I hope this wasn't already discussed while I was at the beach.

1: I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I look forward to amicus briefs from the Scientologists, the Wiccans and the 24-hour Church of Elvis.

since he joined the Church of Satan--an organization that eschews spirituality and celebrates man's selfish desires

He could drastically improve his chances, without giving up on his beliefs, by joining the Cult of Ayn Rand.

The Church of Satan guy sounds like a toolbox.

The small overlord beat me to it. If celebrating selfishness makes you unfit to be a parent, then a lot of people shouldn't be reproducing: No kids for you McArdle!

One feature of satanism that I find fascinating, but no one else seems to, is that its cosmology and metaphysics are identical to mainstream American Christianity. If you think of religion as a system of belief, Satanism and Christianity have heaps in common. Far more than, say Judaism and Christianity.

The conflict between Satanism and Christianity is a lot like the conflicts between the early Jews and their neighbors, before the whole idea of monotheism really took root. It was a world were people acknowledge the existence of many gods, but only swear loyalty to one. Typical American Christians acknowledge the existence of Satan, but to not pledge loyalty to him. Similarly with Satanists and the Christian god.

I mean, come on:

"Satanism is the world's first carnal religion," said Peter Gilmore, high priest of the Manhattan-based organization founded four decades ago. "Satanists are thus atheists--not devil worshipers--and we see Satan as being a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, not a deity."

Shorter: we like annoying people much more than we should.

6: Rob, that's incredibly boring. In fact I nodded off twice while reading your comment.

Gilmore is a Satanic modernist, shunned by the traditionalists.

The Church of Elvis had been going through hard times. Pierce never succeeded in properly monetizing her popular concept.

Somebody oughta poke FL and make sure he hasn't OD'd. He's been nodding off. He's normally fairly blue so don't get get upset prematurely.

Sartre's Baudelaire book argued that Satanism is just an imitative negative transformation of Christianity.

Shorter: we like annoying people much more than we should.

That doesn't do much to distinguish them from most evangelicals.

But evangelicals have labored to create an institutional apparatus of annoying.

Satanists are more or less on their own. They can't fall back on the institutional apparatus when accused of annoying.

Henotheism is the word I was looking for.

I find this interesting, because I suspect that many people who call themselves monotheists are really henotheists, both now and historically. Also, henotheism reveals the roots of religion in tribal allegiance.

I know you find this boring, Labs, but it will be on the test. It is important for the understanding world religions.

Pierce never succeeded in properly monetizing her popular concept.

Things got all the worse for her when James essentially took over the "Church of Elvis" name, requiring her to adopt the much more awkward "Church of Elvisitism".

Christians don't think Satan is a god, though.

Actually it's pretty interesting, Rob, but if I don't snooze off in the back of the lecture hall you'll get lazy.

15: Sophisticated christian theologians don't think Satan is a god. The best, like Boethius, denies the evil has any existence at all.

But listen to the way American Christians talk about Satan. They're practically Manichean. Or look at how this guy talks about the bible and the Koran. Henotheists. All of them.

denies s/b deny

Yeah, so, my understanding of child custody law (so I don't know a thing about it, but really, this is my understanding) is that judgments are rendered in view of the child's welfare, rather than with any eye toward larger constitutional questions.

Putting the children in a position of tug of war between the parents' religious beliefs should, barring other questions about parental suitability (solvency, sanity, etc.), devolve to questions of what will be least disruptive to the children, which will inevitably be the least contentious, most conventional, religious aspect. Sorry.

DON'T YOU TRY TO CHIMPOSE YOUR THEISMS ON ME, HELPY-CHALK.

The Church of Satan guy sounds like a toolbox.

Of course he is, my dear Professor Labs. But as you well know, you battle for souls with the minions you have, not the minions you wish you had.

"Sympathy for the devil": unexpectedly funky!

I agree with Mr. Chalk about the all-but-nominal conversion to Manicheanism on the part of the psycho-Xtians.

I thank God that I am a oenotheist.

I've seen a weird amount of henotheism among Southern Baptists, especially in the real Southern Southern B's. They are terrified of things like "magic" and astrology, like if you read your horoscope or play with a ouija board, because you're inviting evil gods into your heart. Seriously. My Sunday School teacher used to tell a story about how her childhood friend asked a ouija board when she would die, and it was a year from then, and SHE TOTALLY DIED because she allowed an evil spirit to control her destiny.

