DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) - On Thursday, the Satanic Temple of Iowa announced that their display at the Iowa Capitol had been significantly damaged.
The controversial display, which Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds called “objectionable,” featured a ram’s head covered with mirrors on a mannequin before being damaged.
Organizers say it’s a symbol of their right to religious freedom.
The Satanic Temple of Iowa posted the following message on their Facebook page:
“This morning, we were informed by authorities that the Baphomet statue in our holiday display was destroyed beyond repair. We are proud to continue our holiday display for the next few days that we have been allotted.
We ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means.
KCCI has reported that 35-year-old Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree. He has since been released.
Solve et Coagula! Happy Holidays! Hail Satan!”
Religious freedom only applies to MY RELIGION, never yours. 🙄
This is the funniest thing. Satan IS part of their religion! I bet if it was a statue of Budda or Muhammad it would have been left alone, but since it’s part of THEIR OWN religion that they don’t like, it get vandalised. Hilarious
I bet if it was a statue of Budda or Muhammad
Lol. Lmao. Mfs have literally been killed for less.
Yeah but that was by inbred, ignorant shit heads with a slightly darker skin tone than this inbred ignorant shit head.
I did think of this just as I wrote it, but I figured it was probably true anyway, and I couldn’t be bothered looking up how to spell some Hindu deity’s name
Something about holding up a mirror… It’s very on point. hypocrites don’t like when you show them their true face.
Um… they don’t do statues of Mohammed, because of the reasons.
The irony is that Muhammad originally said not to portray him because he didn’t want to be turned into an icon; He wanted the worship to go to God instead. He didn’t want people praying to giant altars with his face on it, because that would run counter to his goal that people should be worshipping God. But the fervent attacks on anyone who portrays Muhammad only prove that he is, in fact, being worshipped.
Also, it didn’t say “non-believers aren’t allowed to show my image”, it was just an instruction for Muslims.
So, attacking a non-Muslim for putting up a picture of Muhammad is doubly wrong. As a non-Muslim, the rule doesn’t apply to them, and as a Muslim, you shouldn’t care because the rule is about who Muslims should worship.
And there was a golden statue of trump at cpac.
Because of course there was.🙄
I can’t tell if the eyeroll is not believing me or just because it is such a fucking thing that they would do so here’s a link just in case.
I read it as “jfc of course they would” more than unbelief.
But that seems fucking wild, even for the cult of trump.
It was meant as"it’s such a thing they would do, and they’re not even aware of the irony.
They literally made another golden cow and couldn’t see the irony.
They always like to say that the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince people that he didn’t exist.
I disagree. The devil’s greatest trick was changing their name to “God” while blaspheming the morning star—Lucifer— who literally brings light and reason to people’s lives in an otherwise cold, dark, and needlessly cruel world.
Same.
Glad to see I’m not the only one thinking this.
I really appreciate your comment, so wanted to say so outright, but real talk… this is a fantastic story idea.
Also Satan is objectively less evil than God. In the entire Bible Satan only killed like 10 people whereas God’s death toll is in the tens of thousands.
It’s not just the body count - Yahweh literally tortures innocent people - the Book of Job is the most notable (though there’s many examples of this).
For those that don’t know it or who want a recap:
Satan said to Yahweh that his followers just loved him because they were rewarded for it, and if they weren’t, they’d turn on him.
So Yahweh…proves it? He destroys Job’s livelihood, kills his family, gives him all kinds of diseases and pains, and Job spends the rest of his life homeless and alone, completely ruined, but Job still praises Yahweh. So, hooray, Yahweh wins the bet.
The thing you really have to remember about this story is that–as it was written–it isn’t real. Maybe there are some factual elements to it, but for the most part, we have this story, not because it’s factual, but because generations and generations of people believed it was a good story to help us understand the nature of God and our relationship to Him.
The cruelty Yahweh shows to Job is not an exception - it’s literally exemplary. It’s an example.
Job eventually questions Yahweh and Yahweh becomes furious and shows up as a flaming tornado and basically asks him “Who do you think you are, you little punk?” Technically the Satan is proven right. Yahweh does restore Job to his former glory, but all the people he killed in his effort to win a bet don’t come back, they just get replaced with new people.
