Why do Christians have a problem with Detroit's new Satan statue?

If you go off of the stories provided in the Bible, God is evil. I mean, the guy is basically a petty, insecure, mass-murdering sadist.

Satan's name derives from "the adversary." What's wrong with being the adversary of an evil god?

Why do you and others insist on holding God to human standards?

Well, they kind of say as much on their homepage. But...

Of course they do. That's why religious freedom is directly linked to free speech.

Wouldn't you argue that human standards derive from God? I mean, if he's omnipotent and all...

So you don't believe in freedom of religion and/or speech?

There are limits to both.

Which are?

Lucky for the rest of us, your opinion has zero bearing on the law. What they're doing is no different than what Swift did with his "A Modest Proposal."

They first came to fame when they performed a "Satanic lesbian ritual" over the grave of Fred Phelp's mother, to cause her to be a lesbian in the afterlife. Their next stunt was to attempt to hand out Satanic comic books in public schools which were allowing the distribution of Christian materials. They then proposed this statue in response to Oklahoma having a statue of the Ten Commandments on government property, in violation of both the Oklahoma and US federal Constitutions. They have now decided to attempt to place this statue in Arkansas, because of that state's addition of a Ten Commandments statue, in violation of the US Constitution.

FYI, what your opinion of their actions might be, doesn't matter, numerous SCOTUS rulings have laid down the precedent that the actions of the Satanic Temple are Constitutional. So far as US law is concerned, that is what matters. If you disagree with those rulings, your only hope is to have a Constitutional Amendment passed which makes Christianity the law of the land. Good luck with that, you'll find it to be a greater challenge than winning the White House.

Which was started in the 1960s by Anton LaVey as a way to fuck with people and get laid. In the '70s, a number of people ran with the idea because they saw it as a way to get attention. In the '80s and '90s, there was the Satanic panic which was led by fundamentalist Christians, who became convinced, despite there being no evidence for this, that there were large numbers of Satanic organizations in the US who were behind everything from heavy metal music, to vast rings of child sex slave operations (that would often perform human sacrifices). All of which was proven to be false.

Meanwhile, it has been proven that at the time of the "Satanic panic" that the Catholic Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses (to name but two religious organizations) were engaged in a massive coverup of the sexual abuse of children at the hands of many church officials. No doubt, there are going to be many more revelations of sexual abuse by religious leaders in the future. Not because religion is inherently evil, but because the blind loyalty such groups often engender in their memberships makes it easy for such actions to be covered up. (The same thing occurs in secular organizations like political parties, where politicians will know that one of their fellow party members is doing something illegal or immoral, but will keep quiet about it, because they're all in the same party.)

I want you to do an experiment. For the next week, every time you see something belonging to the government, whether it be state, local, or federal, that has the word "God" (or similar variant, such as "Jesus," "Creator," etc.) on it, or is said by a member of those governments, I want you to say "Cheeze Whiz." You can say it softly or under your breath, but do it. That will give you an idea of what its like to be a non-Christian in America, and how often you're shown reminders that your ideas and views don't matter to those in power.

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God is omnipotent. Humans are not.

Nothing should be recognized as a "religion" in this day and age unless it has at least a 100 year history behind it. Plus some other features.

Why? And what are those other features?

To me, something is a religion if it at least stands the test of time over several generations. Otherwise it is just a cult.

I don't want to get into the other features at this point.

Some of that seems a bit hysterical, but I can tell you this: it is my job to protect my children from whatever evil the world might produce; to teach them how to see it and respond in a fashion that suits the values I believe important. They do not need protection from government because I might be wrong, meaning such protection would do harm. Further, they are critical thinkers, needing exposure to a multitude of ideas. So give religionists every opportunity to pass out bibles and erect satanic statues in the public square. My children are safe.

An upholstery brush. And one of those little plastic doohickeys you use to vacuum in corners.

It's like you all have a mass case of Stockholm Syndrome or something...

In my opinion, Christians displaying the 10 commandments on a courthouse lawn, placing the word God on our currency and in our flag pledge, pushing for prayer in schools, those guys are trolling American secularists. Why do Christians hate other Americans?

What standard do you hold him to?

Christians are scared of a boogeyman that they made up in the first place.
If they weren't adults, it'd be adorable.

Do you consider sects of Christianity that are less than 100 years old to be a "cult"?

Why not? What are you afraid of? If you stand by your beliefs, then you should have no reason to be afraid to explain them. After all, its not like we're going to hunt you down and kill you for them.

In your opinion that should not be a right.

Your opinion, however, is an entirely unrelated concept to the question of whether or not that actually is, in fact, a right, which it is.

Opinions are about personal preference. There's no such thing as an opinion about what is, in fact, true; there is merely a claim about what is true, and in this case your claim is transparently false.

So a monument to Satan is fine yet a confederate flag is not? Make up your minds already. Either we should care about symbols that offend people or we should just shut up about them.

Give me a list of real-life crimes that Satan is responsible for with evidence that could be taken to court, and I'll be offended by him.

We KNOW the confederacy enslaved people.
For real.

Satan's crimes are in a storybook.
Like Voldemort, and Moriarty.

The Confederate flag represents a nation that fought for evil. A monument to Satan represents someone who fights against the Judeo-Christian god, who is evil.

Of course.

The other features I didn't want to get into was simply because I was in no mood for a long discussion over the issue.

No.

More like Detroit relied on one industry that began to lose money as more people began buying foreign cars. Granted, the ridiculous retirement and bennies packages helped that process along (waves as @Chris ), but that is the end result of any one-trick pony towns, be it a Democrat auto industry or a conservative Appalachian coal mine town.

Cool story, bro

Detroit has the Satan statue, and the Robocop statue.

Almost makes me want to visit.
Almost.

Compensation is compensation. If the present value of the retirement and benefits packages was unaffordable when they were promised, if employers never had the money to buy long term investments and set them aside to guarantee full coverage of pension payments down the line, that's a general compensation problem, not a retirement and benefits problem.

Frankly, what Detroit's history really points out is the importance of government retirement programs. Private employers come and go, and they really shouldn't be making promises to make payments 50 years down the line because no private employers can realistically promise to be able to make such payments, or even promise to exist in 50 years. Retirement benefits always should have been handled by beefing up Social Security and individual retirement planning vehicles, not by private pension plans.

And who gets to decide what constitutes a "new" sect? By some standards, your own group is just barely over 100 years old, by others, it dates back far longer. If a group, such as the Gnostics or Cathars, gets wiped out in ancient times, and some one decides to follow their teachings in modern times, based on the discovered works of those groups, is that an old version of Christianity or a new one?

FTFY.

It is a general idea Tucker. I don't have five pages of details written out.

But surely you will agree that there is a difference between a "religion" and a "cult" and something should not be considered a "religion" just because a group of people claim it is.