the Satanist serves. Again, it is understood this is not belief in an actual supernatural god, but calling ourselves our own gods in the aforementioned metaphorical sense.
Satanism’s Answer to “The Satan Question”
If the first two chapters of The Satanic Bible’s Book of Lucifer can be thought of as addressing “The God Question”, the third and fourth chapters may be thought of as addressing “The Satan Question”. Namely, a look at the various depictions of Satan, hell, and assorted “evil” entities from mythology, how we Satanists repurpose them, and why.
The third chapter, “Some Evidence of a New Satanic Age”, explores the history of how religions have traditionally used the concept of sin to shame and control people, particularly in branding certain behaviors which extend from natural animal instinct as “sins”. The chapter also goes on to point out the hypocrisy in those religions having to now go back on their own dogma under the rationalization that they have to “keep with the times” in order to keep their congregants, as well as the person who identifies with some particular religion without really believing much of what it teaches. If Satan is humanity’s established personification of concepts like indulgence, rational self-interest, skepticism, and the so-called Seven Deadly Sins, then we can just adopt the most brutally honest and apt name for such a philosophy: Satanism.
Occasionally I will see somebody who stumbles into a conversation about Satanism, doesn’t bother to research anything about the topic, but still asks for the reasons for the name. Or upon finding out that Satanism doesn’t match their own misconceptions of what they thought it was, tell us that we should simply change our religion’s name to something else. To quote a meme I created for such occasions, “Sure thing, random Internet person. We’ll get right on that.” These sorts of questions are answered in this very same chapter of the book.
LaVey points out that the name suggestion of “humanism” for example doesn’t work, as “Humanism is not a religion. It is simply a way of life with no ceremony or dogma. Satanism has both ceremony and dogma.” These two components are often what define and distinguish a religion from a philosophy. Another alternative suggestion is to use some sort of “name that would have the connotation of a witchcraft group, something a little more esoteric — something less blatant.” LaVey then addresses such ritual-practicing occult groups, which Satanism often gets lumped in with and compared to. This also includes “white witchcraft” groups who want to indulge in the esoteric and macabre nature of occultism while simultaneously wanting to come off as a righteous do-gooder. But occultism or no occultism, as explained in the book, you cannot be a Satanist if you “cannot divorce yourself from hypocritical self-deceit”. In short, if you say you agree with the philosophy but still have a hang-up on the name, either from perhaps a feeling of self-righteousness or the need for wide social approval, then you may not be really in tune with this Satanic philosophy after all.
The next questions answered in this chapter are, “...but why even have a religion in the first place if all you do is what comes naturally, anyway? Why not just do it?” Thanks to scientific discovery, we no longer have to rely on supernatural religious answers to explain things like the weather or illness. This extends to psychiatry, which has given us a great insight into why we humans act and think the way that we do in all sorts of different situations. There is however a catch to all of this. As explained, “It is one thing to accept something intellectually, but to accept the same thing emotionally is an entirely different matter.” An example of this I’ve seen is the occasional Christian-turned-atheist who, despite intellectually understanding why the Holy Bible makes no logical sense, still sometimes fears going to hell due to years of religious indoctrination. Such ideological programming unfortunately rarely ever gets rationalized away overnight. Conversely, a solid intellectual argument against a religious zealot or conspiracy theorist rarely changes minds, as such people usually have a heavy emotional investment in an idea.
As the book continues, “The one need that psychiatry cannot fill is man's inherent need for emotionalizing through dogma. Man needs ceremony and ritual, fantasy and enchantment. Psychiatry, despite all the good it has done, has robbed man of wonder and fantasy which religion, in the past, has provided. Satanism, realizing the current needs of man, fills the large gray void between religion and psychiatry. The Satanic philosophy COMBINES the fundamentals of psychology AND good, honest emotionalizing, or dogma. It provides man with his much needed fantasy. There is nothing wrong with dogma, provided it is not based on ideas and actions which go completely against human nature.” Also, as mentioned in the chapter prior to this one, if spiritual religions can use ritual and ceremony as devices to sustain a person’s faith in a lie, then they can also be used to sustain an emotional grounding in the truth.
