Introduction

[bobo0100]

We are in agreement that as a moral philosophy Satanism is bankrupt. I disagree on your stance regarding the correlation between them and other religions. In statements made by LaVey he has pointed out the fact that his religion is for the most part roll playing, where as other religions mentioned such as the abrahamic religions, are meant to be followed dogmatically. My argument is this, you can reject the moral teachings of Satanism, whilst keeping the roll playing, and not bull shit teachings, therefor taking your house out of the mud. I also reject the premiss that the moral teachings are the fundamentals of Satanism.

[brimstoneSalad]

In statements made by LaVey he has pointed out the fact that his religion is for the most part roll playing, where as other religions mentioned such as the abrahamic religions, are meant to be followed dogmatically. My argument is this, you can reject the moral teachings of Satanism, whilst keeping the roll playing, and not bull shit teachings, therefor taking your house out of the mud.

I think you missed my point.

Most modern theists use interpretation to normalize their religious beliefs with more acceptable morals- Satanists can't do this.

Satanists can only "role play", or in other words, just ignore all of Satanism's moral teachings, in which case they're not really being satanists; it's just a trivial group identity, or style, like "goth", or "new-age" and no longer a religion (which at its core has to have a consistent moral teaching).

Christians can do that too. They can be like "I believe in god and Jesus and that all people go to heaven no matter what they believe"
So what?

The whole idea of being a poser, or superficially claiming group membership to something you don't really believe in/care about is not unique to Satanism.

You can assert anything that you want, but the ethical claims in the doctrines of Satanism are extremely core to the religion itself in so far as it is a religion at all.

I also reject the premiss that the moral teachings are the fundamentals of Satanism.

Plenty of Christians reject the premise that the Bible is the core of Christianity, preferring a salad bar approach where they just take whatever they like (as scant as that may be) and leave the rest.
So?

If you want to talk about Satanism, there are two major components: The claims of the 'moral' system, and the ritual practice. The latter is nothing particularly special either (and shared to a larger degree with Wicca, just with a more 'satanic' theme).

[bobo0100]

the idea of satanic morals is to not pass judgement onto people from a moral perspective, that is all it says.

Before none of your printed idols do I bend in acquiescence, and he who saith "thou shalt" to me is my mortal foe!

in essence what he means is that those whom pass moral judgement are his "mortal foe". chapter one is the only part of the book that mentions morals. We agree that this is a morally bankrupt way to think, but there is still every other chapter that says nothing at all about mortality. if you where to follow every other aspect of satanism, except this, you can still call yourself satanic. just as you could reject the magic aspects of satanism and still be included under the title. actually the default position is not that the magic works but rather that is is helpful to the mental state of those preforming the magic act.

Most modern theists use interpretation to normalize their religious beliefs with more acceptable morals- Satanists can't do this.

they don't need too.

Satanists can only "role play", or in other words, just ignore all of Satanism's moral teachings, in which case they're not really being satanists; it's just a trivial group identity, or style, like "goth", or "new-age" and no longer a religion (which at its core has to have a consistent moral teaching).

satanism only has one moral teaching. the quotes in there about loving animals and children serves a purpose, that purpose is to destroy misconceptions about there religion from pre-LaVayen times.

Plenty of Christians reject the premise that the Bible is the core of Christianity, preferring a salad bar approach where they just take whatever they like (as scant as that may be) and leave the rest.
So?

christianity is different as it makes positive claims about: god, heaven and hell that they cannot prove. when it comes to cherry picking liberal Christians, I don't have a problem with it outside of the 3 unproven things. everything in Satanism is conceptual. i think you would be making a very big mistake if you dogmatically followed any philosophy.

...the ritual practice... [witch] is nothing particularly special either (and shared to a larger degree with Wicca, just with a more 'satanic' theme).

irrelevant

[brimstoneSalad]

the idea of satanic morals is to not pass judgement onto people from a moral perspective, that is all it says.

Which is the first chapter, and the core of the entire religion.
You can't have a Satanist who passes moral judgement on others -- it goes against the foundations of the world view, which is based on complete moral subjectivity/relativity, where the only absolute they advocate is against judging others by any moral standards.

