• Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    stop trying to “expose the hypocrisy of the right”. that only works if your opponent is beholden to reality and has shame. that’s not been what matters to them for over a decade now. you “expose their hypocrisy”, and they’ll just say “okay” and kill you anyway. they’re openly, nakedly terroristic christian ethnonationalists. they believe any evil they commit is good because god is on their side. if this was a chess match, the right has already flipped the board over and pulled out a gun and the left is trying to argue that bishops aren’t allowed to move vertically.

    • Whoresradish@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Pointing out the hypocrisy is extremely useful for convincing open minded individuals who are listening to the arguement. Specifically the next generation.

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      The Satanic Temple actually takes action to challenge laws, like when they commissioned a statue of Baphomet to be displayed at the Oklahoma state capitol after a monument of the 10 commandments was installed there. After a court case the monument was removed.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    11 months ago

    I donated to The Satanic Temple last month and encourage others to do the same. Given that my donation was used exactly as I’d intended (highlighting hypocrisy), I’ll be turning on recurring donations when I get home.

  • HWK_290@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    From their website

    No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I met a boomer guy who really thought the Satanic Temple believed in Satan. He wouldn’t even hear it.

      He was also in a cult for half of his life. Like the “I live in a isolated bunker farm and gave up my passport/social security card” cult.

      Not saying they’re related. but I am leaning towards anyone who has a negative opinion of the Satanic Temple also being a fucking moron.

      • KredeSeraf@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I don’t remember where, but I saw a debate over the validity of the Satanic Temple. And one uber religious guy said something like “well if you don’t believe in an actual Satan who does?”

        To which the other guys just deadpan dropped “Christians”.

        Still don’t quite understand what the first guy was going for there.

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        but I am leaning towards anyone who has a negative opinion of the Satanic Temple also being a fucking moron.

        It’s not that easy - I underwent the same kind of brainwashing when I was a kid (I grew up in Apartheid-South Africa) where everything from the peace-symbol to soccer to underwear that wasn’t made from 100% cotton was hysterically painted as “satanic…” and I’m being quite literal.

        It’s difficult to undo all that - no matter how smart you happen to be.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    11 months ago

    Exposing the right’s hypocrisy doesn’t really do much. Many of them know but don’t care. Many of them don’t know but also don’t care.

    Sartre: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-anti-semites-are-completely-unaware-of-the-absurdity

    Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

    • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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      11 months ago

      Fool proof method for arguing with fascists: apply their logic to them.

      They think their beliefs are universal. But the second you characterize them as the out-group of a violent in-group, they’ll quickly qualify their statements. Be a rhetorical mirror to their misanthropic, suspicious, hateful worldview.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        11 months ago

        There was a book about authoritarian personalities I was reading a while ago that was fascinating and depressing. It had a study that showed right wing authoritarians are also willing to hunt down themselves

        From this book https://theauthoritarians.org/

        Suppose the federal government, some time in the future, passed a law outlawing various religious cults. Government officials then stated that the law would only be effective if it were vigorously enforced at the local level and appealed to everyone to aid in the fight against these cults.

        […]

        Who can ’em be? Nearly everybody, it turns out. I started with a proposition to outlaw Communists and found authoritarian followers would be relatively likely to join that posse. Ditto for persecuting homosexuals, and ditto for religious cults, “radicals” and journalists the government did not like. So I tried to organize a posse that liberals would join, to go after the Ku Klux Klan. But high RWAs crowded out everyone else for that job too. Then I offered as targets the very right-wing Canadian Social Credit Party, the Confederation of Regions Party, and the mainstream Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. These were the parties of choice for most authoritarian followers at the time, yet high RWAs proved more willing to persecute even the movements they liked than did others.

