This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Lord Seth: I'm confused. What's the difference between this trope and Clearly Mythtaken?
False Prophet: Maybe it's the difference between active, modern-day faiths and ancient, largely defunct religions?
False Prophet: I'm not convinced the Fellowship of the Sun from True Blood is an example of this trope. The Bible might not mention vampires, but it does explicitly forbid drinking blood. For context, the Bible doesn't mention abortion either, but Catholics or evangelicals still oppose it. As to "God wants you to look good, feel good, and be prosperous"; it appears the Fellowship adheres to prosperity gospel
—the belief that faith in Christ will lead to material success. Aren't the FotS basically just Jesus Camp graduates turned into vampire hunters?
Eric DVH: Pulled the Satanism junk. Calling silly things like the Brotherhoods of Funny Hats founded by goofballs like Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey “Satanism” in the first place in and of itself means that YFRSF. The CoC apologism is especially bad: “a non-theistic religion that doesn't worship Satan called Satanism”!? It's the equivalent of founding a religion you name “Sith-ism” and then cosplaying as Klingons, it's 31 flavors of stupid in a wrong cone with fail syrup and sprinkles on top.
Majin Gojira: To be frank, I find your dismissial childish and uninformed. I really suggest you read up on Satanism before making such a broad statement. I suggest you start here. I'll leave it largely to you to restore what has been deleeted, though I agree that the amount of Natter that accumulated around that entry was pretty obscene.
Edit to add: Just for preservation, here's what is contested/needs fixing.
And remember, it's not your opinion of a belief that matters, it's what the believers actually do/believe in.
Eric DVH: No, what matters is that there's some kind of internally consistent system being debated. If somebody's too obtuse to wrap their head around the terminology, they lose the right to abuse their own vocabulary, this goes double for a people who apparently hold “stupidity and pretentiousness” to be cardinal sins.
In any case, even though I honestly feel that “Satanism” itself Fails Religious Studies too hard to even bear mention in this trope, I've put in a rewritten version with a slightly different focus, and attempted to expunge or tone down as much of my snark as I could manage.
- Pop culture's general misconception that Satanism = sadistic criminals who worship the devil. In Hollywood, their favorite sport is to murder children and torture animals. In actuality, Satanism (or at least the most significant form of it) is a non-theistic religion, that is firmly against child and animal torture.
- The fact that there have been disturbed individuals (but never an organization) who have claimed to follow such forms of Satanism hasn't helped things.
- Pop culture's misconception isn't helped by the fact that there is little to no conceivable reason other than to piss off Christians for them to have named their religion such.
- Oh, certainly there are plenty of people who will jump in and say "Satan was a misunderstood rebel!" but the fact is that when you name your religion after Evil Lord Murder McRapeKill you're not (just) looking for a role model, you're looking to push someone's buttons. Probably so that when they inevitably overreact you can play the unjustly discriminated victim.
- One has to admit, though, that the "misunderstood rebel" theory means that Satan is actually a great symbol for the religion. More than anything, he symbolises independancy and skepticism, which are both highly valued traits in Satanism. That, and they probably just couldn't think of a better name.
- Also, the Satanist's Bible is full of sneering Take Thats towards Christianity in particular. One has to wonder, if Satanists didn't want to be seen as rooting for Christianity's Big Bad, why did they found themselves on such open antagonism?
- All pointing, ironically, to the conclusion that anyone who thinks that Satanism is entirely innocent of antagonism towards Christianity Fails Religious Studies Forever.
- That, and Anton LaVay, founder of LaVayen Satanism, was kind of a dick. He didn't found Satanism as a whole, but he didn't do it any favors either.
Removed this:
- True Blood verges on this at times with their Strawman Political the Fellowship of the Sun. Aside from the obvious problem that vampires aren't mentioned in the Bible at all, there is the slight difficulty of the FotS being a Cargo Cult with the constant repetition of "God wants you to look good, feel good, and be prosperous!" A lot of the Biblical misquotes or misapplications on the parts of the main characters (like Miss Jeanette's not-even-slightly-Christian-at-all "exorcism" rituals) are intentional, however, and therefore don't really fall into this trope.
- Note however that the FotS isn't a Strawman Political against Christianity as a whole, rather it's an attack on the Prosperity Gospel, which itself fits right under this trope
- This troper views the Fot S as a parody of and Strawman Political against anti-gay Christians in general Fred Phelps in particular ("God Hates Fangs", anyone?)
- "No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood." - Leviticus 17:12
- Note however that the FotS isn't a Strawman Political against Christianity as a whole, rather it's an attack on the Prosperity Gospel
The Bible quote in the comments shows that it's justifiable for a Christian group to scrounge up Biblical "evidence" that vampires should be hated. Also, I don't recall the Fot S having any characteristics of a Cargo Cult. I do recall them preaching prosperity theology. The group is clearly an amalgamated parody of Trinity Broadcasting televangelists and Fred Phelps style anti-gay groups, which of course both exist, making it fall outside of this trope.