Doesn't matter if somebody is doing something against old testament law (which shouldn't be judged by) like working on the Sabbath, or doing something more innately immoral like torturing animals or molesting children. It's all the same, you can't judge others because in Satanism morals don't really exist (outside that single dogma. It's like "the only rule is there are no rules").

This is core.

I can't explain it any more clearly that that. It's why it's in the first chapter; it's the foundation of the whole thing.

in essence what he means...

I know exactly what he means.

but there is still every other chapter that says nothing at all about mortality.

And there are plenty of parts of the Bible that mention nothing about the supernatural, and aren't morally offensive either. Should we all be Christian then?

if you where to follow every other aspect of satanism, except this, you can still call yourself satanic.

No, you can't. Not LaVeyan. That was fundamental.

It's like a Catholic who rejects everything the Vatican teaches and doesn't recognize the pope... they're not really Catholic then. Maybe by birth, but not by practice or belief.

There are certain elements that define religions, which you can't remove and still have the same thing, then there are other things that are a little more flexible.

they don't need too.

They don't want to, because they're mostly rebellious teenagers. There's a difference.
Satanism is certainly at odds with commonly understood societal morality. When somebody can't say, "Hey, that pedophile is doing something morally wrong, he shouldn't be pedo-ing", we have a problem.

You could say Christians don't need to either- they can go around preaching hate, and that we should be stoning people for breaking OT laws. But again, this is at odds with commonly understood societal morality.

the quotes in there about loving animals and children serves a purpose, that purpose is to destroy misconceptions about there religion from pre-LaVayen times.

Those aren't really misconceptions - LaVeyan satanism is a new religion.
Ancient satanism is mostly a construction of Christian paranoia. Genuine worship of Satan has historically been very rare.

christianity is different as it makes positive claims about: god, heaven and hell that they cannot prove.

Not if all of those are figurative, or misunderstandings/mistranslated. Another member on this very forum posted an explanation on how he interpreted hell as not existing according the the Bible.

You completely missed my point.

Christians can interpret their scripture. Satanists can not- they're stuck with what they have. And what they have is a morally bankrupt singular and inalienable moral commandment, and the assertions that other morals don't really exist. You can't wriggle out of that one, or reinterpret it. It's very clear.

Anyway, the fact that somebody can not prove something is irrelevant. If the claims are unfalsifiable and abstract enough, it really doesn't matter.

The claims of Satanism, on the other hand, are quite concrete and logically incoherent (inheriting that property from Rand before him, and ultimately from Kant).

everything in Satanism is conceptual. i think you would be making a very big mistake if you dogmatically followed any philosophy.

What are you talking about?

The moral claim and central and singular commandment (the fact that there is only one makes it all the more pressing and inviolable) is very clear, and very much applicable to the real world. It's not just concept, but practice.

Look, I'm done trying to explain this to you.

You want to remove that central tenet? Awesome. But it's not longer LaVeyan. Now it's bobo0100ian Satanism.

If you want to make Satanism your own, that's awesome, and you can remove those corrupted elements, but you're no longer following directly from LaVey, and you're now a new ecclesiastical offshoot.

Like Protestantism, Mormonism, or the Free Zone in Scientology. It's no longer LaVeyan Satanism, and it is no longer 'philosophically' compatible with the orthodox Church of Satan. It's a new branch of Satanism (which is extremely different from LaVeyan- about as different as they get).

[EquALLity]

Ah, I gotcha brimstoneSalad.

Thanks for the links Volenta!

[Soycrates]

EquALLity,
The first time I mentioned it I said Rand's Objectivism; shorthand being just "Objectivism" because not many people use the term since Ayn Rand drug it through an ocean of fecal matter. Rand outright rejected moral truth, except her claim that it was evil to advocate moral behavior or criticize others for doing whatever they pleased. Today, no rational or decent person will claim to be an "Objectivist" for fear of being associated with Rand.

