{"id":187329,"date":"2019-04-25T06:25:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T06:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187329"},"modified":"2019-04-29T07:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T07:04:06","slug":"us-media-giant-sells-satanism-to-unwitting-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187329","title":{"rendered":"US Media Giant Sells Satanism to Unwitting Public"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">HuffPost praises satanism for opposing Christianity<\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Joshua Gill \u2013 The Daily Caller April 18, 2019<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>HuffPost published an interview with Penny Lane concerning her documentary about the Satanic Temple, but it failed to note in the article that many of Lane\u2019s claims about satanism, the Catholic Church and evangelical Christian leaders are doubtful at best.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The Verizon-owned outlet published Lane\u2019s claims that theistic satanism is a myth created by the Catholic Church, that Vice President Mike Pence is a theocrat who would like to force Americans to obey the Bible and that satanism is a noble cause opposing the threat of evangelical Christianity in government.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The article failed to distinguish between theistic and nontheistic satanism and to note the recorded historical evidence for theistic satanism and claims the U.S. government has made Christianity the national religion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">HuffPost, a Verizon-owned media outlet, lavished unquestioning praise Thursday on satanism for opposing evangelical Christianity and claimed satanism\u2019s evil reputation was a Catholic myth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Thursday\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/hail-satan-documentary-penny-lane_n_5cb62721e4b0ffefe3b84c1c?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>HuffPo piece<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u201cSatan Is Having A Moment\u201d featured a Q&amp;A with Penny Lane, director of the recently released documentary \u201cHail Satan?\u201d about the Satanic Temple\u2019s history.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_118531\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-118531\" class=\"wp-image-118531\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg 690w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-118531\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue of baphomat that the Satanic Temple had wanted placed in the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Lane, however, made several dubious claims about satanism that HuffPo published without questioning in the article, including saying that theistic satanism is an imaginary construct of the Catholic Church and that Vice President Mike Pence would like to force Americans to obey a Christian theocracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cSatanists, it turns out, are everything you think they\u2019re not: patriotic, charitable, ethical, equality-minded, dedicated to picking up litter with pitchforks on an Arizona highway,\u201d the article reads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The article claims Lane\u2019s documentary \u201cdispels myths about the history of satanism,\u201d namely that satanism involves actual worship of and sacrifice to Satan, and that it surveys \u201cthe myriad ways our government has made Christianity the national religion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The piece fails to note, however, that despite Lane\u2019s claim that satanism is an entirely atheistic philosophy, there also exists branches of theistic satanism in which followers do worship Satan or a satanic spiritual entity and engage in occult ritual magic. HuffPo instead allowed Lane\u2019s claim that theistic satanism is an \u201celaborate fantasy on the part of the Catholic Church\u201d to go unchecked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cThe entire history of satanism is one of projection,\u201d Lane claimed. \u201cSatanic panic is one example. All the way up until 1966, there were no people who called themselves satanists. There literally weren\u2019t any. There was a fear that manifested into an elaborate fantasy on the part of the Catholic Church, mostly, if you want to point a finger somewhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_187330\" style=\"width: 270px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lucien_Greaves_Penny_Lane-attend-Hail-Satan-premier-at-the-Sundance-film-festival1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-187330\" class=\"wp-image-187330\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lucien_Greaves_Penny_Lane-attend-Hail-Satan-premier-at-the-Sundance-film-festival1-768x1093.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lucien_Greaves_Penny_Lane-attend-Hail-Satan-premier-at-the-Sundance-film-festival1-768x1093.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lucien_Greaves_Penny_Lane-attend-Hail-Satan-premier-at-the-Sundance-film-festival1-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lucien_Greaves_Penny_Lane-attend-Hail-Satan-premier-at-the-Sundance-film-festival1-720x1024.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-187330\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L-R) Lucien Greaves, Penny Lane and Gabriel Sedgwick attend the \u201cHail Satan?