Being a little shit, I raised my hand and asked my teacher if she really believed in other gods, and that God was powerless against them. I got thrown out of class.

My mom is the same way about certain things. She's even scared of illusion magic (my dad watches Criss Angel) on TV because it's making their home into a temple for evil gods.

I've always presumed this has something to do with the influence of and backlash against West African polytheism and fetish magic among Gulf whites. I could be wrong.

"These are the exalted gharaniq, whose intercession is hoped for."

"Sympathy for the devil": unexpectedly funky!

Not as performed by Laibach.

I thank God that I am a oenotheist. onanist.

Fixed that for you.

except I didn't. Where did my strike go?

I find being a Satanist hilariously dorky on the order of being a RenFair enthusiast.* That the Church of Satan is Manhattan-based cracks me up even more. I wonder what they do besides, you know, draw pentagrams on their calculus books.

*No offense, RenFair enthusiasts.

Further to 24, there seems to be a lot of confusion among Baptists as to the difference between "don't believe in" and "hate." They say they "don't believe in" feminism, homosexuality, ouija boards, abortion, satanism, Islam, atheism, etc. They just spend all their time thinking about these things and fighting them, even though they don't believe they are real.

Hey! Wikipedia bases the Church of Satan in San Francisco. What gives, Tribune? Also, a dude in Alkaline Trio is a satanist?! I am going to whine about my girlfriend . . . to the Devil!!!

I am going to whine about my girlfriend . . . to the Devil!!!

I'm sure he can relate.

Oh, all sorts of things can be viewed as dorky.

There seems to be a lot of confusion among AWB about what the phrase "don't believe in" means.

Ben, I think you might find these rules of Satan relevant to your interests.

When in another's lair, show him respect or else do not go there If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal

I think these rules are crossposted to the Klingon sites as well, although it is admittedly awesome that one gets a lair if one is a satanist. A lair!

Laibach:the funk::Satan:God (your ordering might vary)

The church of Satan is based in San Francisco. The church of Santa is based in Manhattan.

37.2: at Macy's

The ambiguity between "don't believe it exists" and "don't believe it is moral or correct" is present all over the place.

"Do you believe in spanking children?"

"Believe in it, I've seen it happen."

I think we analytic philosophers have too narrow a sense of "belief" as well. Any time you begin by saying that a belief is a propositional attitude, you are excluding most of how people use the term. "This I believe" on NPR is only occasionally about a person's propositional attitude.

The American Christian notion of belief is mostly not a propositional attitude. In that sense neither "I believe it exists" and "I believe it is moral or correct" capture what people mean when they say "I believe in Jesus." or "I believe the children are the future."

Rodney Needham's Belief, Language and Experience, which I've never heard anyone refer to, is a very interesting philosophic-anthropological discussion of belief. I recommend it.

The tension I see there is when Christians say, "I believe Jesus died and rose from the grave." That's a statement not of moral belief, but of historical belief. "I believe God created the world in six days." "I believe that after Armageddon, there will be a new heaven and a new earth."

"I don't believe in homosexuality" is the one that irritates the shit out of me. I really don't think it's the same as a moral belief, like "I believe homosexuality is wrong." I think it's confused enough that people who say it really mean that they don't believe homosexuality "really" exists, because God doesn't create sin.

40: I find this thought really interesting, because it seems to me that if we took the word "belief" and its cognates out of the NT and Qur'an and replaced it with "X" and re-read the documents, we'd say, this "x"-- it's a complex bundle of attitudes that includes endorsements-of-content-as-true but also includes a lot of other stuff as well. (As suggested by, e.g., apparent presumption of voluntary control over X-ing.)

Nevermind, Rob has it right. It's not either factual or moral; it's somehow both at the same time.

43: Really, read Needham. That's what he was talking about. He had an Oxford philosophy education but what he did was anthropology.

45: will do. It sounds really interesting.

Cambridge, actually, I think.

"Belief" has a couple of different senses, doesn't it? Believing in vs. believing that, and all that?

I remember in CCD classes learning about the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons illustrated with a helpful video that included a player backlit all artistically by candles explaining how it wasn't devil worship. BUT WE KNEW NOT TO BELIEVE HIM!

My dad helpfully thought everything from the Smurfs to the American government was demonic.

He was half right, but the Smurfs are harmless.

Come to think of it, I think all Saturday morning cartoons ended up getting called demonic, except for Bugs Bunny. Star Trek re-runs, however, were completely appropriate for small children.

