People often seem to forget that “Religious Freedom” means all religions, not just yours.

Never mind the importance of the separation of church and skate state

That prayer is fire.

Dear dark father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds and darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferan impulse to eat off the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.”

Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations,” he continued. “Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”“It is done. Hail Satan,”

At the Tuesday night council meeting, the audience stood up to recite the Pledge of Allegiance the moment Dalbey finished.

The dubiousness of unquestioning nationalism aside, the pledge of allegiance containing 'under god' also makes it a religious phrase.

Hail Satan.

They only want religious freedom when they're using their religion as an excuse to infringe on other people's rights. Hail Satan.

Rick Bick is a party pooper. Don't be a dick, Rick Bick.

The prayer is a common one used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa. “Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations,” he continued. “Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”“It is done. Hail Satan,” he finished.

Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”

Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”

“Mayor, that should be done at the end,” city councilor Cara Galloway said.

“It needs to be done now, OK.” Rick said. “I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying but that was a curse put on our city when he said ‘Hail Satan’ and the dark god and most of you know that. And we need to just stop and reverse it.”

“So what I’m gonna do now…I’m just gonna invite us into a 30 second time of prayer — time of silence.”

“No,” Galloway said. “We are at the consent agenda. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move forward. The invocation happened.”

“As mayor of this city…I’m going to ask right now that we do a moment of silence to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time. And then we will move to the consent agenda,” mayor Benjamin Foote said.

I should start giving incantations, that reaction is gold.

"No, not like that!"

They say "religion" but what they really mean is "christofascism"

What's the matter Rick? Too much freedom for you?

And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.

🔥🔥🔥

I love that Satan is little more than "fuck you" to established systems and norms.

What a simple minded bumblefuck. 'oh no, a curse'.

That prayer was pure poetry. You can state the exact opposite of what's said in the christian bible and it makes perfect, rational sense.

Lucifer was the most beautiful of all angels and was cast down to earth for daring to question God's authority.

Not that any of those cross eyed bear-ing Christians would know that.

Edit: apparently this is Milton's fanfic.

* yes, yes, not just them, others too.

I'm in Texas, where this kind of nonsense is standard. I've spoken out at multiple school boards to successfuly stop in-school prayer time. Most of the evangelical folks pushing it grumble about it without understanding that we are saving them from themselves.

The most interesting address was a devout Christian lady who had come from a district where they approved it early. She said one day her daughter came home doing sanitaria and when she complained, the school said that there was nothing they could do. She begged the schools not to make the same mistake.

I can't help but wonder at the fundies that want to insert their beliefs into the government. The separation of church and state protects the church from the state just as much as it protects the state from the church.

After all there's no guarantee that the official state sanctioned religion couldn't end up being Mormonism or Islam or any of thousands of other religions that you might object to. Even some of the founding fathers were deists who created the depictions of blindfolded justice and lady liberty to be new gods of America.

Even as a Christian myself, I'm glad that the satanists are there to help teach this lesson.

So I actually think that the government officials did about as well as they could here.
They let the person make their statement, and then someone not in the government interrupted to say they had to "undo the curse". Official said that wasn't in the agenda, and then the mayor said they would just pause for 30 seconds to reflect before moving on to keep things from getting off the rails.

Galloway spent the moment of silence with her head up and her arms crossed. An hour later, she spoke up. “Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own and responding to someone’s invocation is a slippery slope to putting a financial liability on the taxpayers and allowing others to object or respond. This is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it.”

Hail Satan

Let's allow prayer in government functions.

Surprised Pikachu face

No, not like that.

How was that even a prayer. Bro just urged everyone to act based on evidence instead of superstition.

Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”

They only recognize the "dark god" when it exists in the other. A theology of hypocrisy.