How Bad Is Satanism Really?

 So, I just got done watching a documentary on Hulu called 'Hail Satan?' For me personally, I was always confused on what it really is and just figured Satanism was just bad. I'm not into religion but I do believe in a God and have my own thoughts on what God really stands for.

This documentary was very interesting. It wasn't just all about Satan. It did talk about what they really stand for, the battle between them and Christians and when both Christians and Satanism wanted to have their monuments at a state capital. This is what made it interesting to watch and learn something knew.

First, I do think church and state should always be separated. Everyone believes in something different and no one religion or God should be forced onto another nor should everyone follow the same beliefs from one religion. It's wrong. Therefore I think having any religious monument on any state property shouldn't be allowed. If there is one, others should be allowed as well, period. No one religion is better than the other.

Watching this documentary, I got a more insight of who true modern Satanist are and my initial thoughts just like everyone else's I'm sure, is wrong. They actually seem to be a decent group of people. They are basically Atheist but decide to come together and stand up for human rights especially if something is trying to force religion onto someone else. They don't actually worship evil and demons. 

The movies, media and religion has painted an un-true picture of them so now everyone has wrong thoughts in their head. There are of course bad ones who call themselves Satanist and do bad rituals, killings and worship demons. Those two groups are completely different and should be looked at as such. There are both good and bad in every group of people and that is what we should always remember before judging others.

The conclusion, one should always educate themselves about something before passing judgement on others, there is room for all beliefs and they are not bad people; they are like us just trying to get through this thing called life. I highly recommend this documentary. As I end this, below is their seven tenets which is like the ten commandments. They are pretty standard and just like some of the commandments, people in general should follow.

"The mission of the Satanic temple is to support empathy between people, freedom, unwillingness to tyrannical power, and protest against injustice,"

The seven tenets are as follows:

1) One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

2) The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

3) One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

4) The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach  upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.

5) Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.

6) People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

7) Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Exorcisms/Possession - Real, Fake or Metal Illness

Exorcisms come up a lot in the paranormal and religion cultures and even in movies. Some believe in it and others don't. For me personally, well I have mixed feelings on it and that is why I decided to write a blog about it.

First lets look at the movies. Usually the face of the possessed becomes very creepy, things happen that the human body can't do and anything else they throw into a movie to make it scary. Even if it's so called based on true events, they make it seem like it's one of the most scariest thing on the planet. They have to in order to draw people in and to scare the shit out of us. Even if possession is real, they over dramatize it (not a bad thing though)and have us wondering how much of it is true. Some of those movies are terrifying to me and others are kinda boring.

Getting into the religion/paranormal aspect is confusing and spreads out into different branches. You have the group of religious people that use it to control people. What I mean by that is, if someone does something that is against their beliefs, they automatically say that person is possessed. They use possession to try and keep people inline. This makes it hard to believe in possession because we all know that person doesn't need an exorcism, they just need to leave that group of people/religion. This way of exorcisms gets abused especially if it's real or a mental illness.

You have people who are into voodoo that have their own different views of possession/exorcisms which can also be complicated on it's own. I really don't know much about so I can't really get into it, I just needed to bring it up since they also believe in it and practice it.

You have others that believe in true possession (not the kind that is used to control people). The Catholic church has gone back and forth on this subject and from what I hear, there needs to be extensive investigations into each case so everything else can be ruled out before the send a priest to do an exorcism. This is the more common one and the one that is more believed or easier to believe in. I don't know what other religions believe in when it comes to this subject. There are so many different religions, it would be almost impossible to do that research. Maybe someday if I have the time, I can start that research and write about it. 

You have the people who don't believe in it at all. Then there is the thought that maybe it's a mental illness of some sort. This can be a very real possibility, or is both real and mental illness? Then there is just plain fakes.

Lets take a look at some of the side effects of what one may go through if they are possessed. Speaking in a different language (usually a dead Latin language), foaming at the mouth, super human strength, another voice coming through that sounds demonic, floating or walking up walls, foaming at the mouth and other weird things that most people just don't do. 

A lot of those can be easily faked. Some are hard to believe that they really happened even if a witness swears by it and other things they can be done especially if someone has a mental illness. 

Lets take a look at the mental illness issue. There are a lot of mental illnesses that causes people to behave in weird, scary and violent ways. Centuries ago before we knew anything about the brain, people thought the simplest thing was something evil, someone must be possessed there for they need an exorcism. All along, it was just a mental illness that doctors couldn't explain. With lots of research, they figured out the weird behaviors were just a mental illness. Although, some people still believe that a mental illness is caused by the devil and they need to be exorcised (basically what I talked about above) which can be pretty dangerous.

Even though we have come along way with mental illness, there is still so much we still don't understand about the human brain and about the different illnesses that are out there. Because we still don't understand it and what it is really capable of, what if these possessions are just some form of mental illness that we haven't discovered yet? The brain is very powerful and if under some kind of short term illness, it can unlock something in our brains to have us behave in certain ways like speaking in tongue, growling, not liking religious stuff, foaming at the mouth etc. It doesn't explain floating, walking up walls or other paranormal stuff that a "normal" human usually wouldn't be able to do but those things can also be faked; look at illusionist they can seem like they are floating all the time. Plus, just because someone says it happens or shows a video, doesn't mean it is real.

It is very possible that something clicks in our brains to cause us to have a short mental breakdown and do these things. Yet, no one seems to look into it, that I know of anyways.

My thoughts, I am really on the fence about possession. I think it might be a short mental illness (if it isn't just flat out faked)from stress or something big going on in our lives. I can't explain the really paranormal things that may or may not happen but then again, maybe that is faked with the help of a family member so they can get help from a priest since they think it is possession. In the end, I just don't know and I REALLY DON'T want to find out. This is one paranormal thing I want to stay on the fence about. What are your thoughts?