Cartoons are demonic
therefore G.I. Joe is demonic
therefore the US government is demonic

In the school district where my wife teaches, in a wealthy suburb south of here, "Harvest" is observed instead of "Halloween" because of objections from a few fundamentalists, whose children curl up in a corner in the fetal position at the mention of witches and goblins. Really.

Rodney Needham's Belief, Language and Experience, which I've never heard anyone refer to, is a very interesting philosophic-anthropological discussion of belief. I recommend it.

If you haven't heard anyone refer to Needham, you haven't been hanging around with enough anthropologists.

Ooh, but with all the cartoon demons to be feared, my parents were totally fine with Halloween! My conclusion is that American Catholics are weird.

Needham deserves a bigger footprint in our intellectual life. He wrote and edited a number of valuable works.

Needham's blog about the Washington Nationals was a seminal work as well, the standard in its field.

52: in a wealthy suburb south of here, "Harvest" is observed Sounds like Madison, Wisc.

27: Oh no, I thank God for both. There's a fellow I see downtown who has a disability, namely that his arms are both significantly shorter (~10 inches) than one would expect in proportion to the rest of his body. It must be really, really irritating to be in that condition when the urge for self-abuse kicks in. I mean, I'm sure he manages, but still, a king-sized drag.

52: My first mother-in-law sent me a book on how to be a good Jewish mother. One of its directives was not to allow one's children to participate in Hallowe'en because it was a "Christian holiday".

Re: Religion and the courts: I wanted a clause in my custody order that prevented my ex from allowing his new wife to take my kid to church. [Aside: She was, theoretically, a practicing Catholic; she could marry my ex because we had a civil ceremony and were not, therefore, "really" married. Why she married a lapsed Jew was the questi - oh, yeah, that hefty Hollywood income.] My lawyer told me the court wouldn't interfere with his decisions about religion. When the Offspring called in panic - 'Help, Mom! She's trying to get me to believe in the Pope!!' - I solved the problem in my own delicate way. Amazing what a threat of castration will do.

In Taiwan it's the Christians who celebrate Halloween. Traditional Chinese have their own ghost day, which is taken seriously. I remember seeing a food offering for the ghosts on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant at least once on ghost day.

My dad helpfully thought everything from the Smurfs to the American government was demonic.

No no, Richard Linklater helpfully explained the smurfs. They are all about getting us used to the idea of blue people and getting us to like blue people. That way, when Lord Kṛṣṇa comes, we will be ready.

I'm really doing bad with the formatting and editing today.

How much you wanna bet Satanist guy picked this up on purpose to irritate his ex wife?

Which doesn't mean she should win her case, okay?

He has two ex wives.

Both of 'em, probably, then.

I am not really interested in any kind of Satanism that could maintain a public face, and am not interested in talking about the other kind in a public forum.

Have a good day.

62: Somewhere in the small town I am staying in, there is a pick-up truck with a sticker in the back window of Calvin peeing on the words "ex wife." There is no graphic going with "ex wife" and the words are written in a nondescript sans serif font.

It really has to be the most artless, small-minded, petty public display of bitterness I have ever seen.

66 - I just saw that one yesterday. Are you in my town?

I'm in upstate NY. It bothers me more that these things are mass produced and distributed widely.

It's like a little Hour of Hate on the back of every Ford F150.

In Chicago once I saw a sticker of Calvin peeing on "La Migra" which cracked me up.
Devoting bumper-sticker space and sentiment to an ex seems pretty sad-sacky to me.

66: Wow. I really wish I didn't know that existed.

In other "dear god, I could lay down and die" news, Wall-E? Is both brilliant and devastatingly depressing. And someone at Pixar had an absolute blast making this site, which makes me want to go curl up and die somewhere.

66: My best small-minded, bitter bumper sticker (collected on a backroad in SE Ohio) read "My Wife Yes, My Dog Maybe, My Gun Never". Admittedly, a slightly different brand of asshole.

Wall-E is not depressing! The whole last third is littered with images of liberation and hope. Humans sit in their floaty chairs, drink big gulps, and stare at the screen in front of them. But then! Someone knocks away the screen and they see the real world. "I didn't know we had a pool." It's Platonic, I tell you, Platonic! The blessed little robot leads the humans out of the cave!

72: Well you know what to do in that situation: Make a sticker that reads "Who can penetrate me anally?" And stick it just above the other one.

71: The real brilliance of that web page: It is all about trying to get you to spend money to see a damn movie.