\u201d premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray on Jan. 25, 2019 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Several scholars, including University of California at Santa Barbara Professor Emeritus\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2Iusb8Q\">Jeffrey Russell<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>and French intellectual and author\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Erotism-Death-Sensuality-Georges-Bataille\/dp\/0872861902\/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=14QHZK5SX8WR3&amp;keywords=erotism+death+and+sensuality&amp;qid=1555613085&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=erotism%2Caps%2C126&amp;sr=8-1-fkmrnull\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>George Bataille<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, have contended that historical instances of theistic satanic practice can be found as far back as the 17th century, such as the French murders called the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Affair-of-the-Poisons\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Affair of the Poisons<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Theistic satanic practices also persist in current times in disparate groups like the Order of Nine Angles and the Temple of the Black Light.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Lane praised atheistic satanism as a tool to expose what she and leaders of the Satanic Temple believe to be the efforts of evangelical Christians to form America into a theocracy. Lane even went so far as to call Pence a \u201clegitimate theocrat\u201d in HuffPo\u2019s article. Though beyond his known adherence to the Christian faith, she offered no evidence for that claim.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cTrump\u2019s alliance with the evangelical community [has] none of the values but all of the power grab. It was very frightening for a lot of people, who ended up with people like Mike Pence, who is legitimately a theocrat,\u201d Lane said in the article. \u201cHe would love for the Bible to be the document that we obey as Americans. Then, someone like [Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos: still super evangelical, loves prayer in school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Lane also described efforts to defend monuments of the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses and other government buildings as part of American history as \u201cvery chilling for me.\u201d She argued that the Satanic Temple\u2019s<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/02\/27\/satanic-temple-sues-arizona-city-over-alleged-discrimination\/\">various lawsuits<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0against local governments\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/08\/09\/florida-satanist-convicted\/\">over prayers<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>and\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/08\/16\/satanic-temple-arkansas-rally\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>monuments<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0are necessary to stem what she said is a nationwide effort to insert evangelical Christianity into government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cI didn\u2019t know the extent to which there\u2019s an organized, very well-funded, very effective lobbying happening nationwide. You don\u2019t have to be paranoid to think, \u2018Just because we have a liberal, secular democracy now doesn\u2019t mean we will always,&#8217;\u201d Lane said in the article. \u201cIt\u2019s not saying it\u2019s gonna happen tomorrow, but it has happened in the past. Iran was a secular nation [until 1980], when all a sudden, it became a theocracy. It\u2019s something that awakened a kind of urgency in me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Lane also decried pop culture\u2019s use of satanic symbols as icons of evil, such as the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/11\/09\/satanists-sue-netflix-sabrina\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>use of Baphomet<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Netflix\u2019s \u201cChilling Adventures of Sabrina.\u201d She argued that culture is malleable and that the meaning of symbols can change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cThat\u2019s why they were so mad at \u2018Sabrina\u2019 when they ripped off the Baphomet monument and put it in that show as a monument that means evil,\u201d Lane said. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018We worked really hard to make that monument. All of our lawsuits were proposing a meaning for this monument. And if that monument ever did get installed on a statehouse lawn, the meaning of it would be religious diversity.&#8217;\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The article fails to note, however, that Baphomet originated as a symbol of evil in the 14th century and that the current image of Baphomet was created by the occultist<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.learnreligions.com\/eliphas-levis-baphomet-goat-of-mendes-95993\">Eliphas Levi in 1854<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0and is therefore steeped in occult connotation. The HuffPo interviewer also did not ask whether Lane would accept the same reasoning she offered concerning Baphomet for other symbols that most view as evil, like the swastika.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HuffPost lavishes praise on satanism and its followers, describing them \u2018patriotic, charitable, ethical, equality-minded, dedicated to picking up litter with pitchforks\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the_satanic_salute","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187329"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187336,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187329\/revisions\/187336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}