Lady Gaga's "Judas" is thumping away in my ears as I'm typing this - been a while. Rather ironically, given the music, I wanted to start off on a note about "The Official Church of Satan" founded by Anton LaVey in 1966. I've only mildly dipped into their website - maybe read a dozen articles and 1/10 of their "theory-practice" section - and I'm kind of left with an interesting sense of the whole deal. I've yet to purchase the "Satanic Bible" simply because I don't feel like spending the excess money right now (saving that for certain adventures in and out of state), but I can only assume that the book elaborates on the philosophies and then adds a few hoo-doo-voo-doo rituals to it all.
According to the page, "satan" means "adversary" in Hebrew, but even then that's a bit of a misnomer for what they really stand for. Even saying "they" is a bit of a tough fit. Satan is not some vile, horn-topped beast that God threw down into a burning pit; but rather:
“The adversary of all man-made spiritual religions. To all that we consider the contemptable crutches man has had to invent. We totally reject the concept of there being an antithesis to God. He is God.”
That was using the words from an interview with the founder and he's speaking in metaphor with any mention of "he" with "he" being Satan.
Overall, LaVey promoted the indulgence of humanity's urges. If you're angry, act on it. If you're lusty, act on it. If someone wrongs you, revenge is the key. It's a raging world of tit-for-tat, BUT under the stipulation that you don't overindulge in any one thing. Another general gist I get is along the lines of "find your Zen" (the thing that makes your life awesome, what you love to do) and never let anyone take it from you and use any means to achieve it.
In general, that sounds about like Christianity. With the contrast that moderation isn't key, but full restraint is.
Now, like always, there's WAY more to Satanism than what I can skim off their website; however, I think I'm just going to stop there and just buy their bible later. Maybe I'll be converted some time in the eventual future. And SURPRISE! They don't condone animal sacrifices and never have. Hmm. So much for gutting a sacrificial lamb when I finish reading chapter one.
Perhaps the most interesting contrast between The Church of Satan and Christianity is the opinion of what man is; The Church of Satan believing man is just as much an animal as a dog or a bird (but perhaps more vile and vicious because of his mind) and Christianity believing that man is a more divine creature than an animal (alas, still relatively low on the whole totem pole).
Dropping the whole Church of Satan thing for now, but I've been thinking a lot about transparency. As in personal transparency. Treyarch has announce a new add-on subscription for their Call of Duty games, calling it Call of Duty Elite. Among the various tools that it yields, it can connect all of your CoD data to your smartphone AND to your FB. The internet, for many many years represented the kingdom of annonymity. You could be anyone and say anything to anyone. With things becoming ever-more connected though, that's rapidly becoming hard to do. Annonymity is a shrinking shield.
Imagine your computer giving away every last one of your likes, every conversation you've ever had in dark corners, and all of those pretty little pics you told your friend you deleted? (Purely hypothetical here people, don't get defensive XD) Can any one of us live with that sort of lack of privacy?
I try to live one of the most open-book lives that I can. There are a few things that I like to keep to myself, but I can pretty much count them on my two hands. Not kidding. I'm too lazy and not creative enough to balance more than that. Besides, I feel I owe it to most people. But let's face it, if my world were to 100% connect, could I deal with the transparency?
I'd like to think so, but it's ALMOST akin to a final judgment of sorts.
"With your soul laid bare.." and all that jazz.
The government is doing it all it can to protect our privacy, but how does something that doesn't evolve, deal with something that's growing exponentially - if not WAY faster - and changing DAILY?
Oh well. That's enough for now.
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