Laughing At Stupidity: Satanic Temple Edition

 Because I like sardonically roasting idiocy, I decided to take a gander at the primest stupid I could find, and when I stumbled across this, I knew it was some AAA level idiocy.

Now, just to get any possible bias out of the way, yes, I'm a devout Christian, but no, the mere fact people want to worship Satan does not offend me insofar as such is their choice. If they choose to do so in good faith and with an informed conscience, so be it.

However, what I'm about to mock is done because what they claim as their basic creed is an ouroboros of fart-huffing contradictions that deserve sporking.

https://archive.ph/IQXZ2

https://thesatanictempleoregon.com/about-us/

(My comments in bold, original text in italics)

The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religion and is an IRS-recognized religion. Our Oregon Chapter strives to be a space of conscious, inclusive behavior in a hostile society. We also strive to model the core values of TST.

Right off the bat, we got some foolish contradiction here. Now, religion can be one without a standard godhead or group of deities, but they call themselves SATANISTS, as in, devotees of SATAN, who is recognized by two other religious faiths as a supernatural personage, namely Christianity and Judaism. Their entire "religion" is built on the premise of a lie right from the start with this in mind.

As for their Oregon chapter goals, you guys want to venerate rebellion (as Satan is considered a rebel against God), hence the name, but rebellion goes directly against the concept of being inclusive. Satanism, by definition, is about being offensive to what is considered morally normal by society because they are anathema to the Satanist.

These guys just need to come clean and admit they were too lazy to make up a clever name for their lame parody of religion and use the Satanist name just to be offensive.

The Satanic Temple has 7 Tenets:

One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

You guys stole this from secular humanism. Even most people of religious faith of nigh all denominations can agree to this concept in its most fundamental sense. Actual Satanism revolves around rejecting morality, so this alone has nothing to do with actual Satanism.

The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

Yet another high-minded ideal that has sod all to do with the actual veneration of Satan. Admittedly, actual Satanism does spit on the concept of laws they deem in restraint of their own propagation, so to a degree this pays lip service to the concept of Satanism, but actual Satanists do not want "justice", they want the freedom to do what they want with no moral shackles. True justice involves the imposition of some moral framework, even if it's only a secular one, on others.

One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

Now, I can't really have an issue with this on the surface. This basically says "you have absolute free will to do what you want to yourself because you are its sole master. However, yet again, this is not an original concept and has been stated in many other ways by other religions, beliefs, ethical frameworks, and even legal arguments. Granted, a moral framework like Christianity or Islam would place restrictions on what is permissible to do to your own body in terms of morality, but the free will to do so anyway remains.

All this vagueness is saying is something any libertarian or free will absolutist could say minus any religious faith. 

The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.

Congrats guys, you have just played yourselves. By your own logic, you make no sense. How can you promote "inclusion" when the right to offend creates EXCLUSION. Logic 101, guys.

Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

More galaxy-brained contradiction. Actual Satanism happily distorts the tenets of the Abrahamic faiths to serve their purposes because the whole point is REBELLION against those faiths. The malarkey you guys are spewing is "trust the science" with a hypocritical statement that science shouldn't be distorted to fit one's beliefs.

If you guys were actual Satanists, distorting facts is kinda what you are supposed to do, rebellion means overturning the laws of reality if that would serve your rebellion's purposes.

People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

Am I dreaming or are they espousing something that most moral frameworks say is a moral net positive? But seriously, Satanism, while it acknowledges Man is faulty, they have the self-centered view you should do what you consider best for you, screw anyone else. By default, actual Satanism encourages amoral sociopathy. This laughable failure at claiming the name of Satanism is espousing a secular version of the Golden Rule, which runs directly counter to actual Satanism.

Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

What does this mean and why do you think it should be applied to anything that calls itself Satanist? This is incredibly meaningless, sounds all nice and high-minded, and ends on a vaguely anti-intellectual note, which is really off for a group whose prior espoused tenets involve huffing one's own intellectual farts.

In addition, our chapter chooses to take a hard line stance on homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and bigotry of ANY kind. Safety is key.