As Volenta mentioned, that's often called Moral Realism. You can also use the term Objective morality, but avoid "Objectivism" by itself unless you preface it as "Moral Objectivism", which fewer people will misunderstand, and which (unlike Rand's Objectivism) is a legitimate and correct philosophical view.

BA philosophy student with about 7 Rand books on my shelf, reporting for duty
(Note: Many Rand books, not a Randroid myself)

Rand's Objectivism has a lot more to it than just the moral perspective. It is composed, essentially, of the following philosophical positions:

- Realism (the belief that reality exists independent of observers)
- Logical Positivism (concerning perception and logic - a lot to explain about it, best to research it if interested)
- Ethical Egoism (the idea that rational self-interest should be our guiding moral or ethical principle)
- Individualism (privileging individual rights)
- Laissez-faire capitalism (obviously)

In a sense, Rand did not reject moral truth, she simply believed that moral worth derives from self-interest. In general, what will benefit ME most is the best course of action. The reason she is labeled as rejecting morality is because in her time, "morals" were defined by heteronomous ethics - for example, the Church telling people what is right and wrong. Today, we have stronger interest in talking about ethics from an autonomous angle - deciding for ourselves based on discussion what is right and wrong.

Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which propositions may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. Though moral realism and moral objectivism can generally be used interchangeably, moral objectivism (in an academic setting especially) is usually used talked about as a more rigid or harsh version of moral realism, often described as "robust realism".

I've always thought it best that, if one is only referencing Rand's moral views and not her metaphysical or epistemological ones, the term "Ethical Egoism" should be employed. Saying you disagree with Rand's Objectivism as a whole is, in a way, implying that you do not believe that reality exists independent of observers.

Semi-related note: The opposition to Ethical Egoism is Ethical Altruism, the idea that we make the morally right decisions when we act with the interests of others in mind. It has strong ties to consequentialism.

[brimstoneSalad]

I've always thought it best that, if one is only referencing Rand's moral views and not her metaphysical or epistemological ones, the term "Ethical Egoism" should be employed. Saying you disagree with Rand's Objectivism as a whole is, in a way, implying that you do not believe that reality exists independent of observers.

...Is saying you disagree with Christianity implying you believe the Earth is on the back of four elephants, who are on the back of a giant turtle (turtles, all the way down) because Christians also disagree with classical Vedic cosmology?

No, not really.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

"Ethical Egoism" is the core of Rand's Objectivism (without which it's more or less just scientific naturalism, which is really a default position that doesn't need to be stated- much like the non-belief in Vedic mythology), and when people think of or believe in Objectivism, that is the important identifying element we're talking about.

Just as we don't define Christianity by its lack of acceptance of Vedic mythology, Objectivism isn't commonly understood in the modern world by its rejection of supernaturalism (indeed, that has become so unimportant that many Randroids today are proud Christians and supernaturalists themselves, since it's seen as more of a minor quibble compared to the whole and the most important aspects).

Semi-related note: The opposition to Ethical Egoism is Ethical Altruism, the idea that we make the morally right decisions when we act with the interests of others in mind. It has strong ties to consequentialism.

Not really. The Opposite of Ethical Altruism is Ethical Sadism, acting against the interests of other sentient beings to cause them suffering (even to one's own detriment)- this can also be linked to consequentialism (evil consequentialism).
"Ethical Egoism" is oxymoronic (and plain old moronic), it isn't really a thing, since Egoism is the natural default of Amorality -- it's a failure to participate in the conversation of what morality is and how it should guide our actions beyond whatever we already wanted to do -- it has nothing to do with morality itself. Morality is by its nature, if it means anything at all (that is if you take it to be a real or comprehensible concept), something beyond the default. Doing whatever you happened to want to do to serve yourself is in no sense any kind of morality, and can be demonstrated to degrade to absurdity and meaninglessness at every turn.
Rand was deeply confused, even more so than Kant (which is quite a feat). In practice, she was just railing against morality of any genuine kind, and trying to have her cake and eat it too by borrowing its terminology for her own whims.

Anyway, ah, maybe we should start a thread on Randroids?

Glad to meet somebody else who knows his or her way around Rand, without drinking the Kool-Aid.