        Finally, just to take this to its ludicrous extreme, I asked for reactions to a “law to eliminate right-wing authoritarians.” (I told the subjects that right-wing authoritarians are people who are so submissive to authority, so aggressive in the name of authority, and so conventional that they may pose a threat to democratic rule.) RWA scale scores did not connect as solidly with joining this posse as they had in the other cases. Surely some of the high RWAs realized that if they supported this law, they were being the very pople whom the law would persecute, and the posse should therefore put itself in jail. But not all of them realized this, for authoritarian followers still favored, more than others did, a law to persecute themselves. You can almost hear the circuits clanking shut in their brains: “If the government says these people are dangerous, then they’ve got to be stopped.”

        So I wouldn’t bank on their self awareness

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    This stunt used to work with the Bush-era (Jr. or Sr.) Republicans. They actually believed in the constitution, they didn’t like thinking of themselves as hypocrites. They took pride in having a system of beliefs that was supported by logic. They believed in debates, and thought that their ideas would win.

    The MAGA Republicans have clearly abandoned all of that. They don’t care about logic. They don’t care about the constitution. What matters is their fear. What matters is their interpretation of their religion. What matters is their strongman. It’s a fascist movement.

    Putting up a satan-inspired display only convinces them that they’re right to be afraid, and that they truly are fighting against evil, and that they need their strongman to root out that evil. I still think it’s important to push back, even if it only encourages the fascists. But, it’s not helpful in the way it used to be when the other side was capable of being embarrassed by hypocrisy.

    • Malek061@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The bushes stoked fear as well. Remember when they went after the gays? Oh how about blacks getting free from prison? Willie Horton. That’s all they know. Hit them as hard as you can with hypocrisy in their face over and over. Then they will learn when something similar happens to them.

    • Seleni@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      But what it also does is force them to allow other religions into their ‘religion can do this-and-that’s bullshit, which they hate.

  • HWK_290@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Hence my donations to the satanic temple. Doing the Lord’s Baphomet’s work!

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Covid was the clear turning point for me.

      Watching them protest.

      Then beg for help at a hospital while on their death bed. If they survived, they’d only to then trash the hospital afterwards.

      • Drusas@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Meanwhile, they were out there getting those of us with poor immune systems sick…proudly.

    • Omnifarious@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The same way members of the Church of Satan are Satanists. What your probably thinking of is Devil Worship which is different. You can actually go to either of these organizations websites and they should be able to give you a good overview.

        • Fish [Indiana]@midwest.social
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          11 months ago

          I don’t know about the Church of Satan, but the TST exists to mock religion, expose the hypocrisies of the religious, and promote human rights.

            • TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Like another comment said, your best source is going to be their own websites. But from an outsider’s perspective, their motive seems to be taking the good ideas from the Abrahamic religions (love your neighbor, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc) and replacing some of their worse tendencies (close-minded devotion to YOUR interpretation of God and anything less will send you to Hell) with their polar opposites: “Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world” (Tenet V from The Satanic Temple’s website)

            • prole@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              Why should Christians have a monopoly on fellowship and community? TST can be a secular, humanist way for people to be part of a community without all the baggage of religion and dogmatic thought.

              • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                They shouldn’t, nor any religion should. Again, I don’t have anything against it I just wanted to know how it formed and what are it’s beliefs, most religion have a god or some shit I just asked what are theirs.

        • Drusas@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Do you have any idea how many variations of Christianity there are? Do you question why there are so many? Or variations of Islam? Or Buddhism?

          It’s just a silly question.

          • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I don’t know them all but I know a few. Yes I do question why there so many and it most likely has to do with money, power or some idealistic bullshit. Again, I have nothing against the organization I was just wondering abouttheirr beliefs

      • Mike D.@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I looked after posting. TST refers to themselves as satanic even though worshipping is a part of the core tenets.

    • Drusas@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      The same way that most Americans say “praise Jesus”, I guess. Sure, the latter case might actually believe in Jesus, but they’re not worshiping him according to his beliefs.

      The satanic Temple is the same in reverse: they don’t believe in Satan, but they believe hat following certain tenets make you a better person.

      Edit: On a related note, I look forward to the day that voice to text can handle such “complicated” words as “tenets”. FFS.

  • Zellith@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Satanists expose the GOP doublespeak on “free speech” and bigoted rhetoric

    Well. It’s Tuesday.