I would suggest that you reconsider TST in light of recent actions. At the very least, look into all of the people that have been summarily kicked out solely by Doug Mesner AKA Lucien Greaves, been stripped of their ministerial titles, and how many chapters/congregations have separated from the org. If you use Reddit at all, you can find some of it there. I’m friends on Facebook with some of the higher-up people that either left or were kicked out, and… It ain’t pretty.

The long and short of it is that Doug Mesner and Cevin Soling (AKA Malcom Jarry) entirely own all of the intellectual property that is The Satanic Temple, and so they have complete control over everything that goes on. It’s fundamentally authoritarian, even though they officially espouse more anarchistic, freedom-loving principles. The most recent schism is because Doug is exercising his authoritarian tendencies and throwing people out that disagree with him.

I’ve actually put a lot of thought into this lately, what with the most recent schism in The Satanic Temple.

The seven tenets are great. I’d keep those.

I would start with the understanding that it was an atheistic religion, and I would treat it as such. I would write a constitution, and a charter, and any group that agrees with and meets the requirements laid out in the constitution should be allowed to affiliate themselves. It should be organized as a non-profit.

I like the way that TST’s ministry program worked before Doug threw most of the ministers out. I’d steal that. I would amend the process slightly though; I’d say that any person with a diagnosed personality disorder would not be eligible for ministerial positions, as narcissists, people with borderline personality disorder, etc., should not ever be in leadership positions. I would say that any person that successfully completes the ministerial program should be eligible to be a leader of a congregation, and people that have not passed would not be.

I would propose that the congregations send representatives to a national (or international) convention where they decide what the organization’s position should be on issues–I believe that it takes two majority votes in the SBC over a period of four (?) years for major doctrinal changes, or changes to the constitution–and those representatives would also select board members, who would in turn select a president. (I’d have terms of board members be offset so that there was never a period where a large percentage of the board was turning over.) Fundamentally, the church should be run by the people, and should be serving the congregants, rather than the congregants serving the organization.

I believe that yes, members and congregations should be paying in to the national organization, but no person within the organization should be getting paid for their work. I don’t care if it’s a collection, a set amount per person per week, or what; operating a religion requires funding. That said, the only compensation to anyone within the org should be minimal travel expenses for people that need to travel for their position; otherwise, it should be entirely a lay ministry. (Yes, that would be a financial hardship for some ministers, but I’d rather see that than have people seeking leadership for the financial benefit.) Finances should be fully transparent, and visible to all members, so that everyone can see where money is coming in from, and where money is going.

I also like the Mormon model of fully engaging all members. As long as it’s not onerous, I think that this can help individuals feel seen and heard, and also keep them feeling like a part of community. I would do things like have each members selected in turn to deliver brief biweekly sermons, with sources, and then have members in each congregation engage in a roundtable discussion about the sermon. You would want to have the possibility of sub-groups within each congregation so that different needs of individual members could be taken care of.

I made some notes somewhere, but I’m not sure where they are right now.

EDITS:

Members should have to pay, because the operations of a religion cost money. You have to have a (stable) place to meet, you need to pay for power, and yes, you need to pay for attorneys and accountants. It should definitely be strictly a lay ministry though, with leaders only being compensated for their expenses, not time.

The issue with The Satanic Temple now is that Doug Mesner (aka Lucien Greaves) and Cevin Soling (aka Malcolm Jarry) outright own all the legal entities that make up TST. There is no process that can replace them; they can remove any person or group that they don’t like. They have the ultimate power to make all the rules, and they are entirely above them. That means that, despite TST claiming to believe in freedom from tyranny, it’s fundamentally an authoritarian organization rather than a democratic one. For all of it’s many, MANY other faults, the Southern Baptist Convention is democratic, and I think that’s a quality worth emulating.

That’s why I qualified it as far-left by American standards.

We’ve had far-left in the past, but student terrorist movements were largely left behind in the 70s.

Oh, there is definitely a far left. They’re just not doing the same kinds of things that the far right are doing, and they’re smaller by an order of magnitude.

By American standards, the Stop Cop City people are a ‘far left’ group; they’ve used violence (property damage, arson) in order to bring attention to their cause, and to try and prevent an injustice. OTOH, unlike the state’s actions against the far right, which is mostly just shrugging their collective shoulders, action against Stop Cop City has been pretty brutal.

I have a brand (yeah, the kind done with red-hot metal); my impression was that burning skin and subcutaneous fat smelled like a delicious pork roast.

I have not. On the other hand, I’m familiar with Armin Miewes, who spent a fairly long time in prison for murdering and eating someone that wanted to be murdered and eaten as a sexual kink.

there is no species barrier

There are a few things to unpack here.

First, most of the bacteria, et al. that we have to worry about right now from meat production and consumption are already well-adapted to human hosts. The solution, in most cases, is to adequately cook the meat, and to practice very basic food safety at home. Most food-borne illnesses are the result of inadequate cooking time and temperature. Other toxins–like botulism–are actually a biproduct of bacteria that colonize meat during putrefaction; you can kill the bacteria that produce the botulism toxin, but once it’s present, there’s not a lot you can do. (This is why you refrigerate meat. Clostridium botulinum reproduction is primarily room temperature, and anaerobic, so it’s mostly a problem with canned goods that weren’t sterilized properly during canning.)

