As I recall, Satanists of the Anton LaVey stripe are actually atheists; they don’t believe in God, and most certainly not the Devil as anything more than symbolic representations of the positive and negative aspects of human behavior.
LaVey once told me - personally, as I met him many, many years ago up in Portland, OR - that his philosophy was essentially Objectivism in pseudo-religious trappings, such trappings being present purely for shock value.
At least that’s one take on it.
Others “may” delve deeper to the supernatural aspects.
But now, he knows the truth.
“LaVey once told me - personally, as I met him many, many years ago up in Portland, OR - that his philosophy was essentially Objectivism in pseudo-religious trappings,”
Wow.
That is news to me, but it DOESNT surprise me, not one bit.
Ayn Rand was just another whiny atheist. A free market atheist, but whiny and bossy all the same.
Ever read C.S. Lewis’s the Last Battle, about the people who don’t believe in the god Tash but make a show out of worshiping him anyway? And then, to their horror, he shows up?
When you go calling a being you don’t believe in, how will it be for you when he comes?
From what I gathered, it seemed more like a club for swingers (part of the reason Sammy Davis, Jr. was briefly a “member”).