Church Of Satan Application for Active Membership

Something compelled me to the Church of Satan’s website today. Looking through I saw if you sent $200 and filled a thorough application, you could become an active member in the Church of Satan. Part I of the application is general information: name, spouse, address, etc. Part II contains 40 questions that the applicant must answer on a separate sheet of paper. I’m not going to apply, but it might be fun to answer these 40 questions. So here it goes, one at a time.

1. What are your impressions of The Satanic Bible?

First of all, just a style note. “The Satanic Bible” should be either underlined or italicized since it does refer to a title of a book. For me, I prefer book titles to be italicized.

As for the book itself, you see, I haven’t read it in over a decade. I would have liked to brush up on it recently, but an aunt of mine just donated the bulk of my book collection to charity mistakenly. So there is that.

But from what I remember of it, it’s basically an extension of Nietzsche’s renunciation of the concept of god. It realizes that god is a human construct, and it forces humans to be self-reliant. There is no divine intervention. There is no fate. It’s just us. Of course, I’m doing this from memory, and that memory has been taxed with fun and party and drugs back in my 20s.

Of course I have questions about it. Like how come there are rituals when it emphasizes man. And without a god, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of creating a “church”? But once I buy the book again, I suppose I’ll find such answers.