The same solution to bacterial contamination in meat now would be the most effective solution for any lab-grown meat: cook your food correctly.

you’ll create a swamp of human meat factory farms that use huge amounts of antiviral, antifungal and antibiotic agents

I think that it’s unlikely that, aside from cleaning agents, that you would need antibacterial/antifungal/virucidal agents in producing lab-grown meat of any kind. Many of the most effective cleaning agents work because there’s no way to evolve protections against them. 70% isopropyl alcohol for instance; any resistance that bacteria evolved would also severely inhibit their ability to have any other functions. You can use radiation, or heat + steam (or even dry heat) to sterilize all of your equipment prior to introducing cells, and you have more control over the nutrient bath that it grows in. Depending on the nutrient bath, you can sterilize that by filtration; .22μm filtration is the standard for sterilizing IV and IM compounded medications. (.22μm is smaller than all bacteria, and many viruses. Molecules will still pass through that filter pore size though. You can also get filters down to .15μm if you need to remove more viruses.) Cows, chickens, etc. use so many antibacterials because they aren’t able to put them in ideal conditions and maintain the desired production levels.

I think that the lack of a species barrier is a far, far smaller risk than you might believe it to be.

BUT.

I think that there is one enormous risk: prions. Misfolded proteins are exceptionally hard to detect, and anything that denatures them will denature other proteins as well. The risk is likely very, very low, given how uncommon prion diseases are, but it’s definitely a risk when you can grow a culture indefinitely.

Let’s take this a step farther.

Would you eat human meat that was grown in a lab, if you could know for certain that the cells that were used to form the cultures were harvested from a consenting adult that was duly compensated? What if that person not only had consented, but wanted to be eaten, because they had a vore fetish, and enjoyed the thought of people eating pieces of them?

K.

You think they are left- or center-aligned but that is simply because that reflects the majority of their customer base

Yes. And the same fact means that they will continue to support causes on the left, and the right will continue to demonize them, which will further reinforce them as supporting the left. It’s self-perpetuating. Of course companies do things to make money; their support for LGBTQ+ causes is because they can see the writing on the wall, and know that support for that is growing, and will continue to grow. And Disney, by supporting it, increases the rate that it grows.

I cannot believe people in 2024 still think giant multinational companies can “be on their side”

They are “on their side” when it’s in their interest to do so. Which, bluntly, is true for almost all people. Absolute altruism–doing a ‘good’ thing for which you receive absolutely no reward (including public recognition or a sense of smug superiority) at all–is so rare as to be extinct. That’s how politics is always played, my dude.

Companies can, and do, support things. Disney hasn’t stopped it’s support for LGBTQ+ causes, and they ‘won’ the fight that DeSantis started. $87,000 in donations isn’t even pocket change for Disney. When you look at where Disney puts its’ money, it’s pretty clear that they have a left-of-center bias.

but people regularly think I’m 10 years younger than I am.

This is the same kind of magical thinking that leads some vegans to believe that they don’t produce any body odor, or that they can cure cancer through diet. I eat meat, I’m nearing 50, I’m physically healthy, and regularly mistaken for being in my 30s. The idea that vegan = healthy diet is, well, pretty obviously nonsense, since Oreos are vegan and still terrible for you.

A lot of aging is just genetics.

Given how strongly Disney and their subsidiaries support LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, I’m gonna say that they don’t have nearly enough control.

Shannon Larratt. He strongly influenced my beliefs in individual bodily autonomy, and individual liberty (which dovetail nicely with Mikhail Bakunin). He led me to be a Satanist even though he was not one himself.

Well. You don’t. OTOH, you can pre-treat clothing with a 5% permethrin solution, and that will keep arthropods away from you. You can safely treat pants, shirts, jackets, and socks, but should not treat underwear, gloves, hats, or balaclavas. Let it dry completely before wearing though.

Sure. I fairly frequently get invited to Civiqs polls in email. Civiqs is generally a very good polling company, they ask very neutrally worded questions, but do exhibit about a +3 bias towards the political left.

Permethrin. You should be able to get it at a Tractor Supply or Quality Farm & Fleet. Dilute it according to directions, or to about 10% overall concentration, put it in a sprayer, spray all around your garage. Follow all safety precautions, and wear googles and a respirator just to be safe. DO NOT allow any cats to come in contact with it until it fully dries; permethrin is very toxic to cats, but it should be fine once it’s dry.

It will kill arthropods (spiders and insects), and acts as a fairly long-lasting repellent to prevent future infestations.

As someone else said, if you have a spider “problem”, your real problem is that you have a lot of other insects that are acting as a food source for the spiders. Figure out what the other insect infestation is, fix taht, and you should fix your spider problem.

EDIT: black widow spiders aren’t actually particularly dangerous to people. Most bites resolve themselves without any medical attention, and the very, very few fatalities are usually very young children, very old people, or people that are already very ill.

One single superpower, or a suite of powers that exists within a single character?

Assuming that we’re talking conventional media (e.g., not religion), and we’re talking about powers that exist within a single character, I’d probably take the powers of a witcher, from Sapkowski’s novels. They’re not immortal, but they live multiple times longer than a normal human. They’re not invulnerable, but they’re able to take more physical abuse and heal than any normal person. They’re able to use magic in a limited way. They move faster and are stronger than humans. So they’re not so far outside of humanity that they can’t still blend in with and appreciate humanity.

I feel like most other super powers would quickly lead to intense alienation, because you’d be so far outside of the normal human experience that you’d lose the ability to empathize.

Youtube link.

Make sure you turn it up before listening!

Bloodbath, you say?