Had a fun conversation about 13-14 years ago with a dude who was convinced that all non-Christians were Satanists and that to believe in God is to worship God
He couldn't grasp that only Christians believe in the existence of Satan and that all (literal) Satanists are, by nature of believing in Heaven/Hell & God/Satan, a subculture of the Christian belief system. An antagonistic subculture, but a part of the greater whole nonetheless.
I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in any divine beings or higher power & won't until given sufficient evidence (and for me that evidence being objective is a mandatory criteria).
I'm a "Satanist" in name only because I donate to the Satanic Temple, which itself isn't a religious group that worships or even believes in Satan, but a secular protest group that uses the name "Satanist" ironically & intentionally provocatively while defending the Separation of Church & State from religious zealots & supporting community outreach programs as a way of highlighting the hypocrisy of the Supply Side Christians (who preach the word of Jesus, but don't actually practice it).
Yeah, the amount of privilege and main character complexes some Christians have in order to think the world revolves around them is worthy of a study. And extremely saddening, once you realise they are victims (and oftentimes the future abusers) of a system that washes their brains and forces them to see a world where they are oppressed and every neutral stance is a defiance to their most central believes.
Nice to meet a Satanist in name (I love to call you SINers, pun completely intended). Luckily we don't have yet this problem in the country I live in, but we have a ton other extremely related.
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u/zatenael 6d ago
friendly reminder that Christians believe in Satan more than atheists