That’s fucked.
Pretty sure there’s nobody fighting to get a statue of Muhammad anywhere…
I feel that destroying it has garnered more attention for TST than they would have received had it been left alone.
Given that one of their goals is to highlight unfair treatment on religious basis, I’m sure they are delighted that someone illustrated their point.
That’s the point.
The
church of SatanSatanic Temple doesn’t care about idol worship.But one religion REALLY REALLY DOES.
The church of Satan and the Satanic temple are two very different organisations.
Ah you’re right! I got them confused. Thanks!
Understanding that requires intelligence, something I would never accuse them of
He’s from Mississippi? Did he drive 12 hours just to go break the display?
That’s what being brainwashed by fucking propaganda will do to a person…
Reich wing media is a cancer on society.
Conservatism in general. The entire concept of protecting the past from an improved future is asinine from the start.
They would argue it’s not an improvement. That’s the difference between us and them
But inexorably human.
Maybe it was originally
Now it is simply fascism
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Yessss ive been calling it "reich wing’ for awhile now and i finally start seeing it more often ✊
The meth was probably driving.
His aunt-sister drove him.
That’s aunt-sister-wife to you!
I mean, either that or he was travelling for any number of other reasons that people do. Visiting family is popular this time of year.
More importantly it ups the chances he doesn’t show for his hearing and either never interacts with cops again, or gets arrested for skipping his hearing next time he interacts with police for any reason, such as a routine traffic stop and jailed until Iowa gets back about whether or not they want him.
These evangelicals are doing a wonderful job of showing the Satanic Temple to be reasonable adults. Every time a loony loses their mind over this, more people compare the two and realize who the baddies actually are.
You overestimate people, don’t forget Trump had enough voters to win in 2016 🤮
Not really, but the system was rigged to make him win. If popular votes decided elections, there would never be a republican president
If popular votes decided elections then yes, how large of a margin Dems win CA by would be the deciding factor instead of a footnote.
They won in 2004, because John Kerry really was that boring.
Prior to that the last election they won by majority was 1988. Though to be fair Clinton only got 43% of the vote in 1992.
You’re forgetting to mention that Daddy Bush got only 37% and Ross Perot got 18. Clinton won the popular vote. Bush Jr did not in 2000 and he made it to the popular vote by the skin of his teeth in 2004.
John Kerry really was that boring.
Kerry didn’t campaign to end the war in Iraq. He campaigned as being more competent than Bush. He tried to convince voters that he could handle the war better. The left didn’t want the war handled better, we wanted it to end. That’s why there was no excitement around Kerry. He was just more of the same with a slightly different package.
It reminds me of the whole “keeping a level head while someone loses their shit on you, to demonstrably prove they’re the asshole”, but writ large.
The 7 Tenets are strong against right wing hate.
Imagine if doofus had fucked up a nativity scene. His ass would have been tazed several times, he’d be beaten, and the fundies would stop poking holes in wrapped condoms for half a second to be up in arms.
You could improve this by comparing it to someone beheading a statue of Jesus at the state capitol. I don’t know if that has happened, but it would be more likely to elicit the response you describe.
Nativity scenes get messed with all the time. I see no reason to jump to such extreme conclusions unless youve got a scenario where this actually happened.
Edit: This is the same thing as Christians inventing persecution basically. I don’t want fellow secularists denying reality to invent unreasonable scenarios where they’re the victim.
Shhh, you’re outside the groupthink, lemmy doesn’t like that.
Tee-hee! Us few are enlightened enough to recognise the groupthink! I think I shall leave a slightly snarky commenting highlighting how intelligent we are, and how like sheep the other thickos are!
May I chortle along?
“Chortle” is a word that should be used more often.
Only if you’re part of the group who, as a group, don’t agree with the groupthink. That is, the group that define themselves in opposition to groupthink. Those with completely independent views to the group. That group.
That’s a misdemeanor. He’ll plead down to something like a fine and maybe some community service, then fundraise the shit out of it - have to pay the lawyer! have to pay the fine! need a giant new American flag for my giant lifted pickup truck! gimme gimme gimme!