[Soycrates]

...Is saying you disagree with Christianity implying you believe the Earth is on the back of four elephants, who are on the back of a giant turtle (turtles, all the way down) because Christians also disagree with classical Vedic cosmology?

No, not really.

It's still unreasonable to say that you disagree with Rand's Objectivism when you only mean to say you disagree with one concept in it. It's not even the concept she's best known for in some cases - for some, her views on capitalism come first, and then her views on general morality (though they support one another).

"Ethical Egoism" is the core of Rand's Objectivism (without which it's more or less just scientific naturalism, which is really a default position that doesn't need to be stated- much like the non-belief in Vedic mythology), and when people think of or believe in Objectivism, that is the important identifying element we're talking about.

The "important element", as I said above, differs for many people, especially whether or not she's referenced in a strongly political/economic discussion, or a discussion about autonomous ethics. And if we go back to when Rand was alive and doing philosophy, to the American viewers and readers what was most important was her atheism and her rejection of Christian-Moral Doctrine.

It's understandable to say that nobody really talks about Objectivism's metaphysical concepts anymore, but there are a lot more facets to it than just that.

Not really. The Opposite of Ethical Altruism is Ethical Sadism, acting against the interests of other sentient beings to cause them suffering (even to one's own detriment)- this can also be linked to consequentialism (evil consequentialism).

I said "the opposition", not "the opposite". If you were to make a perfect mirror version of Ethical Egoism, then sure, Ethical Sadism is what you're looking for. But that doesn't really oppose Ethical Egoism - it gets along with it quite well, I'd say. (Sometimes they're nearly indistinguishable! Ha)

Rand was deeply confused, even more so than Kant (which is quite a feat). In practice, she was just railing against morality of any genuine kind, and trying to have her cake and eat it too by borrowing its terminology for her own whims.

I think that's a really big misconception about Rand's philosophy. To talk about the rejection of morality in her time was to talk about the rejection of heteronomous ethics. Much like Nietzsche, she felt that a governing body (like the Church) could not decide what was right and wrong for the individual; that they would find it themselves in self-motivated action. She truly and honestly believed that what was right - or rather, obligation - for every person was to act in rational self-interest. This doesn't mean she was right, but she wasn't just lying in order to treat people like shit. I think it's clear she honestly believed, however misguided, that such behaviour would lead us to a fair and better future.

And maybe she only formed these beliefs because she came from a culture jilted by a collectivist mindset, but they were hers, 100%.

Rand is actually only one of many philosophers to believe in and advocate Ethical Egoism. Nozick, Nietzsche, de Sade, von Hayek and Godwin are other well-known proponents of the ethical theory, with others arguing for Psychological Egoism, which is just Ethical Egoism Lite.

[brimstoneSalad]

It's still unreasonable to say that you disagree with Rand's Objectivism when you only mean to say you disagree with one concept in it.

No, it isn't. That's how language works. People do not assume that if you disagree with something, that you disagree with everything it is related to, even tangentially.

Like I said, I disagree with Christianity, but that doesn't mean that I disagree with the notion that vedic mythology is false, or that I disagree with loving one's neighbor. I disagree with certain core assumptions in the majority of Christian thought, and that which forms the foundation of Christian malethic and the Christian worldview- the blood sacrifice, and their god concept.

It's not even the concept she's best known for in some cases - for some, her views on capitalism come first, and then her views on general morality (though they support one another).

I think you answered yourself here.

And if we go back to when Rand was alive and doing philosophy, to the American viewers and readers what was most important was her atheism and her rejection of Christian-Moral Doctrine.

Unless you have a time machine and want to have this conversation in the past, then this is irrelevant. We're not then, we're now. And in the NOW, it doesn't matter because people don't think of it that way, so there's no risk of confusing people in that regard.

If I said I disagreed with Christianity 1985 years ago (before Saul's conversion), that would also mean something very different from what it means today.

It's understandable to say that nobody really talks about Objectivism's metaphysical concepts anymore, but there are a lot more facets to it than just that.

