Satanist Leads Invocation at Alaskan Assembly Meeting

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/satanist-leads-invocation-alaska-assembly-meeting

I require your thoughts on this, dear Jedi. What say you?

I feel that the invocation itself is lovely.

I think that Satanism needs more exposure. Like with Jediism, most people have misconceptions, born of ignorance, about what Satanism is.

They're not eating children or setting churches ablaze, so who cares what they believe?

I say, "Satanists, invoke on!"

I say they are free to do as they please in expressing themselves according to their beliefs. When people speak of Lucifer, to me it just means intellect, nothing wrong with it as long as you don't end up like every other religion clinging to concretized images and idols to only separate yourself from everyone else leading to conflict.

i havent read the article yet but my first reaction is that i think its great

imo our cultural standards of inclusion and cooperation should be behavior oriented more than belief or culture or demographic oriented
if people behave in a way that promotes the public good then they are good

anything that helps move us in that direction is a good thing

im glad to know this happened

Sure, why not. Religious freedom is essential for a healthy society. Yet I personally believe that religion is a private matter and I've never been a fan of publicly displaying one's religious beliefs, as doing so is bound to insult those who don't share these beliefs and will likely cause reactions, which, in turn will also cause reactions etc., perpetuating the constant struggle of religious faiths in society that has been going on for millennia, that has cost countless lives and has ruined even more.

With full agreement of all that's been posted so far.

I am a tad sad that this is news , what next , Jediist opens Kindergarten?, Pastafarian opens Healthcare center ? Islamists saves pig from drowning? :silly: We are still so far of from really accepting each other are not we ?

That people ignored the invocation, or walked out, is evidence that there is a very long way to go until everyone's beliefs are respected. The Satanic Temple does a generally good job of highlighting in America where this inequality exists.

Edan wrote: That people ignored the invocation, or walked out, is evidence that there is a very long way to go until everyone's beliefs are respected. The Satanic Temple does a generally good job of highlighting in America where this inequality exists.

Its a clear sign that they did not care about the invocation , but care more about the one who does it , in my opinion this is ignorance at its worse , i see this a lot , everywhere , where the words dont matter , but the one who utters them , its a nasty glitch in our ability to communicate. And it also leads to certain religions claiming to be more "just" or "important" only because they have more followers or governments indorsing them. Like i said , its sad that we cannot listen to people for what they are saying but judge them on what they believe.

Since nobody has mentioned it, The Satanic Temple's position is that invocations shouldn't be a part of government proceedings. Religion is a private matter and has no place in government. The reason TST does this is to make a point that if you're going to allow Christians to hold a prayer, blessing, or what-have-you at a government function then you have to give equal opportunity to all other religions to do the same. TST anticipates that there will be backlash and so long as religious plurality is truly enforced then nothing is amiss (though not ideal), but often what happens is the local government tries to find ways to keep TST from being a part of their local government's religious ceremonies.

That said, I'm pleasantly surprised this happened. My impression of Alaska is as a puritanical conservative state of gun toting snow eaters.