They should sue his ass for all the costs of a replacement statue and everything else they can think of.
Jokes on him, that community service is required to be served at the local Satanic Temple. (god I wish I wasn’t making a joke right now)
That would be glorious legal karma.
That could happen. There was a plea deal recently where a woman who was an absolute dick to a fast food employee accepted a lesser sentence that required her to work in food service for a specified time.
You could easily do the same here, and they absolutely should.
Oh, I know it could happen. I also recognize that that sort of sentence would almost require the judge to be either A. Sympathetic to TST, B. A fan of ironic punishments, C. A proponent of putting self-righteous assbags in their place, or D. Not a neo-Christian conservative, or some mix of the above. I don’t exactly hold out hope for that being the case in Iowa, but a man can dream.
“They should sue his ass” Given that it’s TST, they’d probably argue that it was a violation of their constitutional protections under the First Amendment (or some similarly insane legal argument they regularly use to
embezzlefundraise) .Interestingly stupid take you got there bud
Are you completely ignorant about TST’s court cases? Read their legal arguments, you can find them at whatever court they’re filed with. They are completely insane, it’s literally a fundraising grift.
Didn’t they recently try to argue that abortion was a sacred ritual? Completely ignoring that SCOTUS has already ruled that criminal laws are not a violation of religious freedom. (A decision they had to make or else you could found the Church of Posada and legally engage in nuclear terrorism). Literally nobody with a brain would have made that argument, and yet they lied to the public about it’s soundness to fundraise.
Read more about what the satanic temple is about. Then read your own comments again. I’m not even going to waste my time explaining it to your dumb dumb ass…
Because things could not possibly be different than what they claim to be?
I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I cared enough about atheist activism to research organisations to participate in. When I do such research, I try to find if the organisation actually effectively produces results. And that’s just not what I found about TST, the legal ineptitude combined with financial opacity was sufficient red flags but I understand that’s not of concern to you.
Sounds like something a christian would do
how is this not a hate crime? it was committed because of someone’s membership in a protected class.
Simple, wrong class.
Because the whole point of conservatism and Christian Nationalism is that only the right people are protected by the legal system. Everyone else is beneath the law, denied rights and protections, and subject to retribution without cause and due process.
Conservatives fight to assure those not protected do not gain civil rights.
The white power movement fights to further reduce rights and protections, and narrow the set of those who qualify for them.
These kinds of behaviors are really hammering home that Christians are just nazis with training wheels huh?
Can you link to a conservative saying that?
I can’t imagine any would, that is an abstraction developed by not-conservatives trying to wrap head around conservative actions. To have a conservative in power say so overtly would fuel the people being oppressed into coordinated resistance and disgust fence sitters into voting against conservatism
I’m a conservative, and I think people should be equal under the law.
What are you seeing that makes it seem otherwise?
What are you seeing that makes it seem otherwise?
Satanic display at Iowa Capitol vandalized ‘beyond repair’
Someone seemed to think it was appropriate to vandalize this display specifically.
So because someone targeted a specific thing here, that’s unequal, and the inequality must therefore be a core belief of conservatives generally? Is that the line of reasoning here?
The display is permitted by rules that govern religious installations inside the Capitol but has drawn criticism from many conservatives, including presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. A Facebook posting by The Satanic Temple on Thursday said the display, known as a Baphomet statue, “was destroyed beyond repair,” though part of it remains.
Michael Cassidy, 35, of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said Friday. He was released after his arrest.
Cassidy is a Republican who was defeated by Democrat Keith Jackson in Mississippi State House District 45 in November.
It is possible for someone to be on the Conservative side of the political spectrum and still be a reasonable person who respects equality. It is not possible for a reasonable person who respects equality to support the Republican party.
The one that vandalised this being released as per the summary for example.
It’s a misdemeanor vandalism charge, odds are he’s a vaguely attractive white guy with no priors so of course they let him go until his hearing, probably without bail. Only way his odds of being released on his own recognizance would have been higher is if he were a pretty, young white girl.