The fourth chapter, “Hell, The Devil and How To Sell Your Soul”, takes this a step further by having a look first at various past depictions of Satan and hell, how they’ve changed over the centuries, and how religion have used these concepts and other scapegoats as a means of manipulation and control. There is also an extensive list of similarly “evil” entities from various world mythologies (again, all creations of the human imagination), showing that the underlying concepts embraced in Satanism are hardly limited to what Christianity condemned. Old tales such as the idea that a Satanist must sell his soul or sign a pact are easily dismissed. The chapter ends on the amusingly poetic note that when we take the unfounded accusations of “evil” against us and turn them around, we “live”.
[We’re going to take a short break right now. When we get back, we’re going to look at each and every one of those example questions I gave at the beginning of the show. You are listening to Satansplain.]
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[Magister Bill M. here. You are listening to Satansplain. Visit the official website for the show, Satansplain dot com. You can go there to listen to ALL of the past episodes of Satansplain and read more about the show. Though you can also listen to Satansplain on YouTube, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apply Podcasts, Stitcher, and other places. You can also email me with your questions and comments. That email address is, bill@Satansplain dot com.
I gotta say that normally when I take a break, I play an ad for The Devil’s Mischief, but lately YouTube has been flagging the episodes for copyright infringement because I play a 30-second clip of come comedy, even though I have it pitch shifted and what now. So if you’re used to listening to Satansplain on YouTube, and the commercial break seems abrupt, that’s the reason why.
Let’s continue now with the essay, On the complication of atheism
]
The Answers
So with the meaning of atheism now thoroughly explained, along with an overview of how Satanism addresses the concept of deity, let’s get back to the rest of those questions and statements listed earlier:
“How can you Satanists call yourselves atheists if you believe in Satan?”
The answer of course is that Satanists do not believe in Satan as a deity. We use Satan strictly as a metaphor. This is true even when using Satan in a ceremonial context or saying “Hail Satan!” As The Satanic Bible states, humans invented gods, rather than the other way around. Even when a Satanist says, “I am my own god”, this is just symbolic language to mean “I am the one whom I serve; I am the one ultimately responsible for what happens in my life”, and obviously does not mean “I am a supernatural deity”. So as we do not believe in any actual deities, we are atheists by definition. [Though I’m sure there will be idiots out there who see the title of this Satansplain episode, don’t bother to listen to it, and say, “Oh I can explain this. We atheists don’t believe in God or Satan or any OTHER gods, but Satanists do because they worship Satan.” In which case I’ll say, “Wrong. Listen to the episode, you moron.”]
“Well the Church of Satan doesn’t believe in Satan, but there are other types of Satanists who do are Satan worshipers.”
Devil worshipers are devil worshipers, not Satanists. Non-Satanists may see these various groups of people labeling themselves as “Satanists” (or in some cases, being labeled as such by Christians or the media) and conclude that these are all simply different denominations of the same religion. This however is incorrect.
The reasons why Protestantism and Catholicism for example are considered two different denominations of the same religion (Christianity), and not two different religions, is because they still ultimately share the same theological origins, the same main scriptures, and the same core beliefs which distinguish Christianity from the other religions of the world. The same simply cannot be said about the dozens of largely unrelated groups mislabeled as “Satanists”, as closer examination shows they are too theologically dissimilar and conflict on fundamental beliefs to be considered sects of the same religion. They are not people who for example just have “different interpretations” of The Satanic Bible; they are people practicing fundamentally different belief systems.
As there is no evidence of an actual codified religion calling itself “Satanism” until the establishment of the Church of Satan in 1966, we see no justifiable reason to misuse the same label of “Satanism” to describe some unrelated and fundamentally different belief system. And as Satanism as established by the Church of Satan is a non-theistic religion, it stands that Satanists are atheists.
“If you’re atheists, then you should just call yourselves atheists, not Satanists. Right?”
This is rather like telling Christian, Muslims, and Jews that they should drop their respective labels and all just call themselves “monotheists”. The terms atheism, monotheism, and polytheism only tell you if a person believes in zero, one, or more than one deity. That’s all. There’s much more to a religion than how many deities it purports to include. Additional components of a religion typically include a set of particular philosophical convictions, code of ethics, grand worldviews such as humanity’s supposed role in the universe, symbolism, and ceremony. As atheism merely describes one aspect of Satanism (the fact that we don’t believe in deities), and a person can most certainly be an atheist without being a Satanist, the word “atheism” is not a sufficiently descriptive label to distinguish us from the rest.
