Can We Stop Pretending the "Satanists" Want to Lead Us in "Prayer"?

There are moments when something so absolutely absurd flashes across your computer screen, you actually have to sit back for a minute, laugh, do a face palm, and then reflect on how ridiculous our society has gotten as far as political correctness, earnestness and integrity goes. I think everyone remembers when about a year ago, the Satanic Temple was trying to get a statue of Satan put up in Oklahoma and in Michigan. Well, these guys are at it again, as I saw this headline pop up:

 Phoenix Council Members Try to Block Satanic Church From Giving Meeting Prayer

Read that again... a Satanic "Church" is trying to give a prayer. You might be wondering why I've put "Satanists" and "Church" in quotations. Look no further than the article itself. An excerpt from the link above:

"The city has a long tradition of opening council meetings with an invocation and, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, that cannot be limited to certain religions or beliefs.

"...Phoenix City Attorney Brad Holm said any religion can call the city clerk’s office and request to give the prayer, which is chosen by a rotating pool of state Senate members. 

"'We’ve gotten a lot of ridiculous questions, like are we going to sacrifice babies and what we’re calling blood libel,' [Stu de Haan with the Satanic Temple] said. 'There’s nothing ever like that in Satanism.' Instead, de Haan said the religion is a kind of metaphor for rebelling against tyranny and favors 'logic and reason over superstition and the supernatural.' 

"'We should have our voice and we believe that reason should trump superstition in general,' he said. The group does not believe in Satan as a deity. De Haan said the religion is made up primarily of agnostics or atheists."

Archangel Michael slaying Satan -Agnolo Bronzino

In a commentary to the article, I saw a young woman noting that this "Satanic Temple" didn't sound like a religion, and was curious how one can just "invent a religion out of thin air". That's the thing, it's a secular religion... which is a misnomer. The Satanic temple representative in the article says himself that their "church" is comprised of atheists and agnostics which reject the supernatural and value reason over superstition.

Obviously they're equating any religious belief in the supernatural with superstition. This guy says he's not trying to "ruffle any feathers", but he knows full well what he's doing. Look at his last quote: "We're satanists and we're your friends." What kind of response does he think this will elicit?

Whether he likes it or not, most of the people at that meeting will be Christian, practicing, lapsed or somewhere in between. It's a fact. Christians see Satanism as the antithesis of Christianity. Due to our first amendment rights, those people are free to exercise their religious rights by not joining in with this "prayer" and by fighting what they as something evil. Obviously, these people don't believe there is a devil, but there's a reason why they picked this name for their church, right? Otherwise, if they didn't want to "ruffle any feathers", they could've picked a different name for their secular humanist church as several others have already done, such as the so-called (and equally ridiculous but not as offensive) "Church of Reality".

This whole show these "Satanists" are trying to put on is a farce, and the comment section in the article above proves that. So many uneducated people and uneducated responses there, it sickens me. It reminds me why I have to stop reading comment pages; it looks just like the YouTube comments for that ridiculous "why I love Jesus and hate religion video" a couple years back. Again, too many uneducated people out there who hide behind Internet anonymity.

Now some might think that this request sounds somewhat legitimate. We all have the ability to exercise our First Amendment right to the freedom of religion. But remember what we just read the temple representative saying? These are atheists and agnostics. Maybe if they were actual Satanists who worshiped the devil it would sound legitimate. However the temple representative made it clear that they do not worship Satan, that their group is comprised of atheists and agnostics, that they don't believe in the supernatural and think that any belief in the supernatural is superstition, and that such belief is an affront to logic and reason. If they don't believe in a deity, what are they praying to? This is a farce, plain and simple. The only god they can consider to be worshiping is their own self... which this Satanic temple pretty much admits to be doing.

But sure, I suppose one can say it sounds legitimate on its face, especially after reading only the headline. It's just that after you see what this "church" actually believes, motives become much clearer.

I find it funny that Webster's dictionary defines prayer as:

1. a. an address (as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought <said a prayer for the success of the voyage> (2) : a set order of words used in praying
b : an earnest request or wish
2. the act or practice of praying to God or a god
3. a religious service consisting chiefly of prayers

St. John Paul II

Is this what the Satanic temple thinks a prayer is? Because it sounds pretty "supernatural" to me. I suppose the definition labeled as "1b" could fit their motives, but then "wish" has supernatural connotations. Also, to whom are they making this "earnest request"? If surely not a god, than just a person? Maybe then their request would be better heard in the minutes of the actual meeting than as in the form of a prayer before said meeting...

These are just the same people that make a mockery out of faith by wearing a colander on their head because their religion of "Pastafarianism" requires them to. No, it doesn't. That is not a religious belief and neither is the belief of these "Satanists". The intention is to ridicule those who have a balance of both reason and faith. They make it seem as if these two things are mutuall exclusive. They are not, as St. John Paul II reminds us:

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves... Thomas [Aquinas] had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.

So quite frankly, the "Satanists" are full of crap. I am not superstitious. I believe in the supernatural, meaning that I recognize (as we all should) that there are things that the natural sciences cannot explain. And I most certainly favor reason and logic very highly, especially because possessing both of those attributes does not contradict having faith in the slightest; indeed, they most certainly complement each other.