You guys are just a bunch of soy-chugging atheists doing a bad parody of actual religion if you believe this. Actual Satanism is about sowing division and encouraging rebellion against order. You are claiming to want to support current societal cause celebres meant to ensure social conformity, which runs directly counter to actual Satanism, which would seek to foment chaos and strife.

I'm just going to end this by saying the IRS really needs to take a closer look at you guys, your cause is a logical mess of things that make no sense all done in the name of a deity who, by your own admission, you supposedly do not believe in yet whose name you wear around your necks with pride.

I suggest you guys go back to the drawing board and come up with something better, Heck, even the Pastafarians are less stupid than this, if only because their beliefs were intentionally meant to be silly. You guys are actually serious and even more laughable as a result.

My experience buying some New York Yellow Cheddar from Murray's

 I recently, because I wanted to try better cheese than is usually shipped via the supermarket, ordered some New York Cheddar from an outfit called Murray's.

Now, I only ordered a pound, so I got two 0.5lb hand-sized blocks of cheese, which is fair. Murray's promised the cheese would be well preserved and fresh on arrival, and thanks to good packaging, included ice packs, and having the cheese wrapped securely in cheese paper, they were as good as their word.

Now, here is my review of the cheese:

First off, this is not a very good "sandwich cheese, it's fairly hard and is not going to slice evenly, but I'm the type who can eat my cheese neat, so that's not a problem. It's a good dinner plate cheese, and complements various dinner meats, and goes well with beverages like some red wine if you'd like to enjoy a classy vintage with the cheese.

As for taste, it's hard but not tough to chew. It has a really zesty tang to it, definitely is a lot more distinct in its umami (savoriness) than regular supermarket cheddar, and it's fairly moist on the inside, meaning it will melt in your mouth very well.

Again, this is not a cheese I would buy in small quantities if you wish to eat it on the regular. It's better purchased in bulk and served as part of a dinner platter or eaten neat if you ask me.

Overall, I'm pleased with my experience buying this cheese and would recommend it to anyone who wants something a bit sharper and more distinct in taste than regular supermarket block yellow cheese.

Some political realtalk for both the Left and Right of American politics

 This post is going to be a bit of me, as a political centrist, thumping the noses of both the American Left and Right a bit because some of their political beau ideals are just unrealistic. As the man in the middle, I want to explain why your extreme positions are not going to work and going to suggest some compromise positions. The compromises are not likely to give all of what either side wants, but they are far more realistic and achievable. I will address the topics of abortion for my hypothetical.

This is a very polarized topic. Now, I'm a devout Christian, but as Jesus said, we live under both the laws of God and the laws of Men. Ergo, while my ideal is the former, the only thing that is realistic is as best can be arranged under the latter.

Here are the extreme positions of both sides:

Left: Abortion rights should be as liberal and unrestricted as possible.

Right: Abortion should be criminalized and made illegal for any reason.

Now, let's be real here. Abortion is never going to be completely eradicated, either legally or illegally done, nor is everyone going to support allowing it. Here are more realistic goals for both sides to strive for:

Left: Allow abortion to be as liberally permitted as far as the laws of the states that support it will condone.

Right: Seek to limit the scope of the permissibility of abortion and make sure it is intensely regulated where it exists.

The Left would likely complain my suggestion is too limited and the Right would complain so long as abortion exists it is sanctioning child murder. Well, here's my rebuttal to both sides.

Neither of you are wrong on the essentials, but what I suggest is the best you can realistically hope for under the laws of a secular democratic republic. If you don't like that, well, sorry, best you can realistically hope to achieve.

If The Transgender Lobby Claims They Aren't Deviant Sex Pests, Then They Need To Police Their Own

As the title says, I really want to believe that not every single person who claims to be transgender is a deviant, sex-obsessed pervert using their "trans" status as a shield for being absolute dumpster fires of humanity who want to be insulated from criticism, but more and more evidence keeps mounting every day these people are largely peopled by some of the most fetid scum on the planet.