I saw my favorite bitter bumpersticker in OH. The text said only "Talk to the Hand 'cause the World's Not Listening." The picture was of the crucified hand of Christ.

The creepiest I guess was a car a saw 6 years ago or so headed west on 80 somewhere in the middle of PA: a car whose entire rear end was covered with anti-Hillary Clinton bumperstickers. Seriously 20 or more, all about HRC.

75: Jeez, Rob, spoil it for the rest of us why don't you. Next you'll be saying that the iPhone is a commercial product.

73: The ending feels completely tacked-on to me. Not in a bad way, mind; just, well, they couldnt leave the movie THAT bleak. Basically the first half of it established such a sense of despair that the second half only registered in a kind of weak, "heh heh thats kind of cute" way. Sort of the way you appreciate funny things when youre in the pits of depression.

It was a great movie, but Im just saying. (Also I think the website and the BuyNLarge stuff--which was being sold in the Disney store attached to the theater--isnt about making people see the movie. Its about trying to capitalize on people who already have. I am somewhat amazed that Pixars last two movies have been such marketing nightmares.)

the Disney store attached to the theater

Holy crap. I really don't get out enough.

Humans sit in their floaty chairs, drink big gulps, and stare at the screen in front of them.

They made a movie about Unfogged?!?!?

max
['Was ogged in it?']

79: We went to the El Capitan, which is a Disney-owned theater.

'Was ogged in it?'

ogged was the one dancing around carefully holding the hands of the players while they acted out.

N.B. I have not seen Wall-E and have no idea what it's about.

It's one particular theater, Parsimon, built for Disney extravaganzas. It's quite magnificent.

Speaking of Smurfs -- have people seen the UNICEF Smurf anti-war campaign? It's really powerful. And awesome.

81: Oh. I'm not familiar with the notion of a Disney-owned theater. Maybe a west coast thing.

I really should preview before posting.

Courts grant custody to one parent explicitly based on the atheism of the other all the time. Ed Brayton has written up several cases over at Dispatches From The Culture Wars. There's no chance this guy is going to succeed.

What's worse, having a resentful divorced Satanist dad or a resentful divorced Jewish-convert dad who insists upon your circumcision despite the case having dragged on for so long that you're now 13 years old?

A Mexican-American friend converted to Judaism for marriage, and her son from a previous partner decided that he wanted in too. He was only 7 when she got married, but when it came time for his Bar Mitzvah he decided to go all the way and get circumcised.

Brave little fucker.

Ouch!

"I didn't know we had a pool!"

Ugh. That enraged me more than any other line of dialogue in the movie.

Why?

You know how some of the early English settlers in Virginia didn't know how to farm and died in large numbers? Pixar might want to remember that if they make a sequel.

Anyway, I really didn't like that movie. It's probably pointless to argue about it. Anyway, I won't.

Becauce it had been firmly established that the Lido Deck was heavily used, and that people went into the water. (WALL-E and EVE hide behind a cart of towels at one point.) It was just lazy writing.

I feel the same way about the director trying to pass off the humans turning into giant blobs of goo as the effects of microgravity. It's perfectly clear there's gravity on the ship.

The advertising images were pretty much all of thin people.

87, 88: My best friend from hs who transitioned from NJ suburb reform to Rockland Co. Chasid married a guy who went from Protestant to Ultra Orthodox as an adult. The fellow was German and my friend's (highly irreverent) dad asked him if he was atoning for the collective guilt of his nation. Anyway, he got cut in his late 20s.

Good lord, in light of the opening sections of the Wikipedia entry for Wall-E, maybe I should see it. And holding hands is a motif! Ha.

I should have seen Wall-E yesterday. Instead I saw Wanted. That was a mistake.

Oh god, I forgot to warn everyone not to see Wanted. Everyone else, you can still save yourselves.

The level of ex-wife hate in certain circles of the US astounds me. I mean, seriously. I'm sure you don't like her anymore, but that level of bitterness is toxic to the soul. It's unhealthy. You are not doing yourself any favors.

I just found out my aunt is letting my ex-wife use the cabin on a commune that we stayed in together three years ago, precipitating our divorce. A bit odd to hear third-hand and not through my family, but eh. It's a nice cabin.

The level of ex-wife hate in certain circles of the US astounds me.

Plenty of ex-husband hatred too.

a commune that we stayed in together three years ago, precipitating our divorce.

You're going to leave the story at that? What a tease.

