Florida Satanists are volunteering to fill school counselor roles after Gov. Ron DeSantis ® signed a law allowing religious chaplains into public schools amid staffing shortages.

“Nothing in the text of the bill serves to exclude us, and no credible interpretation of the First Amendment could. Should a school district now choose to have chaplains, they should expect Satanists to participate as well,” Lucien Greaves, cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, said in a statement to The Hill on Monday.

Back when DeSantis signed the bill in April, he described Satanism as “not a religion” and said its members would not be allowed to participate in the program.

The Florida move allowing chaplains to serve as public school counselors comes as more states are aiming to inject Christianity into public school environments, including by mandating that the Bible or Ten Commandments be taught in classrooms.

The Satanic Temple has increasingly leaned into the fight over freedom of religion in public schools, including through the establishment of After School Satan clubs.

The temple, founded in 2014, says its mission is to “encourage benevolence and empathy, [and] reject tyrannical authority.”

  • HumanPenguin
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    1 month ago

    As an atheist. Honestly any rational view of the role satan played in the story.

    Actually questioning an authoritarian leader. And punished for doing so. Blamed by that leader and all future followers as the director of evil. Because he is put in charge of all people who question the word of that autocratic leader.

    Yeah doing the Lords work because the Lord is to narcissistic to do the job. Hmm makes the Christian right voting trump a little more understandable.

    • Flax
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      1 month ago

      Mfw “do not kill people” and “do not rape children” is “authoritarian”. If God was really a tyrant, He’d just vanquish all of us immediately instead of giving us free will, then dying for us to pay the price for our sins.

      • HumanPenguin
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        1 month ago

        Do not invent my arguments to satisfy your own stupidity. The story in no way indicates Satan objected to the rules. If fact, he objected to the very thing you are giving god credit for.

        God punished Satan for questioning him. Not for killing or rape. Just for asking why humans were given free will, but angels were not. As much as you like to read the story in a way that makes you feel better. You are talking from the wrong orifice. The story of Satan is in no way accused of breaking the commandments. Only asking why humans are given so much freedom and his own kind not.

        • Flax
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          1 month ago

          You’re saying that Satan was actually punished for questioning God, but this is the same argument as “The American civil war was about State’s rights” a State’s right to what? Questioning God on what? People nowadays for some reason have this cute or cool fluffy idea of Satan - you’re forgetting though that Satan is very much the personification and embodiment of all evil and suffering. Every atrocity and every suffering is the fault of Satan.

          • webadict@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Every atrocity and every suffering is the fault of Satan.

            If Satan is the cause of all suffering and atrocities, then God either cannot stop them and/or refuses to stop them, but if we assume the former, Satan is more powerful than an omnipotent and omniscient being, and if we assume the latter, God is also responsible in part for some of that suffering by refusing to stop them. I don’t think either of those are correct.

            • Flax
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              1 month ago

              That would result in taking free will away from us. And suffering does end in heaven, where this life is merely just a blip

              • webadict@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                That is God refusing, by choosing to let free will dictate actions. God acting as a bystander while those that didn’t take any actions towards Evil suffer punishes those who chose to be Good because of God’s actions (or lack thereof.) Pretending that this aligns with free will is inconsequential.

                Does God have the ability and power to make it so people have free will AND there is no Evil: Yes or no?

                • Flax
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                  1 month ago

                  Nobody chooses to be good. Apart from Jesus Christ who yes, was punished because of our sin and us executing someone who was very much innocent

                  • webadict@lemmy.world
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                    1 month ago

                    Does God have the ability and power to make it so people have free will AND there is no Evil: Yes or no?

          • HumanPenguin
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            1 month ago

            It’s not the same argument at all.

            Mainly because we are talking about old white men in 400 ad gathering fables from local tribes. IE a library of stories and fiction.

            Nothing in those fables talks about any action committed by Satan matching such crimes.

            People claiming the cause of the civil war are ignoring events. Actual slavery rape murder and abuse, (although not crimes at the time in the states involved). Not to mention the north actually allowing and working to protect the south’s right to keep slaves. Such event just did not exist in the fables.

            The only time the devil is actually accused of anything is after he is giving knowledge to mankind. At no point is he ever said to have murdered or raped anyone.

            • Flax
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              1 month ago

              I don’t know what library you’re talking about because it doesn’t match the description of the Bible.

              In the book of Job, you see Satan casting down evil on Job and cursing him. Genesis shows Satan misleading Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Revelation shows Satan as the ultimate source of evil. Isaiah talks about how far Satan has fallen. Jesus - who is God Himself - talks about Satan being a father of lies and Satan even tempts Jesus in the wilderness. Yes, humans do also carry a fault of following Satan and his demons in the rebellion against God, but your idea of rebelling against God is seen as “hip” and “cool”, but rebelling against God is the bringer of genocide, wars, greed, famine and destruction. And then when God was incarnate on this earth as a Man, He preached love, kindness, morality and condemned evil. Yet we nailed Him to a cross, killing Him in one of the most horrific and humiliating ways possible. Yet on that cross He bore the punishment for our sins and offers us forgiveness. Not through our own doing or good works, but through His doing. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death that we deserved. That’s who God truly is.

              • HumanPenguin
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                1 month ago

                I don’t know what library you’re talking about because it doesn’t match the description of the Bible.

                The word bible translates to library.

                Honestly its time you actually did a little reseach on the history of your religion.

                • Flax
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                  1 month ago

                  I have. And the Bible canon was decided upon long before 400ad. And it wasn’t old “fables” either. They were rather contemporary accounts of Jesus as well as letters between His followers.

                  I was baptised less than a year ago. My decision to be a Christian is to do with research that I have already done. Atheist arguments are generally based on alternative theories and argument from silence. Reminds me of the classic argument “The Bible is wrong as there is no evidence of Pontius Pilate existing” until they found a first century tablet with his name on it. Or the “Christianity is wrong as Science says the universe always existed” until they discovered that there actually was a beginning.

                  • HumanPenguin
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                    1 month ago

                    Wow, so logical. Accept, this is a discussion of the Old Testament.

                    You are showing a fucking desperate effort to ignore the facts.

                  • lorgo_numputz@beehaw.org
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                    1 month ago

                    Someone might want to inform King James, who published his version in 1611.

                    Your lack of knowledge is showing in public. You might want to correct that.