“How can you have a religion without deities?”
Many people, especially those who were raised only knowing Christianity, erroneously think that theism is a necessary requirement for religion. Non-theistic religions however do exist, and Satanism is hardly the only non-theistic religion in the world. You can find atheists who may be practitioners of Theravada Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Scientology, the Raelian Movement, Humanistic Judaism, Samkhya Hinduism, or some other non-theistic religion. Other atheists may be part of a religious group that accepts both theists and atheists, such as the Unitarian Universalist church.
Some people may try to rationalize these examples away by claiming, “Those are philosophies, not religions”. No, they’re religions. While all religions include some form of philosophy, philosophies themselves do not have all of the additional components of a religion, such as ceremony, symbolism, and dogma. Once again, theism isn’t an absolute requirement for religion, and even theistic religions have more components than just theism and philosophy.
Quite often, this bogus “Those are philosophies, not religions!” argument is used by people who feel an emotional need to believe religion and theism are inseparable. This includes not only some devout theistic religionists, but many atheists as well. It seems that many atheists, in their effort to distance themselves from “religion”, end up erroneously equating the term “religion” with theism. Granted, the word “religion” often gets carelessly used as a synonym for “theism” or “Christianity”. Sometimes a person raised under Christianity, or otherwise appalled by it, finds a comforting home in the atheist collective. In which case, the person may very well come to mistakenly think of “atheism” as an entity that’s a rival to Christanity, perhaps complete with its own denominations. Which brings us to the next misconception.
“Satanism is a type of atheism. Right?”
Again, atheism is in itself just a response to one claim, namely the claim of deities existing. It’s not a religion, let alone with denominations. So it would be much more accurate to say that atheism is just one of many “isms” that Satanism happens to contain. Satanism is therefore no more a “type of atheism” than it is a type of Epicureanism, type of individualism, or type of meritocracy.
“How can you be an atheist if you believe in magick?”
This question is loaded in several ways. One easy answer is that the supernatural, occult notion of “magick” (which is not what Satanists believe; more on this in a moment) is itself not a deity. Since the one and only requirement for being an atheist is not believing in a deity, it’s entirely possible for somebody to believe in some sort of supernatural idea, so long as that supernatural thing in question is not a deity. There are for example atheists who, despite not believing in the existence of deities, do in fact believe in things such as ghosts, water dowsing, or clairvoyance. Such atheists may be rare, but they do exist.
The real problem with this question however is it presumes Satanists “believe in magick” in the first place, meaning that we believe in the sort of wieldable, supernatural power seen in occult lore. In short, we don’t. Just as Satanists use Satan as a constructive emotional-driving metaphor, Satanists do the same with “magic”. Satanists incorporate ritual knowingly as a psychological and theatrical, psychodramatic tool which still fits in with Satanism’s materialistic worldview. While a full explanation of the practice is well beyond the scope of this essay, a detailed discussion on this topic can be heard on Demented1’s “Greater Magic with special guest Magister Bill M.” discussion and its follow-up “part 2” episode, both available on YouTube.
Finally, we get to the last set of ideas based on misconceptions, starting with this line:
“Well I’m a Satanist but I can’t be an atheist, because to be an atheist you have to believe with absolute certainty that God doesn’t exist. Therefore, I’m an agnostic.”
As already explained, this is not what “atheism” or “agnosticism” mean. The only requirement for being an atheist is simply not having a belief in the existence of any deities. Even if you don’t like the term “atheist” or feel that you have little in common with the “atheist community” at large, if you fit the definition, then you’re still an atheist. You may additionally happen to assert that the existence of deities is ultimately unknown and unknowable, which would additionally make you an agnostic. But agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive.
“I’m a Satanist, but that makes me an I-theist, which means I believe in the existence of a deity (me) and thus can’t be an atheist.”