In other news, the mass-market U.S. beer industry is being taken over by Belgians! . This can only be good.

We left town so she could write her novel. When we got back, she left me for the novel. There's all sorts of betrayal, weirdness and sex in the archives...I think the string "You might want to think about presidential pseudonymity, Wrongshore" gets you there.

"This I believe" on NPR is only occasionally about a person's propositional attitude.

I'm waiting for John Perry and Ken Taylor to run a segment called "This I believe that Londres est jolie."

This can only be good.

Anheuser's main Budweiser beer would also become the new company's "flagship brand."

Led by Chief Executive Carlos Brito, InBev is known for ruthless cost-cutting.

Weird:

InBev, which was formed by the 2004 merger of Belgium's Interbrew with Brazil's AmBev, is based in Belgium and run by a mostly-Brazilian management team.

Paging Dsquared, our Budweiser expert.

My great great grandfather Selzer's Sioux City Iowa brewery predated the Budweiser brewery in Missouri, but Iowa prohibition drove him out of business in 1890. I would have loved to have been a beer heir.

104: I first read that as "John Kerry" and thought it was really puzzling but also hilarious.

Plenty of ex-husband hatred too.

Mine is already two and a half hours late returning my daughter for the weekend.

I just found out my aunt is letting my ex-wife use the cabin on a commune that we stayed in together three years ago, precipitating our divorce. A bit odd to hear third-hand and not through my family, but eh.

This kind of thing really bothers me, personally. I think Miss Manners says that you're not entitled to expect your family to sever ties with your ex just because you did. But still.

This weekend I saw a pickup in Maryland with a huge, red-electric-tape "NO-bama!" logo in the rear window.

108: Actually, I kind of like that they're maintaining ties. Kill her with kindness, I say.

I realize your situation may be different.

As the ex, I've always felt really awkward when someone's family tries to keep up contact after the partner has stopped talking to me. It's not fun to be getting emails from your ex's somewhat-senile mom, saying how sad she is that we broke up and how unimpressed she is by my replacement, and how she hopes we can get together sometime very soon to talk about the breakup. I don't like ditching 82-year-old women, but some of them just don't get how painful continued contact is.

87: All else being equal, which is, admittedly, a pretty big caveat, the Jewish one is worse. If the Satanist plans on branding or something, I'd have to reevaluate.

As the ex, I've always felt really awkward when someone's family tries to keep up contact after the partner has stopped talking to me.

When the of-12-years boyfriend broke up with me, his parents were very sad that I felt I couldn't keep in regular contact with them. But it would just have been too miserable. Now for the last while I'd be able to contact them again without its being painful, except that I don't have a boyfriend, so they would be kind of sorry for me which I don't want.

"Meyer embraced the Church of Satan when an ex-girlfriend introduced him to the "The Satanic Bible" shortly after his second divorce about two years ago while they were getting high, eating pizza, and listening to Ozzy."

I find being a Satanist hilariously dorky on the order of being a RenFair enthusiast.

A few years ago, a ton of Aleister Crowley's belongings--books, robes, wands, etc.--went up for sale at Sotheby's. The catalog was full of hilariously cool stuff and imagining the kind of rich dork eccentric who would spend several thousand dollars for one of Crowley's robes kept me entertained for days.

I've been told that Crowley was a world-class Alpinist, for what it's worth.

Lots and lots of weirdos in the pre-WWI era. It was really more bizarre than the American Sixties (e.g., many assassinations).

78: Basically the first half of it established such a sense of despair

You're crazy. The earth is silent and barren and covered with garbage, yes, but life goes on - non-human life, but life nonetheless. The whole movie is saturated with the sense of hope even at the worst of times - literally, hope even after the end of the world.

6: That's actually the thing I find most fascinating about Satanism. Someone who is a self-described Satanist who believes they are worshiping Satan as some real, supernatural force capable of competing with and besting the Judeo-Christian God is basically just a super-pissed-off Christian, in a way. I like to think of them as Christian antitribu, which is a gaming reference no one ever gets.

Unfortunately, I've only known one Satanist whom I could take seriously and she saw it as pure ethics - do unto others as they have done unto you - rather than anything supernatural. The ones I've known who claimed it was worship of a supernatural thing were just acid-rock pagans who thought calling it Satanism made them more hardcore and were pretty silly.

There are, as I understand it, a number of self-described Satanic organizations with similar names. It shouldn't surprise anyone that factions of Satanists don't get along.