Satanism

Hollywood makes Witches, Wiccans, Pagans and Satanism look bad. By any means I am saying they are the same thing because they are not. Not all wiccans are witches and not all witches are wiccans. Satanic people don't sacrifice people or animals. In fact they don't even believe in the devil. They use the devil as their symbol to represent their religion. But I don't want to say religion, is just a way to live your life. Some Satanic people believe that you only live once and you get to live your life as you see it fit; meaning that not everything is a sin. Read the 11 Satanic Rules of earth and they have nothing to do with mass murder.

Satanism is basically a religious offshoot from Catholicism - they have the same christian beliefs, but are a "rebel" group, whose hatred of and disenfranchisement with the religion was the reason for them to set up their religion as the antithesis of the catholic church. It's become basically a safe way for catholic teenagers to rebel against their religion, without abandoning the belief system of that religion, mostly dabbling then returning to the "fold". Satanism was a term mis-used by the catholic church for "heretical" christians (ie non-catholics, or those who held beliefs not endorsed by the catholic establishment at that time), and non-christians, just as the term "witch" was applied by them to herbalists, midwives, knights Templar and followers of older religions. The idea that such people committed atrocities (child abuse, murder, human sacrifice) was completely invented by the Catholic church as propoganda, and as an excuse for the torture and murder of such non-conformists (the spanish inquisition, vampire-hunters etc.). Later, the idea of "Satanism" was taken up and practised by Catholic rebels, and those whose lifestyles and sexuality did not conform to the Catholic church's rules - hence they felt abandoned by their religion and their God, so set about practising some of the invented practises from Catholic Propoganda of the past (black mass etc.). Paganism isn't about Satanism - Satan being the antithesis of the christian God didn't exist before Judaism and christianity were invented. Pagan religions are about the earth, the skies and nature, not about evil and perversion (an invention of the catholic church), human sacrifice (another myth propogated by the catholic church to portray a group of people as barbaric - they nabbed that idea from the Romans, who likewise used to portray all countries they didn't trade with or who weren't under their rule, such as the Prussians, as being child-killers, and making human sacrifices, to discredit them) or summoning demons (polythesiastic religions had many gods, so portraying them as fairly powerful, but still not gods, and being evil-doers to be feared not worshipped, worked for the Catholic church in supplanting the beliefs of the more die-hard followers of the old ways when the Catholic church was becoming the Establishment religion across Europe).