Since the Satanist views oneself as one’s own “god”, the term “I-theist” is certainly a valid one for Satanists. Most atheists however do not take this philosophical position. Regardless, when a Satanist says “I am my own god”, this is just a symbolic way of saying, “I am the one who ultimately matters the most in my life; I am the one who’s ultimately responsible for my own fate; I am the one I am to revere and respect”, and other such roles which humans have traditionally invented deities to play. So saying “I am my own god” in this context is obviously not a declaration of yourself having supernatural powers, immortality, or invincibility. As “I-theists” are only viewing themselves as deities in the strictest symbolic sense, it follows that I-theists still don’t believe in an actual deity in the understood sense, thus for all practical purposes of conversation are still atheists.
On a side note, the notion that omnipotence is a requirement for being a deity is easily disproved when looking at mythology. Almost all stories from mythology are precisely about gods running into problems and limitations, and even suffering through them.
“Anton LaVey was a deist and The Satanic Bible teaches deism (or even theism), then after he died the Church of Satan threw that out and started teaching atheism.”
This is a silly claim that I’ve seen on more than one occasion. In fact, I only ever seem to hear it from people desperately trying to push the tiresome narrative that the Church of Satan used to embrace belief X but now believes in opposing belief Y, and therefore you should join this person’s rival “Satanic organization” who believes X. Typically the proposed organization is nothing more than a website or social media page.
For starters, there are numerous, well-documented examples of Anton LaVey’s stating his own non-theistic worldview, which is also consistent with The Satanic Bible. LaVey also did not even eschew the term “atheist” itself, as noted in an interview by Eugene S. Robinson where LaVey states “Look, I’m an atheist. [...] Satan is symbolically representative for us.” I suppose the current High Priest Peter H. Gilmore uses the word “atheism” more freely than Anton LaVey ever did, but that’s true of people today in general compared to earlier generations.
Deism, which is essentially the belief that there’s a “God” who created the universe but plays no role in human affairs, admittedly may seem compatible with Satanism. This is because the entire notion of cosmic origins, deity or no deity, is ultimately irrelevant to the principles of Satanism. But again, as The Satanic Bible points out early on, “Man has always created his gods, rather than his gods creating him.”, further explaining that whether one chooses to call the perceived balancing force of nature “God” (deism) or “by no name at all” (atheism), in either case it “is far too impersonal to care about the happiness or misery of flesh-and-blood creatures on this ball of dirt upon which we live [...] The Satanist realizes that man, and the action and reaction of the universe, is responsible for everything, and doesn’t mislead himself into thinking that someone cares.” So in practice, both the deist and the atheist live their respective lives the same: without a belief in a deity who actually cares and affects them. Whatever disagreements a deist and an atheist may have about the origins of the universe are thus simply irrelevant to the practice of Satanism.
Rather than trying to explain all of the above philosophical intricacies to today’s journalists (who are often willfully clueless, deal mostly in just soundbites, and falsely presume Satanists are devil worshipers), we find it much more effective to use the simplified two-word response of, “We’re atheists”.
Summary
The term “atheism” describes nothing more than not having a belief in the existence of deity. As Satanists do not believe in deities, this means Satanists are atheists.
Satanism does use Satan as a symbol for concepts like carnal nature, and view the self symbolically as one’s own “God”, but both of these notions are still understood and used as metaphors, not a belief in any deities in the actual supernatural sense. In addition to being atheists however, Satanists are adherents of Satanism, an example of one of the world’s several non-theistic religions. Also, we Satanists do not “secretly” believe in a literal Satan, nor see any reason to.
Many nontheistic religions, including Satanism, see the notion of cosmic origins to be ultimately irrelevant to the practice of that nontheistic religion. While the doctrines of Satanism would be in conflict with belief in a personal deity (a god who answers prayers, has special demands on humans, is revered, etc.) it is technically possible for a Satanist to hold a belief in a noninteractive, uncaring deity who plays no role in human affairs (i.e. deism). But this position would be quite rare, and more importantly indistinguishable from the general atheist view of, “I don’t believe in a god who affects my life”. Thus it is simple and accurate enough to say, “Satanists are atheists”.
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[And that is going to do it for this episode of Satansplain. Satanism and atheism. A topic that SHOULD be simple enough to understand, and yet, seems to warrant a little ‘splaining, from Satansplain. Thanks for listening. HS.]
