It's the opposite. It's far from a cure, but it helped me.
I'm not a Satanist, I never was, though it converted me to atheism.
Didn't do any rituals and stuff, I just read the book. It introduced me to atheism and common sense.

LaVeyan Satanism, the one mentioned here, is atheism. They don't believe in God, Satan, etc.
It looks to me like they are atheists, but without standard Humanist ideology (ala Dawkins and most of the world).
Instead they are egoists, moral relativists/amoralists with rituals and a sense for aesthetics.

Their goals:

Damn Rok , why'd you have to ruin a great thread with actual , accurate information ? Obviously j/k.

It's good to see I'm not the only one who sees the value in some of these concepts.

On another note , a somewhat funny story regarding my 1st exposure to some of the beliefs.

A "friend" of mine came by house one day to bring me something I had lent him. I was grinding at the time and this person knew how important to me it was that I not be emotionally rattled while grinding. At one point over something I said which was trivial he called me a ****ing dumbass. It wasn't said in jest , and he seemed quite riled up. Never had I spoken to him in such a way and I asked him to leave. He also wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed so to be called that by him was somewhat ironic.

He refused to leave after about 5 demands that he leave. To me this is the equivalent of coming over to your place of work , insulting you and then refusing to leave.

I got so angry I ended up punching him in the face.

2 days later I came across this and I knew that there was merit to some of these "Satanic Rules of the Earth".

When in another's lair, show them respect or else do not go there.
If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy.

Thanks for sharing. Gj kicking his ass, he got what was coming.
I think this rule makes sense too and that it's congruent with our territorial nature.

It's pure common sense as well. You just don't disrespect someone in their own home and refuse to leave when asked to , especially while they're working , doing a job that requires mental stability.

I didn't need to see it listed as one of the Satanic Rules to believe in that but the timing of the incident and seeing those rules shortly after was amusing and endeared me slightly to the concepts listed as being "Satanic".

Bit of a false equivalence as atheism is not a philosophical or belief system.

Satanism is an unfortunate name for a philosophy which is really Nietzschean atheism plus occult psychodrama. All atheists should familiarize themselves with this philosophy, because it's a good antidote to the sterile, secularized Christianity which so many atheists still subscribe to. I see this as similar to the Star Trek mirror universe Terran Empire/Federation or Sith/Jedi dichotomies. LaVeyan Satanists are people who want to grow goatees, wear black robes and celebrate the power of their dark sides, while secular humanists are do-gooder Federation types who want to retain essentially Judeo-Christian values while discarding their theistic underpinnings. Of course I'm just a little green Jedi now, but I was once a Sith master so I know a bit about the dark side philosophies...

Well, quite.

It just seems attention-seeky to call something that's not Satanism, Satanism.

Who's actually qualified to say what Satanism is exactly ? Even though I'm sure the use of the term "Satan" in Anton Lavey's Church of Satan was used somewhat to appeal to people's darker side , they do directly oppose certain beliefs of Christianity.

I recently watched a documentary about Satan and there are quite a lot of misconceptions regarding the concept. A lot of what we believe is fact is actually not.

One example , the serpent in the book of Genesis of the Old Testament is never actually referred to as Satan. I'm pretty sure that Satan as a fallen angel and caretaker of hell , if it is actually in the Bible , was only a fairly recent addition in it's history.

I'm no expert and even though I'm sure there are some old religions that worshiped "evil" deities I'm not 100% sure but I believe a lot of what people assume is "Satanism" , i.e. sacrificing virgins , drinking blood, and engaging in orgies actually comes from Christian propaganda regarding witches in their witch hunting period.

The modern Church of Satan I believe calls that "Devil Worship" and in my opinion , even though during human history this must have existed at one time somewhere , it was mostly a scare tactic used by Christianity.

Yeah, I get that one can call a secular philosophy Satanism and be able to justify that it's not a contradictory label. I still suspect the reason for doing so was to be controversial.

i have learned long ago that no one really cares what Satanists believe...

most people just want someone to verify that what they think is correct and anyone who doesn't isn't actually a real Satanist

A working realistic definition of satanism, would have to include the idea of exploitation.

My first thought is that satanism is the exploitation of the weak and naive.

But all exploitation of the weak and naive shouldn't be satanism (so I think I'm going to have to change that definition). For instance, if you're exploiting someone's evil actions, it can be good (or Godly), because your just bluff calling and they're dumping chips to you, so to speak. (and we want to get this guy right). And when you're sitting on the nuts...its hard to fold. And when they can't recognize you have the nuts, they (the satanist) then are the naive. (though their long term strategy against the general population will work)

Hmm, interesting, so in that case, the good person is exploiting the strong and wise. (the satanist is only naive from the perception of the good and wise; only the good can see this naivety in real time, unlike the weak and naive, the normal target).

So those adjectives; weak and naive, are pretty relative. Compared to the average person, the Satanist is wise, but not wiser than the good person. The weak is referring to willed, but I see that the strong willed person who makes mistakes is a good target too, if not even more. So I need to take "will" considerations away from my definition.

The normal target cannot be considered good(/Godly), because he makes mistakes, is naive-er and therefore exploitable.

What if the Godly were aggressively looking for the satanist, to "sit on his left", so to speak. At what point would he himself cross over into satanism? He now too is exploiting, and targeting a person more naive than himself.

So I'm inclined to say satanism is the aggressive exploitation of the weak and naive, but now I'm trying to be good and actively looking to exploit the satanist, but not be a satanist. So I'm not there yet on my definition. (or on whether or not I should exploit this guy if I want to be good )

meh...I'm out of babble...continue later

see you can only be a Satanist by what others define as Satanic

exhausting iyam

some sort of atheists to me.

You know, I guess it isn't exploitation if the Godly guy profits off of the Satanist, because he's always at the top of his range, his range is nuts only, all the time, and the stronger his will (never afraid, looking for trouble) the more value he collects.

If the Satanists weren't being evil, or exploiting, the Godly wouldn't be profiting, so it's the Satanists fault and he gets whats coming to him.

So...Satanism is exploitation of the naive. Will power of his target isn't a factor, but will power of the Godly is a factor.