That's fine, but disagreeing with something doesn't mean agreeing with the opposite of that thing in every minor respect.

If somebody disagrees with veganism, it might just mean they think it's OK to non-violently keep cows and drink milk as some in India do, and not that they're an unapologetic carnist.

If you're not sure what they mean, that means you need to ask more questions, and not make assumptions.

The proper response is "in what sense do you disagree with it?".

In the case of Objectivism, there are two major relevant factors, both of which are closely related and interconnected (one can not really stand without the other, though that's not to say that either actually stands at all when critically examined), and both of which I disagree with.

It's safe to say I disagree with Objectivism. If somebody comes along and doesn't understand what I mean, they can ask.

If you were to make a perfect mirror version of Ethical Egoism, then sure, Ethical Sadism is what you're looking for. But that doesn't really oppose Ethical Egoism - it gets along with it quite well, I'd say. (Sometimes they're nearly indistinguishable! Ha)

I think you misread me. The opposite of Ethical Altruism is Ethical Sadism. Egoism is the default, and represents neither; it is outside the scope of ethics entirely.

It's like atheism, vs. Theism and Antitheism. Atheism is not a religion. Egoism is not ethics.

Rand would have disagreed with Ethical Sadism as much as Ethical Altruism, because she disagreed with anything that wasn't inherently beneficial to self interest.

I think that's a really big misconception about Rand's philosophy. To talk about the rejection of morality in her time was to talk about the rejection of heteronomous ethics.

Which is rejection of morality. It means nothing if it's completely arbitrary and up to each person to decide based on whatever whim, with no real qualifications for correctness.
Of course, she didn't reject her own. Randroids are glad to impose their "ethics" of rejection of ethics upon others.

Much like Nietzsche, she felt that a governing body (like the Church) could not decide what was right and wrong for the individual; that they would find it themselves in self-motivated action. She truly and honestly believed that what was right - or rather, obligation - for every person was to act in rational self-interest. This doesn't mean she was right, but she wasn't just lying in order to treat people like shit. I think it's clear she honestly believed, however misguided, that such behaviour would lead us to a fair and better future.

I didn't say she didn't believe it. Plenty of people believe all sorts of crazy and illogical nonsense. I believe she believed it, and I'm saying she was deeply confused. Confused does not mean lying.

I don't like the comparison to Nietzsche, and I don't think it's accurate. Rand went far beyond, and more irrationally so, anything Nietzsche explored. She didn't just reject governing bodies, she rejected it on an individual and philosophical level too. For her it wasn't just impractical and problematic, but impossible and morally wrong.

Rand is actually only one of many philosophers to believe in and advocate Ethical Egoism. Nozick, Nietzsche, de Sade, von Hayek and Godwin are other well-known proponents of the ethical theory, with others arguing for Psychological Egoism, which is just Ethical Egoism Lite.

The problem with Rand beyond many others is that she tried to play both sides. Rejecting prescriptions as evil, and yet making them and calling them right. And more, that her insanity has become so popular, and taken on life as something of a cult (an impressive feat to achieve with a departed leader).

I don't consider egoism a valid moral philosophy in any regard, as I explained before. It's a null state- inherently amoral (distinct from immoral). No more morality than atheism is a religion.
Talking about "Ethical egoism" is about as meaningful as talking about flat square circles.

Rand is about as much a philosopher as contemporary thinkers like Ray Comfort and Ken Ham, if you want to lower the bar that far.
I'm not a fan. Please don't assume that means I don't understand what she was about though.

[Soycrates]

I think you misread me. The opposite of Ethical Altruism is Ethical Sadism. Egoism is the default, and represents neither; it is outside the scope of ethics entirely.

I'm not sure we're getting anywhere with this because I don't feel we're on the same page about Rand, but I wanted to correct you on this - I said you misread me first. You thought I said "opposite" but I said "opposition". As in it opposes it, as in it directly challenges the idea.

I understand you don't think egoism is ethical, but I'm not suggesting it is - I am talking about the philosophical position called Ethical Egoism held by a number of philosophers, and not claiming that it is valid or that you should accept it.