Grand Junction is no stranger to satanic activity.
An area known as “Satan’s House” was torn down sometime in the late 90’s. The lore surrounding the house is as follows: a farmer once lived it in with his wife, but when he discovered her infidelity, he burned the house down, killing them both.
What remained of the house after it burnt down allegedly became a sight where people performed witchcraft and other black magic rituals.
More recently, Christopher Wilson, the leader of a Grand Junction based gang known as “Satan’s Disciples”, was sentenced to 194 years in prison. Wilson was convicted of aggravated robbery, arson and racketeering.
Satan’s Disciples have earned themselves a notorious reputation for a variety of reasons, including homicide. In 2016, a member of the gang murdered Caleb Fettig, a 22-year old from Fruita, Colorado.
However, not all satanic activity is associated with criminal behavior. There’s a growing movement among “Satanists” who don’t actually believe in the devil, but instead use his persona for political reasons.
The Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers distributed atheist and satanic literature in high schools and middle schools in Delta County. The group argued that they only distributed these unorthodox pieces of literature because Bibles were given out in the same schools.
Modern-day Satanism tends to be less about worshipping the devil, and more about protesting religious freedoms in the United States. In fact, many “Satanists” are secular. To these people, Satan is nothing more than a political tool to promote religious freedom, rather than a real entity to be worshipped.
And hey, in all fairness, religious freedom should be advocated for. But it begs the question: is Satanism the best method of doing so?
I’m all for promoting freedom of religion, but honestly, it’s tough to jump on the Satan bandwagon. Afterall, the two definitions of Satanism (according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) are “innate wickedness” and “obsession with or affinity for evil”. Atheist or not, those aren’t great selling points.
Come on, let’s be real, worshipping the devil doesn’t really give off a “good-idea-sort-of-vibe”. Even if it is being advocated for through secularism, Satan doesn’t have much of a repertoire for being the good guy.
And just because Satan’s likeness is being distributed by atheists, it doesn’t null and void the possible existence of the biggest supervillain to date. Atheists and theists have no more evidence than the other. There’s no way to know if God or the devil exist, so why even risk it?
As mentioned earlier, Satan has been given a lot of different aliases throughout history, but it’s never been “good guy”. Because the devil is a universal symbol of evil in cultures all around the world, it seems like there are probably other means of getting a message across.
Mainstream Satanism isn’t about the supernatural or even evil-doing. But still, it’s Satan–the embodiment of sin, temptation, and evil.
If modern day Satanists really do want to focus on religious freedom and equality, then perhaps they should reconsider the usage of the devil. I like to think that they could probably find a more suitable representative (or mascot) for their objective.