For example, the transgender crowd claimed that the story that some guy claiming to be a woman creeping on people in a Calfornia spa was a transphobic hoax initially, but when it started to look harder and hard to deny, they kept moving goalposts and even blamed the victims to avoid having to face the ugly truth:

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1433586845179318273

https://archive.ph/rm0r0

https://nypost.com/2021/09/02/charges-filed-against-sex-offender-in-wi-spa-casecharges-filed-against-sex-offender-in-notorious-wi-spa-incident/

https://archive.ph/fbSFa

Short version is that everyone the transgender crowd tried to shout down and cancel for calling out a creeper turned out to be right. Sadly, even now there are still deluded people carrying water for the creep in question or trying to disavow them as not part of the trans community despite the creep in question proudly claiming the transgender identity for themselves, fessing up to everything (while, true to form, denying any wrongdoing) alleged, and having a known rap sheet for having pulled these stunts in the past.

I'll just be blunt and brief: Own this GUY, and yes, that's a man. He claims to be transgender and he brings ill repute on you. You have two choices. Either condemn what he did and prove you have enough decency to police your own community and throw out the creeps you claim you aren't, or carry water for this pervert and prove you are everything you deny.

The transgender crowd has claimed for the longest time they deserve to be regarded as normal as gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. However, while the LGB have their creeps and deviants, and while they aren't perfect, I've seen far less issue from them owning up to their own bad apples, and far more of them seem to be able to be a part of a civil society without disrupting it. 

By contrast, if social media is any indication, most transgender people (save actual professional trans porn types, they seem to be fully aware what they do is indeed a sex fetish for pay and some of them seem sane enough to be fully aware of it if their SFW Twitter posting is any indication) are either women who can't hack being women and mutilate their breasts and get a fake penis because they think they'll be able to make it like a man better or porn sick men in dresses getting fake breasts and getting their penises turned into gaping wounds (some of the more deluded think these necrotic holes they have to artificially keep open are just like an actual woman's vagina, I kid thee not, some of them are that insane), thinking this gives them full access to the ladies room where they expect actual women to have sex with them, lesbian or not. 

Alternatively, some of these types are just gay men who took sissy porn (this incredibly demented subset of porn where they fetishize being used for sex from what I'm given to understand) way too seriously and basically let their freak flag fly about how they basically want to be the target of tranny chasers (essentially men who are gay who basically want the guys to look like women). We also have a lot of legit mentally unwell types who not only think get a hole drilled where the penis used to somehow give them the same body parts as a real woman or the even more horrifying mentally deranged who want actual female body parts they have NONE of the internal plumbing to support put in them to become the woman they fetishize (and nigh all of the men wanting to be women appear to have knowledge no deeper than pornography about what women are really like), their health and ability to keep breathing be damned.

From where I'm sitting, the deviant creeps seem to outnumber the quiet, law-abiding, socially respectable types by a wide margin. Again, I confess I find it darkly ironic the actual trans porn stars seem to be the most self-aware and readily admit they do what they do because they get paid to be a fetish. Conversely, most of the sickest and most deviant creeps, again if social media is any indication, seem to be the types who swear up and down being trans is more than just sex but their actions betray them as constantly masturbating to their own reflections.

This all said, at the end of the day, I'm a live and let live type. Obey the law, don't disturb the peace, and keep your personal business personal, and whatever you choose to do with your life is your business. Unfortunately, more and more transgender types keep showing up like the creep mentioned in the above links who are just proving the people who claim all transgender types are just mentally ill perverts using being trans as an attempted get out of jail free card for what sick reason they deem fit as those who have a point.

That said, let me end this with a warning to the transgender crowd. Assuming you do, at your core, have a bunch of decent people, well, the creeps and sickos are signal boosting you in all the wrong ways, and if you do not rein them in, you will just continue to give those that despise you more reason to do so.

That said, you have a choice. Either police your own community better and prove that you (like the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals you claim as fellow travelers) can integrate into a civil society like anyone else, or admit your enemies are not wrong to consider you a pernicious and deviant blight on society who want to get away with murder (in some cases literally) and whatever else you believe the trans identity should give you carte blanche for.