Hail Satan documentary

Tonight, I watched 'Hail, Satan?', a documentary about the founding and development of The Satanic Temple. It started off in quite a disappointing way with the early activities seeming ridiculous and counter-productive. I also thought it was unfortunate that two of the co-founders refused to show their faces, which seemed hypocritical if they were trying to say their organisation was something to be proud of. However, Lucien Greaves stepped forward to be both the face and the voice of The Satanic Temple and made for an excellent spokesperson. Dave suggested to me that the use of Satanism was needlessly provocative and would be detrimental to them actually achieving anything related to political activism. But the controversial associations that Satanism bring up are entirely the point. What they're trying to do, in the main, is to prevent state government in the US from promoting a Christian message. And by quoting freedom of religion in the Constitution, they are using the fear of Satanism (as Greaves said at one point - "it's a socio-political counter-myth) to block Christian monuments and Christian practices in state government. I thought it was particularly telling that the only people who mentioned anything objectionable in relation to Satanism were those protesting the Satanic Temple's activities. I find nothing to disagree with in any of the Temple's Seven Tenets, which preach inclusivity, open-mindedness, compassion and freedom. The story of one chapter leader getting a bit out of hand with threats against the president demonstrates that Satanism is a label that might be easy to abuse, but she was ejected from the organisation, which is entirely non-violent.

So, after a slightly rocky start, the documentary had some very interesting things to say, and presented the Satanic Temple in a very balanced and reasonable light overall. If I was interested in joining a religion, that's definitely the one I'd choose.