I actually personally know a pretty young white girl who got caught in a drug charge out of state, released on her own recognizance pending hearing, came back home, skipped her hearing, got pulled over for a traffic violation back home, jailed for a bit for being a fugitive until the other state could fetch her, taken back to the other state and then released on her own recognizance pending a hearing again despite having explicitly proved that she was a flight risk.
If you feel that people should be equal under the law, why do you align politically with the parties that don’t recognize trans rights, homosexuality, worker rights, social support, freedom of religion (not just Christianity), voting rights…
You don’t believe people are equal under the law. At best, maybe you believe that groups of people are equal under law, but some groups are more equal than others.
I’ve never heard a conservative person argue that a trans person should be stripped of any rights. Nor that homosexuals should, nor workers, nor people of other religions.
Can you link to a conservative claiming this? Like … one?
This case right here. He thought that it was okay to vandalize a religious display that was from “the wrong religion”, and he’s getting let off with a slap on the wrist.
And the person letting him off is a conservative, I take it? And this is in comparison to a different arrestee who did the same to another display?
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It’s the quiet part that’s (usually) not said aloud.
Just take a look at the statistics of how i.e. criminal law is applied much more aggressively to conservative out-groups (PoC, poor, etc.) than conservative in-groups (white, wealthy, etc.). Then have a look at who is proposing politics intended to fix that imbalance an who’s talking about “taking a hard(er) stance on crime”.
Another, rather specific example: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8769269/Former-abortion-clinic-worker-recalls-pro-life-women-justify-procedures.html
Once you look our for the pattern, you’ll see it everywhere.
criminal law is applied much more aggressively to conservative out-groups (PoC, poor, etc.) than conservative in-groups (white, wealthy, etc.).
So in your mind is there a conservative in group and out group as regards sex? I just want a starting point before I delve any further.
My comment wasn’t related to sex but more generalized, but, umm - yeah?
People having heterosexual two-person sex (preferably with a single, consistent partner) are the “in-group”.
Everyone else is the out-group.
If anyone ever made i.e. a study to something like police behavior experienced by a “regular” pick-up bar and a gay bar, I’d expect to see some stark differences.
I wasn’t talking about orientation, but about sex, as in male vs female.
There is a long history of right wing politicians cloaking themselves in the rhetoric of the left. You can watch it evolve over it’s history as the leftist talking points have… but the one thing that hasn’t changed since the beginning is the way they behave shows a belief in the aggregation of power. Conservatives support a hierarchy with a lot of executive power at the top and a failure state at the bottom. The left looks to broaden and scatter power horizontally…
It’s part of why complaining that social services and welfare programs are artificially disruptive to a “natural” order and determining and expelling non-citizen underclasses and narrowing the rights to fully participate has existed since the beginning of right wing rhetoric but they never sell it outright as “some people deserve to die poor or to serve in a perpetually subordinate position”. It has always required a grift to get the masses to sign on. It’s also why they tend to pair themselves with the church going crowd. Their base has to believe at some level that inequality is not just natural but justified and that helps when you already have people you veiw as fundamentally inferior.
Because the Christian hegemony rules with an iron fist in the west. A big part of TST’s existence is about bringing that hypocrisy to light.
Perhaps they were simply trying to uphold the separation of church and state. Maybe the thing that caused the attack was “a church display at the state capitol”
Nope. There’s displays from multiple religions at the state capitol.
It was parked in a handicapped space. Perhaps they towed it.
–Walter Sobchek
Weak, pathetic, pussy-assed ‘god’ gets extremely butthurt and sends a pathetic paranoid delusional simp loser to break things.
This incident is proof that the judeo-christian god is a bedwetting loser.
Hey now, the Judeo-Christian god can’t be a pussy-ass or get butthurt. Both of those require existence 🥁 Bang-on about the delusional losers breaking shit though lol.
If we call the part of our brain that helps us call label things right and wrong “god” we can see anyone speaking or acting on behalf of “god” as the reality of being on behalf of themselves or whoever put that god into their head
How can laws, justice or morality exist then?
They don’t. All three of those change, sometimes drastically, depending on the person asked and the culture they live in. If all humans vanished, those three things will vanish with us.
