Last week I shared why I’m not a Christian anymore. This week I’m going to explore the reasons I chose Satanism over other religions I’ve been exposed to.

Satan is the original rebel

As some of you may know, I myself am a bit of a rebel. I tend to be wary of authority, and if I think a person in authority does not deserve it I will not respect that person. My opinion and attitude toward Donald Trump is, in part, a result of this. Satan, at least according to Abrahamic mythology, is the original rebel. Satan was the among the first to pay attention to what God was saying and doing, and decided that it was bull shit and fought back. Satanism itself is a rebellion against everything that’s wrong with Christianity, and for someone as dissatisfied with the religion as I was, Satanism seems like the perfect choice.

Promotes pursuit of knowledge over blind faith

The “original sin” is the pursuit of knowledge. Many Evangelicals would say it’s disobedience. And they may have a point, but at some point one needs to ask oneself: Why was the fruit forbidden in the first place? Not only does God not want people to have knowledge, he does not want knowledge to spread. The evolutionary purpose of fruit it to be eaten by animals, like humans, so that its seeds can be spread. Why create knowledge with no intent to share? To control people, of course. Every dictator knows that the first step to taking total control is to control the media: the flow of knowledge.

Satanism is the complete opposite. Satanism encourages the pursuit of knowledge, and in doing so encourages free thought and independence.

Sexual freedom

One of the things I love about Satanism is that, as long as you aren’t harming someone who isn’t asking for it (and I mean that in the context of BDSM, not some victim-blaming bull shit), and you’re not doing anything you or your partner are uncomfortable with, you’re good. Satanism doesn’t care if you’re gay, straight, bi, polyamorous, or monogamous. It doesn’t care if you’re into premarital sex or if you think it’s best to wait til marriage. It’s rather refreshing to belong to a religion that recognizes and understands that sexuality is diverse, and so intensely personal, that policing it does more harm than good.

Embracing the darkness within

This one seems obvious, but it’s a little bit more complicated than wearing black and looking angry all the time. To embrace the darkness within is to welcome and accept the negative aspects of life, not just the positive. This means allowing oneself to feel negative emotions, such as grief, fear, anger, hatred, etc., rather than avoiding them and suppressing them. It means recognizing that you, as a person, are a flawed creature, and not just identifying those flaws, but accepting them as part of yourself.

You are the most important person in your life

Lastly, it is the most common misconception about Satanists is that we’re devil worshipers. Evangelicals love to spread that particular bit of misinformation. The truth is that, if Satanists worship anything, we worship ourselves. Since Satanism is a non-theistic religion, we do not believe in gods, except as human creations. And while I for one think that it is really fucking awesome that humans have the imaginative power to create entire pantheons and mythologies, I do not think these gods and mythologies we have created are worthy of worship. That includes the devil. He’s a great mythological character, and so misunderstood, but at the end of the day he’s not a higher being. He’s not the ultimate source of evil, he’s a character, and like all good characters he speaks to a part of us, and it is that part of us that we worship.