[Soul]

I have a lot of Points to respond with but i have no desire to explain my religion to a person who won't understand and will just waste my time.

Try to post something that would contribute to the debate, not a blatant insult

I've read the bible. Poor argument.

It's not even remotely an excuse. Religion from a Christian standpoint is a comfort factor in most cases. He's an atheist with morals built upon self-improvement. Would it be better if he was an atheist? Would that make you any happier because it doesn't have the word Satanism in it? Would it make you happy if he was an unhappy Christian, rather than a happy LaVeyan Satanist?

Honestly, until we have Christians under control, it's very hard to say that helping others is part of becoming a better person. If that was true, few Christians would be trying to become a better person.
Why do I say that? Christians USUALLY do things in order to please their God, NOT to help somebody else. They ask 'WWJD?', rather than, "how can I make this person's life better or easier?" Help doesn't count unless it's from the heart.

As a former die-hard christian, I can understand how Serqwaez feels. However, from my own point of view, from the type of Christianity I believed in, any kind of religion that wasn't Christianity was sad and wrong.

My current viewpoints are that LaVeyan Satanists focus MORE on the self-gain aspects of Atheism. It's not that Atheistic Satanism is wrong or just bad in general, it's that they do things for self gain - which is GENERALLY a wrongdoing in the eyes of the moral public. I'm not saying it IS wrong; in fact, I'd do things for myself, too, if I didn't care so much about how my reputation holds up with people (even people that don't matter at the moment).

I'd have to agree with Zealotry on the part where Christians only do things that ultimately only benefit them. However, that IS the Christian religion; doing things for the maker in order to gain favor in his eyes.

I have a different opinion of why, however. I believe that Christians aren't trying to be better people by the physical world's standards, they're trying to better people in the spiritual world. They aren't being good to people because they themselves WANT to be good. That isn't the point of Christianity. In fact, it's the direct opposite. Becoming a better person in yourself only means you're more interested in worldly matters, not spiritual matters, if you know what I mean.

The Christian God wants you to be a good person in order to gain favor in his eyes, not in order for you to become well respected as a "good" person.

[SerQwaez]

Thanks to Phaze for explaining my point a little better..

The name of a religion doesn't matter to me. That is a general assumption about less open-minded Christians.

As I stated, theistic Satanism is a perfectly fine as a religion. It makes sense to me, even if I don't choose to follow it.

Religion is important as a moral guideline. Many Atheists do not need the extra push a reward gives,but for some people it helps. That is why LeVeyan confuses me a little, because it is the first form of religion I have seen where helping others is not one of the important parts.

[Zealotry]

Thanks to Phaze for explaining my point a little better..

The name of a religion doesn't matter to me. That is a general assumption about less open-minded Christians.

As I stated, theistic Satanism is a perfectly fine as a religion. It makes sense to me, even if I don't choose to follow it.

Religion is important as a moral guideline. Many Atheists do not need the extra push a reward gives,but for some people it helps. That is why LeVeyan confuses me a little, because it is the first form of religion I have seen where helping others is not one of the important parts.

In my opinion, you seem to know very little about your own faith.

Christianity is far from a moral obligation, or even much of a guideline for that matter (the morals defined in the bible are very general anyways). LaVeyan Satanism is just more "I help me, you help you, and we all get along."

The reason I don't like Christianity is because of how much, in its nature, it slanders Satan.

[SerQwaez]

I'm confused as to why telling people that the entity(Satan) who's goal is to lead people to selfish decisions and away from heaven is bad....

Also, I can see that the goal of LeVeyan Satanism is everyone for themselves. As I said before, many people do not need the extra reward of heaven to be good people by the standards of society. That's a general basis from what you give me.

But LeVeyan philosophy goes against (not always, but sometimes) against what society considers as a good and moral person. There are events in this world that no one can control. Until someone is poor, they don't want wealth to be shared. Until someone needs help, they see no reason for people helping each other.