That’s not true. Other species have altruism and social behaviors akin to those principles. Plus almost all cultures have at least some sort of ruleset, showing it’s objectively important and real. Social groups have to regulate behavior of individuals to exist and that is a fact regardless of the species.
Stop with this r/iam14andthisisdeep edgelord bullshit. Justice, laws and morality are very, very real. Just because they’re immaterial doesn’t mean they’re not real. They influence every aspect of your life, especially when they’re not enforced.
Other species could and would rise to become an intelligent, technological species if we disappear and would therefore end up having their own, even if it manifests in a different way.
It’s not edgelord bullshit. It’s just a simple truth. Other species may present with some manner of social contract, but it would likely be very different to anything we call morality or justice.
They are ideas from human minds that we agree to live by for the most part. Same with currency and many other social constructs. Since evolution is constantly happening and imperfect, those ideas are imperfect and constantly changing, sometimes dissolving away.We might not even be a self, but instead, we are an ongoing process evolved to see itself as a self. The concept of free will needs a pretty big rewrite as well, if there even is such a thing.
I’m only scratching at the surface of very deep and intricate topics of course. This isn’t exactly the best place for more in depth discussion, but for an example of where I learn this edgelord shit, the book I’m chewing through now is https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/439332.
I’ll add to that, that you can just consider that still to this day, cannibal human beings exist, and to them, it is moral and ethical, because it is part of their culture. That is “morally” and ethically reprehensible to us, but we exist in a different sphere of influence than them. Does this make them wrong? If so, then by who’s metric? I agree with your opening sentence, btw. Don’t have time to get into the weeds and read all of this right now though. Just got off work.
Lol oh no, it’s 100% moral relativism edgelord bullshit dumbasses use to justify doing whatever they want without consequences.
What other species do to regulate social behavior isn’t much different from what we do, and if you bothered to research it instead of talking out of your ass, you’d know that. Google. It.
Now in the real world where adults pay bills, people universally accept the concepts of laws and justice because they are the means by which we regulate behavior to protect ourselves and each other from harm. When people do not enforce them, we get situations like the one we’re in now, and society collapses.
When you grow up, you’ll understand.
They’re social constructs for the most part. Try to apply your concept of laws, justice and morality with a paramecium in a drop of water.
Being a social construct doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Being immaterial doesn’t mean something doesn’t exist.
Shhhhh, adults are talking.
Why so dimissive?
god is some man made shit that has no place in our society. People who believe are not very smart, similar to flat earth people.
I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not, the truth hurts.
Hail Satan.
Hail yourself.
Self isn’t responding to hails. Fire phasers.
Hail Me.
Hail Gein!
Hey Stan!!
Hail!
Interesting though it’s just a mischief charge, if I trashed their Jesus garbage you know DAMN well I’m swimming in hate crime charges.
If you did it now, wouldn’t lawyers be able to use thos case to get you the same punishment?
Not anymore friend, a precedent has been set
In Iowa, criminal mischief covers vandalism, and 4th degree criminal mischief means damages between 300-750 dollars. Penalty is up to a year in jail and up to about $2500 in fines if convicted. Since it says he was charged, he wasn’t just let off free, he was released pending hearing aka they aren’t holding him in jail until then.
Whenever I hear the phrase Criminal Mischief, I always imagine an old cartoon criminal tip toeing around and up to no good.
That’s also what I envision “hooligans” means.
never heard of football hooligans?
Too Soon! That poor dustbin!
Yeah, it’s absurd. Don’t you think that if this guy had vandalized a Christian or Jewish display that he’d get more than “criminal mischief”? This is a hate crime.
The black mask around the eyes is a dead giveaway.
That’s how you know that racoons are always up to no good.
Religious hate crime
KCCI has reported that 35-year-old Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree. He has since been released.
What a special snowflake, that one. Bless his heart.
Republicans sure do love doing hate crimes
Why do you think they hate those hate crime laws so much
“It’s not pedophilia if we strip the minimum marriage age laws”
- Republicans in multiple states
the lord intended for us to go after them young
No hate(crime) like christian love.
